PerfectIt is a fantastic tool for editors – I use it when editing in Word, to both save time and improve the quality of my work. Basically, the program finds inconsistencies in things such as spelling, capitalisation and use of numbers; it also picks up deviations from a specific style. Despite using PerfectIt since 2009, I’m still blown away by …
Saving time with MS Word add-ins
How Microsoft Word add-ins can speed up your editing When they were first brought out, ‘labour-saving devices’ such as washing machines, dryers, vacuum cleaners and dishwashers were sold as great time-savers. Sadly, the promised additional leisure time has simply been absorbed into yet more work. It seems to be the same with editing. We now have a host of different …
Sharing the love of MS Word!
I’m that rare beast, an editor who loves working with MS Word. It wasn’t always like that. For many years, Word and I had a troubled relationship and the program caused me a lot of grief. Luckily, I shared an office with colleagues who were younger and smarter. They kindly stepped in whenever I lost parts of my document, forgot …
New skills in Word
Last Saturday I gave a short training course on editing effectively with Word 2007, and on Monday I attended an advanced Word 2007 course. This ‘immersion’ in Word improved my macro skills, because I demonstrated a macro at the course I gave, and learnt more about macros at the course I attended. Later in the week, I had to use …
Screen snipping
This week I discovered that I know much less about InDesign than I thought (I volunteered to do a newsletter layout using InDesign, but now realise there’s a big difference between a real document and the examples in Classroom in a book). However, in organising material for the newsletter, I needed a partial screenshot from a website. I was pleased …
Different hats
Last year I bought SmartDraw, with the intention of turning all my procedures into flowcharts. Then I got bogged down in project work, and the flowcharts didn’t happen. However, today I had another go, inspired by an email from SmartDraw describing VPM – visual process management. This is a neat idea whereby the organisation chart contains a hyperlink from each …
Managing reference managers
I’ve been happily using Endnote X3 with Word 2007 for some time. However, on Friday I installed Reference Manager, and was alarmed to find that the Endnote tab had disappeared from Word. After a fruitless hour Googling various phrases to try to find a way to get the tab back, I remembered that I might have a relevant email somewhere …
More on networking
I love networking – it really helps to counteract the isolation of working from home. In recent weeks I’ve met up with a few freelancers and been interested to hear about the different ways people work and the tools they use. One tool that I came across through a conversation with a participant on a training course is the reference …
I have way too much to do – when I set up my own business I meant to work four 8-hour days per week, not 48 hours per week, as I’m currently doing. However, there are some good things happening: The computer’s understanding of my speech has increased amazingly in just one week, and I can now use it quite …
Talking to the computer
A few things came together this week to persuade me that I need to start using voice recognition software. First, I gave myself sore shoulders by working all day on a formatting job while (yet again!) ignoring most of the reminders that popped up telling me to take a break. Then, in tidying my office, I came across a print …