productivity

=Productivity Basics=

General Information Universal File Formats - PDF (Portable Document Format) - RTF (Rich Text Format) - Other Universal File Formats Other Office Suites (other than Microsoft Office!)

Also see Web 2.0, Google Tools, Screen Capture, Survey & Forms Tools, Quiz & Test Tools, Organize Yourself, Accessible Software

**GENERAL INFORMATION**
Killer Apps of Academia by Zack Whittaker http://blogs.zdnet.com/igeneration/?p=137 Small Business Essentials: Special Report on Top Selling Software http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/essentials/index.php/15471 “From Internet security and virus scanning to accounting and office productivity, learn which software titles are winning small-business users.” Most are commercial products.

Free Alternatives to Macromedia and Adobe Software __http://vinterstille.dk/free-alternatives-to-macromedia-and-adobe-software__

Ruler Bars http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=347331 “Ruler Bars is a pop-up set of vertical and horizontal rulers that you can drag to any position on your screen. The rulers can be set to measure inches, centimeters, or pixels.” (Product by Multimedia Science; download from ZDNet.)

Time Card Calculator… http://www.1728.com/timecard.htm

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Screencast Central [|http://www.screencastcentral.com/] This site has links to a number of screencasts showing how to do things in many productivity tools.

ZamZar http://www.zamzar.com Free online file conversion tool. They send you the converted file. They offer other services –and the ability to convert files larger than 100MB - for a (small) fee.

**UNIVERSAL FILE FOMATS**
PDF, RTF, OTHER


 * //PDF// (//Portable Document Format//)**

CutePDF http://www.cutepdf.com/ "Create professional quality PDF files from almost any printable document. **FREE** for personal, commercial, gov or edu use! No watermarks! No popup Web ads!"

Adobe Reader (free) http://get.adobe.com/reader/ This only lets you read PDF files, not create them.

Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional (commercial) http://www.uwec.edu/help/acrobat8.htm

What are PDFs? http://www.seniortechcenter.org/desktop_publishing/pdfs.php

PDF http://desktoppub.about.com/od/electronicpublishing/g/pdf.htm

Using PDFs http://www.seniortechcenter.org/desktop_publishing/using_pdfs.php

Using PDF Files for Presentation Materials http://www.presentersonline.com/technology/software/pdf.shtml

XPDF (PDF Viewer) http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/home.html

Sumatra PDF (PDF Viewer) http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/

Sumatra PDF Portable - the portable PDF viewer http://portableapps.com/apps/office/sumatra_pdf_portable This version is “packaged as a portable app, so you can view PDF files on the go. You can place it on your USB flash drive, iPod, portable hard drive or a CD and use it on any computer, without leaving any personal information behind.”

Web Archive: Providing and Managing Accessible PDF Documents Presenter: Paul Turenne from NetCentric Technologies http://easi.cc/archive/netcentric/netcentric.htm EASI has an archive of just the presentation, just the audio, or both.

Comparison of Free PDF Software []

//**RTF (Rich Text Format)**// Benefits of Rich Text Format (RTF) http://www.seniortechcenter.org/desktop_publishing/rich_text_format.php

When to Use Rich Text Format (RTF) for Desktop Publishing http://desktoppub.about.com/od/textacquisition/a/richtextformat.htm When to Use Tab Delimited Files in Desktop Publishing http://desktoppub.about.com/od/textacquisition/a/tabdelimited.htm
 * //OTHER// //UNIVERSAL FILE FORMATS//**

Text Mining Tool - free converter of PDF, DOC, HTML and other files to text http://text-mining-tool.com/ “Text Mining Tool is a freeware program for extraction of text from files of the next types:pdf, doc, rtf, chm, html without need to have installed any other programs like Word, Arcrobat, etc. The beauty of the program is that it works, extremely simply, on almost all common forms of documents. That includes HTML web pages, both DOC and RTF document formats from Microsoft Word and others like Open Office, Windows Help files ending in CHM, and portable documents using PDF format.”

**OTHER OFFICE SUITES**
//Also see// Microsoft Office //and// Open Office//, which is a free, open source alternative to// Microsoft Office//.//

Office Suite Software http://www.cachesoftware.com/Software/Office-Suite-Software.htm

Zoho http://www.zoho.com/ This is a suite of free online applications such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, database, wiki, note taker, organizer, project management, web conferencing, etc The site says “Our vision is to provide our customers (individuals, students, educators, non-profits, small and medium sized businesses) with the most comprehensive set of applications available anywhere …”

Zoho Viewer [|http://viewer.zoho.com]

IBM Lotus Symphony (free) http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa

NeoOffice [Open Office for Mac] [|http://neooffice.org] or [|http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php 

Corel WordPerfect Office [commercial product] http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=Corel2/Products/Home&pid=1047022958453 Corel calls their product “the other Office” (They actually say that on their home page!)

Ability Office [commercial product] [|http://www.ability.com] The different versions include different products. The Professional version includes all of them.