Recently, I gave a presentation on academic technology at the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development at Xavier University of Louisiana. One of my favorite tools to show is Mendeley, a pdf manager with a very nifty MS Word interface for references (see this blog post). During my presentation, I created a Word document, entered some in-text citations via Mendeley, and then clicked “Insert Bibliography,” and like magic, the full list of references for all of those in-text citations appeared. And then I showed how you can quickly switch from, say, APA style to Chicago and back again.

A sharp-eyed participant (who was watching via Zoom web conferencing) looked at the bibliography, and said, “There’s an error in the reference.” That’s when I got to show how easy it is to fix any errors in Mendeley and how to use a little-used feature in Word.

First, Mendeley. Mendeley works by pulling metadata off the pdf. Each journal article pdf in the databases libraries use has hidden data attached to it. The publisher includes information like the title of the article, name of the publication, year, volume, doi, authors, and abstract. When you add such a pdf to Mendeley, Mendeley also pulls out that information and uses it to create in-text citations and a full reference based on whatever style you choose to use.

The error the participant saw was in a journal article title – every word was capitalized; in APA style, only the first word and the word after a colon is capitalized (plus proper nouns, of course). The metadata for the article title sometimes has all of the words capitalized and sometimes just the initial word, depending on whim or policy of the publisher. The fix is easy. In Mendeley, click on the title, change the capitalization of each word so it is correct. Since Mendeley autosaves, all I needed to do was go back to my Word document, click “Refresh,” and just like that the reference updated with the correct capitalization.

Easy, but tedious. Click on a word, delete the first letter, type the capital letter. Repeat for each incorrectly capitalized word in the title. And some of those journal article titles are just so dang long, such as “Strengthening Causal Estimates for Links Between Spanking and Children’s Externalizing Behavior Problems.” That’s nine capital letters I need to change.

Screenshot from Mendeley showing the article metadata

Anytime I encounter something that is tedious, I think, “I bet someone’s created an easier way to do this.”

Here’s Word’s easy fix. Copy and paste the journal article title into Word. Highlight the text. And then on the “Home” tab, click the “Aa” button and select lowercase (or uppercase). That will change all of the letters to, well, lowercase (or uppercase).

Click the “Aa” button again, and select “Sentence case.” Now just the first word will be capitalized.

That’s it. A quick copy and paste into Mendeley, and my reference is updated.

For reasons I don’t understand – I’m certain it has to do with how Word has been coded – “sentence case” only works if all of the letters are of the same case, thus the need to do lowercase (or uppercase) first. And if anyone can tell me why someone would need “toggle case” please write it in the comments.

I was honored earlier this month to be a guest on a podcast on teaching hosted by Elizabeth Yost Hammer, director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development (CAT+FD) at Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA). The topic was – no surprise – technology for teaching and learning.

When you have 40 minutes to kill, give it a listen.

Elizabeth and I have been friends for years, and she knows that I read a lot of non-fiction. The podcast ends with Elizabeth asking about my three favorite books from 2017. Because of time limitations, I was limited to three – although I appreciate Elizabeth’s flexibility because I thought I was going to be able to just talk about one. In any case, she has given me a reason to give my entire list here. In the interest of full disclosure, Elizabeth and I are in online book group together, and for the last I-don’t-know-how-many years, in December or January I give an annotated list of my 5-star and 4-star books from the previous year. I hadn’t done it for 2017, so with Elizabeth’s prompting, I wrote it up. And here it is for you, with (most of the) typos edited out.

5-star books

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds by Michael Lewis

After Lewis wrote Money Ball, he learned that the biases he wrote about had been well-researched years earlier by Danny Kahneman and Amos Tversky. And that led to him writing this Kahneman/Tversky biography. It’s a must-read for anyone who teaches or has ever taught psychology.

The Orphan Tsunami of 1700: Japanese Clues to a Parent Earthquake in North America by Brian Atwater

The sleuthing that went into this discovery will have you on the edge of your seat. That 1700 quake was a biggie.  

