Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with document

Software to power an academic resource-sharing site?

killdevil — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:51:22 -0800

My new grad school class (of about 140, if it matters) needs an easy way to post and share categorized notes, study guides, and sundry other files and documents with one another. What simple, easy-to-use open-source Web knowledgebase and/or document-management software might work well for this purpose?

New Examples of Collaborative Document Editing?

Jeff Howard — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:30:56 -0800

I'm looking for examples of collaborative document editing. I've read through most of the older threads on this topic, but many of the examples seem to have gone out of business. Are there any newer examples out there? It would be good to have a document "owner" that integrates comments and changes from many contributors, so I'm thinking that a wiki might not be ideal. The ability to compare revisions is a must-have and it'd be nice to have it show not only text changes but image changes. Doesn't have to be hosted, or even online, though if it is, that's probably better. If it matters, this is in a scientific context, writing articles on botany and zoology.

lost document

fogonlittlecatfeet — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:05:59 -0800

Need help recovering lost document on PC i got an email this morning from a distraught friend - i am about as computer savvy as a nudibranch so I thought I would ask the hive mind for some help.

email is as follows -
i am horribly depressed. i lost a document on my computer. i have searched EVERYWHERE for it and it is not coming up. I know I was saving it along the way. but the problem was, the whole time i was saving it in those retarded TEMP files with names like 4PTYU7L8 you know.

here is my question... since i have searched high and low for the file and have not been lucky.... can anyone tell me is there any sort of fancy search on a PC where you type in WORDS and it will search your computer? not names of files...but words within those files? Like if I searched for words IN the document I lost...can the computer find it?

you know what is retarded....i have searched high and low in those temp files and computers save the stupidest shit!!! little icons and encrypted crap you cant read...it even had empty folders.

so even if i was retarded enough NOT to save it....dont you think it would have saved some sort of footprint from the file somewhere?!?! if it still has stupid links from 2005 it should be able to save something i did today!

Any Suggestions?

Document management with SharePoint

I_Love_Bananas — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:20:48 -0800

SharePoint filter: Examples of how to use SharePoint's Records Center site type for corporate document management? I'm trying to wrap my brain around the ins and outs of configuring a SharePoint Records Center for our smallish (250+) employee insurance company.

We don't have anyone in IT dedicated to site design for SharePoint so I'm sort of on my own and trying to read as much as I can.

Our records retention policy is almost finished, and we are working on specifying how long to keep the various types of company records to comply with regulations etc. I really think SharePoint could give us the records management structure we need and I want to do it right.

I have found a lot of process documentation and "how to follow steps in the system" type of articles, but what I really need are examples to help me understand the difference between, say, record types vs. content types, lists vs. libraries; and especially how to set things up right on the front end so that I can create subsites that carry over the all the features I want into the various subsites.

I think I get it, but to really click for me I need to see examples.

One form to rule them all...

freudenschade — Thu, 01 May 2008 11:57:21 -0800

Creating a form template for colleagues to use at work that needs to meet the following criteria: 1. Allow text fields and drop-down selection boxes. 2. Allow users to add additional text in should they see fit (i.e. doesn't disallow all input outside of form fields). 3. Will allow rows (the form will be arranged like a table) to be duplicated/copied & pasted, including the form fields contained within those rows. 4. Is formatted nicely enough to be passed along to a client and read clearly. 5. Is openable/usable by your average user who doesn't have access to super expensive/specialized software. What program/functions should I be using to create such a document?

I tried Word 2003, but it seems that using form fields requires you to "lock" the document, allowing no editing after the form structure is saved as a template. I had some success with Word 2007 (and its updated form functions), but everyone else in my office uses Office 2003, and even Microsoft's fix that supposedly allows 2003 users to open/edit/save 2007 files still won't allow for opening of DOTX (Word 2007 template) files. Acrobat seems out of the question because PDFs also only allow editing/input within form fields.

Is there something I'm missing in Word 2003 that would make it work for me? Other options? Help, please.

