MS Office/Word tips and tricks

Here are a few sites. Please post any others you have found especially useful. Thanks!

Carol's Corner Office: Lots of tips and tricks for MS Office here. Check out her Free Word Bytes Newsletter, as well as her subscription premium newsletter and her books.

Word for PC, Tips, Tricks, Troubleshooting: Part of the MPV website.

Word Shortcuts: A page from the above MPV site.

Useful MS Word links on Microsoft's website: MPV has compiled a handy list of links.

Word Tips by Allan Wyatt: A weekly email newsletter full of tips. The writer has also published a book of tips.

Umbraco - Course Management System

An open source CMS. Runs on Windows using Microsoft's "ASP.Net" and Internet Information Server. John Goldsmith (B.C. teacher) says:

"While installation and set-up is not exactly click & run, the program is easier to install than most other open source programs. The installation instructions are clear, concise and well illustrated so that anyone with reasonable Windows skills should be able to install and run the program. Umbraco has a nice, light "Web 2.0" feel about it and, the "icing on the cake" for many teachers is the ability to add and modify web content using MS Word. HTML skills are not needed."

Carol's Corner Office - MS Office tips and tricks

Lots of tips and tricks for MS Office here. Also check out her Free Word Bytes Newsletter. I hear from very-inside sources that Carol is going to start offering Open Office information along with MS Office very soon.

AJAX: Web-Based Software, full-featured

Ajax has an MS-Word-like online word processor -- create a new file or open a .doc file from your drive, save to your hard drive, publish to the web, share & collaborate, all right from a website. They have other applications too, including a Sketch app, spreadsheet (xls) app, Tunes player, video mixing (eyespot), and more. This is from the Ajax blog:

The Wall Street Journal published an article titled “Is It Time to Dump Your Desktop?” In it the author reflects on the possibility for businesses to switch to web-based software once it is “good enough” for a big percentage of users. In this article, Ajax 13 was mentioned as one of the companies that is producing online alternatives to Micrsoft's widely used Office software. The appeal that the low cost alternatives have, continues to create a growing threat to the MS Office Suite.

AbiWord

"AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks....AbiWord is unique among word processors in its drive to become a fully cross-platform word processor. Our source code is carefully written so that AbiWord will run on virtually any operating system with a minimum of time spent on porting. This combined with our support for internationalization (the ability to run AbiWord in many languages) gives AbiWord a massive potential user-base."

APA & MLA style software, templates

I just added a bunch of new entries on my writers' style guides resource page (linked on the heading above). Here are a few of the new additions today, including software & word processor templates:

• APA Style Guide eBook: FREE downloadable reference manual. "This e-book will show you how to format your essay to conform to the style as set out in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). It contains examples of referencing of the most common sources, the way to layout your essay, page headings, page spacing, font type and size, paragraph indents, how to enter in-text citation etc. and includes links to more APA information sites on the net."


• APA Style Helper: from the APA site. "APA-Style Helper 5.1 provides you with new organizational and help features, enhanced text processing capabilities, and step-by-step assistance in the creation of your document. APA-Style Helper 5.1 also provides you with a consistent work environment - your word processor. The new design eliminates the need to import your document into Microsoft Word, as previous versions required, saving you time and effort." FREE demo version; $34.95 to purchase.


• APA Perrla software: This looks very easy to use. Click the "tour" link on the left menu to see what I mean. Built to work with MS Word for PC only. $24.95 to purchase.


• APA Template: " Includes document templates for both APA (5th edition) and MLA (6th edition). Sets up your Word document with the proper title page, preset margins, page numbering codes, and page headers. All you have to do is write your paper. Has built in Style Settings for section level headers and quotes, so formatting text as you write is easy. Includes CiteWrite - a limited version of Citation, to help you format references and bibliographies. Saves your bibliographic information in a datafile, so you won't have to retype it again for editing and revisions."


• Reference Point Templates: Available for APA and MLA styles. Templates are available for use with Word, WordPerfect, AmiPro, Word Pro, MS Works, and StarOffice. "Quickly and easily download and install everything you need for a paper perfectly formatted in APA style or MLA style. Use your existing word processor and document software - nothing new to learn. Create title pages, abstract pages, margins, page numbers, even citations with ease. Type in author, title and journal; hit "enter" and you have a perfectly formatted APA style reference or MLA style works cited entry. Get menu-driven help and friendly customer service at your fingertips. Eliminate hours of frustration and focus on the content of your paper instead of the format." $27.95 to purchase.


• StyleEase for APA Style: You can get it in versions for APA, MLA, Chicago Style, and Turabian Style. "StyleEase for APA Style for Microsoft Word formats your papers and references in accordance with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th Edition). Simply choose from one of four document styles for theses, dissertations, journal articles, or term papers. You focus on the content of your paper, and let StyleEase handle the rest. " $35 to purchase.

Wink

FREEWARE.

"Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users. ...a standard Windows-based UI with drag-and-drop editing makes it very easy to create high quality tutorials/documentation.

It is estimated that Macromedia Flash Player is installed in more than 90% of the PCs. Using Wink you can create content viewable across the web in all these users' desktops. Similar applications sell for hundreds of dollars, while Wink is free with unrivaled features."

Blogger for Word

Blogger for Word is a free add-in for Microsoft Word that lets you save a Word document as a post to your Blogger blog...without even opening up a browser. Blogger for Word makes it even easier to...save your documents to the web, and edit your work both online and off....all you need to do is download and install the Blogger for Word add-in, and three buttons appear in your Word toolbar:

• Publish creates and publishes a new post from the text in your document.
• Open Post enables you to edit your last 15 Blogger posts in Word.
• Save as Draft enables you to keep a post unpublished; it will appear in your Blogger account, but not publicly on your blog.