Last week, I answered a question from Donna about creating curved text in Microsoft Word, and it got me thinking… I find it much easier to create artistic text in my favorite desktop publishing program, PagePlus.

So this week, I thought I’d show you how easy it is to create artistic text on a curve in PagePlus.

1. Open your document in Page Plus.
2. Click on the “Artistic text Tool” button on the left.
3. Click on your page to place the insertion point, and type your text.
4. With your text still selected, click the arrow on the “Path” button in the toolbar
5. In the drop down list that appears, click on “Path Circle” or whatever shape you desire.
6. You can make adjustments to the shape by dragging the different nodes (small boxes) around the curved text.
7. If you want to play with textures and colors in your text, click on the “Styles” tab and select a style that you like.

Elizabeth

It’s Your Turn: What do you think?
…. Share your experience in the comments box below.

Thanks, Joan

Dear Joan,

The best way to make fractions on your computer is by typing the top number, followed by the division symbol (above the number 8 on your number keypad) and then the bottom number. Using this method, one half would look like this: 1/2 If you are typing a whole number followed by a fraction, leave a space between the whole number and the fraction. One and a half would look like this: 1 1/2 .

Once you have typed your fractions in this manner, if you are using a program that includes subscript formatting (WordPad will work, as will Word or PagePlus) you can highlight the fraction and apply the subscript formatting.

Some fonts include common fractions, but it would depend on the font, and if the recipe was copied in the future, the fraction could be lost.

You can also use a keyboard shortcut for three fractions, 1/2, 1/4, and 3/4 but you are out of luck if you need other fractions.

Here are the keyboard shortcuts for common fractions:

½ = Alt + 0189
¼ = Alt + 0188
¾ = Alt + 0190

Elizabeth

I have been trying to create a 4 by 5 1/2 inch greeting card in Microsoft Word. I want to be able to print two cards on one sheet of paper, then cut and fold the cards.

Thanks, Jackie

Dear Jackie,

What you want to do would be much easier to accomplish in a desktop publishing program like PagePlus. Let me show you how…

1. Open PagePlus.
2. On the “What do you want to do” screen, click on “Start new publication”.
3. On the bottom of the “Start New Publication” screen, click “Custom Page Setup…”
4. In the “Page Setup” dialog box, click on “Folded Publications” to select it.
5. Make sure “Card” is selected, and the publication size is 8.5 in X 11 in, and also make sure the orientation is set to “Portrait”. These settings should automatically be selected, so just make sure they are.

Click the “OK” button at the bottom of the “Page Setup” dialog box to save your changes.

The Card in your Page plus window will be tall and narrow.

Make sure you are looking at the front of your card by selecting “Front” in the lower-left corner of the window, or by double clicking on the “Front” section in the page manager on the right.

Since we are going to actually make two cards from one sheet of paper, you will need to divide the work area in half. My favorite way, is to make a line. Click on the line tool on the left, and using your mouse, draw a horizontal line somewhere near the middle of your paper.

Right click on the line, point to “Arrange” in the context menu that appears, and then click on “Align Objects” in the sub-menu.

In The Arrange dialog box, click on the boxes pictured, then click the “OK” button to center your line and divide the card in half.

Create and center a line on the inside and back pages as well.

Now, you can create the front of your card. Create it all above the center line. I have created an example here using the predefined shapes and some text.

Now for the fun part. To make a second copy of your card for the bottom half, first you need to group all the items on the top. Using your mouse, drag a box around all the objects in your card.

Once you release your mouse button, all the objects inside your box will be selected and there will be a small button at the bottom. Click that button to group all the objects into one object.

Once all your items are grouped, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and drag the group to the bottom half of your card. Holding down the Ctrl key causes you to make a copy

Now the bottom half of your card is identical to the top half. Before you move on, you should click on the line in the middle and press the delete key on your keyboard. If you want to leave the line as a cutting guide, you might want to make it a lighter color.

Repeat these steps on the inside and back of your card, and you will be all set to print.

Elizabeth

Dear Computer Lady,

Will you please explain what a pdf file is and when and what it is used for? 

I don’t have a clue and am still trying to learn all these computer terms.

I love your newsletter and have learned a great deal since subscribing.

Thank you, Donna

Dear Donna,

PDF files are Portable Document Format files that are usually created in a program called Adobe Acrobat.

Writers like to publish their documents in this format because anyone can download the free reader program and use it to view the documents.

If you come across a PDF document, you can view it using Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this program installed, you can go to 

http://get.adobe.com/reader/ 

and download the program free of charge.

If you need to create your own PDF documents, there are quite a few programs that will convert files for you. My favorite way to create PDF files is to use PagePlus X3 to both create files and save them in the PDF format.

