“And now, your highness, we will discuss the location of your hidden rebel base...” Darth Vader (James Earl Jones)

For years I have been making handouts to go with my classes. One of the tricks I have employed to get objects like text boxes, shapes, pictures and the like to fall in line exactly where I wanted them is the ALT key. I would select the shape and move it by holding the ALT key down. I could then fit it just the way I needed it. This has worked forever, that is until I switched to Office 2007 where I have been without my trusty tool for some time. After a bit of searching I found the ALIGN button on the top right of the of the FORMAT tab. To make the change first double click any object. Anything will do as long as it brings up the FORMAT tab then click ALIGN. You should find it at the top right. After that click the last choice GRID SETTINGS. Lastly at the bottom set the SNAP OBJECTS TO GRID check box to off and then you’re all set. This is actually better than the old way of moving objects because you do not have to hold the ALT key anymore. However I should add that on some objects like photos you will still have to change the TEXT WRAPPING to tight, square, in front of text….It’s up to you to choose what you need. So if you can’t get a piece of clip art just the way you want it try the above.

Note: Finding a matching quote for this was a real pain so I settled on this. It has the word location in it...

"Outer space is no place for a person of breeding. "Lady Violet Bonham Carter

One of the questions I often get in the lab from people using the Microsoft Word 2007 is what is up with the strange spacing. First what is the problem? In 2007 when you type you will notice everything seems to look double spaced. If you try to force single spacing on what you have typed nothing will change. For many of us we are used to the old system where single spacing was the norm and if we wanted to change it we would. The fix is easy. At the top right on the home ribbon you will see a section called styles. The issue lies in the word normal. Normal is already selected. You would think means single spacing. Instead it is the new style with the strange double spacing feel. The answer is right next to it. Choose no spacing and everything will work like....well.....um....normal. I do this the moment I begin a new word document but you can always highlight text and choose this option as well. Hope this helps.

“If you get the dirty end of the stick, sharpen it and turn it into a useful tool” Colin Powell

To begin again…
August is coming and teachers are starting to think of the coming year. Students are trying to avoid thinking at all. I know have mentioned this before but I think it needs to be restated. Google, you may have heard of it, is really useful. I recommend trying some of the other free services that Google has to offer. Now I am going to use a teacher slant with this but it could be used for any possible business or project. First off register for a Google service because once you do you will have access to all the rest of the services right away. It is free and quick. Gmail is just the tip of the Googleverse. Gmail is their version of email. One of the reasons I recommend using it is that it is searchable just like Google. This means if a student emails you during the year you can find it fairly easily. Also it does have other abilities like IM (chatting with students built directly into it) or the ability to take all emails from a specific conversation and creating a dialogue out of them instead of scattered emails through out the system. Google calendar allows for sharing of schedules and appointments throughout a group or organization. Also these can be saved to a website to make it viewable to all without registering. Google Docs and Sites are the two most underused by teachers. These together are so easy to use and useful it is unbelievable. Docs is an online Microsoft Office like set of tools. All you do is sign in and you have something that looks like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This alone is good but once you think of the ability to share it between others it makes it supreme. It can be viewed or editable by others at the touch of a button. Finally Google Sites is the culmination of all of these. It is creatable webpage that you can use to communicate info with groups of all sorts. As an example lets say a teacher has a book group. They can post all the info about the book they are going to read and then add photos and music from where the book is set. The great thing is that it requires no real HTML ability. If you can use Microsoft Word then you can easily use Sites. Now I know I am being very general about this post but that is what it is supposed to be. I recommend checking all the sites above and see if they fit a use. Give it a try.

“If any man wishes to write a clear style, let him first be clear in his thoughts.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

A while back I wrote about a website to download fonts for your projects. After a while I couldn’t find what I was looking for so I started searching around and came across DAfonts. It is a decent site that has over 8000 fonts. I love that they display all of them in a large format. Many font sites have small examples and after you go through all the trouble of downloading and installing, you realize it is not what you were looking for. The site is super simple with just what you need. It has a quickie intro of how to install the fonts and to download them just click the button to the right of any font. Fonts are good for any project. There is a strange common myth that you must install fonts for each program. This thankfully is not true. One you install a font in the system it will be available to any program that can change its writing style. I use many different fonts for Photoshop projects and Microsoft Word sheets. Give it a try and for geek’s sake, stop using comic sans.

“I was probably the only revolutionary referred to as cute.”Abbie Hoffman

I recently had to make a PDF for one of the class worksheets and I thought I would use Vista’s new PDF creator and see how it worked. Unfortunately it was an exercise of frustration and a real nuisance. So I went back to my old alternative CutePDF. Before I go on I should explain that a PDF is document formatted so it can be opened with the free program Adobe Acrobat Reader. Every government file like the 1040 tax form is in that format. It is easy to use and open for everyone who wants to read a PDF. Unfortunately the creation of a PDF can be a bit of a pain. Even though the standard has been around for years, Microsoft has been reluctant to give that ability. So CutePDF is there to bridge the gap. All you need to do is download it from the above link. Once you have gone through the installation process write your document in Microsoft Word and then instead of hitting save go to the print screen. Click at the top where you see your printer listed and choose CutePDF then hit print. It takes a second or two but a little window pops up and asks where you want to save it and under what name. Once done just hit OK and your PDF is created. The nice thing about a PDF is that when you send out something like a resume the setup does not change unlike a word document where it can be subject to their setup. Give it a try.

“I've been doing a lot of abstract painting lately, extremely abstract. No brush, no paint, no canvas, I just think about it.” Stephen Wright

OK I am in Microsoft Word and I just bolded, underlined, italicized a sentence. Also I decided to change the color of the text and add some other formatting changes. Now that is all done I realize I missed a word from the sentence that I did not highlight earlier. Well I could redo all the formatting step by step for that one word or I could use a very simple tool called the format painter. When in Word or Excel I look on the standard toolbar for a small paint brush. Now if you do not see it refer to this earlier post to make the toolbar appear. What I have to do for this situation is highlight the text I changed already. It does not have to be the full sentence just a word will do. Then I click on the Format Painter button which will change my cursor to a little paintbrush. Finally I highlight or click on the words I want to change. I can hold down and drag as well. This will copy the format from one place to another. Anytime I set something up and want to apply it elsewhere I use format painter. Save yourself some time and give this one a try.

“Genius is the ability to see things invisible, to manipulate things intangible, to paint things that have no features” Joseph Joubert

Many times people come in to the labs here at Providence Public Library and they will ask for help on a resume they had created before. One of the first buttons I press is the Show/Hide button. This usually freaks people out the first time they are seeing it. Essentially it shows all the markers that are normally invisible on a page. The reason this is so helpful is because it lets us in on how and why text is where it is. An example is a page that has a whole bunch of indented information. A person will try to add more info but it keeps moving in an odd way maybe keeping all the spaces. By pressing Show/Hide it shows us an arrow and that means the tab key was pressed here. A little dot represents a space and strange symbol that looks like a top heavy T is a paragraph marker or that the enter key was pressed. Knowing this info allows us to pinpoint the problem and usually erase it. The Show/hide button is on the standard toolbar at the top. However if it is not showing up it could be that the button is hidden. Look at the toolbar and you will probably see in the middle a double arrow. If you are not sure just point to one button after another for its name. The one you are looking for is called toolbar options. Once found click it and then choose show buttons on two rows. This will separate the toolbars so you can see most of the tools. The Show/Hide button should be right next to the percentage of Zoom meaning it will say something like 100%. Finally click the button and see all the markers. To get rid of them click the button again. Give it a try.