Caesar’s Last Breath by Sam Kean

Kean (The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons, The Disappearing Spoon, The Violinist’s Thumb) brings us another awesome tour through science history. The framework for this one is gas – specifically the gases that we breathe. He opens with the death of Julius Caesar and the liter of air that was expelled in Caesar’s last breath. It takes about 2 weeks for atoms in the breath you just exhaled to circumnavigate the globe and about 2 years to fully disperse in our atmosphere. It is likely that in that breath, you exhaled an atom or two of Caesar’s dying breath. That alone should be enough reason for you to pick up this book.

Get Well Soon: History’s Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them by Jennifer Wright

If you’re currently sick, as I was when I read it, the chapter on the bubonic plague will make you feel much better. The chapters on tuberculosis and the Spanish flu hit a little too close to home. Wright is a relatively new history writer – and she’s good. She gives a good sense of what it was like to live with these illnesses in those time periods. And she draws some powerful connections between then and now. If nothing else, read in the Spanish flu chapter how it came to be called the Spanish flu and not the more historically accurate Kansas flu.

The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine who Outwitted America’s Enemies by Jason Fagone

How did practice with decoding bootlegger messages during prohibition help bring down the Nazis? This fascinating biography starts in a group with a cult-like feel and ends with the creation of the NSA, another organization that arguably has a cult-like feel.

Huế 1968: A Turning Point of the American War in Vietnam by Mark Bowden

We’ve reached a point in American history where we can (finally) be more reflective about the Vietnam War. The author takes us into the experience of what this battle was like for people on both sides of the conflict – and reveals the hubris of both sides.

The Odyssey of Echo Company: The 1968 Tet Offensive and the Epic Battle to Survive the Vietnam War by Doug Stanton

The battle for Huế described in the book above took place during the Tet Offensive. This book takes a different angle and describes the experience of one company.

Apollo 8: The Thrilling Story of the First Mission to the Moon by Jeffrey Kluger

The year 1968 wasn’t just about war; this was also the year we sent people around the moon. The story that grabbed me the most from this book (and told in the XULA CAT+FD podcast) was Charles Lindbergh, merely in his 60s, visited with the astronauts the evening before their launch. I cannot, as hard as I try, wrap my head around that. How did we go from one guy flying solo across the Atlantic to sending people to fly around the moon in the span of 41 years?

Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah

This is Trevor Noah’s memoir about growing up in Johannesburg during apartheid. He’s an excellent storyteller with compelling stories to tell.

4-star books

What It Is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes

If the two 5-star books on the Vietnam War are not enough for you, consider this one. This is Marlantes personal war memoir. What was it like for him to serve in Vietnam? And what advice does he have for today’s soldiers?

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann

When you’re an ethnic minority and you have oil money, people have reason to want you dead and other people have reason not to care. And in the end we got the FBI.

Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History by Bill Schutt

About half the book is on human cannibalism and about half is on non-human cannibalism. You will not look at your neighbor the same way again.

The Great Quake: How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed Our Understanding of the Planet by Henry Fountain

This was the 1964 Alaska quake. And with it finally came an acceptance of plate tectonics.

Quakeland: On the Road to America’s Next Devastating Earthquake by Kathryn Miles

Miles writes in the style of Mary Roach. Identify a bunch of topics related to earthquakes, visit interesting places and talk with interesting experts, and then write about it. While not as funny as Roach – but that bar is pretty high – her writing is accessible and engaging. One chapter is dedicated to the 1700 Pacific Northwest quake. If you’re going to read the 5-star The Orphan Tsunami, then read that book first. I don’t want this chapter to ruin the mystery for you.

Logical Family: A Memoir by Armistead Maupin

Maupin has had a fascinating life.

“From his loving relationship with his palm-reading Grannie who insisted Maupin was the reincarnation of her artistic bachelor cousin, Curtis, to an awkward conversation about girls with President Richard Nixon in the Oval Office, Maupin tells of the extraordinary individuals and situations that shaped him into one of the most influential writers of the last century.”

