Printing multiple slides/pages per sheet (Power Point and PDF)

It's that time of year when students are busy printing out long PowerPoints from classes, in advance of first or second midterms.

One of the popular questions, as a result: "How do I print multiple slides per page?"

The solution is easy:

• Using the Office Button (upper lefthand corner), click Print. Under "Print What," choose Handouts. Under "Slides per page" select the number of slides you want to print on each page, and a horizontal or vertical sequence of slides on the page.

If the document is a PDF, here's how to print multiple pages on a single sheet:

• Click the printer icon on the Adobe Acrobat toolbar. Under "Page Scaling," choose "Multiple pages per sheet," and choose the multiple you wish.
  

When Good Scanning Software Goes Bad

Workarounds for the microform reader/scanners during times -- as we've experienced this week -- when patrons are not able to create folders in the User Files space:

1. From the start menu, select "browse user files." Create a "new folder." Then (re)open Capture Perfect. Select "scan to batch." The User Files spaces appears, with your "new folder" ready and waiting to be filled.

2. A USB key is another alternative; patrons can bypass the User Files space altogether and save to their devices.

Technology Showcase: a place to direct students

Earlier this week, a patron came to the desk with a question about where she might go to scan some slides. The Fine Arts Library was my first thought -- but when I checked the HCL equipment page, I could find no mention of slide-reproduction facilities. Mary Clare confirmed that Fine Arts does not offer this service.

The Technology Showcase does, however. The Showcase is actually a small multimedia facility, located on the 2nd floor of the Science Center (Room 209), overseen by FAS, and run by User Assistants for limited weekday hours. [Spring 2008 hours are M-Th 12-6 p.m. and F 12-5 p.m.] Walk-in use is possible; so is after-hours keycard access for users who have "sponsored" projects.

The room features 5 G5 Dual 2 gig processor Macs, 2 single processor Macs and 4 high end PCs running XP. A variety of special software is loaded on these machines in addition to the standard HASCS fare.

Among the common uses of the lab: scanning of photos, slides and negatives; burning of DVDs or CD-ROMs; editing of video; conversion of analog to digital formats; and scanning of documents with text recognition. Software for webpage design and editing of audio is also popular.

For appointments with UAs or for equipment demos, users should email showcase@fas.harvard.edu.

Language Toolbar on the Public Machines

The language toolbar displays at the top right of the startup (red wallpaper) screen on the public machines in the Reference Room. The "default input language" is English (obviously); you may see Chinese, Korean and Japanese listed in a short drop-down list as well.

Don't assume that these are the only languages supported by the public machines. To extend the range of language options (including those that read right to left), simply right click on the toolbar icon and choose "settings." Click on the "add" button to the right. A long list will display.

Microsoft 2007 compatibility issues

Yesterday, a student tried to open a doc on his USB key created with Microsoft Word 2007. Because our version is earlier -- 2002(?) -- the file was inaccessible.

A free patch is available for downloading and we tried this fix, but since our machines are locked down, the patch -- alas -- wouldn't take.

In a follow-up phone call to ITS, I learned that the patch is supposed to be sent out to all machines, although the date for deployment was uncertain. Steve will contact Al on our behalf to get a better sense of timeframe.

Should you have patrons using MS Word 2007 in the meantime, there are two workarounds:

1. for users who don't have their own laptops with them: suggest a trip to the computer labs in the Science Center. The HASCS desk confirmed that staff will be able to get the files open.

2. for users who do have their laptops: suggest that they save a copy of the document in a compatible format from the list of options they're offered. That should do the trick.

Personal Laptops and the Wireless Network

When people register their laptops on the FAS wireless network, they should only enter the first eight digits of their Harvard ID number. If they enter all the digits printed on the ID, they'll get an error message. The web site for FAS Computing Services gives instructions for FAS affiliates and non-FAS affiliates about connecting their computers to the wireless network.

How to Check Version of Flash

Sometimes our users want to view animations or videos on web sites which require the latest version of Flash (currently version 9). You can find out which version is installed on a machine by going to http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/about/ This page tells me, for example, that our public workstations have version 6.0.88. ITS plans to release the newest version to all the machines sometime this semester (in late February I was told "not for several weeks").

Chinese characters: heads up!

We received a call today from a professor with a large class (over 100), who will be sending her students off to use computers here (and possibly at other libraries). They will need to use CJK and they'll need to use both "simplified" and "traditional" Chinese characters.

The important thing to know is how to direct users to change the language default. Beyond that, the questions may exceed our expertise and you should direct students to Ellen McGill at Yenching (emcgill@fas). Ellen spoke with the professor and knows about the assignment.

She believes that the PRC IME choice will probably be sufficient for the students' needs. It allows one to toggle between simplified and traditional characters, using the 简 / 繁 character.

However, if students want to use the Taiwan IME but find that it's mapped to the 注音符號 keyboard, they can easily switch to pinyin mapping.

Here are instructions for mapping the Chinese (Taiwan) New Phonetic keyboard to pinyin on the public machines (which use Windows XP):

1. Select Chinese (Taiwan)
2. Right-click on the language bar.
3. Choose Settings.
4. Select the keyboard. It looks something like this:
CH Chinese (Taiwan) -->Keyboard --> Microsoft New Phonetic IME 2002a
5. Click on Properties.
6. Choose the Keyboard Mapping tab.
7. Select HanYu Pinyin and hit OK.
8. Click Apply and OK.

