Q. I want to write a couple of books. So I need software to handle references, footnotes, etc. Any recommendations?
— George Ross @cadacademy.com
A. Microsoft’s Word software includes complex modules that handle footnotes and bibliographies for books. These features require a bit of learning but only a bit.
For example, the Bibliography Module in Word 2003 uses a series of command boxes to guide a user through laying out bibliographies in academic style and, as you enter title after title of books and articles, the software automatically alphabetizes the growing list.
Other parts of Word, such as page numbering, kick in to keep the manuscript orderly.
Footnotes also are programmed into Word, and the software does such things as coordinating notes at the end of each printed page with the text on that page. As one adds footnotes during the writing process, the software changes subsequent numbers of notes.
There also is an option that dispenses with putting footnotes on each page and instead converts the footnotes into endnotes that can either follow each chapter or appear at the back of the book.
You didn’t ask about indexing, Mr. R., and that’s probably just as well. Microsoft has built a notoriously uncooperative feature in Word that will index two ways.
First a user can select words to be indexed while preparing and editing the manuscript. Or the author can prepare a separate list of words called a concordance file. Either way the software will go through the entire text and produce an index showing each page where a topic appears.
It becomes painfully obvious that a hands-on human must fiddle to eliminate needless hits and to create things such as cross-references and subtopics for entries, as in “Coates, James H., court settlements 34-99; traffic citations 99-240, charitable activities 240-241.”
I’d add that many colleges and universities have created Web sites designed to show graduate students how to write books, and I’ll point you to a few of them that give step-by-step help.
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For footnotes:
www.rdg.ac.uk/ITS/info/training/notes/word/footnotes
For bibliographies:
www.sandhills.edu/english/wordguide/bibliography.html
For indexing:
www.rdg.ac.uk/SerDepts/su/Topic/WordProc/WoP2Kind01
Q. I signed up for the wonderful Google Earth service that shows the entire planet as aerial photographs or satellite images, and I went for the paid plan because it allows me to print images in high resolution.
These prints are so beautiful that I want to frame them but each comes out with the Google trademark so large that it spoils using pictures for home decorating. Can you suggest a way short of using scissors to get rid of Google’s brand on stuff that I just want to hang on my wall?
— Kay Aiken @gmail.com
A. First, Ms. A., let’s tell other readers that free versions of Google aerial images are at earth.google.com. Now for your answer: There’s a way to tap a couple of keys and capture the entire screen as a photo image, and that’s your fix.
Display the image you want on the full screen using the View commands in the Google Earth toolbar. With your chosen image covering most of the screen, hold down the Alt key and then tap the Print Screen key located at the right side of the F1 through F12 keys atop the keyboard. This stores in memory a copy of the active screen.
Now click on Start and All Programs, and then open the item in the next menu called Accessories. Here you will find a program called Paint that is a rudimentary image manipulation module built in to Windows. In Paint, click on Edit and then select Paste. This creates an editable picture of the Google display.
To crop out the Google logo, click on the box icon atop the tools in the upper left-hand corner of the Paint display. This cropping tool lets you click in the left-hand top of the image and drag a box to cover the screen as you move downwards and to the right. Drag the box to cover the image just above the Google logo.
Now tap Edit and Copy in the tool bar. Next open File and New. Click No when asked to save the original. In the New display that comes up, click on Edit and Paste and your cropped image will appear as a BMP format file. Click on File and Save; then give it a name and you’ve got an image almost as good as the premium Google offering.
When you print this out you may not even be able to tell the difference in quality and the trademark will be gone.
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Got a question on personal technology? Send a note to Jim Coates at [email protected]. Questions can be answered only through this column.