And, yes, the conversation with Nixon was quite awkward.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel

This was the first graphic novel I’ve read. And I’m game to read another one.

[I knew that the Game of Thrones television show was too violent for me. And I had heard that the novels were just as gruesome. I thought I’d give the graphic novel a go. Nope. In the first 7 pages, a person was mauled by demonic creatures and others were beheaded.]

While there is death in Fun Home, there are no beheadings.

Al Franken, Giant of the Senate by Al Franken

This memoir focuses on his getting into office and being in office. He brings a humanity to the Senate that is tough to see from the outside. I skimmed the latter chapters when he hopped on top of a soapbox. No comment about his resignation.

Nine Who Survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki by Robert Trumbull

There are nine people that Japan recognizes as having survived both bombs. This book tells their stories. Some were in Hiroshima on business. After the bomb hit, they hopped on the train as soon as it started running again to return home – to Nagasaki.

Drone Warrior: An Elite Soldier’s Inside Account of the Hunt for America’s Most Dangerous Enemies by Brett Velicovich and Christopher S. Stewart

Drones are the new air support for ground troops. What does this new warfare look like?

Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones

This book provides the history and the context I needed to understand how we got to here. When I read recently about the 21 million opiates shipped to a town of 3,000 in West Virginia, I was not at all surprised.

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston

There is so much about ancient South American cities that we don’t know. See Get Well Soon for more on what happened to so many of these cities. Also, there are good reasons I’m not a jungle explorer. Enough said.

The Seeds of Life: From Aristotle to da Vinci, from Sharks’ Teeth to Frogs’ Pants, the Long and Strange Quest to Discover Where Babies Come From by Edward Dolnick

This book wins for longest subtitle. I remember when I read The Fourth Part of the World and was introduced to what it was like to live before we had maps, let alone accurate maps. The knowledge of the world we have today is astounding. Not only do I know where Europe is, I’ve been there. And with a credit card, I could be there tomorrow. The Seeds of Life does the same thing for knowing where babies come from. I graduated from storks a long time ago, and now I can’t fathom what it’s like to not know that. (This is sounding like the start of a psych blog post on hindsight bias.) How is it that science came around to finally sorting this out? And, you know, it wasn’t that long ago. This really is a fascinating history. You might know Dolnick as the author of The Clockwork Universe, The Forger’s Spell, and The Rush.

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore

It turns out that radium is dangerous. This a tragic story of how factory workers were seen as easily replaceable. I can’t say much more without giving away a lot.     

The Long Haul: A Trucker’s Tales of Life on the Road by Finn Murphy

Murphy will load up your furniture, haul it across the country, and unload it. While it sounds straightforward, he’s got some stories!

Blue on Blue: An Insider’s Story of Good Cops Catching Bad Cops by Charles Campisi

Internal Affairs, the department within the police department that looks into cop corruption, has never been looked upon favorably. Campisi found himself almost accidentally in charge of Internal Affairs at the New York Police Department. In what was a brilliant move, he took the best people coming out of the police academy, and assigned them to Internal Affairs for a set time period. After that, they could have any posting they wanted. That changed everything. Those who were working in Internal Affairs were known to be the best – and, more importantly, they didn’t have any choice but to do it. If they purposefully “failed” out of Internal Affairs school, they were given the worst posting imaginable. Campisi has some amazing stories to share – including some 9/11 challenges. Feel free to skip the last few chapters where Campisi identifies everything that has gone wrong with the department since he left.

The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel

This guy decides one day, without telling anyone, to go live in the woods. And there he stayed for 27 years. How did he live? Why did he do it? And why did he come back to civilization?

The Card Catalog: Books, Cards, and Literary Treasures by the Library of Congress

The history (and demise) of the card catalog as revealed through photos of cards from actual (retired) card catalogs. If you’re a fan of libraries – and especially if you remember the card catalog – this is a must-read.

When we moved from standing in the library making Xerox copies of journal articles to downloading pdfs from a database, it seemed like an awesome development. Until we realized that marking up pdfs digitally is not easy. I would not be surprised if you told me that you print your pdfs.

