Office Productivity
How to Publish a MS PowerPoint Presentation to a Web Site via OpenOffice Impress
If you tried it, you know it: publishing a MS PowerPoint presentation to a web site is not easy. PowerPoint has a direct Broadcast Slide Show button which creates an html link to post and share but that does not work well either (click on image): Here is one solution I’ve developed by using OpenOffice…
Read MoreTORNADO: Great Hardware to Transfer Files from One Windows Machine to Another
© 2010 Ugur Akinci I’m basically a software guy. I try to stay away from endorsing any hardware products. But from time to time I come across some hardware that works so great I can’t help but write about it. THE TORNADO high-speed file transfer “cable” is one such product. When I bought it for…
Read MoreMS Windows Productivity Tip — Remove Read-Only Property of Multiple Files
© 2010 Ugur Akinci Whether you are working with a set of Adobe FrameMaker or MS Word files, it doesn’t matter: if your files are read-only, you won’t be able to save your changes. Your machine will give an error and remind you that since your files are Read-Only, you cannot save the changes you’ve…
Read MoreHow to Add Sound to an OpenOffice 3.0 Impress Slide
© 2010 Ugur Akinci (1) Open the OpenOffice Impress slide to which you’d like to add a sound clip. This sound file will play each time you load the slide. (2) Click the Gallery button on the Graphics Toolbar (bottom of page). This will display the Gallery screen at the top of the selected slide:…
Read MoreOpenOffice 3.0 Impress — an Impressive Slide Presentation Program Indeed
© 2010 Ugur Akinci I have used Microsoft Office for god knows how many years and I’ll continue to use it in the foreseeable future. But OpenOffice is a great productivity suite too, and it’s free as well. Here is a quick look at Impress, OpenOffice 3.0’s impressive slide presentation program, the full equivalent of…
Read MoreHow to Create a Multi-Level Ordered List in OpenOffice
© 2010 Ugur Akinci (1) Create your list items without any ordering (numbers or letters). For example: Apple/Orange/Watermelon. (2) Select your list items and click the “Numbering On/Off” button in the Toolbar to toggle on numbers. (3) Add the second-level (indented) level of information. For example: Calories/PH-level. At this point the whole list will look…
Read MoreHow to Count the Number of Selected Records in a Dataset by OpenOffice CALC's DCOUNT Function
© 2010 Ugur Akinci OpenOffice is a free office applications suite provided by Sun Microsystems. (http://www.openoffice.org/) OpenOffice CALC is a powerful spreadsheet program which corresponds to Microsoft Excel. Here is how you can filter and count the number of records (rows) in a dataset by using OpenOffice CALC: Consider the following imaginary data set for…
Read MoreTime Management and Productivity Tips for Technical Communicators
© 2010 Ugur Akinci Here are my own time-management and productivity suggestions for technical communicators: If you’re working as an independent technical writer from your own office, check your e-mail only 3 times a day — first thing in the morning, mid-afternoon (3 pm), and in the evening (9 pm). But I realize that for…
Read MoreA Meditation on Time Management for Technical Writers
(Excerpt) Time management means being able to say “no”. Whenever someone comes running to you saying “I need your help,” it’s automatically an emergency. You’re a team player, so you may say “Sure, I can help you with that” without thinking. Stop. Think. Less obvious but more common is the failure to prioritize tasks. How…
Read MoreGoogle Docs Presentation Application
© 2010 Ugur Akinci You can use this FREE application to create online presentations that you can reach from anywhere… as long as you have access to the Internet. I actually prepared the following presentation by using Google Docs Presentation:
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