Adding videos to your Word documents

Lights.. Camera.. Action! Adding videos to your Word documents

by Word Team

Today's post comes from Seth Fox, the program manager on the Word team responsible for adding web videos to Word documents.

Videos are a great way to engage a reader, tell a story, invoke emotion, and communicate effectively. They are found all over the web (news articles, blogs, websites, etc.) and are a great way to enhance documents you send digitally. In the new Word, we added the ability to insert web video directly into your documents, allowing you to create rich, interactive output that pairs your words with video whenever appropriate.

When designing this feature we had a few key goals:

1. Allow you to easily find and insert online video from a variety of sources
2. Ensure that videos are easy to move, resize, and position

3. Allow videos to be played right from within Word, so you don’t have to switch context.

Easy to find and insert videos directly from Word

We wanted to make it easy for users to find and insert online videos from a variety of sources right within Word. You can use Bing to search for videos (similar to inserting online pictures), and you can add specific video providers like YouTube to search for and insert videos.

This allows you to quickly find the video you want, insert it, and go right back to writing your document (we’ve all been there when a simple search for content online has led to a 2 hour visit to Facebook or a marathon session of clicking through cat videos). When you search for a video, each result is shown by a thumbnail preview. Selecting or hovering over the thumbnail will show the title of the video, the provider (ex. YouTube, Dailymotion, etc.), and its length. Click the icon on the bottom right of the thumbnail to preview the video so you can make sure it’s the one you want before inserting. If you’ve already found a video online you can copy the video’s embed code (typically found by a share link) and paste it into the embed code slab to directly insert the video.

Videos insert with a thumbnail automatically, making it easy to recognize the video at glance and invites your readers to press play. When you insert a web video into a document, Word actually saves a link to the online source hosting the video. This allows you to watch the video anytime you’re online without bloating the file size of the document.

Videos are easy to work with in your document

Once the video is inserted it behaves like a picture. You can resize it and position it exactly where you want in your document. You’ll even get alignment guides to help you position it in exactly the right spot. If the thumbnail of the video isn’t what you want, simply right click and select change picture to replace it with any picture on your PC. Videos also support most image features like cropping and effects so you can touch up the thumbnail to make it look just right. Videos in your document feature a large play button to make it easy to play with a single click. However, we know that sometime you’ll need to print out these documents or export them to PDFs. Whenever videos end up in a static format we removed the play button to make sure it’s out of the way of the thumbnail.

Playing videos inside Word is a great experience

We wanted to ensure that consuming videos in Word was a simple and compelling experience. We support the latest web standards like Flash, Silverlight, and HTML5. This makes it easy to play most videos you find online. With a click or tap of the play button the reader is instantly immersed in the video.

We chose this approach over playing the videos inline because videos are typically 640 x 360 pixels or larger which takes up about 85% of the width of a typical document. Allowing the thumbnail of the video to be independent from the playback size provides the flexibility to place the video where you want while still being able to play the video at its original size.

Note that if you share a document containing a video with others and they open it in a previous version of Word, or in the Word Web App, they’ll still be able to watch the video because the thumbnail is linked to the original video source (which will play in in their browser).

Word Blog - Lights.. Camera.. Action! Adding videos to your Word documents

Set Word AutoRecovery to a Dropbox Location

Set AutoRecovery to a Dropbox Location for Double-Strength Backups

The AutoRecovery (or auto-save) feature in Microsoft Office is great for recovering documents when the program crashes, but if you want to be absolutely certain that backup has a home, change the default location of those save files to your Dropbox (or other cloud storage) folder.

The only time you really need AutoRecovery is when something goes bad. Microsoft Office has a really simple procedure for changing the location in all its programs and all you need to do is change that location to your file syncing service of choice. This is just as applicable to any program you use that automatically saves data. If you're working on a project that's incredibly important, this is a good way to add an extra layer of protection.

Set AutoRecovery to a Dropbox Location for Double-Strength Backups

PrintMyFont - List, Print & Compare All Installed Fonts

PrintMyFont: List, Print & Compare All Installed Fonts On Your System

By Fawad

Over time, lot of fonts are collected on your hard drive, specially if you are a web developer or a designer. When you want to use one for something, you can get confused from the long list. What you usually do is select your text and change the font again and again to check how it will look, and are not able to compare them properly. To get an overview of all the fonts installed on your machine, you can use PrintMyFonts. It is a portable application that lists all your installed fonts, as well as the arbitrary fonts found on your hard disk. This application has a lot of utility for web developers and designers who have to use a lot of different fonts while working. More on PrintMyFonts after the break.