Here I will show you Mendeley Desktop for Windows. There are also desktop versions for Mac and Linux. Mendeley’s web interface will keep all of your content synched across your computers.

What does Mendeley do?

Indexing

Pdfs live on your computer wherever you want them to live. Mendeley acts as an indexer. Drag and drop your pdfs from a folder to have them indexed in Mendeley.

Right-click on any pdf to open its “containing folder” so you can see where that file is stored on your computer.

Within Mendeley, you can do some manual indexing of your own by moving your Mendeley pdfs into folders which are all on the left side of the screen. In the screenshot at the top of this post, you are looking at the contents of my “Course Eval Research” folder.

In the bottom left corner is a list of every article author in your Mendeley pdfs. Click on an author name to see all of the articles by that author.

Searching

Type in a search term in the top right corner and Mendeley in real time – meaning as you type – will return all pdfs that contain your search word anywhere in the document, highlighting your search term in bright yellow.

Taking notes

One of the challenges in working with pdfs is how to take notes on them.

Double-click on any of your pdfs to open it. Use the toolbar at the top to add notes or highlight text. On the right side panel, click the notes tab to see your notes. Change the color of your note based on the type of note. For example, the notes that I want to follow up on in some way I make green. Double-click on any note to take you to that place in the pdf.

Mendeley is not altering the original pdf. Mendeley is a sort of transparency that lies on top of the pdf. You’re writing on the transparency, not on the pdf.

At this writing, the “general notes” at the top of the notes page searchable, but your “private annotations” are not.

Sharing

Working with collaborators or a research team? Create a group to share your pdfs.

Click “Create Group” in the left side panel, and select the type of group you want. Choose “Private” if you want to share your pdfs’ “private annotations.”

MS Word integration – where the magic happens

Mendeley has an add-in for MS Word that pulls in your references from the pdfs you have stored in Mendeley. Almost all pdfs you download from a library database contain metadata – data stored in the pdf file but that is generally not visible to you. Mendeley pulls out that metadata and makes it visible in discrete data fields, like author, title, publication, abstract.

Select an article, and in the “Details” tab on the right, you will see the article’s metadata.

The MS Word plug-in makes use of that metadata. [The plug-in should install automatically when you download Mendeley Desktop.]

Let’s say you’re writing something about the research from one of your pdfs. When you’re ready to include the in-text citation, from the “References” tab on the Word ribbon, click the “Insert Citation” button. In the pop-up start typing author name, title, or year, and Mendeley will give you a list of articles to choose from. Select your article and click “Ok.” If you press “Enter” instead, you can search for additional articles to include in your citation. Go to the end of your document, and click “Insert Bibliography” to, well, insert your bibliography. Any new citations you add will automatically be updated in your bibliography. Delete a citation? Click the “Refresh” button, and it will be deleted from the bibliography.

This metadata is created by humans, and sometimes humans make mistakes. Mendeley understands that and makes it easy for you to edit the metadata. Just click on the field to select it for editing, and edit away. When you are done editing, Mendeley saves the change automatically. Go back to Word, and click “Refresh,” and your citation will be updated.

Web importer

Do you reference a lot of web content? Install Mendeley’s web importer into your favorite browsers. Click the Mendeley button to get the pop-up. Enter the information and click save. This will save the reference in Mendeley; it will not save the page. [You may need to click the Mendeley “Sync” button to see the reference appear in Mendeley Desktop.]

If you want to save the page as a pdf, I encourage you to use CleanPrint (read my blog post) to eliminate all of the content from the page you don’t need, save the pdf, drag/drop into Mendeley, and then add the metadata. That sounds like more work than it is, and you only need to do it once.

Troubleshooting

Sometimes in the Mendeley Word plug-in, the “Insert Citation” button will disappear. Save any documents you have open in Word. Close Word. When you run Word again, the button will reappear.

Conclusion

Start using Mendeley. Like any software it can take a bit of time to get used to, but once you get the hang of it, I doubt you’ll go back.

