Saturday, December 22, 2007

Save your outline unchanged in Word Outline View

A pet peeve of mine is that Microsoft Word doesn't save which levels are visible and which are hidden in Outline View. I finally put my preferred workaround into some simple macros and so thought I'd share it.

This is little shy on technical details, but I'll try to answer any questions left in the comments!

The main trick is that you leave Fast Save on (Tools > Options > Save) while you work on the document, but turn it off just before you save. So the first macro turns Fast Save off, saves and then closes the document ("CloseOffFastSave"). The second macro turns Fast Save on just before you open a document.

I put the close macro in the file menu, as well as have it in it's own toolbar button. Leave the existing "Close" there (without the shortcut key) as a convenience for closing documents you don't want to save. Let the Macro save your document! Make sure the last save is done by the Macro.

Here's Microsoft's explanation for how to set up these macros, and here are the macros you'll need:

Sub AutoExec()
'
' AutoExec Macro
' Turns Fast Save On
' Allows saving view of Outline levels later
'
With Options
.AllowFastSave = True
End With
Application.DefaultSaveFormat = "MSWord6RTFExp"
End Sub
------------------------------------------
Sub CloseOffFastSave()
'
' Saves view of expanded/unexpanded levels
' in Outline View, so everything isn't automatically expanded
' when you next open the document--and then closes document
'
With Options
.AllowFastSave = False
End With
Application.DefaultSaveFormat = "MSWord6RTFExp"
ActiveDocument.Save
ActiveDocument.Close
End Sub
------------------------------------------
Sub AutoOpen()
'
' AutoExec Macro
' Turns Fast Save On
' Allows saving view of Outline levels later
'
With Options
.AllowFastSave = True
End With
Application.DefaultSaveFormat = "MSWord6RTFExp"
End Sub

Remember, let the Macro save your document! Make sure the last save is done by the Macro.


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Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Free Large Background Desktop Vertical Wallpaper for (Portrait) Monitors

I'm adding new extra-large free wallpapers each month, so be sure to check back!



Recent addition: free vertical extra-large wallpapers that work in both portrait OR landscape mode when rotated, both abstracts and nature images.
Most of these can stand having the "ends" cropped if you want to resize them to a ratio other than 16:10 wide screen. If you like these, link to this page so others can find it too!



You might ask: who else uses their monitors in portrait mode? Here's a couple of photos from the Googleplex to give you an idea:



I use a 24" flat panel widescreen (16:10) monitor set to 1920 x 1200 in portrait (vertical) mode. I've tweaked or montaged a number of free images into vertical 16:10 desktop wallpapers in Photoshop. For example, the first image, Eagle Mountain Mist, is a montage of six images, and lots of Photoshop "mist" (you can also see it on Flickr). Some have been rotated to work well vertically. If these are too huge for you, realize Windows can auto-size them for a desktop background. (Here's a great site for completely free images.)





Montages and optimized free images:

Note: These are vertical as shown.






Haleakala Sunrise





Best of Hubble and the night sky

Note: These are vertical as shown (regardless of original image)







Free Nature Desktop Images: Vertical or Horizontal

Note: these come in a horizontal orientation.

Rotate to vertical as desired in an image program


Vertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature image

Vertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature image

Vertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature image

Vertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature image

Vertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature image

Vertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature image

Vertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature imageVertical or Horizonal nature image



Free Abstract Wallpaper:
Vertical or Horizontal

Note: these come in a horizontal orientation.

Rotate to vertical as desired in an image program




Vertical or Horizonal abstract imageVertical or Horizonal abstract imageVertical or Horizonal abstract imageVertical or Horizonal abstract image

Vertical or Horizonal abstract imageVertical or Horizonal abstract imageVertical or Horizonal abstract imageVertical or Horizonal abstract image


Finding other sources for widescreen vertical wallpapers



Probably the best is interface lift, but Stock Exchange has quite a few to pick through. And there's a big list of links here. Try this useful large image search for popular, large nature wallpapers easily cropped. I can't post any here since they prohibit redistribution.



Graffiti Wallpaper is also excellent. Some of the nature images shown here are simply rotated from Mike Swanson's excellent collection.



If you've ever thought of making 1920 x 1200 wallpapers for your widescreen monitor from online map images, check out Earth Wallpapers.



Sources


Here are the source of some of the montaged and optimized images, in order from first appearing above:

  • Eagle Mountain Mist is a montage of several images and lots of photoshopping;

  • Lazy Days II by boss019; April 24th, 2007;
  • Neutron Revolver by Parth; November 18th, 2006;
  • Peace by Grant Erb; December 15th, 2005--Morfee Lake, Mackenzie, British Columbia, Canada;

  • Silence by shiftedreality; May 13th, 2007;
  • Epic Falls by Chris Fenison; June 15th, 2006;
  • Splash/3D rendered water by Ratow; January 15th, 2006;
  • Crepuscule, by Fabien Egot; August 16th, 2007;
  • Courage et dévouement (Courage and dedication) Cédric Sacilotto's photo taken with a Canon EOS 400D at f9, 1/200 s; France, copyright 2007;
  • Solar Wind effect on Earth's magnetic field: Scaling The Universe;
  • Modified from Haleakala Sunrise by Greg Martin;

  • If anyone can help me with the original source of the starry night over golden building (MIT) HDR image, I'd be grateful;
  • The rest are adaptations of classic Hubble Space Telescope photos from a variety of sources.
Photoshop optimization techniques include HIROLAM, LAB color adjustments, BlendIF layer styles to reduce white halos after sharpening, etc.


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