All PRAGMATIC Tips & Shortcuts

Purple lines…purple lines

If you use MS Word, you know that red lines under text indicate spelling errors and green lines point out grammar errors. Soon, you’ll start seeing purple lines. They are highlighting “potentially offensive words and phrases” to help you write more inclusively by suggesting alternatives that are less likely to offend. I’m curious how the…

How to check laserjet ink levels in Windows 10

Step 1: Click in the search bar at the bottom left corner of your monitor to begin a search. Step 2: Begin typing the word ā€œprintersā€ and the system settings for ā€œPrinters & Scannersā€ should appear as an option at the top of the list. Step 3: Locate your printer in the list. In my…

break free from social media control

I’m learning how to break free at HumaneTech.com/take-control ā€œmachine learning is an extremely powerful weapon…millions of clusters of supercomputers running machine learning algorithms targeting each individual person figuring out the best way to keep these individuals absolutely addicted and obsessed with giving up all of their attention and time to these social media networks.ā€ I’m…

How to Change the Default Time Zone in GoToMeeting

If you have a subscription to GoToMeeting, you already know you can change the timezone for an individual meeting, but if you’re like me, you’d rather change the time zone for EVERY meeting automatically. After digging through all the options under Settings, I came up empty and searched the net, but only found instructions to…

prevent your time and attention from being manipulated and sold.

“75% of screen content is viewed for less than 1 minute, according to a study that tracked computer multitasking across the course of 1 day. Results indicate that most people switched between different content every 19 seconds. Biological analysis demonstrated that participants experienced a neurological “high” whenever they switched — explaining why we feel driven…

How to Untag Yourself in a Facebook Comment.

If for some reason, the infographic doesn’t display, here’s the text-based instructions to untag yourself from a Facebook comment in a web browser: Step 1. Hover to the right of the comment in which you are tagged to display an ellipsis and then click it, which will display a pop-up menu. Step 2. Click ā€œGive…

share your email address, but hide it from spammers

Type the following code in your “contact” page or wherever you want your contact information to appear on your website: Copy the code below, paste it in a text file and edit the content in red: (You can use any text editor, like the Notepad app in Windows.) <!– Begin // NOTE: If you use…

wordpress: where can I find the post id?

When I’ve used the [display post] feature of wordpress, I sometimes need to find an id number for a particular post. There are two quick, easy ways to find the post id: 1. If you’re logged into your WordPress dashboard, click Posts > All Posts. Find the post you need and hover or roll your…

html: prevent line break after text link

The problem: Creating a text link seemingly inserts a line break and causes the text following the link to wrap to the next line. Notice the second paragraph is not a link – and it doesn’t wrap. This is what the original code looks like: To prevent the text from wrapping/inserting a line break, add…

html lists: indent spacing and change bullet styles

Working on my website recently and created a multi-level unordered list. The spacing of the second level indent was much more than I needed and I wasn’t loving the fact that the bullets were the same for both levels. I found code to solve both those problems, so as usual, I’m posting it here for…

html: add a mouse hover “tooltip” to a link.

Here’s a little code snippet you can add to a link so that when someone hovers their mouse over the link, a “tooltip” is displayed, giving them more information. In the example shown below, the image of Dorothy looking out her window is a link to download an audio clip of the theme of the…

create faux letterhead for fax and pdf attachments.

Historically, I’ve created faux letterhead to be used when letters were to be sent via fax. More recently, they are used for letters to be sent as PDF attachments via email. The reasoning behind this is to save money on pre-printed stationary letterhead. Economically, there’s no reason to print a letter on this expensive paper…

prevent editing in a Section of a MS Word template/document

Occasionally, I’ve needed to protect a portion of a Word template from accidental editing. There are many reasons to do this, but one example – the one I’ll be using in this particular #pragmaticcomputertip – is to protect the content and formatting of what I call “faux” letterhead. (Note: This tip applies to MS Word…

free downloadable Letterhead and Memo icons

After decades of allowing users to draw and edit tiny little toolbar icons using the built in icon editor of WordPerfect, the latest release – WordPerfect X7 – has replaced the “edit” button with an “import” button. it’s a sad click-and-drag coloring day. BUT. If you still have an older version of Wordperfect, don’t uninstall…

send someone a text via email.

Did you know you can send text messages from any email program to a cell phone? For example, to email a text message to someone who uses AT&T, you would address the email like this: 10digitcellnumber@txt.att.net However, when sending text messages via email, follow a few best practices: 1. Keep the message to just text…

“Where’s the Ribbon in Word 2013?”

Some people love the clean look of Word 2013, but if you’re like me, it feels cold. and bleh. and empty. The ribbon only displayed when I clicked on a menu item. As soon as I began typing, it would disappear. This was not helpful. I didn’t want to go get the ribbon every time…

krispy kreme technology. it’s hot and ready.

I don’t have a sweet tooth. It’s a blessing, I know. (on the other hand, if you see me holding a box of Cheddar Jack Cheez-its, do NOT reach for any. I will hurt you.) Even so, I feel compelled to share this information for my donut loving friends: Krispy Kreme technology is now available.

cure your possessed keyboard: dvorak to QWERTY

I thought I was crazy. My keyboard was typing stuff I did NOT type. Backslashes when I pressed the spacebar. Numbers when I pressed letters and the other way around. Adding characters when I pressed the backspace button. Weirdness. Nothing short of a reboot would solve the problem and even then, it was only temporary.…

css margins.

