Copywriter, technical writer, translator (FR>EN, ES>EN, IT>EN), journalist

TechnoZen

Avoid your mouse

Moving your hand off the keyboard wastes time, a little bit each time you do it. Get into the habit of learning and using keyboard shortcuts for things you frequently do on your computer.

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Hiding passwords?

If I want to access your work computer, I’ll look for, and probably find, your password in one of these places: under the keyboard under the phone under the mouse pad on the monitor in the top drawer under the desk How’d I know that? Simple. I

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Troubleshooting tables in Word

Sometimes you use the quick “text and tab” method to create tables, only to have Microsoft Word tell you that your proposed table has more or less columns than you meant to create. Time to roll up your sleeves and do a little troubleshooting.

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Out with unused styles!

Chances are you’ll copy text from other places and paste them into your Word document. When you do, you’ll bring along not just the text, but the style(s) from that source document. This isn’t a big deal, but it can on occasion cause minor formatting headaches which

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Printing less paper

Printing costs per page are pretty low for most people, but if you’re interested in using a little less paper when you print, read on.

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Instant messaging: time waster or saver?

Tommy Richardson, a partner at the Phoenix, AZ-based personal injury litigation firm Friedl Richardson, stays connected with everybody else in the firm using Yahoo Messenger. “This way, we coordinate our responses to clients,” Richardson explains. “An associate can IM (instant message) me about how to answer client

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Inserting table rows

Adding rows to a Microsoft Word table is pretty easy to do, but this keyboard-based method might be the easiest of them all.

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Law firms publishing smartphone apps

Smartphone users habitually check unread message counts. Canny law firms can leverage that common compulsion by putting unread counts on their own smartphone apps, which are among today’s most effective opt-in marketing tools.

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Make long Word tables understandable

When a Microsoft Word table is so long it runs over two pages, it can cause consternation for readers in at least two ways: The header rows – those rows at the top of tables that serve to label the contents of each column – don’t repeat

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Before you send a document…

Most people run spelling and grammar checks on their documents before sending them to clients, collaborators and other people. If you use more sophisticated tools in Word (like cross-references, tables of contents and page numbers, generally known as fields), you also need to: make sure the fields

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