Some people seem to think they have carte blanche to spell any which way they want to when they're on the Internet. But whether you're writing Web mail or IMs, filling out a Web form, or just entering a term in Google's search box, spelling matters.
And that's not just because an abundance of spelling errors can make people think you're an eighth grade dropout. (Nothing against eighth grade dropouts!) It's also because misspellings can prevent you from finding the information you're searching for and lead to e-mail miscommunication.
Firefox 2 and 3 have spell-checkers built in, though they're pretty basic. That's a tad better than Internet Explorer 7, which comes spell-checker-less. Free dictionary add-ons enhance Firefox's spelling abilities, and the free IE7Pro provides IE with a way to minimize Web misspellings.
If you're an iGoogler, there's a great new gadget called SpellBoy that puts a spell-checker on your home page.
Activate Firefox's spell-checker
To enable the spell-checker in Firefox, click Tools > Options > Advanced > General, make sure "Check my spelling as I type" is checked, and click OK. Now you'll see the familiar red dots under words the browser's dictionary lacks (including "Firefox," surprisingly).
If you don't see the red dots under misspelled words, right-click and choose Check Spelling. Now when you right-click a misspelling you'll see a handful of optional spellings at the top of the context menu.
I wasn't particularly impressed with the choices Firefox presented for misspellings, so I downloaded the U.S. English dictionary add-on. While I was at it, I also installed the French dictionary add-on, just in case I bump into Ludivine Sagnier in a chat room someday. Right.
Give IE 7 some spelling skills
One of the many reasons I recommend IE7Pro to Internet Explorer users is the great spell-checker in the add-on. To get it operating, choose Tools > IE7Pro Preferences, click Spellchecking in the Modules pane of the Settings window, and click OK.
I was more impressed by IE7Pro's spelling suggestions than with those offered by Firefox's dictionary. As with Firefox, you can add dictionaries for other languages. Plus, you get all the other great IE7Pro features, including a customizable ad blocker and shortcut-key manager.
Add spell-checking to Internet Explorer 7 via the free IE7Pro add-on.
(Credit: IE7Pro) Put a spell checker on your home page
You can check your spelling from any browser by adding Christopher Blum's SpellBoy gadget for iGoogle. Type or paste text into the large SpellBoy window and click Check spelling.
The SpellBoy gadget for iGoogle puts a spell-checker on your browser's home page.
(Credit: Christopher Blum)The gadget gives you a count of possible misspellings and shows each underlined in red. Click one of the entries to see five possible corrections, as well as an empty text box you can use to type your own alternative spelling. Corrected words are shown with a green underline.
Note that this beta has no bells or whistles: You can't add languages or custom dictionaries. There were some comments from early users who claimed they were unable to delete the gadget, but I was able to remove it without any problems. Still, a beta is a beta, so use SpellBoy at your own risk.
Microsoft claims that Office 2007's ribbon interface saves time by putting the features people use most often closer at hand. For those of us who spent years learning where those functions were in previous versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, the changes aren't the productivity boosters Microsoft envisioned.
I've done more than my share of rummaging around the ribbon in Office 2007 trying to find a particular command, and I've even used Microsoft's user-interface guides to hunt down the feature I needed. Now Microsoft Office Labs has developed the free Search Commands add-on for Office 2007 that lets you type in a command and access it in an instant.
After you download and install the add-on, the Search Commands tab is added to the ribbon. Click it (or press the Windows key and Y) and type the name of the command you need.
For example, the other day I was looking for the Reveal Formatting option in Word 2007. I eventually found it under the Display tab in Word Options (off the Office button menu). It would've been much faster for me to simply open Search Commands, type "reveal formatting," and enter the number that appears next to that option ("5" in this case).
The free Search Commands add-on for Office 2007 makes finding options almost instantaneous.
(Credit: Microsoft)Office Labs' only other offering to date is the Community Clips add-on designed to facilitate finding and sharing how-to videos relating to Office 2007. The site describes three other projects: one that creates a wiki on a SharePoint server, one that is intended to improve the Tablet PC pen interface, and one designed to serve as a marketplace for freelancers.
Note that all of the projects are prototypes, and Microsoft collects "usage metrics" in an attempt to enhance them, though you can opt out of sending any data to the company. I don't know about the other Office Labs projects, but Search Commands is an add-on I expect will save me quite a bit of time by slicing the ribbon to ribbons.