If you have a PagePlus document that you want to save as a PDF file, just follow these directions:

1. Open the document in PagePlus.

2. Click on “File” in the menu bar.

3. Click on “Publish as PDF” in the file menu.

4. Click “OK” in the dialog box that appears.

5 Select the location you want to save your PDF file to, and type a name for the file and click the “Save” button to save your document as a PDF file.

6. Your new PDF file will open up in Adobe Acrobat Reader for you to look at.

Elizabeth 

Dear Computer Lady,

How can I convert a PDF file along with the images to a Office WORD file in order to be able to make changes to the document.

Thanks so much for your help, David.

Dear David,

The short answer is that you can’t open  a PDF file in Word, but there are a lot of programs on the internet that offer to convert PDF files to Word format for you. I went to www.google.com and searched for, “PDF to Word converter” and found quite a few small software programs that claim to do this conversion for you.

Since I don’t have experience with many of these programs, I am going to tell you about the two programs that I am familiar with.

The first option, and the one that has been around the longest is to purchase Adobe Acrobat and use it to edit and create PDF files.  Adobe is the company that created the PDF file format and made the free reader program available for everyone to download, install and use. It was a brilliant marketing plan because they made it possible for anyone to be able to read documents created in their program, and companies could create documents that they knew their customers could read.

Unfortunately, the cost for Adobe Acrobat (the program that creates PDF files) is close to $500, and while this is affordable for large companies, it is not affordable for the rest of us.

The second option is a desktop publishing program that I have been using for quite a few years called PagePlus. This program has had the ability to create PDF documents, and the most recent version also has the ability to open and edit existing PDF documents. I had already purchased and been using PagePlus on my computer, so it was not an expense for me, but since the whole program is under $100, and allows you to create many kinds of documents, it is much more affordable than the first option.

When you first open PagePlus, one of the option is to import a PDF file, all you have to do is select the file you want to open, and click on the “Import” button.

Once you have made your changes, or if you have created your own PagePlus document from scratch, you just click on “File” in the menu bar, then click on “Publish as PDF” and you will be able to save a copy of your file in PDF format.

Elizabeth

Computers are here to make our lives easier, and even though they bring much more to our lives than easing the occasional task, they do have the power to save us both time and money if we put them to work for us.

Today, I want to share a simple lesson in making either return address labels, or a full page of labels with addresses that we send mail to on a regular basis. Every year, I use this method to make Christmas return address labels with a nice decoration.

You can make return address labels in a number of programs, but it is easiest to do in a desktop publishing program, so we are going to do this lesson in my favorite desktop publishing program, PagePlus. If you don’t have PagePlus, you can follow along in your favorite desktop publishing program, or you can get your own copy of PagePlus here. 

To get started, lets open PagePlus I like to keep an icon for the program in my Quick Launch toolbar at the top of my desktop, so I can quickly click on the link to open the program.

When PagePlus opens, it displays a wizard asking you what you want to do. We are going to start a new document (this program calls them publications) so lets click on “Start New Publication”

Once you have chosen to start a new publication, the next window in the wizard appears allowing you to select the type of document you want to create. We want to create address labels, so in the left hand section of the window, we will click on “Small Publications” and then click on “Avery Labels”.

The main part of the wizard window will now display an assortment of label layouts. Even if the labels you are printing on are not from Avery, they will probably have an equivalent Avery label number on them, or you can simply look at the layout of your labels, and select a similar layout on the screen. My labels have three columns of 10 labels for a total of 30, so I am going to select the Address 5160 layout, and then click on the “Open” button.

Your PagePlus window will now open with a single address label displayed in the middle of the screen. Since all the labels are going to be the same, you only have to worry about creating this one label.

Lets get started by adding a text box to the label. A text box is simply a shape that you draw that will contain text. Click on the Text Frame button,  and then with your mouse, draw a rectangle on your label.

Once the text box is in your label, you will be able to see the sides of the text box, and you can adjust it by dragging any of the little boxes.

Click once inside the text box and start typing your address. When you have finished, you can adjust the size of your text box to accommodate the address, and you can drag the entire text box around to adjust where it will be located on the label. I have moved my text box to the right of the label to make room for a small graphic on the left.

If you want to decorate your label, you can add a small image. It can be any picture that you have stored on your hard drive, on CDs or the images that came with PagePlus. To add an image to your label, click on the “Picture Fly out” button on the left hand toolbar.

The “Import Picture” dialog box will open allowing you to find and insert your image. Use the links on the left to quickly move to the folder containing your images, or if you don’t have any pictures of your own, you can navigate to the “Images” folder under PagePlus. The PagePlus images are usually located in the following path:

C:\Program Files\Serif\PagePlus\X3\Images

I have selected a nice picture of a rose to put on my address labels. I have clicked once on the picture to select it, then I will click on the “Open” button at the bottom of the dialog box to return to my label.

