CCI Tech Tip Tuesdays

Trying to convert a PDF into a Word document?  There are a few easy ways to do it! FoxIt Phantom PDF, which is already set up on most CCI computers, has the ability to convert from PDF to Word.  Read more  here .    There's also a free app called  Smallpdf.com  that allows you to convert PDF to other file formats including Word, and vice versa.  We recommend that you do NOT upload any documents with sensitive or confidential information for conversion, for security and privacy reasons. 

Worried about documents having too much jargon?  Want to make sure everyone can read the documents you create?  Microsoft Word has the ability to scan your document and score it based on reading level.  It will give you two scores: Percentage of overall readability out of 100% Score based on the school year reading level of the text. (i.e. this document is at a 7 th  grade reading level)   You can score an entire document or just a sentence. Read the article  for the whole story.

When creating a document that pulls in text from different places, getting all the text to match in terms of formatting (like font size, and type, if it's bolded, color) can be frustrating.  The Format Painter function can help with this.  Format painter lets you easily take the format for one section of text and apply it to another section of text in a document.  You can use Format Painter in Microsoft Word, Excel, Google Docs, and Outlook, among other programs. Simply highlight the text whose format you would like to use, click the Format painter icon, and then select the text that you would like to change.  The Format Painter tool is located near the Paste, Copy and Cut functions in the program.  See screenshots below for where to locate the Format Painter tool. In Outlook: ​ In Microsoft Word: ​ In Google Docs: ​Happy pasting!

Sometimes in Word you want to put a bunch of text into a table.  It already has spaces, or tabs, or commas, organizing the text the way you want it but you don't want to have to retype everything into rows and columns.  Or you have a table in a Word document and you want to remove the text from the table. In Word you can use the Convert-text-to-table function, or the Convert-table-to-text function to quickly and easily create or get rid of a table. Learn more here.

Sometimes you may have a template letter that you have to write over and over again, and remembering to change the date is just another thing on a list of items to change (or forget!) Luckily, with Word you can add in a Date field and have it automatically update every time you open the document. Learn more here . Thanks to Allison Gao for the tip!

Sometimes you get a document that someone has edited with track changes, and while you would like to accept all of their bolding, italicizing, and font changing, you don't want to just accept all their edits. There is a simple way to accept all the formatting changes quickly, while leaving the other suggestions for you to sort through manually! Step 1: Click the arrow beside Show Markup from the Review ribbon and ensure that only Formatting is selected. Step 2: Click the arrow under Accept from the Review ribbon and click Accept All Changes Shown Click here to learn more.