This functionality is now native to Canvas.

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After I copy my current course into my Canvas course shell for next term, I have to adjust all of the due dates. Going into each assignment and changing the date is tedious. And if you’ve been reading my blog, you know I hate tedium. Why can’t I see all of the due dates on one page and change them there? Here is a big time shout out to James Jones of Richland Community College for creating a mechanism that does just that. [And a shout out to Marc Lentini of Highline College for pointing me to all of James Jones’ Canvancements.]

What it is

You will see all of your course assignments in a single Google spreadsheet. Adjust the dates on the spreadsheet. Two clicks later, and all of those due dates will appear in your Canvas course. I see that incredulous look on your face. Pretty awesome, right?

How it works

Jones created a Google spreadsheet that you connect to your Canvas account using API (“application programming interface”). Canvas makes it easy to get an “API access token;” you create it in your account settings. That will give your Google spreadsheet permission to access data in your Canvas account. Next, you tell the spreadsheet which course you want it to access by pasting in the url for your course – just open your course and copy the url from your browser’s address bar. Then in the “Canvas” menu Jones put in that spreadsheet, select “Load due dates” and all of your assignments and current due dates will be downloaded to the spreadsheet; you can watch as each line is populated. Now, make your changes using the same date/time format. When you’re done, in the spreadsheet’s Canvas menu, select “Save due dates” and your new due dates will be uploaded to your Canvas course. Reload your Canvas course, and, like magic, your assignments will all have the new due dates.

How to do it

Jones created an excellent set of instructions. Just do what he says.

In step 4, you may have to “authorize” Google when you try to “Configure API Settings.” If so, just use whatever Google account you want to use. Once Google is “authorized,” then select “Configure API Settings” again.

As a heads up, when you follow the instructions to get the API access token for your Canvas account, you will likely have to scroll down on that Canvas page before you see the “New Access Token” button.

Bonus tools

Of Jones’ other Canvancements, I’ve installed “Sorting Dashboard Course Cards” so I can put the dashboard cards in the order I want, “QuizWiz” so I can save a rubric score or comment AND advance to the next student at the same time, and “Sorting Rubrics Made Easy” that (finally!) lets me move around the criteria in a rubric.

When presenting, I sometimes want to show something on my screen that is small. In Chrome, I can zoom in with CTRL + [plus sign], zoom out with CTRL + [minus sign], and return to normal with CTRL + [zero]. If it’s text I’m showing in Word, I can zoom in using the zoom slider in the bottom right corner. If I want to show, say, the Word toolbar ribbon, I have to use something else to magnify it. This is also for anyone who has said something like, “I know you can’t read what’s on this PowerPoint slide, but…”

Windows Magnifier is likely already installed on your computer – also good to know if you have to use someone else’s computer or your classroom computer. Search for Magnifier.

Click the plus sign to magnify. In “Views,” switch to “Preview full screen” to see your whole screen and drag the zoom area to where you’d like to zoom. Or use the “Lens view” like a magnifying glass. Drag your mouse and the “lens” will follow. To use the touch screen with the lens view, tap your screen to see shaded handles appear on the edges of the “lens.” Tap and drag those handles. If you change the lens size, however, those handles disappear; you’ll only be able to move the lens with your mouse or trackpad.

The next time you run magnifier, it will default to the last settings you used. That means that if you like the lens view and only use the lens view, the Magnifier will always start with the lens view.

Once you’re zoomed in, it’s difficult to use the Magnifier toolbar. Decide which features you prefer to use, and memorize those keyboard shortcuts – don’t try to memorize them all; that’s not necessary. Or if you know you’re going to need this with your next tiny font PowerPoint presentation, type the keyboard shortcuts into the notes field for that tiny-font slide.

There are other magnifier programs out there. If you have one that you really like, please let me know!

The fall 2017 Windows 10 update brings with it an emoji menu, and it’s only accessible via a keyboard shortcut. Windows key (WIN) + semicolon or WIN + period will call it up. Click on the emoji you want to select it.