You will see that your mouse cursor has turned into a small cross with a square beneath it. You will use the cursor to draw a box where you want your image to go, or you can simply click and the image will be placed in your document. Drawing a box will allow you to control the size of the image as you place it. Clicking will place the image full-size and you will probably need to make it smaller so that it will fit in your label. As you can see below, I have placed my rose on the label, but the stem is blocking some of the address. 

You can easily rotate an image that you have placed in a PagePlus document, just point your cursor to the outside of any corner and it will turn into a curved arrow. Once you see the curved arrow, hold down the mouse button and move the mouse to rotate the image. I have rotated my rose so that the stem extends right between two rows of my address.

Want to see how a page of your labels will look, click on the “Print Preview” icon in the toolbar, or click on “File” and then click on “Print Preview” in the menu bar. You should see a full page of labels.

 If everything looks good in the print preview page, you are ready to print your address labels. Put the labels in your printer, and click on the “Print” icon in the toolbar, or click on “File” and then “Print…” in the menu bar.

 The print dialog box will appear allowing you to change the number of copies, and select your desired printer. Make sure everything is set the way you want it, and click the “Print” button at the bottom of the dialog box.

Wasn’t that easy? It is my favorite way to make address labels.

Elizabeth

Dear Computer Lady,

I am making a family cookbook for our 95th annual reunion in August. I am wondering about sharing it. I have it typed up in Works, but I know not everyone uses that program. Would something like Adobe be better? I would like to hand out discs and hard copies.

Thank you for any suggestions, Jacque Brown

__–__

Dear Jacque,

I applaud you for recognizing that not everyone will be able to read your Works document, many people don’t realize that others might have problems with their documents if they are not running the exact same program. Lets look at what options are available to you.

For your hard copies that you plan to give out, you really don’t have to worry about format. Once you print the copy, anyone can read it. 

What you have to worry about is the copy that you are putting on Disks. Adobe would be a good option, but it is quite expensive to purchase. There are other programs that will allow you to save your file in the Adobe format, however, you will have to download and install the program first.

Let’s look at a couple of potential solutions, beginning with the easiest.

1. You can save your Works document in either plain text or rich text format.

A text file will save only the text, without any formatting like Bold, Italic, or text colors.

A Rich Text file is able to save the text along with many of the basic formatting options. This allows you to dress up the text with different text sizes, bold headings and different color text.

These options will work well if you don’t have any pictures in your cookbook, and you don’t have to install any new software on your computer.

Here is how to save your file in Text or Rich Text format:

a. Simply open your cookbook in Works, click on “File” in the menu bar, then click on “Save As…”

b. In the Save As dialog box, find the section that says, “Save as type:” and click on the drop down list.

c. Select either “Rich Text Format (*.rtf)” or, “Text File (*.txt) and type a new name for your document.

d. Click on the “Save” button to save this new copy of your file.

e. Open the file in WordPad. (all Windows computers  have WordPad) to see what the results look like.

2. You can install a program that will allow you to convert your Works document to an Adobe Acrobat file. Usually these programs look like a printer on your computer (this requires you to think of creating your Acrobat file as printing even though nothing is being put on paper).

I don’t have this kind of program installed on my computer, but a quick google search for “Print to PDF” gave me a lot of results, some of them free and some of them you could purchase.  If anyone uses this type of program, please share your experience with us in the comments section below.

3. You can install a program that will export your document to a PDF file. I have two programs on my computer that will allow me to save, or export, my file to a PDF version.

Microsoft Word has that option, but you might have to install that option from Microsoft’s website.

I use a program from Serif Software called PagePlus. It is a desktop publishing program that makes it easy for me to create anything from address labels, newsletters, greeting cards, and letters to large posters. One of the features in PagePlus is that I can publish a PDF version of my document, I just click on “File” and then select, “Publish to PDF”. In addition to saving a PDF version of your files, PagePlus also allows you to open and edit existing PDF files, which is a great feature.

I use Page Plus all the time, and find it very easy to share my documents with others using the Publish to PDF feature. You can check out PagePlus, just click on the banner above this paragraph. 

4. Now we are getting to the more difficult options. You could re-create your cookbook in HTML format (which means that it would look like a website) this would also be readable on any computer running Windows, and the HTML file would also be accessible to users on a MAC computer as well. Unless you are familiar with HTML code, you would need a program to convert your book to HTML. PagePlus will save your document as HTML in addition to PDF.

5. Your last option, also the most expensive, would be to purchase Adobe Acrobat at www.adobe.com Currently, Adobe Acrobat is selling from $299.00 to $699.00 depending on what version you buy.

Elizabeth