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Mysteriously Moving Margins in Word

In Microsoft Word 2008 (and older versions), if you put your cursor in a paragraph and then move a tab or indent marker in the ruler, the change applies to just that paragraph. If your markers are closely spaced, you may have trouble grabbing the right one, and inadvertently work with tabs when you want to work with indents, or vice-versa. The solution is to hover your mouse over the marker until a yellow tooltip confirms which element you're about to drag.

I recently came to appreciate the importance of waiting for those tooltips: a document mysteriously reset its margins several times while I was under deadline pressure, causing a variety of problems. After several hours of puzzlement, I had my "doh!" moment: I had been dragging a margin marker when I thought I was dragging an indent marker.

When it comes to moving markers in the Word ruler, the moral of the story is always to hover, read, and only then drag.

 
 

Pixel Perfect

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Pixel Perfect -- Following Arthur H. Bleich's <arthur@zim.com> articles about choosing a digital camera (see TidBITS-407 and TidBITS-408), several sharp-eyed readers called attention to the fact camera resolution specifications were stated in terms of pixels per inch (ppi), when in fact they should be stated just in pixels. A digital camera captures its image on a surface consisting of light-sensitive pixels, but that surface isn't restricted to a certain measurement. When the resulting image shows onscreen, its resolution is then correctly described in pixels per inch, such as 640 by 480 ppi.

<http://db.tidbits.com/series/1022>

Also, Andrew Nielsen <andrews@starfish.net.au> wrote from Australia to say that outside the U.S., the Olympus series 200, 300, 500, and 600 cameras are designated 400, 800, 1,000, and 1,400 respectively. Also, we've learned that Arthur will be writing a twice-monthly column for ZoneZero beginning in January. [JLC]

<http://www.zonezero.com/>

 

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