Need a code snippet for your style sheet? Below are four options for setting the top, bottom, left and right margins: margin:10px 40px 25px 90px; top margin is 10px right margin is 40px bottom margin is 25px left margin is 90px

Troubleshooting WordPerfect Publish to PDF.

Is WordPerfect PDF only publishing the current page of the document unless you select/highlight the entire document text? The Fix: 1. In WordPerfect, click File, Publish to PDF. 2. Select ā€œSettings . . . ā€ in the bottom right corner of the dialog box. 3. Change the ā€œExport rangeā€ to ā€œFull Documentā€ and click ā€œOKā€ā€¦

autotext/quick parts/building blocks.

If you used Autotext in MS Word 2003 or earlier, it’s one of the first questions you’ll have: “Does Word still have Autotext?” The answer? YES. What’s the next question? “WHERE is it? I can’t find it anywhere!” I know. Autotext has been renamed. reorganized. buried. Some refer to it as QuickParts. or Building Blocks.…

automatic text generation. a variation for the easily distracted.

In the previous #pragmaticcomputingtip, entitled “automatic random text generation. improved?” I shared a nifty little feature in Word 2007 and 2010 which automated the generation of random text. Check it out and then come on back and I’ll walk you through you a variation. no. really. check it out. I’ll wait. okay, welcome back. While…

automatic random text generation. improved?

For YEARS DECADES, I have been creating dummy documents for use in computer training. Usually, I ask someone to type a sentence – any sentence – and then I teach them to use keyboard shortcuts to select, copy and paste their sentence, resulting in a multi-paragraph, multi-page document to work with as I train. It’s…

treo text message transfer

Did you get a replacement Treo and discover all your text messages were missing? Give this a shot: Install the “Messages_Database.PDB” I found mine in “c:\documents and settings\UserName\My Documents\Palm OS Desktop\LastNameFirstInitial\Backupold” If the “Messages_Database.PDB” isn’t found in the above folder, search for the file on your computer. Good luck fellow Treonaut.

#outlook shortcuts: replying to messages

Quick and easy shortcut for you today. Regardless of whether you have an email open or if it’s just highlighted within your Inbox or email folder, you can press: Ctrl+R to “Reply” to the sender, Ctrl+Shift+R to “Reply to All” or Ctrl+F to “Forward” the email.

creating a facebook PAGE

After a few months on facebook, I realized a facebook PAGE would be a better fit for me than a PROFILE. What’s the difference? In a nutshell, profiles are for people and fun, pages are for businesses and work. Check out the following excerpt from the facebook terms of use: “Pages are special profiles that…

who “Likes” ya baby?

Facebook recently switched from allowing you to “Become a Fan” of a page to suggesting you “Like” a page. One problem I noticed immediately? I could no longer see a complete listing of who “Likes” my page? (you could see a full listing of all the fans before) Here’s a workaround: 1. Search the page…

can’t see your fan page updates in your own newsfeed?

If you don’t see your own fan page status updates in your news feed, make sure they aren’t “hidden.” 1) Scroll to the bottom of your news feed. (in your PROFILE, not on your Fan Page) 2) Click on ā€œEdit Optionsā€ toward the bottom right. (click on the image to enlarge it) 3) Make sure…

printer tshooting with WordPerfect

Every once in a while, I dig into WordPerfect to disable a little known setting: “Reformat documents for the WordPerfect default printer on open” This eliminates a few different problems, two of which come immediately to mind: 1. Older WordPerfect documents won’t open correctly in a newer version of WordPerfect. 2. Existing documents won’t print…

Default NumLock State

I’m a NumLock OFF girl, myself. See, when I started using computers, keyboards didn’t have dedicated arrows, you had to navigate using the arrows on the number pad. Now, a couple of years later šŸ™‚ the habit is well ingrained. My husband and I spent years changing the NumLock back and forth on our home…

WordPerfect SWITCH and CASEOF

In generating a WordPerfect merge document, one of my clients wanted to type an acronym for a plaintiff ONE time and have the merge process insert many different things in the document, based on that one, shortened client reference. Let’s look at how to do that. The code looks like this: (click to zoom any…

viewing invisible grid lines

Can’t see the grid lines for labels or margins in WordPerfect? It could be a problem with Windows and flatscreen monitors. (Corel’s support database – Answer ID 207679) Try this: For Windows XP: 1. Right click on the Desktop, select Properties. 2. Select the Appearance tab. 3. Click the Advanced button. 4. Select 3D Objects…

html links

Ever want to post a link to a web page but don’t want it to look like a bunch of code? Maybe you don’t understand the code in the first place. (I won’t tell.) Let’s say you want to post the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFLs9RI8mSA Not attractive. And, depending on where you paste it, sometimes it…

treo ringtones

I’m a palm girl. And these days, that means TREO. I’ve owned three Treo 650s, then a Centro (hated it) and now I’m back to a Treo – a 680. One of the first things I do when I set up a new Treo is get my ringtones loaded. I’m lazy. When my phone rings,…

@randbetween(1,100)

Rolling dice, flipping coins, drawing cards or straws, drawing slips of paper out of a hat. All methods to generate random results. Here’s one more:@randbetween(x,y)To Create a Random Number: In a blank cell of any spreadsheet program, type @randbetween(x,y) where x equals the smallest number you want to use and y equals the largest. In…

i can see clearly now

When you read text on your computer monitor, do the fonts seem . . . grainy? Do the edges of the letters appear ragged? Especially italicized text?Try this:Click the “Start” button (on the task bar at the bottom left of your screen).Hover over “Settings” and click “Control Panel”Double Click “Display”Click the “Appearance” Tab (the fourth…

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