Archive for category: How To

By Jason Terry, talking about comparing two versions of the same document using Microsoft Word to figure out the differences.

One of the things people give me a lot of positive feedback about is when I share technical tips. Not everyone gives a crap about technical tips, so I try not to overdo it. But this week I thought I would share something that made Jim Stuelke, a good friend and client of mine, really happy recently.

Jim gets multiple versions of the same document emailed to him. Usually the documents are Microsoft Word documents, but this tip works for just about any kind of text document. The problem is that the author of the document doesn’t always have Track Changes turned on, so it’s really hard for Jim to tell what’s changed.

I find myself in the same situation occasionally when a client sends me a revised version of a blog post they’ve written. If they haven’t turned on Track Changes, it can be really time consuming (and a bit painful) to figure out what has changed.

Here’s One Solution: Use Microsoft Word’s Compare Feature

Microsoft Word has a nifty feature called Compare. In more recent versions of Microsoft Word, you get to this feature by clicking on the Review tab in the menu ribbon at the top. In the drop down, you can either Compare or Combine. Choose Compare.

A dialog box pops up that lets you specify the two files you want to compare. Take a look at the screenshot to see what I’m talking about. On the left, click the drop down and choose Browse to find the first document you are comparing. (You can also click on the folder icon to browse for your first document.) This should be the oldest version of the two documents. On the right, specify the most recent version of the document. Once you have selected the two documents to compare, click OK and let the magic happen.

What happens next might look a little intimidating, but don’t let it scare you. There are different windows showing different versions of the document and the differences that were found. I like to use the Revisions bar that comes up to navigate through the various differences between the two documents. Just play around with it a bit, you will get the hang of it. And trust me, if you are like Jim and have multiple versions of the same document without the ability to Track Changes, this will be a great way to save you a bunch of time.

If you don’t have Microsoft Word, there are lots of other ways to compare docs… here is an online tool called DiffChecker that lets you paste text into two different areas and compare the differences: https://www.diffchecker.com/

That’s it for this blog post… I hope some of you find it helpful! Before I go, I wanted to wrap up with something just for fun…

Just for Fun: What song would you want playing when you walked on stage?

Jason Moxness asked our peer advisory group that question a few weeks ago and it has stuck with me. My immediate response was Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees. But when I took a harder look at the lyrics, I figured that might not be appropriate. And I thought a terrible answer would be It’s the End of the World as we Know It by REM.

Some other good songs would be 500 Miles by the Proclaimers, Tubthumping by Chumbawamba, and The Greatest American Hero theme song if you want to prove to everyone you are at least 45 years old.

What song would you have playing when you’re walking on stage? Let me know in the comments, or tell me next time we run into each other!

By Jason Terry, talking about Pixabay for free images and how to turn off Auto Correct on your phone

I was recently looking for an image on Pixabay for a client, when I stumbled across the following:

It made me laugh out loud. That emotional moment when the sentence switches from an angry rant to a smiley, joyful, “HELLO!” is hilarious to me. I’ve had plenty of funny or embarrassing moments on my cell phone when texting friends and family because Auto Correct does something silly. (I hope you can relate.)

This experience gave me two things to try and help you with this week. First, how to find images for your stories. Second, how to disable Auto Correct on your phone.

1) Finding free images for your stories

In August last year, I wrote a story, “Creative Commons CC0 : Free images without worrying about copyright infringement.” It’s a deeper dive on what CC0 licensing is all about. I also do a roundup of websites with free images you can use for your blog or print materials. It’s definitely worth a read if you missed it.

And here’s an example of how you can use it.

Parker Young at Straub Construction recently sent me a story to publish on their website and social media about peer advisory groups. He didn’t have a current photo of either of his peer groups and was wondering if I could help. I said I could find something on Pixabay for him.

I searched Pixabay for “peers” and found the following picture:

That picture was okay, but then I searched for “group” and found this:

I liked this image a lot. There’s more color and it just “feels” right to me. It better represents Parker’s story. I sent both options and he was really happy with the second one.

So the next time you’re struggling to find a featured image for a story, your website, your print collateral… give Pixabay a shot.

2) How to turn off Auto Correct

I ended up turning off auto correct on my iPhone. Did you know you could do that? I thought you might want to know how to do it on your phone as well.

If you use an iPhone

If you use an Android phone

I found a great How To article with pictures here.

And that’s about it for this week. I hope one of these tips was helpful to you. If not, maybe you got a chuckle at the title and picture I wrote the story about!

By Jason Terry, talking about free images you can use commercially under Creative Commons CC0 licensing.

Let me start out by saying that this story is about copyright law. And your first instinct might be to move on. But what I am about to tell you could save you a lot of headache and expense.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve seen an increase in the number of lawsuits or legal nasty-grams that companies have gotten for using an image on their website or blog without permission. Sometimes, taking the image down is all that is required to make the problem go away. Other times, it can costs hundreds or even thousands of dollars to settle the issue.

When someone takes a photograph or creates original imagery on their computer, they have copyright protection for their work. And that’s a good thing. Often, they will upload their original work to “free” image sites like Wikimedia Commons for you to use. But it’s only free if you include the correct attribution link.

If you didn’t know, attribution is a web link back to the photographer or artist that created the image you would like to use. If you forget to include the attribution link, the creator can sue you for copyright infringement. Most people wouldn’t do this, especially if they were making their work available to you on Wikimedia Commons in the first place. But there are Copyright Trolls out there making a living doing this very thing.

When you go to the home page of Wikimedia Commons, you will see the text, “a collection of 41,141,913 freely usable media files to which anyone can contribute.” But you’ve got to read the fine print. The images have complicated rules on how you can use them, where you can use them (print, websites, etc.) and how often.

A big part of the problem is that the current copyright laws are complicated.

Creative Commons CC0

Creative Commons CC0 is the answer! It allows creators to donate their work to the public domain for anyone to use. And CC0 allows you to download and use images for commercial use.

Here’s an excerpt from the Creative Commons FAQ:

A person using CC0 (called the “affirmer” in the legal code) dedicates a work to the public domain by waiving all of his or her copyright and neighboring and related rights, if any, in a work, to the fullest extent permitted by law. If the waiver isn’t effective for any reason, then CC0 acts as a license from the affirmer granting the public an unconditional, irrevocable, non exclusive, royalty free license to use the work for any purpose.
– CreativeCommons.org

So basically, if you find an image on a website that uses Creative Commons CC0 licensing, you can do whatever you want with it. And you don’t have to worry about some crazy legal issue down the road for using the image.

I wanted to give you 5 sites to consider. If you find an image you want to use, make sure it’s covered by CC0 licensing. Many of these websites use ads to pay for their hosting expenses. Often the ads are for iStockPhoto or other paid image sites. So you need to pay attention as you are clicking around.

Top 5 Sites with CC0 Licensed Images

1. Pixabay.com
2. Gratisography.com
3. Pexels.com
4. NegativeSpace.co
5. FoodiesFeed.com

Let me know what you think! Was this totally boring? Was it super helpful? Have you had a situation where an image you used from a website became a problem? My hope is that you learned something.

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