Workers' Edge

A colleague contacted me the other day with an odd problem: Microsoft Word 2003's default paper size was stuck on A4. Every time he changed the paper-size default back to Letter, it reverted to A4 with the next print job.

My first thought was that his printer driver needed an update. But driver updates often spell trouble, so I recommended that he look for the fix first in Word itself, then check Windows' print settings, and install a new printer driver only after the first two options come up empty.

Try a new normal.dot template
One potential cure-all for Word printer woes is resetting the normal.dot template (it's called normal.dotm in Word 2007). Microsoft provides instructions for doing so in Word 2000, XP, 2003, and 2007 in the inaccurately named article "How to troubleshoot printing problems in Word 2007 and Word 2003."

Interestingly enough, Microsoft offers another support article with information on finding the source of print failures. But the step-by-step approach in "How to troubleshoot print failures in Word 2007 and Word 2003" takes more time than some people will want to spend to find a solution. For deliberate types, though, it might be just the thing.

Reset Windows' own print settings
Microsoft tries to make it easy to troubleshoot Windows print problems by offering a one-click Fix it routine. The Help & How-to article also provides instructions for resetting the Print Spooler service when you receive an error message referring to spooler problems.

If the problem is with a network printer, check the FAQs in Microsoft's aptly named Help & How-to article "Troubleshoot network printer problems." Of course, uninstalling and then reinstalling the printer is a trick that predates Windows. (You also tried turning the printer off and then back on again, didn't you?)

Look for a printer-driver update
It's no surprise that Microsoft suggests you let Windows update your device drivers automatically. Instructions for doing so are provided in the Help & How-to article "Update a driver for hardware that isn't working properly." The company also offers the article "Find and install printer drivers," but the information there is pretty basic.

To take matters into your own hands, visit the support or download section of your printer vendor's Web site and search for the most up-to-date driver for your model. If the driver has a version number later than the number of your current printer software, download the newer release and save the file where it's easy to find.

Next, open the Printers Control Panel applet, right-click the printer whose driver you want to update, and choose Properties. Select the Advanced tab, click New Driver, and browse to and select the new driver you just downloaded. (The Printers applet in Vista provides an option to "Go to the manufacturer Web site" on the toolbar when a printer's selected.)

Adobe Systems' Portable Document Format (PDF) is one of the great successes of the software industry. PDF has been the de facto standard for document exchange since the mid-1990s, but it wasn't an official ISO standard until 2008.

Unfortunately, the ubiquity of Adobe Reader and other PDF software has made the format a target for malware perpetrators. Along with Sun's Java, Adobe's Flash Player, and Apple's QuickTime media players, it's imperative that you keep your PDF reader up-to-date to prevent it from becoming an entryway for viruses. (I wrote about the importance of keeping your apps updated in a post from last April.)

So when I heard last week about an important security update for Adobe Reader 9, I hurried to the Adobe site to download the new version 9.2. But the 45MB download included a separate program: Acrobat.com with Adobe AIR. This is a Web service for sharing and collaborating on documents. It was formerly called Create Adobe PDF Online.

Update, October 27, 2009: The Adobe site is now offering the Adobe Reader 9.2 upgrade without the Acrobat.com with Adobe AIR component. Thanks to CNET member baddy_3- for pointing this out.

I hadn't signed up for Acrobat.com—registration is required to use the service—I just wanted the Adobe Reader update. I couldn't find it offered on Adobe's site minus the Acrobat.com add-on I didn't want. I contacted Adobe to ask them about this. Adobe spokesperson John Cristofano told me the following via e-mail:

"(I)f a user downloads the full installer of Adobe Reader 9.2 (Windows or Macintosh in English) from the 'Get Adobe Reader' page on Adobe.com, the Acrobat.com on Adobe AIR application will be included. If a user already has a previous version of Adobe Reader 9.x installed on his/her system and the Adobe Updater delivers that person the version 9.2 update (the latest dot release update to their existing product), Acrobat.com on Adobe AIR is not included."

I didn't recall installing Acrobat.com with AIR on my system, but I can't verify that it wasn't installed prior to the update to version 9.2, either. The machine's only six months old, though, and I hadn't signed up for the Acrobat.com service, so I certainly had never used Acrobat.com with AIR if it were on this PC.

In any event, I wasn't inclined to wait for Adobe Reader's auto-update component to fetch and install the latest security patch without Acrobat.com, nor would I recommend that other Adobe Reader 9.x users wait to update their version. And if you updated the program manually from Adobe's download site, you got Acrobat.com with AIR, whether you wanted it or not.

