More to Say, More to Write

          Ah, technology!  Ah, new developments!  Ug, new acronyms and new terminology! 

         Off hand, do you remember what JPEG stands for?  What about DSLR?  What about …..?

        Mac to the rescue.  When you click on the Dictionary icon in the Dock here’s what comes up.  

        I expected Apple to provide answers to my growing list of acronyms, but did find some help by clicking on Wikipedia.  The Dictionary didn’t know, neither did the Thesaurus. 

        Click on Dictionary, look at the top menu. Click on Services and see some unexpected categories you can view.  (Remember to click on the little screen shots here to enlarge the size.  Then click on it again to shrink it back and come back to this page.)

        Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track.  Make New Sticky Note.  Summarize. 

        Check out Preferences.  Drag reference sources into the order you prefer.  You can even choose the type of pronunciation you wish to see. 

        I did find www.acronymslist.com  and a list of medical acronyms http://www.medindia.net/acronym/index.asp 

        Heard of Slovoed Dictionaries?  It offers a FREE dictionary of the month.  and can be viewed in Mac App Store.  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/slovoed-dictionaries/id524941905?mt=12  

More to Say, More to Write!

       So, you wrote something nice TO your mom for Mother’s Day, or you wrote something nice ABOUT your mom for your kids and grandkids. It’s so nice to write with Mac.  And you can print out the size of type that makes it easy to read.  But now, here comes Father’s Day.  Time to turn on your remembrances and your creativity again.

       Looking at an old photograph might stir up some memories.  Nifty to have so many pictures on your computer. Jot down your first ideas for your first draft.  (It’s not done yet!) 

        Writing about a hunting trip sounded promising.  But the first draft on the computer had too many “said” and “asked” words.  Go to Dictionary, and Thesaurus. Look at all the words to choose.  

      Go back to that draft of your writing and click somewhere on it. 

       Then do Command + F  to bring up Find and Replace.  I entered “said” and my happy computer put a nice yellow box around each instance of this word, one at a time.  I could choose which to delete and replace with a suitable synonym.  

        Another time, I wanted to write a fictional piece for some young cousins.  Going to Google, I typed in puzzle and then images.  I scrolled through a lot of clip art and photos until I found one to use.

  I’ve mentioned before, I use bluesquirrel’s program ClickBook for Mac to make booklets.  It shrinks down the type size and picture size to fit the page.  You have over 100 layouts to choose from.  www.bluesquirrel.com  

       You’ll have fun writing with Pages.

       Check our newsblog regularly to see all the info that’s being added.

       Keep up the good work.  See you next time.  Bring a friend!  

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                          This is today's handout, 5-17-14 at PMUG meeting, by Elaine Hardt