Stuart Aken: Microsoft Word

Sunday, 9 June 2013

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, by Dwight Spivey, Reviewed.

Not a general book, of course, but a one for those interested in and learning to use the software with the hardware and operating system.

I thought I knew Word, in particular, very well, but there were many lessons for me here. I’ve learnt things that will hopefully increase my productivity and allow me more freedom to express myself more fully. The ability to work with programs like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint more effectively will certainly improve my speed of work. But, as familiarity increases, I also expect that my confidence in use will allow me to take advantage of many of the aspects of the programs of which I was previously ignorant or uncertain. It solved a problem or me involving Excel and charts; for that alone, it saved me much time that would otherwise have been wasted.

Laid out in a logical manner, which aids both learning and actual use, it’s a ‘Dummies’ guide in all but name. Of course, there are many aspects that are merely alluded to and many others that aren’t covered at all, but that’s to be expected with a subject so complex and multi-layered.

Illustrated copiously with screen shots, the text gives excellent examples of the solutions to many of the problems we deal with daily in our computer lives. The tone is friendly and light, but the content is serious and fairly comprehensive. I’m by no means a techie, but I found it easy to follow. I’m very new to the Mac, and previously used Office 2010, so I had more than one set of changes to deal with. The book led me easily through the maze of technical jargon, helping me understand much that had previously been a mystery to me.

Organised into chapters dealing with various aspects of each program, I found the whole course easy to follow. I ignored the section on Outlook as I’ve tried this program in three of its previous manifestations and always suffered major problems with it. There are other programs available that do everything outlook does, and are easier to deal with, so I’ll stick to those. My knowledge of PowerPoint is very small, but as an author, I can think of ways in which it could be very useful, especially for marketing, so I was glad of the help on that.

If, like me, you’ve recently purchased either a Mac and/or the newer Office software, and you’re having difficulty using either or both, then this is the book for you. Of its type, it’s one of the better examples and I recommend it.

Thursday, 27 December 2012

Cliché Software Review.

In collecting information for my Writing Contests page, I came upon a site called ‘Writers’ Village’, which looked interesting. Needless to say (cliché), it runs a writing competition. However, my reason for this post is that the website owner, John Yeoman, also provides a number of free articles dealing with improving your short story efforts. I signed up for the free stuff and, as a result, received a link from John. This took me to

http://www.cliches.biz/clichecleaner/, where I was able to download a trial version of software designed to spot clichés in written work.

Often, writers are unaware of even using clichés, let alone repeating the error by using them more than once. Similarly, repeated phrases are commonly overlooked by the most careful of editors, but will stick out like a sore thumb (cliché) to the alert reader.

A couple of days ago, on Xmas day, I posted a short story for readers and decided to use this as a test of the software. The results are shown in the screen shot below. I was pleasantly surprised by the few instances that appeared in the story. But I’m conscious that, especially in longer works, I’m prone to the occasional cliché, and I bet you use them as well. I like the clear style of the software and its ease of use. It’s a good old no-nonsense tool and a worthy addition to any writer’s toolbox. At present, you copy and paste the piece of work into the program, which has the look of a basic text editor. However, the designer is currently working on an update, which will allow users to open files direct from Word. This upgrade will be offered free to purchases of the current software. To be honest, I had no problem with the copy and paste (repeated phrase) process, but a direct route to a file would obviously be preferable. There are four options to control the way the software selects and displays the clichés and repeated phrases it finds, but the default position was all I needed.

If you click on the graphic, it should bring it up in a new window at a larger size.

As this was a trial version, I decided to look into costs for the full version. It’s so cheap it’s hardly worth considering, when you recognise how useful it will be for you. The cost of the full program is $12.95, which translates currently to £8.29 or €9.79.

I’ve downloaded the full version and will use it in editing my work from now on. In fact, I used it on this post. Any tool that can help improve the quality of writing must be considered seriously by every writer hoping to gain and retain a worthwhile readership, after all.