Announcements

It's Back!! My Type Artist!

Man this is popular! We get 'em, they sell out, we get 'em, they sell out. Well, we thought we had seen the last of these, then we came across another supplier who had some - and we grabbed them as fast as we could!

This software allows you to take a word or sentence and turn it into a graphical font. OK, that doesn't sound all that spectacular, so look at this:

Cool huh?

Once you create your "text art" you can then save it in a variety of formats and use it in just about any graphics program ever created. It includes 1,000 different type styles that can be arranged in 90,000 combinations. The possibilities are endless. Heck, it took 30,000 designer hours just to create these fonts! 

Oh, and this software is really easy to use - it takes about 5 minutes to learn the basics. It's way easier than trying to design something in a graphics program, that's for sure. I know it's the best font program I've ever worked with!

Your price is just $9.97 and US shipping is FREE! If you do any kind of print projects, this is a must have. For the price, you can't go wrong. For more info and samples, head to:

http://www.worldstart.com/store/my-typeartist.htm

PS - We have our Buy 3 Titles and Get 15% Off deal going this week (till 08-18-2003). So be sure to check out the rest of the store after you add this title to your cart - especially the Bargain Bin - everything on that page is less than $8.00!

>> Not A Blast - Please Read - Virus Alert <<

As you've probably heard by now, the MSBlast virus is spreading like digital wildfire. This bugger has infected around 60,000 computers as of this writing and is continuing to multiply.

This virus causes your computer to shut off every 15 min, tries to use your computer to infect others, and tries to slow down the MS Update site though denial of service attacks. So, if you can't seem to keep your computer running, now you know why.

The best way to deal with this is to make sure your computer is patched and up to date (a patch that's been available for about a month now). Win 95/98/ME users are OK, but if you're running XP, 2000, or NT better get the patch:

Click Here

It's just a short scroll down the page. Oh, XP users note that there are 32 and 64 bit patches. Most of you (99%) have 32 bit systems and the 64 bit folks know who they are.

If you think you already have the patch installed, you can check by hitting the Start button, Settings, Control Panel, Add / Remove Programs - or XP users can open My Computer, then click the Add or Remove Programs link on the left.

Scroll down and see if you find a patch that includes the numbers:

823980

If you do, you're already good to go. If you don't - or you're not sure - go ahead and download the patch (hey, it ain't your bandwidth :-).

You won't hurt anything if it's already installed, and you'll have that piece of mind that can only come from owning a Microsoft product.

MS Office 101

See The Unseen

A few weeks ago (back on July 22 to be exact) I mentioned in the Office 101 tip that hidden marks or characters exist in your MS Word documents.

The mark I specifically mentioned and showed you was the paragraph mark.

Remember, it looks like this:

To be honest, I was quite surprised by the number I emails I received where people were concerned with how to display these hidden marks. (The surprise comes from the fact that I never display them—I find them distracting—but apparently there are many people out there who find them very useful.)

So, in the interest of supporting everyone who likes, or would like if they knew how, the hidden marks, here's how you too can see the unseen.

To display hidden marks and text you have a couple of options.

The first option is to click the Show/Hide paragraph marks button. It looks just like the paragraph symbol above. It should be located on the right end of the Standard toolbar. (To the left of the zoom percentage.)

It's a toggle button. Click once to display the marks and again to hide them.

Another way to display the hidden marks is to use the key combination Ctrl + Shift + 8. (You'll often see it written as Ctrl + * but to get the * you need Shift + 8.)

Any way you do it you're going to get the same results—you'll see the hidden marks and text in your document. I guess some people find it helpful to see exactly how many lines and spaces are inserted in the document. (Spaces are marked with dots - you'll see them when you try this.)

Wait a minute, did she say hidden text? Yep—I said text—check out the Office Tip of the Day for the text thing.

Office Tip of the Day

The Wonders of Word's Hidden Text

By now you're very aware of MS Word's hidden marks for spaces, tabs, enter keys, etc.

What you may not be so aware of is that you can also hide text in MS Word.

Yes, that's right, you can hide text of your choosing. And once hidden you have the choice of displaying, hiding or even printing your "secret messages".

Well, the obvious place to start is how to hide the text to begin with.

• First highlight the text to be hidden.
• Now use Ctrl + Shift + H.

Poof! Text gone... or is it?

Well, yes and no.

In the normal display of a document the text seems to be gone, but, when you display the hidden marks and text (check today's Office 101 tip for how to do that) you'll find that your text is there—safe and complete.

Once you've displayed the hidden text you should not only see it but also see that it's different.

You'll notice that the hidden text, when displayed, is underlined by a dotted line. This is Word's way of clearly letting you know what's hidden stuff and what's not.

You also might have noticed as you played with this one that it doesn't take up space - once hidden it's like it doesn't exist unless you intentionally display the information. (In other words, there's no blank lines where the hidden text used to be.)

As I think about this one I can see a very good application for my readers who happen to be instructors.

This would be pretty handy for tests, quizzes and other worksheets if you want to keep the answer key with the original file.

You could keep the questions in one file and the answer key in another, or... you could simply hide the answers in the question file. This eliminates the need to keep track of two files simultaneously or the ever-dreaded answer key you feel you must never lose to avoid doing the work twice.

(I vote for the hidden text—then I can always print out a key anytime it's needed.)

Now, if I'm going to mention that the text can be printed then I better tell you how—don't you think?

I'm glad you agree.

To print hidden text you need to get to the Print window. You can do this either through the File menu, Print choice or by using Ctrl + P.

Whichever method you choose, you're looking for the Options button in the bottom left-hand corner.

This button opened your "what to print in the document" options.

(You can also get to the same place through the Tools menu, Options choice, Print tab. It looks the same no matter which way you go.)

You're looking for the Hidden text check box in the center section "Include with document".

Simply check this box and then click OK.

Now when you print you'll get all text - hidden and not hidden.

Cool!

(To cancel this option you'll need to go back and uncheck the box.)

OK, so now we can hide text, display and print it - it's time that we learn how to unhide the text for good. (Bring it back to the land of the normal text.)

• To unhide text you first need to display it.
• Now highlight the hidden text.
• Press Ctrl + Shift + H.

Voila! Text is no longer underlined - indicating that it isn't hidden.

As a matter of note - I would suggest that you display hidden text when doing complex editing. I'm sure you'd hate to inadvertently get it out of place if you need it somewhere in particular (like the test answer after each question).

You also might want to note that you could format the hidden text differently from the rest of the document - setting it apart from the rest when printed.

Time to enjoy a game of text hide and seek.

~ April