Going paperless; need a scanner!

killdevil — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:12:02 -0800

I would like to go completely paperless. In order to accomplish this, I'll need an excellent bulk-feed scanner to turn all of my received bills and other important pieces of paper into searchable PDFs. Which scanners should I consider? I am also interested in hearing anecdotes from those of you in the listening audience who have attempted something like this. Did it work? Was the transition painful? Did you become more efficient in your life and work thereby?

Help me mail my stuff securely!

catburger — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 05:59:43 -0800

I need to mail a passport and possibly other important, hard-to-replace legal documents from one Canadian address to another. Deadline is within the coming week. What is the most secure way to do this? If you have personal experience with this, please describe how long it took, cost, risks, etc. Thanks very much in advance.

Why doesn't Word work right?

BeerFilter — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 06:56:21 -0800

Word 2003 won't open after double-clicking on a document, and the mouse doesn't work in the document area. If I double-click a Word file, the mouse hourglasses for a moment, then nothing happens. If I run Word by itself, I can open documents just fine, but outside of Word, I got nothing. I've already checked the file types and everything seems to be in order.

In addition, my mouse doesn't work in Word, but only in the actual document window. I can mouse all around the menus and toolbars and such, but I can't do anything with the mouse to the document. I can't highlight, I can't insert a cursor, I can't get the scrollbars to move. I CAN change the page view with the clickys in the lower left, but nothing else in the document window works.

Since Outlook 2003 uses Word 2003 for its rendering, I have the same problem in Outlook 2003. Menus & toolbars work fine but I can't highlight or do anything with the mouse to the actual text. I can use the keyboard to highlight and navigate.

In all other application, including the rest of MS Office, the mouse works fine.

Here's what seems like the key to figuring this out:

I already completely uninstalled Office 2003, ran CCleaner (my S.O.P.), and reinstalled it, and it's exactly like it was before. No opening documents outside of Word, no mouse in the text field.

I'm a FOSS guy at home, but this is at my relatively new job (in the IT dept, no less) and I haven't been inflicted with Word in a long time, so I'm not real hip to fixing MS Office screw-ups. Anyone got any ideas on this?

How to best manage a physical mailing list?

LongDrive — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 02:15:34 -0800

How to manage an unwieldy mailing list (for physical mailing) on a Mac. I use an opt-in mailing list that I use to send out promotional mailings from my business. This is a physical mailing list that I print labels from through Indesign. I have been maintaining these databases using the new Numbers software from Apple (because my both myself and my lovely Mac do not get along with Excel).

Every few weeks I am sent an updated master list that has new contacts added, and deletes out of date ones.

I am looking for some solution that can compare my local edited copy with the new master copy, and update my local copy as required.

Something mentioned in this thread would be useful, but I am not collaborating with another person per se, rather being provided an updated list every few weeks by a third party. (fyi, this is not spam)

If budget allowed, I would love to hire a Filemaker or Excel guru to build a custom thing for me, but I was wondering if anyone knew of any alternative software for Mac that could possibly perform this function or simply better manage this list?

Much historical value to an old Guam WW2 Navy flight logbook?

Quarter Pincher — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 06:59:00 -0800

My grandfather recently showed us an old handwritten flight logbook from when he served in Guam in WW2 with the Navy. Would scanning this serve any interest to someone? Might it be considered classified info? It's a frailish, brown, pencil-written log books of flights, I presume in and out of Guam, in the WW2 time period. I thought scanning it might preserve the records made in it (no matter how scribbly).. is there someone who might benefit from its information?

These twenty docs go into a bar...

cashman — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 12:25:39 -0800

How can I optimize an MS Word doc compilation process? 20 into 1. There are twenty-ish people who email separate individual reports in MS Word to a final person who compiles them into a big report. Each individual report in MS Word is the same format/template. It has name fields, checkboxes and some free form stuff. Probably 3 pages or so. There are, say, 35 or so text fields that are filled out by the individual, including the checkboxes. Some of the free form stuff is like: "notified the bus driver of the route change", and the name of the report sender has to be appended to the front of that sentence for the final report.