Finally:

If people would like to set up their own computers to enter Chinese, there is a slightly out-of-date guide to installing IMEs for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean on Windows machines and using them with HOLLIS here. It includes screenshots. For Macs,there is an excellent site at Yale.

Reminder: How to Open USB Drives and User Files

As more students use USB keys on the Lamont computers, some of them may be confused about how to get to the files on the drives after they've plugged them in. They should go to Start > Programs > File Utilities > Browse USB Flash Drive. The files on their flash drive will display. The procedure is similar for opening D:\User Files. Just go to Start > Programs > File Utilities > Browse User Files.

You can also open both the USB Flash Drive and the User Files, and drag files from one window to the other to copy them.

Troubleshooting: When the "Mandatory Profile" Can't Be Found

If one of the public workstations is turned on, but won't let you log it in because it can't find its mandatory profile, it might have been disconnected from the network. This will happen if the black network cord has come loose, either from the back of the computer or from the data outlet in the floor. (Those restless feet again!) Check the floor outlet to see if the black cord with the small head is securely inserted, and check the back of the CPU, where the cord goes into an opening marked with the network symbol (three squares connected with straight lines, resembling computers connected by wires).

More on Printing Defaults at the Reference Desk

Everyone knows that we've had trouble with the two reference desk computers changing their default print settings -- from the HP LaserJet 1300 under the desk to Adobe PDF or to the color printer in Admin Services. Al Q. has suggested two ways to keep this from happening. First, we should always log in the machine on the lower desk as lamref, and log in the other "standup" machine with our personal login and password. Don't log in both machines as lamref, or they'll try to find different printers. Along with this, while you're on the reference desk, be sure that your office computer is logged off. Because these precautions won't work for the reference prefects (who use lamref on both computers), I'm going to find out from Al what it would take to get a second lamref account. Finally, it never hurts to check that the computers at the desk are both set to "hp LaserJet 1300" as their default. To do this, go to Start > Settings > Printers, right-click the printer you want to use as default printer, and then click "Set as Default Printer." A check mark should appear next to the printer icon in the Printers menu.

Continued Problem: Saving PDFs and Web Pages on Public Computers

A problem which I reported to ITS in late August has apparently not been fixed yet. On the public computers, users can't save PDF files or web pages directly to a USB key or to a floppy disk. If they try to do this, they get an error message: "This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer," as if they were trying to download software to the machine. (This is separate from the continued problem of opening attachments from webmail.)

For now, if a user wants to save a PDF or a web page to a USB key or a diskette, here are two ways to do it:

1. Save the file to User Files. Then, drag or copy the file from User Files into the USB drive or the floppy drive. How to have both User Files and another drive open at once? you ask. Well, go to Start > Programs > File Utilities > Browse User Files, to open User Files. Then go to Start > Programs > File Utilities > Browse USB Drive (or Browse Floppy Drive), to open the other drive and drag the saved files into it.

or 2. Click 'Save.' A dialog box will pop up, showing User Files as the destination. Click on the "Up One Level" icon (a folder with an arrow superimposed on it), click on My Computer, then select the G:USB drive or the A:Floppy drive.

The problem described here only affects PDF files and web pages. Documents in Word, Power Point, and Excel can be easily and directly saved to a USB or a diskette without any workarounds.

I'll ask ITS if they know when we can expect a fix for this problem.

Lamont 1 and 10 "Locked out"

Hello everybody,

I just wanted to write in to let you know that the there are two computers that have been "locked" (somebody tried to type in a password one too many times) and I'm not sure how to unlock them.

Hopefully somebody can get to them in the morning!

~Nneka

Support for Cafe Computers

A student who was using a computer in the Cafe just asked me to help him use SecureFX to download documents he had scanned. This made me realize that, even if all the reference workstations follow us down to Level 1, students using the Cafe computers will still need the kind of support that Reference currently provides -- not just "tech support" narrowly speaking, but all manner of help with e-resources, too.

Problems opening files at Public Work Stations

A student in Visual and Environmental Studies 71 came in. He accessed the home page for his course and attempted to open the readings on “Edison and Lumiere” that were posted there as pdfs. (Not library reserve material.) When he tried to open them at two Lamont public workstations he got the message that the files were damaged and could not be opened. He was able to open them on his home computer and I could open them at the Ref Desk computer with no trouble.

This seems to resemble something we have been noticing this week. Students at the public workstation have been unable to open very ordinary files.

I talked with Sue and we are both concerned that students cannot perform basic classroom related work on the public stations that previously they could.

I e-mailed Al and Jeff B. per Sue's suggestion.

Computer terminals

The invisibility of workstations is occasioning comments. Today, I've had two patrons ask for options besides the 4 standups in the Lobby. When I directed one student to the alcoves, he asked if there were seats!

BTW: I'm wondering if we should add a second table to the west alcoves. Although this extra table wouldn't have any workstation on it, it might give an extra study space (or a place for a wireless laptop user to park).