Create high quality PDFs from webpages using Chrome’s built-in PDF Printer

January 27, 2012 Free Tools, PDF, Tips

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Being that we are all, obviously, huge PDF fans, we have come across a very useful way to convert webpages to PDFs when using the Chrome browser. The Google Chrome browser comes with a built-in PDF printer which can be used for converting web articles into PDF. It doesn’t allow for the conversion of any other types of document to PDF, just web pages. If you need anything else converted to a PDF, then you can use our own Cometdocs.

Compared to other web PDF printers, the Chrome printer produces very high quality PDF files. The printer does a good job of recreating the web page almost perfectly, with all text and pictures included. You can also selected and copy the text from the PDF, unlike with some other PDF printers, which just take a screenshot, creating PDFs which would have to go through OCR process in order to be converted to text.

The whole conversion process is pretty straightforward. Just right click anywhere on the page and choose the Print option.

Now in the list of printers, choose the option Print to PDF. As you can see on the right side there is a Print Preview as well, so you can see how will your PDF file look like.

After that, determine where you want the document to be saved, which completes this fast process.

However, the one problem that many complain about when printing web images is that there is too much clutter involved, meaning that the ads and other extraneous pictures are transferred to PDF as well.

One way to deal with this is to install a Chrome extension called Readability, which effectively removes this clutter from your PDF.

So if you want to print the web page to PDF, first you need to convert it to the Readability reading view like you see on the picture, and then repeat the process from above.

How to export your data from Google services

January 26, 2012 Conversion, Documents, Tips

Did you know that Google has a service which allows you to download all your data? The service’s name is Google TakeOut, and with it you can download data from one or all of Google’s services that you may use, including Google +, Buzz, Circles, Contacts, Documents, Knol, Picasa Web Albums, Profile, Stream and Google Voice.

Just head over to Google Takeout and you’ll see a list of all the services that can be linked to it.

You can immediately click on “Create Archive” in order to create an archive from any or all of these services.

To choose particular services, click on “Choose Service” and decide which ones you want to use. Then click on “Create Archive.” If you have a lot of data, it will take several minutes for all of the data to be exported.

Once the process is complete, a link will appear in the Download section, with which you will be able to export your data.

This service is very useful, especially if you want to export a large collection of documents while and data at once. Also, it is useful if you are planning on closing your Google account or getting another one. It is also a great way to back up all of your data in the case that you might experience any problems with your Google account, making this a great way to avoid losing anything that may be important to you.

Best Online Tools for Creating and Building Maps

January 20, 2012 Free Tools, Online Tools, Tips

We use maps every day, no matter whether we just want to see where something is located, or we are trying to get from one place to another. Thanks to the Internet, you will never have to deal with paper maps again, and most importantly, reading makes and getting the information you need from them has never been easier.

People need to create maps for many different reasons, and whether they are planning a vacation, making a presentation, or even teachers explaining geography, there are many mapping-related sites out there that can help.

Here are some of the best mapping tools you will find online that can help you get where you are going, see where you have been, or find out where you would like to go.

Animaps

If you are familiar with using the My Maps feature on Google Maps, then you will be happy to know that this is an interesting extension of that feature. After creating maps, you can add markers and images to them and then send the maps to friends as animated videos. A great way to tell a story of a trip or send easy-to-follow directions with the use of maps.

Tripline

This is a great way to share with your friends and family information regarding your travels and places you have been. Sure you can show them pictures from your trips, but showing them the amount you have travelled and the distances you have gone on a map can sometimes be even more impressive than pictures from the beach. It’s also great for planning trips and vacations and sharing your itineraries.

Build a Map

Use this service to create interactive and fun online maps very easily. It is powered by Google Maps, but allows you to use map data from other sources as well if you can’t find exactly what you are looking for with Google. It also allows you to embed the finished map on your website and share it.

ScribbleMaps

If you need to jot down some notes on maps and leave reminders for yourself with ruining a paper map for good, this is the best tool to use. Not only can you add text and notes to your maps, you can also add images, create custom widgets for your maps and then export your maps to both Google Maps and Google Earth.

QuikMaps

This is one of the less practical tools we are going to list, but it definitely can be used for some fun and for giving simple directions. This is a Google Maps offshoot that allows you to place markers onto maps and draw approximate routes.

