Remove Microsoft Word Manual Formatting or Copied Formatting from External Source

When you copy and paste a block of text into Microsoft Office Word document from external source or third party documents such as web browser or another documents, the existing hidden formatting from the external documents on the pasted text block will also be pasted into the existing Word document, thus affecting the size or font, or have the different size or font from the existing document.

To solve the problem of different font type and font size when copying and pasting from other documents, newer version of Microsoft Word such as Microsoft Office Word 2003 and Word 2007 has built-in functionality to let users to choose the style or formatting that they want to apply to the text block that is been pasted.

Word Formatting

The Word formatting options will be prompted when the text block been pasted and appeared as expandable icon. The options available include Keep Source Formatting (maintain original font type and size of copied text), Match Destination Formatting (change the font type and size of pasted text to match the existing document), Keep Text Only (text only just as it’s been typed, discarding everything else) and also ability to let you apply your desired style or formatting.

Alternatively, the manual formatting of the text block can be removed when copying and pasting by using Word.

Adobe Illustrator CS4 Trick Color Palette

Convert Color Swatch to Grayscale

When I was working on releasing files for a logo design yesterday, I realized you can easily convert a Pantone to greyscale by selecting greyscale in the swatch options section. You can match color hues without guessing which greyscale tint is the best match for your PMS when it automatically converts the color for you. Pretty easy.



Click on any of the images for a larger view....

Importing Excel Tables into InDesign

InDesign does not import tables from Excel as well as Quark. Here's a tip I found today from an InDesign CS2 user. I'm in CS4, but it should provide a clue at least.

Remember the range of cells that you want to copy (and the sheet name if more than one) from the Excel spreadsheet.

With the Excel spreadsheet closed select File/Place in InDesign. When the Place file window opens check the "Show Import Options" box.

After selecting the Excel file, another window will appear asking for the sheet name and range in the Excel worksheet.

Drag the Place pointer to insert the table. Once the table has been inserted you can double click on it to edit or use any of the InDesign Table Options to alter the highlighted text.

Hope this helps.

How To Change a Favicon in Joomla 1.5

A new article has been written that tells how to change your favicon in Joomla! 1.5.

The word "favicon" is short for "favorites icon", and it is the 16x16-pixel icon that is associated with your website and appears in the browser address bar and favorites menu (and in Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, it also appears on the browser tab). For this website, I am using the default Joomla! favicon because this site is a site about Joomla! The image below shows what your browser's address bar should look like when visiting this site.

All Joomla! installations come with that favicon installed, and a common mistake by many webmasters is to ignore the favicon, thereby keeping the default Joomla! icon for their site. Unless your site is about Joomla, you should not be using the default favicon. A good habit to get into when developing sites with Joomla! is to change the favaicon and use something more fitting for your site, like your logo. This article will explain how to create a favicon and then how to replace the default icon with your icon.

Creating your favicon

For the sake of simplicity, this section assumes you are using your logo for your icon.

Step 1: Shrink your logo

Using graphics software (like Adobe Fireworks or Adobe Photoshop), shrink your logo so that it will fit into a 16-pixel by 16-pixel square*. Then, save your new image as a 16x16 PNG or GIF file called "favicon.png" or "favicon.gif".

* It helps if your logo has relatively square dimensions, like the Joomla! logo.

Step 2: Convert the image to "favicon.ico"

This step is actually easier than it may seem. There are several options for doing this step, but my favorite is a web-based tool by Dynamic Drive called the "FavIcon Generator". You simply click the "Browse" button to locate your favicon.png or favicon.gif file, then click the "Create Icon" button to convert your image. The generator will then provide you with a favicon.ico version of your logo. It really is that simple.

Favicon maker- Create a favicon from any image.

Step 3: Replace the default icon with your own

The default favicon is located in the "images" directory of your Joomla! installation. Remove the default icon from your site, and upload your new icon in its place.
Done.

You may not be able to see your new favicon right away. The reason for this is because the default icon is probably still in your browser's cache. If you clear your browser's cache, you will be able to see the new favicon.

The favicon is a small thing that really will not affect the performance and look of your site, but paying attention to little details like that will give your site a more finished, professional feel.

As always, please feel free to post any questions or comments.