I am out of town so I am republishing an article posted to the Technology Tamer's blog that was written by my friend Pam Treme. Enjoy!
A watermark is a word, phrase, or image that appears as a pale background behind text. Watermarks are frequently used when the author of a document has no idea who will use the document, how they will use the document, or where the document might be posted. As an example, I’ve had an original biography copied from my family website and posted to Ancestry.com without even so much as a thank you…a clear copyright violation since my work was entirely original and I gave nobody permission to use it.
Let’s suppose that you’ve written a bio for a family member. You want to make the information available; however, you also want to be credited for all of your hard work and your imaginative conclusions backed up by some solid evidence that you’ve unearthed.
One of the best ways to deploy a document of this nature is to save your Word document to a PDF, which you can post to a website or attach to an email. However, when you do that, it is possible for others to simply take your work and post the PDF elsewhere. Adding a watermark keeps everybody honest because it’s a subtle reminder to everyone who reads the document that it is copyrighted work. When work is copyrighted, the copyright owner (that’s you!) controls where the text gets used.
Had I followed this procedure with my own story, Ancestry.com would never have allowed my story to be published on its website because of the copyright statement appearing in the PDF.
Adding a Watermark:
1. Open Word and type your document.
2. Add a watermark.
For Word 2003: Click the following: Format--Background--Printed Watermark. The dialog appears.
For Word 2007 or 2010: Select the Page Layout tab. Locate and select the Watermark button. A dialog appears. Click Custom Watermark. The dialog appears.
3. Select Text watermark.
4. Add text in the Text field, and check that you have the same selections shown in the sample above, and then click OK. You might want to take a minute to look at the other available options.
5. Inspect your document to see the results. If you’re happy with the results, you can save your document, and then save it as a PDF for deployment.
I wouldn’t necessarily advise placing a watermark on every document you create. However, knowing about watermarking adds to the arsenal
Showing posts with label familyhistory. Show all posts
Showing posts with label familyhistory. Show all posts
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Readability Statistics
Posted by Pam Treme of Technology Tamers
My presentation partner Pattie used to be my boss. When I worked for Pattie, she always wanted me to write on a sixth grade level. Try as I might, the best I could dial it back to was eighth grade.
Dealing with the situation was a problem of my own making because Pattie and I had a conversation one day about the readability of a piece of text. I ran the stats. Pattie asked, “How did you do that?” I showed her. Now Pattie uses this bit of knowledge to benchmark everyone who writes anything for her. You have to be careful what you show Pattie. It can come back to haunt you!
The grade level you write at is important for getting information across to your reader. With a little practice, anyone can write compound sentences with high flown words that send readers scurrying to a dictionary. However, if your objective is a pleasant read that is readily understood, trooping out your high-end English skills may not be the best way to go.
Knowing the grade level that you’re writing at can help you make adjustments. For example, I learned that long paragraphs that include more than one idea quickly pumped up the grade level. If a paragraph reaches somewhere in the neighborhood of five or six lines, I start looking at it to make sure that I haven’t let a new idea creep in. Besides, if a paragraph goes over nine lines, Pattie won’t read it, and I think Pattie is typical of many modern readers.
In addition, compound sentences that require your reader to slow down and dissect the sentence to ensure that they understand it is, in my opinion, counterproductive too. These types of sentences also pump up the readability stats on your document.
To gauge your normal writing level—and eighth grade in my opinion is just fine—you can set up Word to run readability statistics routinely. Here’s how you do it.
Word 2003
1. From the main menu, select Tools and then Options. The Options dialog appeared.
2. Click the Spelling & Grammar tab.
3. Look in the Grammar group for the option Show readability statistics, and click it to add a check mark.
4. Click OK. The next time you run a spelling and grammar check on a document, the statistics display automatically when you finish the check.
Word 2007 and 2010
1. In Word 2007, click the Office button (big button in upper left of screen). A pop-up menu appears. In Word 2010, click the File tab.
2. In Word 2007, click the Word Options button at the bottom of the pop-up menu. In Word 2010, click Options. The Word Options dialog appears.
3. Select Proofing. The Proofing dialog appears.
4. Look for When correcting spelling and grammar in Word.
5. In the group, look for Show readability statistics, and click it to add a check mark.
5. Click OK to save your change and close the dialog. The next time you run a spelling and grammar check on a document, the statistics display automatically when you finish the check.
To stop displaying statistics, repeat the steps and remove the check mark.
Posted by Pam
My presentation partner Pattie used to be my boss. When I worked for Pattie, she always wanted me to write on a sixth grade level. Try as I might, the best I could dial it back to was eighth grade.
Dealing with the situation was a problem of my own making because Pattie and I had a conversation one day about the readability of a piece of text. I ran the stats. Pattie asked, “How did you do that?” I showed her. Now Pattie uses this bit of knowledge to benchmark everyone who writes anything for her. You have to be careful what you show Pattie. It can come back to haunt you!
The grade level you write at is important for getting information across to your reader. With a little practice, anyone can write compound sentences with high flown words that send readers scurrying to a dictionary. However, if your objective is a pleasant read that is readily understood, trooping out your high-end English skills may not be the best way to go.
Knowing the grade level that you’re writing at can help you make adjustments. For example, I learned that long paragraphs that include more than one idea quickly pumped up the grade level. If a paragraph reaches somewhere in the neighborhood of five or six lines, I start looking at it to make sure that I haven’t let a new idea creep in. Besides, if a paragraph goes over nine lines, Pattie won’t read it, and I think Pattie is typical of many modern readers.
In addition, compound sentences that require your reader to slow down and dissect the sentence to ensure that they understand it is, in my opinion, counterproductive too. These types of sentences also pump up the readability stats on your document.
To gauge your normal writing level—and eighth grade in my opinion is just fine—you can set up Word to run readability statistics routinely. Here’s how you do it.
Word 2003
1. From the main menu, select Tools and then Options. The Options dialog appeared.
2. Click the Spelling & Grammar tab.
3. Look in the Grammar group for the option Show readability statistics, and click it to add a check mark.
4. Click OK. The next time you run a spelling and grammar check on a document, the statistics display automatically when you finish the check.
Word 2007 and 2010
1. In Word 2007, click the Office button (big button in upper left of screen). A pop-up menu appears. In Word 2010, click the File tab.
2. In Word 2007, click the Word Options button at the bottom of the pop-up menu. In Word 2010, click Options. The Word Options dialog appears.
3. Select Proofing. The Proofing dialog appears.
4. Look for When correcting spelling and grammar in Word.
5. In the group, look for Show readability statistics, and click it to add a check mark.
5. Click OK to save your change and close the dialog. The next time you run a spelling and grammar check on a document, the statistics display automatically when you finish the check.
To stop displaying statistics, repeat the steps and remove the check mark.
Posted by Pam
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