The application allows you to type text and preview how it will look in different fonts just with a single click. The complete font list is displayed on your screen, and you can save the list in different formats, including PDF, DOC, DOCX, and also in image file formats, such as BMP, JPG and GIF. The best thing is that you can enter custom text for comparing the different types of fonts. Moreover, the application allows you to directly print them on paper. By default. the print example lists alphabets, digits, as well as characters in all the available fonts, but you can choose something yourself if you want to compare a particular line or set of characters. You can view all the fonts installed on your system, or just the ones in a particular folder or drive.

The Advanced Settings dialog accessible from the Tool menu allows you to specify default system settings, such as Number Fonts, Print Name of Font, Print Directory Path (if printed from folder), Orientation of paper while printing, Font Size and Style, Margins etc.

PrintMyFont works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7,

Download PrintMyFont

PrintMyFont: List, Print & Compare All Installed Fonts On Your System

Five top alternatives to PowerPoint

1 and 3 are free.

Five top alternatives to PowerPoint

By Susan Harkins

If you have Office, you have PowerPoint, presentation software that’s easy to use and cause for debate among users and experts alike. You love it or you hate it. But if you hate it or you just don’t want to purchase Office, you’re not stuck. There are alternatives and most of them will get the job done just fine.

Note: This list is also available as a photo gallery.

1: Impress

OpenOffice.org Impress is part of the free OpenOffice.org suite of business software. The user interface, shown in Figure A, is amazingly similar to PowerPoint 2003. If you can use PowerPoint, you’ll be up and running with Impress in minutes. Like PowerPoint, Impress offers master slides, layout options, object inspection via right-clicking, animation, transitions, and plenty of toys.

Figure A

OpenOffice.org Impress is similar to PowerPoint 2003.

Technically, it’s free (and open source). If you use it, consider a donation to help support and maintain the community.

2: Prezi

If you’re looking for a cloud-based presentation app, take a look at Prezi.com. It uses Adobe Flash to quickly create edgy animated presentations. There are no slides. Instead, you store everything on a huge canvas and then choreograph the show. To create a new Prezi, supply a name and description, as shown in Figure B. Then, choose a blank Prezi or a template. (The first time you use Prezi, you’ll have the opportunity to view a short tutorial.) Figure C shows a blank Prezi, ready for text and graphics. You can even convert PowerPoint slides to a Prezi.

Figure B

All Prezis start here.

Figure C

Add presentation text and graphics to this blank canvas.

Although Prezi is easy to learn, it’s different enough that it might intimidate you just a bit. Prezi’s zooming nature gives it a bit of a contemporary edge, but it won’t be right for every presentation. When it is right, it’ll be just the right tool.

You can play in the cloud free, but all your Prezis are public. You can, however, download them and present offline. A private subscription is $59 a year, and for $159 a year, you can add full support to your subscription.

3: Google Presentation

If you haven’t tried Google Docs Presentation in a while, take another look. Google recently revamped the app and it’s got a lot more to offer than before. Just pull up Google.com and choose Documents from the More menu. If you don’t have an account, you’ll need to create one. Once you’re in, click Create and choose Presentation. Work through the tutorial to the user interface shown in Figure D. This Web-based app requires a recent version of Internet Explorer or Chrome to tap into its newest features. Google Docs is free, but you’re working in the cloud.

Figure D

Google Docs Presentation interface is utilitarian but effective.

4: SlideRocket

Another Web-based presentation app, SlideRocket, offers some impressive and advanced animations and transitions. It’s a good choice for creating a Web presentation. Searching for and adding Web content requires just a few clicks. (The interface might seem unfamiliar at first, so take the short tutorial.) You’ll spend most of your time working in the Editing window, shown in Figure E. It’s probably the most comprehensive alternative, when compared to PowerPoint. But the free version lets you publish only as a Web URL — you can’t view your work offline. For $24 a month (per user), you can download your presentation as a PowerPoint or PDF file.

Figure E

Manipulate slides in the Editing window.

5: Flair

Wildform’s Flair is a desktop app that produces Flash-based presentations, but you don’t have to know Flash to benefit from its pizazz. That’s Flair’s biggest plus. And even at a pricey $199, it’s still cheaper than Flash, so it’s probably worth it to the right buyers. For the most part, Flair is straightforward to use. Its strength lies in its built-in video and audio recording capabilities, making it a reasonable option for e-learning products. It also converts PowerPoint files to Flash. The Edit User interface, shown in Figure E, is familiar enough to get you started. There’s a ton of online training and a ton of templates.

Figure E

You’ll use edit mode to create and modify slides.

For the price, you’d expect a free trial, but there isn’t one. You can download a demo, but they don’t make it easy.

