word

I'm a stylus user from way back, so I was really looking forward to using Vista's Tablet PC features to control apps on my touchscreen notebook. What I didn't realize was how much fun it is to mark up documents in Word 2007, and to send handwritten notes in Outlook 2007.

You can use Vista's pen features on a touchscreen laptop or tablet-equipped PC to do much more than simply mark up Word documents or write e-mail as handwritten graphics, but after many attempts I remain unconvinced of the usefulness of the OS's handwriting recognition. … Read more

Automattic (the creators of WordPress) has created a microblogging service, but it's not for everyone--and that's the point.

It's called Prologue, and it's a new theme for WordPress.com users and blogs running off hosted WordPress installs. The goal of the theme is to let anyone setup a microblog, either for themselves or as a group--both public and private. Users can post short, to-the-point messages to their blog without having to go through WordPress' primary interface. It's essentially doing what Twitter can't, which is letting people create their own private groups and tag their … Read more

Automattic, the company best-known for blog publishing software WordPress, has raked in $29.5 million in Series B funding. Originally reported on several blogs, the funding round was confirmed by Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg in his personal blog Tuesday evening.

The most notable of the investors is the New York Times Co., which joins existing Automattic investors Polaris Ventures, True Ventures, and Radar Ventures. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Automattic turned down an acquisition offer several months ago from a "larger Internet company." Mullenweg's only apparent reference to this in his blog post was his … Read more

Microsoft and Novell have a weird passive-aggressive relationship. In the latest bit of news from the Odd Couple, Microsoft is asking the Supreme Court to throw out Novell's multi-billion dollar lawsuit against Microsoft for anticompetitive practices. "Novell's case asserts that Microsoft maliciously withheld technical information about Windows 95 to give Microsoft Office an advantage over rival software," reports The Register.

And how! Here's just a taste:… Read more

Microsoft Office is so jam-packed with features that an entire industry has been created to help people find the ones they need. (An example is Addintools' $30 Classic Menu for Office 2007.) Why would anyone suggest that you add even more functions to Office apps? Because the best free Office add-ins can save you considerable time and trouble, without costing you a red cent. Here are five of my favorite Office helpers.

Poll attendees to find the best time for a meeting Everybody's busy, as anyone who has ever tried to schedule a meeting with more than two attendees … Read more

Tuesday, I described how to convert the outline of a Word document into a Powerpoint presentation automatically. I stated that this feature was missing in Word 2007, but Tim Anderson explained in his ITWriting blog that the function was still there, though you had to dig a little to find it: Click the Office icon in the top-left corner, choose Word Options at the bottom of the dialog, click Customize in the left pane, select All Commands in the Choose Commands From drop-down menu, scroll to and select Send to Microsoft Office Powerpoint, and click Add to place this option … Read more

There's a great little feature in Microsoft Word 2003 and earlier versions of the word-processing program that lets you export to PowerPoint an outline of any Word file formatted with headings. I admit that it's a specialized operation that probably doesn't get used all that often, but it's a handy way to work between the two Office apps.

I was all set to tell you how to use the feature in Word 2007 when I realized it has been removed. So all that noise Microsoft made when the new Office System was released more than a … Read more

One feature in Microsoft Word has saved me more time than all the other doodads in the program put together: Styles. I frequently edit Word documents created by other people. The first thing I do after opening their files is to reformat them so they're easier for me to work on. I created a handful of styles that let me make the changes in an instant via custom keyboard shortcuts.

The favorite font style of one of the tech writers I work with regularly is 10-point Bookman Old Style, which I find close to unreadable. Another writer I edit … Read more

When I described how to replace Microsoft Word's smart quotes with straight quotes to keep the HTML versions of documents from breaking, several people objected, claiming that straight quotes make the docs more difficult to read. I agree completely, which is why I decided to tell you about the quickest way I know to convert from one quote style to the other. In just a few seconds you can optimize a document for the Web, or for readability in print or onscreen.

Suppose you want to put a Word document that's full of smart quotes--both the double quotation-mark … Read more