It's much easier to notice the similarities between the programs in the free OpenOffice.org suite and their Microsoft Office counterparts than to see their differences. Unfortunately, it's the differences that can slow you down as you make the switch from Word to Writer, Excel to Calc, and PowerPoint to Impress.
For example, you may find that you don't have the same selection of fonts available in Writer as you did in Word, nor will you have access to the templates you used in Office. This doesn't mean you have to do without, though. There are plenty of free resources available that let you use OpenOffice without sacrificing functionality.
Find free fonts
If you stick with such tried-and-true fonts as Times New Roman, Arial, Garamond, Courier New, and Calibri, you probably won't need to add any types to Writer's roster. People who rely on a wider range of typefaces may find their favorites missing, however. To supplement the fonts built into OpenOffice, visit 1001 Free Fonts, HighFonts.com, or Mike's Sketchpad. Place the new fonts in the C:Windows\Fonts folder to make them accessible in OpenOffice applications.
Convert your templates
To import Office templates to OpenOffice's Writer, Calc, and Impress programs, open one of the programs, and click File > Wizards > Document Converter. Select Microsoft Office, choose all three Office applications, and click Next.
Browse to the folder holding your Office templates in the "Import from" text box, choose a destination folder for the templates (you can also import your Office files), and click Next again. Do the same for Excel and PowerPoint on the next two screens, review the files that will be converted on the following screen, and click Convert.
When the conversion completes, you'll see the files that were converted. Click Close to return to the OpenOffice program.
Convert your Microsoft Office templates to OpenOffice via the Document Converter wizard.
(Credit: OpenOffice.org)Now choose Tools > Options, click Paths in the left pane under OpenOffice, select Templates in the right window, click Edit > Add, navigate to the folder you placed the templates in, and click OK three times.
The templates will now be available when you click File > New > Templates and Documents, and select the appropriate application. Note that the templates may not look and act exactly as they did in Office, and PowerPoint templates will likely have to be renamed because the conversion changes all their file names to "PowerPoint Presentation."
Add productivity-enhancing extensions
You'll find dozens of useful add-ons for OpenOffice applications on Sun Microsystems' Extensions page (the link leads to the most popular extensions).
One of my favorites is Andre Schanbel's Template Changer, which adds an "Assign new" option to the File > Templates menu. This lets you assign a template to the currently open file. Also, Sun offers the Professional Template Pack that includes cover pages, presentation backgrounds, certificates, business letter templates, and personal-finance templates.
For more on making the switch to OpenOffice, see Solveig Haugland's great article, which includes links to OpenOffice training sites and other resources (scroll a little past the middle of this long page to find them).
Tomorrow: Perform any operation on your PC without using your mouse.
The tech community's love affair with the Mozilla Firefox browser shows no signs of waning, but the fact is, most people still use Internet Explorer. If it's such a terrible browser, why does it remain so popular? Part of the reason may be that it's so tightly integrated with Windows: It takes an effort to download Firefox or another alternative browser, while the little blue "e" icon is omnipresent on the desktop, start menu, quick launch toolbar, and elsewhere in Windows.
Never in a million years would I try to talk you out of using IE, but I will do my best to convince IE users to download the free IE7Pro add-in (download) that adds a spell checker, ad blocker, and other useful features to Microsoft's preeminent browser.
Enable scripts in the IE7Pro add-on for Internet Explorer to take advantage of user-created browser enhancements.
IE7Pro benefits from a community of developers who write scripts for the program, similar to the folks who offer add-ins for Firefox. You'll find bunches of these scripts at IEscripts.org. The one I've been fiddling with lately adds a Download Video link to YouTube videos. Unfortunately, you have to convert the file to .flv to save it, and the MiniDM download manager in IE7Pro 2.0 doesn't give you that option. The workaround I found is to copy the video's URL, browse to YouTubeLoader.com, paste the URL into the link box, click Download, right-click the resulting link, choose Save Target As, rename the file in the Save As dialog box (be sure to give it the .flv extension), and click Save.
Rename the video file you're downloading and give it the .flv extension to save it to your PC.
Before you can view the video on your local system, you have to install a player for .flv files. I use the free FLV Player from Martijn de Visser.
Tomorrow: Change your default save-as folder in Windows.
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