Click on the magnifying glass to search. Click on the other menu icons to browse by category. The clock icon will initially show seemingly randomly selected emoji – and they very well may be. Once you start using them, this menu will show your most recently used emoji.

On the people tab, there is a little box in the upper right corner.

Click it to change the skin tone of the people emoji.

Emoji can be used anywhere you can type. Episode 272: Person in Lotus Position of the 99% Invisible podcast will tell you all you need to know about what makes emoji work across platforms (but why it may look a little different on your phone than it does on a friend’s phone) and how new emoji come to be.

I confess. I’ve been sprinkling emoji into my online grading. Who doesn’t like getting a gold star?

How did I learn about this emoji menu? I have a keyboard shortcut of WIN + apostrophe. One time I missed, and hit WIN + semicolon. “Okay. Cool. Wait! What does the WIN + apostrophe shortcut do for you?” That’s what brings up Ditto, the clipboard manager I use.

Trivia: The word emoji, according to Merriam-Webster, is “borrowed from Japanese, literally, ‘pictograph,’ from e ‘picture, drawing’ + moji ‘letter, character’.”

Happy emoji-ing!

We have been talking a lot at my college about accessibility. Are our videos captioned? Do our webpages and document images have alt-text that can be read by screen readers?

In that vein, I have been thinking about OCR – optical character recognition. Here is an image. It’s just a quick screenshot of text from a previous blog post. I added some alt-text to the image. A screen reader would come to this image and read the alt-text. For the curious, the alt-text is “Image of text from a previous blog post,” and you may even be able to read that text by mousing over the image.

But, really, if the text in the image is important, I should use the text itself, not an image of the text. Or maybe there is some text I have in an image that I want to be able to edit. If it’s just a few sentences, it’s not a big deal to just type it out. But if it’s a lot of text? That option is less attractive.

OneNote is my go-to notetaking tool. OneNote is part of the Microsoft Office suite; if you have Word and Excel, you probably have OneNote. And OneNote has built-in OCR. It can convert the text in images to plain text.

Open a OneNote page. Paste an image that contains text onto a OneNote page.  Right-click on the image, and select “Copy Text from Picture.”

OneNote has converted the text in the image to text and has copied that text to your clipboard. Now paste wherever you want the text to go. Like, in a blog post.

In Windows, the built-in clipboard can only hold one item. That means the next

time you copy a chunk of text, the previous chunk of text that you had copied is

erased. When grading assignments, I find that what I write for one student often

applies to other students. I know that some of you handle this by having, say, a

Word file that holds all of your common comments. But what if I told you that there

is an easier (and free!) way?

No, I don’t know why OneNote opted to use courier as its font, but I’m not going to complain. Now that it’s text, I can change the font to whatever I’d like anyway.

OneNote can handle some handwriting. I can write on my screen and ask OneNote to convert it to typewritten text. And it doesn’t do a bad job at it. But when I threw some awful handwriting at it as an image and asked for the OCR, well, the rendered text didn’t make much sense. Here’s some of it – and, no, this was not what was handwritten.

Dec yovx ‘9

(effee (o see

Do;nq T

O/k;nq to e-hJ tke—

AND -Ike— Z

But it didn’t do a bad job with this ad out of the 1860s Gloucester (Massachusetts) Directory.

ALEX, PATTILLO,

•WHOLESALE & RETAIL

FOREIGN AND DOMES’r1C

Goods ror Men’s Wear,

Dress Goods,

White Goods,

L’ren Goods,

Domestic Goods,

Straw Matting and Oil Carpets,

120 Front street,

Conclusion

If you have an image that contains text and you need that text to be text that you can edit, OneNote may be the easiest way to do the conversion.

In Windows, the built-in clipboard can only hold one item. That means the next time you copy a chunk of text, the previous chunk of text that you had copied is erased. When grading assignments, I find that what I write for one student often applies to other students. I know that some of you handle this by having, say, a Word file that holds all of your common comments. But what if I told you that there is an easier (and free!) way?