Downloading Adobe Reader 9.2 from the Adobe site requires that you also install Acrobat.com with Adobe AIR.

(Credit: Adobe Systems)

You're also offered a free McAfee Security Scan, but at least you can uncheck that option to do without the scan. (If you're still using Adobe Reader 7 or 8, you can update to versions 7.1.4 and 8.1.7, respectively, without having to install any other programs.)

I could've saved myself a lot of time and trouble if I had just stuck with Foxit Reader, the free PDF reader from Foxit Software. I used Foxit Reader exclusively on my old laptop, but for some reason I switched back to Adobe Reader when I bought my new machine last spring. Foxit Reader has a lot of fans, but it's far from the only free Adobe Reader alternative.

Tracker Software Products' PDF-XChange Viewer does a good job of matching Adobe Reader's features and interface while—like Foxit Reader—taking up much less disk space (though at 15MB, PDF-XChange Viewer is almost three times as large as Foxit Reader).

If small is what you're after, try the open-source Sumatra PDF Viewer, which at just over 1MB is downright lilliputian, compared to the competition. The program may lack some of the polish of its larger brethren, but it might be all the PDF reader you need.

An even-smaller free PDF reader is PDF2EXE Software's CoolPDF Reader, which weighs in at a modest 900KB. You'll find capsule reviews of these and one other free PDF reader at the Tech Support Alert site.

By the way, if you're looking for a free way to create PDFs, I described one in a post from March 2008: Acro Software's CutePDF Writer. Coincidentally, that post also included information about the free trial of Create Adobe PDF Online, which has since become Acrobat.com. Talk about going full circle!

Most people become so accustomed to using Microsoft Office that they never consider its alternatives. But there are more than one way to process words and spreadsheets: Word and Excel aren't the only games in town.

In fact, it's getting easier and easier to do without the most popular Office applications. Other than Outlook--which my company uses--I haven't opened a Microsoft Office app since last February, when my HP laptop died prematurely.

In fact, it wasn't easy removing the trial version of Office Enterprise 2007 that was preinstalled on the Sony Vaio that replaced the piece-of-crap HP that died. I've been working just fine using the free Jarte word processor and Gnumeric spreadsheet.

... Read more

At or near the top of the list of aggravations for new PC owners is the trial version of a program that came preinstalled on the system refusing to uninstall once the trial period expires. The irritation really peaks when the product in question is from Microsoft.

Before I could install a bought-and-paid-for copy of Outlook 2007 on my laptop, I had to uninstall the trial version of Office Enterprise 2007 that was preinstalled on the machine's hard drive when I bought it several months ago. Very early in the uninstall process, an alert popped up reporting Error 1310 and instructing me to verify that I had access to a certain directory.

An attempt to uninstall the trial version of Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 generated an error message.

(Credit: Microsoft)

I decided to try the uninstall again using the free Revo Uninstaller utility. In addition to cleaning up the Registry entries, files, folders, and other refuse that the program's own uninstaller misses, Revo Uninstaller finds and deletes junk files on your PC and performs other cleanup duties.

Last February, I described losing half my iPhone contacts after an iTunes sync. Even though I tried the Filadex Web-based contact manager, I don't like the fact that the information is stored unencrypted on Web servers.

More importantly, my iPhone always has my most up-to-date telephone and address contact list, while Gmail knows more about my e-mail correspondents than the iPhone does, and Google Calendar is my primary scheduler. Just to complicate matters, I spend most of my workdays (and some weekends, unfortunately) in Outlook.

I need to export my Google Calendar and Gmail addresses to Outlook and my iPhone, and move my iPhone telephone numbers and physical addresses to Gmail and Outlook. Simple, right? Well, it turned out to be not too difficult or time-consuming, although the result was a bit messy.

Sync Google Calendar with calendars in Outlook and the iPhone
Who knew Google Calendar and Outlook could play so nice? The aptly named Google Calendar Sync does the trick with just a few clicks and a minimum of thumb-twiddling. The program works with Outlook 2003 and 2007 on XP and Vista PCs, though it doesn't support 64-bit XP, according to Google.

After you download and install the program, you enter your Google ID and password and choose one of three options: sync from and to Google Calendar and Outlook; sync from Google Calendar to Outlook; or sync from Outlook to Google Calendar. The default sync time is 120 minutes, and the minimum setting is 10 minutes; there's no mention of a maximum setting. The sync begins after you click Save.

Choose two-way or one-way sync between Outlook and Google Calendar in the Google Calendar Sync utility.

