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Tag: office 2010

Google Docs as File converter

Converting documents to Word or Open Office e.t.c is a pain if you need to do them occasionally, even more true for people who use Mac and Linux and don’t have Microsoft office. Usually one is not sure how their resume would look on MS office if they created the document on Open office or iWork or any other non Microsoft product (unfortunately majority of the world use Microsoft Sad smile) . These cross platform issues would be easier if there was just one format, but that wouldn’t help Microsoft mint money would it?  If you are going to convert files occasionally , there is no point searching for a separate application  and having it add to the clutter on your  computer.  All these hassle could be easily taken care with a Google account.

Here’s how it works :google_docs_logo

Just upload your document Word or Open office or TXT to Google Docs. (you need to be logged in to your Gmail or Google account)

Open the document you just uploaded to convert , then using the Download as option under the file menu  to convert the document as a HTML or PDF or RTF or txt or DOC or ODT.

Now  you have  converted the file to your required format with a bonus of  safely backing up the document on Google’s servers for future use.  If you don’t wish to back up you need to remove the file manually.

Google does a great job converting word or open office formats to PDF, but the reverse (PDF to Word or txt etc)  is just very basic and minimal. May be you should try here for some better PDF to word conversion. Also note that password protected documents are still not supported for upload  into Google docs and hence conversion wouldn’t be possible as well.

While Google Docs would help solve your occasional file format problems, If you require something really advanced and offline, I suggest you look at standalone application for that specific file format conversion based on your platform (Mac, Linux, Windows, e.t.c).

If you didn’t already know, you can save your documents to PDF and Open office format using Office 2010 using the save as option. Office 2007 don’t and before versions of Microsoft office don’t allow this. 

If you are looking for a specific convertor to convert your files (any format) to PDF, you should try this Open source application called PDF Creator . Please note that PDF Creator is available only for windows as of now.

Feel free to tell me if this post was useful. I would be glad to hear if you have a better alternative.

How to: change Send &Receive settings in Outlook 2010

My wishes to you all on this New year 2010.  This post is just to help my fellow beings on this earth to change a few settings in Outlook 2010. Since the beta release, I have been enjoying the new outlook 2010 (of course with out any glitches 🙂 ). It so happened that I had do a fresh installation of Office 2010 and had to reconfigure my settings (my previous installation had the outlook profile from 2007). Since this time I  was forced to create a new profile, I created one as per instructions and every thing went well, till I got struck with getting outlook to do a send receive for every 5 minutes. It nearly took  15 minutes  (had to go through each menu item thoroughly) to figure out the hidden menu.  Basically the option to configure the Send & Receive settings has been moved  and is now found under the FILE menu , OPTIONS and then Advanced items. Here is a screen shot of Send /Receive option.

Outlook Settings

Also do note that majority  of the settings(Signatures,Fonts, styles, Calendar formats, etc)  are configurable from this options menu. Its a pretty important menu, but just that its not visible right away. Feel free to share the experiences you had with the software.

Office 2010 rocks!

I am not a Microsoft guy, ask any friend of mine, they will tell you I am apple freak. Office 2010 beta is available for download on the Official site and Technet, Half an hour of using the apps convinced me to write this post. It’s been a day since the Beta version is available for download so better hurry. Trust me when I say its worth the effort. I just tried the Outlook beta. It feels so thin, like a breeze while using it. There is lot of screen space left for me to play around with. Its pretty fluid with a flow. The Ribbon menu view feels better, now that I kinda got used to the other Office 07 apps. One feature that immediately caught my eye was the file menu where you get to  modify your account settings, etc  i never liked the popup window in the older versions. Its very stable and robust The Inbox: Outlook The File Menu in Outlook Outlook2 Never have I seen any Office product start like the beta Excel this time. I Liked their splash screen too. All the other apps have become lighter as well and the usability is even better. Well I always have this interest to search for the “not so resource savvy” apps ( That is why I even ditched Itunes ). Probably for Office 2010 I won’t have that urge. I haven’t had the time to explore all the features yet.  I am looking forward to the online synchronization  and collaboration features that i am still to explore and probably the web Office. Except for the upgrade everything worked well. Upgrade failed badly. So I had to uninstall the previous version of Office and then reinstall the beta. I would have been happier if the upgrade had worked, but still this was the fresh installation was a no brainer and hassle free. For some reason the icons seem pretty odd in the start menu with all those alphabet symbols. I kinda liked the 2007 icons in the start menu. In spite of all the hitch at the start, I liked it better than any windows product.  After all Scoble was not wrong when he mentioned office 2010 is very cool. I seriously never thought it would be so cool. Overall it seems a good quarter for Microsoft, with windows 7 earlier and now Office 2010. What do you think? I ‘d love to here from you.