Ditto saves the last 500 (or however many you want) instances of whatever you’ve copied, such as text, images, files.

I use a keyboard shortcut (WIN + ‘) to get this pop up. Here are the 13 things I’ve copied. I can click on the one I want to paste it. Or I can use the arrow keys on my keyboard to scroll to the one I want and press enter to paste it. Or if it is one of the first ten, I can press the CONTROL key and a number on my keyboard to paste it.

The item at the top of the list is a file. I can go into any folder and paste this file. Item #9 is a graphic.

Want to see more on this screen? Mouse over the top of the pop up to get the double arrow, then click and drag.

You probably don’t want to see 500 items in this screen. Nor do you need to. The search is very fast! When the Ditto pop up screen appears, just start typing. Ditto begins a dynamic search of your clipboard items. That means that as you type, Ditto starts returning items that match your search. Here I typed “cop” and Ditto immediately gave me the 8 items out of the last 500 items I copied that contained that string of letters. Again, select the item to you want, and it will be pasted.

Because Ditto works at the level of the operating system, if you can type in the program, Ditto will paste in the program.

Ditto Options

To the right of the Ditto search box is the three-dot menu. Click on that to pull up your settings options.

[Side note: See the CF_DIBs that have appeared at the top of the Ditto pop up? Those are the screenshots I copied from my screen capture software, Snipping Tool.]

Click “Options…” to open a 9-tab settings window.

From the “Keyboard Shortcuts” tab, choose your keyboard shortcut that will launch Ditto. I chose the Windows key (checkmarked the Win box) and apostrophe. When I hold down the Windows key and press the apostrophe, the Ditto pop up appears.

From the “General” tab, you can decide how many copies you want Ditto to keep. I chose 500. And, no, I don’t have any particular rationale for choosing that number. Also on this page, you can choose to play a sound when you copy something. Personally, I’d find this annoying, but if it’s your thing. (Know what would be awesome? On copy, Ditto would release a puff of smell that matched that of the fluid from a ditto machine.)

Item Options

Right-click on any copied item in the menu to bring up the options for that individual item.

You can move clips into groups. Let’s say that you copied comments you wrote on a particular assignment. You can right-click on each item, select groups, and move the clips into a group named for that assignment. [Pro-tip: Click and hold SHIFT and use your arrow keys to select multiple copies. Then right-click to select groups and move them all in at once. Or you can click and hold CONTROL and then click on the individual copies you want to move.]

I created a group called Blog. When I type blog into Ditto’s search, I see that item 7 is a group called blog. When I select that group, Ditto shows me the items in that group. And now I can select or search just within that group.

When I select that group, Ditto shows me the items in that group. Notice at the top that Ditto tells me I’m in the Blog group. And now I can select or search just within that group.

Conclusion

Ditto is packed with a lot of tweak-able features. Start with the basics. Once you get the hang of it, dive deeper into the settings. Or not. If what you’ve been using is the Windows clipboard where you get to copy and paste one item, then Ditto, out of the box, will give you exponentially more power.

I’m a big fan of keyboard shortcuts – any shortcuts, really. I want to spend less time running my computer and more time doing what needs to get done.

For Windows users, hold down the Windows key and press S. Your cursor will jump down to the Windows search box. Type in what you’re looking for, and you’re in business.

MaxLauncher ups your search and launch game. Use a keyboard shortcut to run MaxLauncher (I use CTRL – ‘), and then press a key on your keyboard to run a program, open a folder, or open a file.

I have my programs on the first tab. To open Chrome, on my keyboard, I press CTRL – ‘ (to run MaxLauncher) then g.

I have my commonly used folders on the second tab. To open the Psych Dept folder, CTRL – ‘ (to run MaxLauncher), then 2 (switches to the second tab), then p.

I have my commonly used files on the third tab. To open my fall syllabus, CTRL – ‘ (yep, that still runs MaxLauncher), then 3 (switches to the third tab), then f.

How cool is that?

Running MaxLauncher

Download MaxLauncher and run the installer program.

Run MaxLauncher and let’s get you set up.