(Credit: Google)

Up-and-down arrows on the Google Calendar icon in the notification area indicate a sync in progress; hover over it to see the percent complete or the time of the last sync.

The program converted my relatively simple Google Calendar to Outlook 2007 with surprising accuracy. In fact, the two calendars appeared and acted very much alike. Keep in mind, I didn't transfer any tricky repeating appointments, invitations, or time-zone changes. But for my meager calendar needs, the sync was fast and comprehensive.

To sync your Google Calendar and Gmail contacts with an iPhone, simply use the phone to create a Google Sync account. Instructions for OS version 2.2 and 3.0 are on the Google Mobile Help site.

Unfortunately, Google Sync is limited in the fields it supports and doesn't let you exclude entries or deal with duplicates. These and other of the program's limitations are described on the Google Sync Help page.

Move your iPhone contacts to Gmail and Outlook, or vice-versa
Use iTunes to export your iPhone contacts to Outlook--and Gmail, if you choose not to go the Google Sync route described above. Plug your iPhone into your PC, choose the device in iTunes' left pane, and select the Info tab. Pick either Outlook or Google Contacts in the "Sync contacts from" drop-down menu. (Yahoo Address Book and Windows Address Book are the other options.) For Outlook, you can choose which groups to sync. For Gmail, you enter your user ID and password.

Your only sync options are to merge or replace the entries iTunes identifies as duplicates, and to choose between two entries pegged as conflicts. The resulting sync was full of double entries, but I would much rather deal with manually merging the dupes than losing the information either entry contains.

iTunes' sync with Google Contacts provides few options for dealing with duplicate entries.

(Credit: Apple)

I'll probably spend another hour or so cleaning up the extra entries created by the contact sync, but that's much less time than I'd spend trying to replace the info.

If you followed the steps in my post from August on merging your Outlook and Gmail contacts, you may have ended up with duplicates in your contact lists. Microsoft's advice for deleting duplicate contacts is to sort them by the date modified, Ctrl-select the ones you want to remove, and press delete.

The problem is, the duplicate entries probably aren't identical, so you're almost certain to delete some data along with the dupe. What you need is a way to merge the information in the duplicate contacts. There's no such feature in Outlook, but if you're willing to spend $30, you can make short work of your extraneous Outlook entries by running 4Team's Duplicate Killer for Outlook.

The program deletes or merges duplicate e-mail messages, calendar entries, tasks, and notes in addition to contacts. I tested the program with Outlook 2007 but, according to the vendor, it works with Outlook 2000, XP, and 2003 as well. The new version, 3, is said to work with "Microsoft Exchange type folders including public folders," according to the vendor's Web site, but I ran it on a standalone Outlook installation.

... Read more

Last week, somebody contacted me about a problem they were having with Outlook:

"I work for a general contractor and have multiple projects going on. When I get e-mails pertaining to particular jobs, I place them in Personal Folders that I name with the job name. When the project is completed, I would like to move the folder onto my hard drive without losing the date.

"I have over 242 e-mails for one job alone. When I move them, they all come up with the date that I transferred them and the subject matter is gone. There has got to be a better way of saving old e-mails without losing important data. It would be impossible to go back to find a particular e-mail after transferring them. The sender info is gone as well."

The steps for moving specific messages into a folder on your hard drive or other storage device are the same for Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2003. Click File > New > Outlook Data File. Choose either Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst) or Outlook 97-2002 Personal Folders File (.pst) and click OK.

Next, choose the location for your new folder, give it a name (the default is "Personal Folders(1)," but you can probably come up with a more descriptive name), and click OK. Enter the name in the Create Microsoft Personal Folders dialog box, add a password if you wish, and click OK again.

Give your new e-mail folder a descriptive name and add a password, if necessary.

(Credit: Microsoft)

Now drag the messages you want to store locally out of their current Outlook Personal Folder subfolder and into the folder you just created. The messages will remain intact, with all dates, attachments, and other content unchanged.

If you store street addresses in a spreadsheet, you can now plot those addresses on Google Maps in just seconds, with no programming required. And doing so won't cost you a cent--unless you volunteer a contribution to the people behind the Map A List beta service that makes it all possible.

Start by pasting your addresses into a Google Docs spreadsheet. (If you don't already have a Google account, you'll have to create one, but doing so is also free.) Give the spreadsheet separate columns for the location name, street address, city, state, and ZIP code. Make sure you don't leave any blank columns at the top of the spreadsheet.