Mapquest

This is probably the best site available for people who are interested in getting good directions. Mapquest has been the go-to site for many years for people who are on the road a lot and need to get very accurate directions. Whether you want to get somewhere fast or save money on gas and tolls, Mapquest can help you out.

UMapper

This one is a favorite tool for teachers to use because it not only offers map-making capabilities, but also the ability to create geography-related games and distribute them easily. The site also offers you the ability to make money on your displayed maps through advertising possibilities.

Travellers Point

This is an all-in-one travelers’ site that not only allows you to create maps for your planned trips and travels, but also book hotels and other accommodations as well without leaving the site. And once the trip is done, you can share your traveling stories and upload pictures through the site’s blog and even review the hotels or hostels you were staying in during your trip.

ZeeMaps

Another great interactive map creation site that will allow you to customize your maps with notes and markers and also create PDF and JPEG images from the finished products.

TripGeo

This is another site that is great for getting maps and directions to and from places. The best part is that you can not only get driving directions from this site, but also directions for walking and even biking if you are interested in trails more so than in roads.

PlaniGlobe

A site that allows you to work on your maps interactively with other users. The best thing about these maps is that can be downloaded as ps and ai versions so that they can be used in programs like PostScript and Illustrator. This means that you can have vector format maps, which means that you will be freed of the size and resolution limitations you would have when turning such maps into JPEGs or GIFs.

 OpenStreetMap

Yet another collaborative map that is constantly receiving input from people all around the world. It allows just about anyone to view, edit and use this geographical data, which makes it increasingly accurate and provides the user with very detailed and specific information.

So there you have it. Check out these great sites if you are in need of some good maps to help you find your way.

Best Chrome Extensions to Help You with Office Work

January 12, 2012 Documents, Free Tools

For many people, web browsers are necessary tools for work. Searching the Internet for data, references, contacts, clients, information, and much more, is simply part of the work. Since Google Chrome has recently passed all other browsers in terms of popularity, we have collected for you some of the best extensions that can be of great help for you at work.

Stay Focused

The Internet is full of interesting stuff that can turn our attention away from work and interfere with our concentration. This is why this extension is very useful. It limits access to time-wasting websites and helps us focus better on our work. It can be configured in multiple ways to block sites and domains that keep you from your work.

SpringPad

This extension helps you organize yourself better. You have a couple of different notebooks here in which you can enter important information and numbers. Data is also synced across various platforms, enabling you to access it from any computer or smart phone with an internet connection.

Remind me

If you want to avoid forgetting to do important things, then this extension is perfect for you. You can set up reminders at a specific time of day, and make sure that you will not forget to do everything that needs to get done.

 Time  Tracker

This extension is perfect for time management. It allows you to split your work into tasks and measure how much time you will need to perform each individual task. This way, you can analyze your work and make yourself more productive in the long run.

Too Many Tabs

When the number of opened tabs is gets too big, it becomes hard to deal with, however, sometimes all of them are important for our work. In this case, the best solution is to use the too many tabs extension, which takes care of this problem by reorganizing the way in which your tabs appear and enables you to categorize your tabs better.

Incredible Start Page

Incredible start page is a great productivity tool. Because it gives you a start-up page within the browser that displays for you your most important bookmarks right away.  With your most important site immediately visible and easy to reach, you are already off to a faster start than usual.

Session Manager

Session manager is perfect for when you are doing some research and need to save a collection of pages all at once. Bookmarking them all doesn’t solve the problem, because all bookmarks have to be opened one by one, and the also have to be deleted one by one if we don’t need them any longer. Session Manager is much a better solution, because we can open multiple websites with one click and then delete them all when we no longer need them with just one click again.

Awesome ScreenShot

Awesome screenshot helps take a screenshot of whole page and then capture or crop a selected area. Also, you can annotate it with rectangles, arrow, lines text, etc. This is great for taking notes online or for giving someone instructions for performing a certain task on a particular website.

 

10 Great Free Alternatives to AutoCAD

December 28, 2011 Autocad, Documents, Free Tools

AutoCAD is the most used computer program for people who need to create 2D and 3D drawings and diagrams, especially in industries such as architecture, interior design and engineering. Being that it is the industry standard, it is also quite an expensive program to buy.