The ideal solution to come up with one summary report would be to put the stuff into google docs, share it with all twenty folks and essentially let them compile the report, then the compiler could just be a reviewer/editor. Unfortunately, for several teeth-gnashing reasons, that can't be done. Another way would be to send the document to the first person, who then sent it to the next person, and so on, until once again, they compiled the report themselves, with no additional work for any one of them. Again, teeth-gnashingly not possible. Can't set up any web forms either.

The final person has the twenty docs. What's the best or simplest way you can think of for them to compile the information from the twenty word docs into the final word doc, aside from the stone age way of cutting and pasting?

Is there some macro that could be set to grab the information from each heading and plunk it all down in the master document, grouped? Should the individuals send the information in a plain text email that can somehow be more easily manipulated using google docs or something?

What's the easiest way to print out a large web site?

grumblebee — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 09:31:04 -0800

Help me destroy the rain forest: I'm want to print out a huge manual that only exists as a web site. What (free? cheap?) app exists that will allow me to suck the entire site into a PDF or some other sort of printable document? I'm Mac based but can scare up a PC if necessary. I'm an Actionscript programmer that works with a team of people who are fifteen or more years younger than me. They're all cool with reading manuals online. I can't do that. I'm too old school. I need a physical book that I can carry with me and that I can keep next to my computer, flip through and mark up.

Adobe has PDF versions of almost all their manuals -- EXCEPT for their AS 3.0 manual, which is the one I need. And no 3rd-parties have come to the rescue. It looks like O'Reilly is coming out with a pocket guide to the language, but I need something more comprehensive.

I own pretty much ever AS 3 book in print (plus all the cheatsheets), and they're useful, but none of them is an overall reference to the language. If that's what you want, everyone refers you to the online document. Normally, I would just bite the bullet and give in, but AS is my bread-and-butter. I need a manual I can curl up in bed with.

I'd like to print the whole mother out, take it to Kinkos and have them bind it for me. How?

.chm to .pdf conversion in Mac OS X?

Señor Pantalones — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 14:11:51 -0800

.chm to PDF conversion, Mac OS X. There seems to be no easy way to do it. Does anyone have an effective and trustworthy workflow they can recommend? (more inside) After recently switching to Papers for my eBook/journal librarian, I need to get rid of all these pesky .chm files. So far I've tried...

- Tubby (chm expander) to Acrobat Professional. Works, but you need to manually nest chapters and subchapters, and it throws some ugly markup artifacts into the document.

- Tubby to HTMLDoc (cli binary). Does a nice job converting to PDF, better than Acrobat, but spits it all out as one big unordered file, which needs far more reorganization.

- Chamonix -> Print. Only prints single pages as pdf, not entire document.

- chm2pdf (python). Looks promising but even after compiling for OS X it keeps failing...maybe I am doing something wrong.

Any tips would be appreciated, and if you haven't checked out Papers yet, you'll love it...

Dear MS Word: Start printing....NOW!

deliriouscool — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:47:24 -0800

I have a Word merge document with merged variable info sandwiched around a preprinted area in which I want no text - is there a way to insert some sort of break on the page that says to Word "No matter how big section 1 is, don't start printing section 2 until this point"? Thanks for any help! Basically, my entire document is an 8 1/2"x14" form - the top "half' is 6 3/4" long, with merged text printing from 1/2" to 6" or 6 1/2", depending on how much information is in a given record. My second, smaller set of information (an address) starts printing at 9 1/2" and goes for 3/4"

Because the first block of information varies in length, it's affecting the placement of the second block when different amounts of merge data are present - can I use section or page breaks to separate the two while still having everything print on the same page?