Five top alternatives to PowerPoint | TechRepublic

How to Speed Up Microsoft Word

How to Geek: How to Speed Up Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010

Is Word behaving sluggishly, slowing you down? There are a various reasons why Word may be slowing down, but you can easily change some settings to speed it up.

Turn off Background Repagination

The background repagination option allows Word to repaginate the document when the program is idle. This allows the page numbers displayed on the status bar to be updated and stay current. However, this can slow down other operations in Word. If Word seems to be slowing down, you can turn off background repagination.

To do so, you must first be sure Word is not in Print Layout view. Click the View tab and click Draft in the Document Views section.

To access Word Options in Word 2010, click the File tab and click Options in the list on the left. If you are using Word 2007, click the Office button and click the Word Options button at the bottom of the menu.

On the Word Options dialog box, click Advanced in the list on the left. To turn off background repagination, scroll down to the General section and select the Enable background repagination check box so there is NO check mark in the box. Click OK to save your changes and close the dialog box.

Turn off Word Add-ins

Microsoft Word is packed with features, including add-ins that come with the program. Unfortunately, a lot of these add-ins are ones you probably don’t use, but are turned on by default. These add-ins can slow down Word and make it harder to use.

Open the Word Options dialog box as mentioned earlier. Click Add-Ins in the list on the left.

A list of Add-ins displays in several groups. There are Active and Inactive Application Add-ins. There may also be Document Related Add-ins and Disabled Application Add-ins.

Note the type of the add-in that you want to disable in the Type column.

Select the type you noted for the add-in you want to disable from the Manage drop-down list at the bottom of the dialog box and click Go.

Because we selected an Action add-in to disable, the following dialog box displays. To turn off the desired add-in, select the check box for the add-in so there is NO check mark in the box. Click OK.

You may have noticed a Document Inspector type in the Type column, but no Document Inspector type in the Manage drop-down list. The Document Inspector add-ins are managed in a different location. These add-ins allow you to inspect the document for hidden metadata and personal information and are automatically enabled.

In Word 2010, click the File tab and then click Info on the left. Click the Check for Issues drop-down button and select Inspect Document from the drop-down menu. If you are using Word 2007, click the Office button, click Prepare, and then select Inspect Document from the submenu.

The Document Inspector dialog box displays. Select the items you want to inspect and click Inspect.

NOTE: The Invisible Content option is only available in Word 2010.

Click Remove All to the right of the inspection results for the type of content you want to remove from your document.

NOTE: Be sure you want to remove the content when you click Remove All. As noted on the dialog box, some of the content cannot be retrieved once you delete it.

Turn off Various Word Options

Turning off any one of the following options may not improve Word’s performance noticeably, but turning off a combination of them might help. To turn off these options, open the Word Options dialog box as discussed earlier in this article.

The Show text animation feature allows you to format text in your document using the animation effects available in Word. If you have used this feature and your Word is not responding well, you might want to turn off this feature, at least temporarily. To do this, click Advanced in the list on the left and scroll to the Show document content section. Select the Show text animation check box so there is NO check mark in the box.

Also, on the Advanced screen, is an option in the General section called Provide feedback with animation. This option allows you to send feedback to the developers of Word in the form of animation and sound. If you are not going to send feedback in this form or at all, you might as well turn off this option.

If you use AutoShapes, you might have noticed that when you insert one, you also get a drawing canvas surrounding the shape that is used to insert and arrange the objects in your drawing. If you only insert simple AutoShapes, one at a time, you may not need the drawing canvas. On the Advanced screen, in the Editing options section is an option called Automatically create drawing canvas when inserting AutoShapes. Select the check box so there is NO check mark in the box to turn off this option.

Another option on the Advanced screen (in the Print section) is the Print in Background option. This allows you continue to work while your document is printed. With today’s fast computers and printers, this option is generally not needed and can be turned off.

On the Proofing screen, there are options for checking spelling and grammar as you type. This can take up some resources as Word checks what you have typed in real time. If you feel you are a good speller and have good grammar, you can turn these options off. These options are located in the When correcting spelling and grammar in Word section. You can always manually check the spelling and grammar for your entire document when you are finished with it.

Word has the ability to automatically format your text in different ways as you type. Besides taking up some resources, although not much, to do this in real time, it also can be annoying. To turn off the AutoFormat options, click the AutoCorrect Options button on the Proofing screen.

On the AutoCorrect dialog box, click the AutoFormat As You Type tab. Turn off the options for items you don’t want automatically formatted and click OK.

Word should respond more quickly to your commands now. Of course, if you discover you need to use any of the options you turned off, it’s easy to turn them back on.

How to Speed Up Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010 - How-To Geek