If you are looking to get into AutoCAD and this type of design work, but you are not yet certain if it is for you, there are some free alternatives out there that you can try which work similarly.

Also, if you need some 2D and 3D design work done and don’t have the money to spring for AutoCAD, here are some great, completely free alternatives to check out.

1. QCAD

This is an application that will allow you to draft two dimensions objects. It’s a great tool for all types of technical drawings, works for Windows, Mac OS X and many Linux and Unix Systems, and of course, it is completely free.

2. Creo Elements

One of the more popular choices for 3D work. It is a very fast and flexible alternative to AutoCAD with many options included that AutoCAD is known for having.

3. Google SketchUp

Just as Google seems to have an alternative for just about any paid program you can think of, it has an AutoCAD alternative as well. SketchUp has been lauded as a very versatile and easy-to-use alternative for design students and professionals.

4. FreeCAD

This is an Open Source 3D modeler that works great for mechanical engineering and product design. The program can help in various types of design and modeling programs and runs exactly the same way on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux platforms.

5. DraftSight

Great software for students, professionals and teachers which can be used to create, edit and view all types of DWG files, which is the most common format for most CAD-related applications.

6. BRL-CAD

A cross-platform and open source solid modeling system that has a bunch of different features to offer, including interactive geometry editing, image and signal-processing tools and large libraries for making tons of different types of geometric representations.

7. gCAD3D

This free software offers many features, including an integrated 3D-OpenGL viewer, a program interpreter for geometry and NC commands in 3D, an integrated NC processor and can be used with Windows and Linux. The website is a little sparse and confusing, but the freeware is not.

8. Archimedes

A 3D modeling application that allows you to create complex compound 3D shapes. It is touted for being one of the most functional free AutoCAD alternatives out there.

9. PythonCAD

One for the Linux users, this is a CAD package that was written in the Python programming language, hence the name. One of the best open-source CAD packages for Linux, and it’s also quite simple to use if you have any kind of prior experience with two and three dimensional modeling.

10. progeCAD

This one is free for private use but cannot be used commercially. It reads and writes pretty much all AutoCAD files and has an interface that is very similar to AutoCAD’s, which makes it highly recommended among people who have experience with AutoCAD beforehand.

 

How to convert and upload mp3 music to Youtube?

December 20, 2011 Conversion, Free Tools, Images, Tips

Have you ever not been able to find a song you like on Youtube and then had the need to upload it yourself? Maybe  you have written and recorded a song of your own and would like to upload it to Youtube for the world to hear. If you have tried to upload your music to Youtube, you might have noticed that the site does not accept mp3s, only video formats.

Thankfully there is a way to get around that.

You will have to turn your mp3 of music into a video or simply create a video for your song.

There are online services out there that can convert your mp3s into a video file, but a lot of them limit you as far as the size of the file that you can upload and how creative you can get with the visual aspects of your video.

The easiest way to get your mp3s onto Youtube is to make a simple video in the Windows Live Movie Maker, which is a free software that you can download from Microsoft website.

First you need to add your music and accompanying pictures in the video. Be careful with the images you choose to display, because you don’t want to infringe on any copyrights, but still, try to use images that are relevant to the music. For example, if it is a song your grandmother used to sing to you, you can put a picture of her, or maybe pictures from your childhood.

First click on Add music or music to add the song of your choice to the project, and then just take the file and drag it down to the reel.

To import the images, just click on Import photos and select pictures from your computer that you want to use.

You will notice that once you drag the images down onto the reel, you will have to adjust the amount of time each image appears in the video by simply clicking it and stretching it.  If you do not want to do this manually, just go to Project and then to Fit to music, which gives all of your images an equal amount of time over the music.

You can also include some animations to spice up the video a bit. Click on Animate and choose your desired animation. Experiment a bit, because there are a lot of interesting effects to choose from when transitioning between images in your video.

After everything is finished you can save the video on your computer by clicking on Save Movie File in the File menu. Once you have the video file on your computer, you can then upload it to your Youtube account and share it with others.

How to Create and Convert your Fonts?