Please, please tell me YAAL.

mdonley — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 13:20:47 -0800

I have a question about the authentication of a Cambridge University-issued document by a California lawyer or notary for use in Latvia. I am moving to Latvia at the end of August to teach English. My teaching certificate, the CELTA, was issued by Cambridge University in England a few years ago. Upon being hired by the school in Latvia, its director sent me an email saying "it would be useful if you could start looking into the process of getting your CELTA accredited by a notary or lawyer and either sending it to us or bringing it with you."

I'm rather confused as to how to go about this, as the school's director is British, and I know that notaries in Britain have totally different powers to those in the States - hence his "or" with "notary or lawyer"; presumably he thinks they're similar. Now, Cambridge offers a service where I pay them some amount of money, and they authenticate my results and send that to me or to the school, but I don't know if that will be the same, legally, as getting something official, if that's even possible here. I've seen references to apostilles, but only in reference to public documents like birth and death certificates, not academic results, let alone those issued abroad.

I would ask the director to clarify, but he's on vacation and basically unreachable until a few weeks before I get there, and if I choose to go with the Cambridge certification of my results, I'd need to allow enough time for it to get here so I can present it to an immigration officer or something should I be asked to do so.

I also realize there are probably very few MeFites who've ever had anything to do with Latvia, so my main question is: how can I prove the authenticity of a document issued in another country in a way that will satisfy officials somewhere else? Or might this be a two-step process - first getting the certification from Cambridge sent to me, and then having a notary or lawyer in Britain (where I could theoretically stop en route to Latvia) accredit the certification?

Thanks for your help, if anyone dares to respond to such a bizarrely technical question.

How do I get an old IRS document?

nancoix — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 11:32:34 -0800

IRS document request -- my boss has asked me to somehow make a request to the IRS for a 1971 document that our company filed. It was a request for 501(c)(4) status, which was granted. But the original application to the IRS is lost, and we need it. So how do I request an old document? Can I do it on the Web? Do I contact the IRS or maybe do a Freedom of Info Act request?

what should a nonoffensive nondisclosure agreement look like and how do I ask them to sign it?

krautland — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:50:48 -0800

what should a nonoffensive nondisclosure agreement look like and how do I ask them to sign it? I am about to approach someone in my industry with an idea. they are looking for a project that will get them media attention and I have it and I would like to work for them at some point. they could get attention out of it and I'd have the backing of this cool organization. I told a friend about this who knows us both and he suggested I'd make them sign a nondisclosure agreement before letting them in on my concept.

this sounds like a good idea. it is important to me that if we don't end up doing this together they (a) don't use it for themselves and (b) don't chat about it until it's actually running. but I don't wish to offend them with anything way out of line.

so my question is this: what should such a document look like? what do I need to include to cover myself and what are mistakes I shouldn't make? any tips on how to bring this subject up in a casual conversation?

your experiences with these kind of issues are highly appreciated.

Not quite enterprise, but further-reaching than Google Desktop...

ostranenie — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 11:17:16 -0800

Help me find a Windows-based cataloging program that can handle indexing of Word documents and can crawl network (SMB) shares. I'm looking for something like one of the enterprise-level solutions (LiveLink, Cumulus) offers but without involving a centralized server. It has to store its catalog in a file or set of files - not a web server or dedicated database. Sort of like Google Desktop, but for my LAN and not quite as sophisticated.

WhereIsIt is the closest thing I've found so far; it meets nearly almost all of my criteria but won't index Word documents (although it does pull in attributes from them) and does allow me to write a plug-in that will import text (so I can sort of work around the indexed text limitation) but that's just a workaround.

Thanks!

Unique word list application needed

qwip — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 19:37:03 -0800

I'm looking for a method or application that will create a list of unique words in a large text document (a Word document, currently, but can be changed to accommodate another format). I want to see just a list of the of the words in this document, but don't need to know their frequency or order. So the list would have every word used at least once and only show a word one time.