Next, browse to the Map A List site and create an account by entering an ID, password, e-mail address, security question, and ZIP code. Once your account is in place, choose Maps > Create on the site's home page.

The first step in the map-creation process is to choose a source. At present, the only option is Google Spreadsheet. After you grant the service access to your Google Docs account, you'll see your spreadsheets listed in a drop-down menu. Select the one that contains the addresses you want to map. If the spreadsheet has only one worksheet, it will be chosen automatically. Otherwise, you'll be prompted to select the worksheet with the addresses. Map A List will display the fields it will show on the map.

The free Map A List service lists the spreadsheet fields it will include in your custom Google map.

(Credit: Map A List)

If you're happy with the fields Map A List presents, click Next to view and confirm the fields containing the address information to be shown on the map. You can change the order of the fields and set the field that will be displayed in the balloon pop-up for each map pinpoint.

Change the order of the map fields and set the row that will be displayed in the map's pop-up balloons.

(Credit: Map A List)

Once the field settings are in order, click Next. The service will generate the geocodes for the addresses. If the addresses are in order, you'll see the "Total Success!" message. Click Next to open the Configure Map settings. Make your selections in the two drop-down menus and go with the default pin or change the icon that will denote each address. You can get a peak at the resulting map by clicking Preview Map, or click Next to open a page with additional settings.

Here you can change the name of your map, choose the view (Satellite, Hybrid, Physical, or Normal), select the default zoom, and set the content to be shown in the footer. You can also make the map public or private and alter its appearance in other ways. When you're done, click Save & View Map.

View the map displaying your spreadsheet's addresses, complete with all the Google Maps trimmings.

(Credit: Map A List)

Hover over a pinpoint to view whichever field you selected as your Title in Step 2 of the map-creation process. Click the pinpoint to view whichever fields you chose to display in Step 4, use the zoom controls to move the view in or out, and switch views between normal, satellite, hybrid, and terrain, just as you would with any Google map.

If you're familiar with keyboard shortcuts, you probably know that you can cycle through your open windows by pressing Alt-Tab. But you may not know that pressing Alt-Esc moves between your open windows in the order they were opened.

There are simply too many useful key combinations to remember, which is why I described how to create a keyboard-shortcut cheat sheet last April. Then a couple of months later I added key combinations for moving and resizing windows.

My shortcuts.txt file is getting overloaded, but it doesn't include any of the handy keystroke combos available in Word and Excel. That's why I created separate text files I refer to when I'm working in one of those two programs.

Start by browsing Microsoft's list of keyboard shortcuts for Word. Select the shortcuts, press Ctrl-C to copy the text, open Notepad or any text editor, press Ctrl-V to paste the list into a new file, and save the file with the .txt extension. (I call mine wordshortcuts.txt.)

To create a similar shortcut-reference list for Excel, go to Microsoft's compilation of Excel shortcut and function keys. Follow the instructions above to select, copy, and paste the shortcuts into a new file you save with the .txt extension.

Now get into the habit of opening your shortcut file each time you start working in Word or Excel. I keep my shortcut list in a small window I can Alt-Tab (or Alt-Esc) to when I want to refresh my memory. These shortcuts have really come in handy with the 2007 versions of Word and Excel. It's usually faster to scroll through my shortcut list to find the operation I need than it is to search through the tabs on the Office 2007 ribbon.

Referring to the shortcuts list is often faster than navigating Office 2007's ribbon interface.

(Credit: Microsoft)

(Note that you can view the keystroke equivalents of many ribbon and menu options by pressing and holding the Alt key. You'll also find some key-combo references in the Excel and Word help systems, but I prefer to use the straight-ahead lists available on the two Microsoft sites I link to above.)

These shortcut lists may be overkill for people whose use of keystroke combos doesn't venture much further than Ctrl-A (select all), Ctrl-C (copy), Ctrl-V (paste), and Ctrl-P (print). Here are a handful of my favorite little-known keyboard shortcuts for Word and Excel:

• Print preview: Ctrl-F2 (also Ctrl-Alt-I in Word)
• Add hyperlink: Ctrl-K
• Increase font size one point in Word: Ctrl-[
• Decrease font size one point in Word: Ctrl-]
• Open the Format dialog box with Font tab selected: Ctrl-Shift-F (also Ctrl-D in Word)
• Open the dictionary (Word 2003) or the reference pane (Word 2007): Alt-Shift-F7
• Select a row in Excel: Shift-Spacebar
• Select a column in Excel: Ctrl-Spacebar
• Add a line to the current cell in Excel: Alt-Enter