December 7, 2011 Conversion, Free Tools, PDF, Word

Microsoft Windows comes with its own predetermined fonts that you can choose from when you are using its programs – most notably word processing programs like Microsoft Word.

But there are many more creative and interesting fonts out there that do not come with Windows. You can use these fonts to make your writing and presentation stick out and look unique in a crowd. There are lots of websites that offer great font collections, for example http://www.identifont.com/ or http://www.identifont.com/.

When you download a font, you can right click on it and click Install (if you have Windows 7) or if you have Windows XP you can follow this instruction: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/windows_fonts_addnew.mspx?mfr=true

Since Fonts can come in multiple formats and some of the formats are specific for a certain Operating System, you can convert them into the matching format. The most common font formats are rueType (.ttf), OpenType (.oft) and PostScript (.ps). If you find a font that is in some other format and want to convert it to one of these, you can use this Free Online Font Converter. It supports almost all major formats. Just upload the fonts you want converted and click on Convert button.

However, if you want to create fonts of your own, you can do that too. Even if you are not a web designer or a person who knows how to use Adobe Photoshop or similar software, you can still make your own fonts.  All you need to do is to visit this website: http://fontstruct.com/.

On this website, you can create your fonts by adding building blocks. It is a very good mechanism for creating new fonts that even complete beginners can master.

All you need to do is to register and make your own account. First, you will be presented with options to create fonts by adding and organizing small blocks. There is a preview options that lets you see how your font is progressing and you will need to create a letter or a sign for each key on the keyboard when you are making an all new font. When you finish, you can download the Fonts in TrueType format, which is supported by both Mac and Windows.

Here’s another quick tip regarding fonts. If you use downloaded fonts on your computer and want to send a text to a friend, that person will not be able to see the text if he or she doesn’t have the same fonts installed on his or her own computer. In order to avoid this problem, the best solution would be to convert what you write to PDF. PDF is visible on every computer.  You can do it by using our free online PDF creation service - Cometdocs, or by using some kind of PDF printer like this one, for example:  http://www.pdfconverter.com/freepdfcreator/

 

 

Tips and Tricks for using Scribd

December 2, 2011 Conversion, Documents, PDF

Scribd is a free social sharing and publishing service you can use to get your various documents out to the world. You can upload your documents that you think other users will find useful and search a seemingly limitless number of documents that other users have posted. Also, you can preview and read experts from books before buying them.

You can upload and share any kind of document – resumes, schoolwork, essays, poems, presentations, recipes, tutorials – pretty much anything.

There is a huge number of reasons why Scribd can be useful to you. It is good for research, learning, brainstorming, sharing ideas, and for general social interaction as well.

You can follow users who upload documents on the topics you are interested in, comment on them and become part of a community. You can also share Scribd documents and embed them on your own website. Scribd is definitely a great service without a doubt.

Here are some tips and tricks for using Scribd to its potential and exploring the service completely.

1.      Explore for more documents

Given that Scribd has a huge number of documents, a simple search sometimes can’t help you to find interesting people or documents. This is especially true if uploaders dodn’t put search friendly titles and descriptions into their documents.

To perform a more thorough search, go to Explore to open up more options for searching.

Here you can sort documents by topic, popularity, most discussed, file types, and many other parameters.

 2.      Easier reading

If you find that a document is hard to read, check  out View Mode. If you choose SlideShow, you can navigate only with the Next and Previous page buttons, but if you choose Scroll mode you can just scroll through the pages.

Also, for easier reading, you might want to check out the FullScreen View. It helps you to read without distractions and to dedicate your full attention to the document.

3.      Embedding

If you like a specific document and want to share it on your website, you can find embed codes by clicking on Embed and Share – Embed. There is even a special code for sharing on WordPress, which doesn’t not allow users to change the HTML code.

4.       Quality of PDFs

If you have uploaded your PDF file on Scribd and you are not satisfied with how it looks, the problem might be the quality of your PDF file. In that case, you might want to change your PDF creation tool. You can use Cometdocs for PDF creation, Adobe’s PDF creation online service, or online file- to-PDF creators.

5.      Make your documents easy to discover

If you want to share your original work on Scribd, which is highly encouraged and will make it possible for you to download the documents of other publisher’s, you need to add appropriate titles, descriptions, categories  and tags. This will enable you to make your documents more search-friendly.