Possible? I am on a Mac, but can work on a PC if needed. Would also be fine to use a terminal app. Need a free solution, so commercial apps will not fit this particular bill.

scanning printed document

dearleader — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 07:41:06 -0800

Help! I printed out a long document last night on Microsoft Word (using ibook G4). When I looked at the file this morning, it only has two characters in it. I fear that I may have 'selected all' and then accidentally deleted it, then saved the document. But I have a clear double-spaced hard copy of the document. Is there any way to somehow scan the document and enter the text automatically, rather than retype the many, many words? (or some other way to retrieve the lost text?)

Help me Tag and Index a Pile of Office Documents

Alterscape — Thu, 31 May 2007 17:01:32 -0800

Networked repository for Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, full-text indexed and tagged. Does it exist? I'm interning at a small consulting company to earn some cash for grad school. My boss has asked me to research ways to store, full-text-search and retrieve about a thousand MS Office (Word, Excel and Powerpoint) documents that're currently stored in a well-organized (but non-searchable) heirarchy on a Windows server's shared folder. The initial plan was to use a Lotus Notes database (see my last AskMe), but for a variety of reasons that isn't moving forward as fast as he'd like.

The documents each relate to a project the company has worked on. Ideally, I'd like to be able to index the projects such that I can find all documents attached to the "foo" project, or all documents attached to projects for client "bar," as well as full-text search for documents containing "baz." If that's not achievable, I'm looking for customizable metadata fields, but just a general "tags" field or even straight full-text indexing would work if that's all that's out there.

The boss has suggested Google Desktop Search and either copying the archive to each machine or indexing the shared folder on each machine, but I'm convinced there has to be a more elegant solution. Unfortunately, whatever the solution is needs to work in a Windows-only software ecosystem and be relatively inexpensive. I'd love to roll my own php/sql or ruby-based solution, but he wants rapid turnaround and I don't have the skills to do this fast enough, sadly.

Any ideas what's out there, MeFites?

How to flatten old diplomas?

thinman — Sat, 26 May 2007 20:33:32 -0800

How do I safely flatten old diplomas? I have two diplomas from 1927 and 1931 that I'd like to frame. They were rolled up in a box with other items for many decades. They are a little squished (but not creased), and they want to retain their rolled up squishedness. Both are printed on a heavyish material with a plasticy feel and a slight sheen; I don't know if it is imitation vellum, or actual animal skin. The documents are from the Mary Institute at Washington University at St. Louis (1927) and Mt. Holyoke (1931) if that helps.

Collaborative document writing

MsMolly — Thu, 10 May 2007 10:51:24 -0800

I need a software recommendation. A small group of people want to be able to edit a document and receive email or RSS notification when one of the other members has edited the document. Further reqs: only one person can edit at a time, so some kind of check in/out feature would be good. We'd also like to be able to export easily to a printable format at the end. Things we've considered:
1. Just email around a Word doc with "track changes" turned on. This could get complicated, though, if two people create separate versions at the same time.
2. MediaWiki. Good, except these people probably don't want to learn even the minimum wiki formatting rules before they start. Also, there's no good way to export from a wiki to a publishable format.
3. GoogleDocs. Good, except two or more people can edit simultaneously.

The system that they use to edit the document doesn't need to be the same system they use to exchange documents. They could edit a Word document and just check it in and out from some other system.

We're at an educational institution, so free is good, but we do have some server space to install something, so remotely hosted isn't a requirement.

How should I store lots of paperwork?

hazyspring — Thu, 03 May 2007 10:54:20 -0800

I work for a small non-profit. Our office is moving in the next few months and we have a lot of paperwork that we are required to save for 7 years, but this takes up a lot of space. Is there a better way to store this stuff? We have tons of filing cabinets that are full of crap. One idea that I had was to have our suppport staff scan everything in and save it that way.

Does anyone have experience with this? If so, how do you back up your data?

Lock beamed documents?

Shalerman — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 17:41:34 -0800

If I beam to you a document or spreadsheet from my pocket computer, is there a way for me to secure the file to prevent you from sharing it by beaming it to others?