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Tips To Boost Your Production The tips on this page are designed to save you time when developing your web site, or doing anything else on your computer, for that matter. Some are very simple but there are many people on the web who are new to computers. I have even seen veteran computer users struggle with something that could be handled easily if they just knew how. These tips come from many years of technical software and hardware support. I hope they are as helpful to you as they have been to me over the years. If you have a production tip that you think would be helpful to others, please Email me and I'll be glad to include it here. (Note: These tips are primarily PC based but can be easily converted to a Mac. If you know the specific commands for the Mac for any of these tips please forward them to me and I will gladly include them here.) Tip 1 - The Two Most Valuable Keystrokes You'll Ever Learn They are: CTRL+C and CTRL+V (Use the Command key rather than Control on the Mac). CTRL+C is the keystroke command for copy and CTRL+V is the keystroke command for paste. To use them you simply select (highlight) the text or graphic you wish to copy by holding down the left mouse button and dragging your mouse. Once the text or graphic is highlighted, simply press CTRL+C to copy. Now go to the application you wish to paste it into, place your cursor where you want it to go and press CTRL+V. That's all there is to it! You can copy and paste text from a web page too. These two time saving commands are very often overlooked. It's also useful to know that you can copy once and paste as many times as you like. Some of the ways you can use these two commands are: Copying and pasting graphics from one program to another. I have found this to be the most efficient way to get a graphic from one program to another and retain its original attributes. Unfortunately, most of the graphic filters in graphics programs just do not do as good a job as a simple cut and paste. Copying and pasting text from a web site. Many times I find a web page with information on it that I want to print out. I could print out the web page, but that consumes excess ink in my printer and sometimes the page is very long but I only need a portion of it. You can highlight the portion of text that you want, copy it, and paste it into a text editor like Notepad. Typing the same phrase over and over again. If you find you are typing a company name or some phrase over and over again, you can type it once and then just paste it whenever you need it. Another way to do this is to type a "placeholder" rather than the phrase and then globally replace it when you are finished typing. See the Global Search and Replace tip below. Or, create a simple macro. See Creating Simple Macros below. Tip 2 - Using Global Search and Replace Effectively (TOP) (HOME) The Search and Replace function is available in every word processing program on the market. Most of you probably know how to use it to do a simple replacement. However, there is power here that you may not know about. Using a Placeholder. This is a really simple trick. Whenever you find your are typing the same phrase over and over again and it's taking a lot of time, you can reduce your input time by using a "placeholder" and then replacing it with the phrase later on. A simple example: Suppose you were typing a document for the Institute of Health and Research - Atlanta Division and you find that your typing the above bolded phrase over and over. Instead of typing the phrase, type something like "replaceme" or whatever you want to use. Caution: Make sure you use something that is not found anywhere else in the document. Once you have completed the document, you can now use the global search and replace function to replace "replaceme" with Institute of Health and Research - Atlanta Division. You've not only saved a lot of time, but this will also help eliminate typographical errors in the phrase (assuming you replace it correctly!). Converting a Text File to an Editable Word Processing Document. There are lots of text files on the Internet and sometimes you may download a file that you want to edit in your word processor. Text files, however, have a carriage return at the end of every line. Actually, most have a space and then a carriage return. So here is a simple way to get rid of all those carriage returns. Use your help menus and determine the "code" that your word processor uses for a carriage return. I use Word for Windows and Word uses the code ^p to symbolize a carriage return. Now go to the Search and Replace dialog box. In the Find or Search field type the code for a carriage return twice. In Word it would be: ^p^p. In the replace field type in something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the document. I generaly use 5 upper case x's (XXXXX). Now go ahead and replace them all. (Note: The purpose of this step is to retain the double carriage returns between paragraphs in the document. Next repeat the search and replace function but this time you're going to put a single paragraph code in the Find or Search box and nothing in the replace with box. (Note: If your text document only contains a paragraph marker at the end of each line without a space before it, you will need to replace the paragraph code with a space.) OK, now your document word wraps but you can't tell where one paragraph ends and the next begins. Once again go through the search and replace function but this time replace the 5 x's (XXXXX) (or whatever you used in the first replacement routine) and replace them with two paragraph codes (^p^p in Word). Now your document looks better but there may still be lots of spaces that need to be deleted. You can search and replace all double spaces with nothing. You may need to do this more than once. If the document contains two spaces between each sentence and you want it to remain that way, go back and replace the period and following single space with a period and a double space. And, that's it. Your document has been converted into an editable word processing file. Now that you've gone through this exercise, I hope you have a better idea of the power of globally searching and replacing elements in your documents. There are special code tags for almost every element of your document, so remember, you can also replace tabs, page breaks, etc. It's just a matter of knowing which codes to use. And remember, if you need to replace something that may effect other parts of your document that you don't want to replace, look for something special about the phrase that you can use to do the replace. For example: If you want to replace the word "art" with the word "artist" you would want to make sure that you don't replace parts of other words that also contain "art" such as start, part and heart to name a couple of examples. The word "art" in your document may always be preceded and followed by a space. If this is the case, you can replace the spaces and the word art with (space)artist(space). You will also want to check to see if the word art is located at the end of a sentence. If this is the case, you can replace the preceding space, the word art and the following period with (space)artist(period). Be careful, there may be a sentence that begins with the word "art" in which case you can replace "Art" with "Artist" and make sure your search is set to "match case." This will ensure that it only replaces "Art" with a capital "A." Tip 3 - Learn To Use Keystrokes Rather Than The Mouse (TOP) (HOME) Using keystrokes is much faster than using the mouse or pull down menus. Some functions can't be accessed without the mouse, but if you learn a new keystroke every day and use it, you will find your production will increase dramatically. Keystrokes are generally found in the menus next to the function and many are standard from program to program. Here are a couple to get you started: On the PC the combined keystroke of ALT+F4 will close most Windows programs. This is much quicker than going to the menu. And, if you're shutting down your PC, you can also use it to access the shutdown menu in Windows (probably NT too). On the PC the combined keystroke of CTRL+S will save your document. If you've ever lost a document in midstream because of a program crash you'll understand the importance of using this command frequently. On the PC the combined keystroke of CTRL+P will print the document or bring up the print dialogue box. Tip 4 - Creating Simple Macros (TOP) (HOME) Creating macros may seem scarry to you but there is probably a "record macro" function that you can turn on and just record your keystrokes. You don't have to learn any fancy programming languages to do this. For example: You are going through a huge document and reformatting it and then deleting key phrases. You find that you are repeating the same keystrokes over and over. Turn on the "macro recorder" and record your keystrokes. You will need to either assign a keystroke combination for the macro or create a toolbar icon. If you create a keystroke you will simply need to place your cursor in the correct place in the document and then press the keystroke command repeatedly until the document is completed. A toolbar icon will allow you to simply click your mouse button over and over until the document is completed. Caution: Make sure your cursor is in the same relative location in your document as it was when you recorded the macro. You can take this a step further and make the macro loop (repeat itself over and over) but you will need to use the macro editor and learn the command that accomplishes this. Each program is different but you can probably find this information in the help menus. If you do this, it will keep the macro from crashing and creating an error message if you also include the command that tests for the end of the document. However, it doesn't hurt anything to get the error message. The macro will terminate at that point and you can continue working in the document. Copyright © 2001 ThunderLink All Rights Reserved.