1. Click “Settings” and select “Hotkey”. This will be the keyboard shortcut you use to run MaxLauncher. I like CTRL – ‘ because nothing else in Windows uses that keyboard shortcut. “Active tab” tells MaxLauncher which tab you want opened when it first runs. The first tab is a perfectly fine choice.

   

2. Now let’s add some programs. Click “View” and select “Drag and Drop Mode”. This allows you to, well, drag and drop stuff onto the MaxLauncher keys.

   

   To add Chrome, we need to find it in your file and folder structure. Go to the Windows search box (mouse down or type CTRL – S) and search for Chrome. When the result pops up, right-click on it and select “open file location”.

   

   When the folder launches, Chrome will already be highlighted. Click and drag onto the key in MaxLauncher you want to use as the keyboard shortcut for launching Chrome. I chose g for Google, but any key will work. Just make sure the key makes sense to you so you’ll remember it.

   

   Change your mind and want to use a different key? Click and drag to a different key. Want to move it to a different tab? Click and drag over, say, the second tab. You’ll see the keys for that second tab, and drop onto one of those keys.

   

   It’s exactly the same procedure for folders and files. Find what you want and drag it onto a key.

3. Rename your tabs by right-clicking on the tab and choosing “rename”.
4. Click “View” and click “Drag and Drop Mode” to unselect it. This will allow MaxLauncher to “Auto Hide” – meaning after you use your keyboard shortcut to launch, say, a program – MaxLauncher will minimize itself so it’s not hanging out on your screen.

   

   IMPORTANT: When you want to go back to adding programs, folders, or files to MaxLauncher, switch back to “Drag and Drop Mode”.

A special note about Microsoft Office

When you do a Windows search for any of the Office products, like Word, your search will give you a shortcut to Word, not the program itself. MaxLauncher needs the program; it can’t do anything with shortcuts.

In the Windows search box, type winword.exe. Right-click on the search result, and choose “open file location”. All of the Office programs should be in this folder.

Drag and drop these exe files onto MaxLauncher:

WINWORD.EXE to open Word
EXCEL.EXE to open Excel
ONENOTE.EXE to open OneNote
OUTLOOK.EXE to open Outlook
POWERPNT.EXE to open PowerPoint

Go slowly

You’re going to be tempted to put absolutely everything into MaxLauncher. Don’t – at least not right away. Choose the content you use all the time first. Once you get the hang of it – and are remembering to use it – then expand your shortcuts.

Amaze your family and coworkers

You’ll be sitting at your computer when a coworker walks in. “Hey, do you have a copy of that file we were working on?” You’ll press CTRL-‘ then F, and up will pop the file. And your coworker will say, “Whoa! What did you just do there?” Magic – just a little magic.

I go through a lot of half-sheets of paper in my courses. On one side, students write what they found interesting in that day’s class and what questions they have about the course material. On the other side are instructions for small group discussion. I’ve been using some version of these forms for a couple years now, but they seem to be in a constant state of flux. That means frequent revisions. That’s fine. That means I type up what I want at the top of the page and then I copy and paste it underneath. Then I put my cursor between the two versions and repeatedly hit enter until it looks like it’s about half way. And I repeat the process on page two for the backside of the half-sheets.

Yesterday, as I was doing this, I thought, “It’s 2017. There has to be a better way than just eyeballing what looks like half way.”

And there is!

In Word, click on the “Layout” tab, click “Margins,” and select “Custom Margins.”

In the pop up window, in the “Pages” section, click the dropdown menu next to “Multiple pages” and select “2 pages per sheet.”

Word will now show you a half sheet. Type up what you want. Hit enter a few times to add a new page or go to the “Insert” tab and click on “Page Break.” Copy and paste what you have on your first half sheet onto the second page. Add another page and type up what you want on the back of your half sheet. Add one more page and copy/paste the backside to page four.

Now print! Half pages 1 and 2 will print on the front of the sheet; half pages 3 and 4 will print on the back of the sheet.

Isn’t that a whole lot easier?