6.       Update documents

You can upload the latest or revised versions of your document without losing read counts, ratings, or comments.  Just go to Advanced Edit – Revisions.

or open your  document and click on Upload a revision

7.       Scribd desktop uploader

The Scribd desktop uploader makes it possible to upload documents from your desktop and upload them to multiple Scribd accounts at once.

8.       Protect your documents

If you want to protect your work from plagiarism, you can restrict users from downloading or copying it and set up a license for document use. Go to Advanced Edit and make all necessary changes.

9.       Analyze stats

Scribd offers multiple features for analyzing the locations of your readers, how your document is being shared, which keywords are bringing people to your documents, who the referrers are, and much, much more. Just click on the Check Stats button in your Dashboard to check these stats out.

How to create Mind Maps in Microsoft Word 2010

November 18, 2011 Documents, Tips, Word

There are many online and offline tools for creating mind maps and many of them are excellent. Microsoft Word is one of them, and has a pretty solid mind map creation tool as well. Your only limit is your creativity when using these tools. Basically, you can create mind maps in any version of Microsoft Word. MS Word 2010 is different because it offers more possibilities due to its improved picture-cropping functionality.

Creating mind maps is extremely easy. Mind maps are perfect when you want to organize, visualize, classify, or structure thoughts, ideas or concepts into a simple graphic. It can help you study better, or present ideas to others more effectively.

If you are a teacher and you want to summarize lessons to your students, or you’re holding a presentation and want to point out certain key points, mind maps come in handy as well.

Here is how you do it. Open Microsoft Word and set up the Page Layout to be Portrait if you want a bigger map, but if you want a smaller one, Landscape will do.

Then choose the Insert – Shapes option or Insert – SmartArt. You’ll see a great number of shapes to choose from. By using Shapes you can combine circles or rectangles and way you’d like. As you see in the picture, you can connect the shapes by using arrows.

When you choose a Shape you can adjust size, color, borders, among other things, and you can insert text into every shape as well.

 

With SmartArt, everything is premade so that you don’t need to make many adjustments yourself.

 

What is new in Microsoft Word 2010 is that you can crop pictures and turn them into shapes very easily.

Go to Insert – Picture, then select a picture to see all of the cropping possibilities. Crop the part of the picture you need for your mind map. Crop to Shape is also useful, because you can shape the cropped picture and make it a part of your mind map that way.

 

You can use clipart as well if you do not have your own photos. Check our previous article on how to insert and find new clipart for Office documents.

Where to find free clipart for your MS Office documents and presentations?

November 14, 2011 Documents, Free Tools, Images, PowerPoint

Clipart is the name given to graphic illustrations that are widely used in documents and presentations. Using them makes documents more interesting, attention-grabbing and helps us to illustrate what are we talking about better through pictures that complement our words. If you don’t use images and graphics in your documents and presentation, you risk losing the reader’s interest, because let’s face it, no one wants to read a wall of text. Clipart helps to spice up documents and presentations and keep them interesting and colorful.

To insert Clipart in you’re an MS Word Document go to Insert – Clipart, and from there you can search a large collection of Clipart.

The same procedure goes for Microsoft PowerPoint.

But clipart can be used not only in documents, but in letters, blog articles, diagrams, postcards, business cards, tables, teaching materials, student projects, comics and much, much more…

There is a pretty large selection of clipart in every MS Office document, but if you want even more, there are plenty of websites that offer free clipart. In most cases, all you have to do is give proper attribution to the clipart creator before using it.

If you are looking for large databases of free clipart, check these out.

1)      OpenClipart is a selection of free open-source clipart. All of the clipart is in the vector graphics format,

2)      Classroom Clipart has a collection of more than 100,000 free clipart images and illustrations,

3)      Discovery Education provides you with educational clipart,

4)      iClipart offers more than 25,000 free graphics,

5)      HassleFreeClipart has a collection of very interesting clipart, images, and illustrations,

6)      WpClipart  is a collection of high-quality free clipart and photos in multiple formats,

7)      Artvex has more than 10,000 free, original pieces of clipart available,

8)      ClipartPal contains has some fairly original images and graphics to choose from,

 

 

 

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