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.

SFX (Citation Linker) glitch

This week and last, several of us have noticed that Citation Linker searching isn't always turning up a truly complete list of online access options for serials.

Yesterday,  Vida encountered this problem with the Philadelphia Inquirer:  Citation Linker didn't identify the availability of full-text via Factiva, so it looked as though the  online version ended at 1922. 

Days before, a student looking for the LA Times for the late 1980s and 1990s couldn't imagine (in this instance, wisely) that we'd be missing 20 some odd years and wrote me an email .  Citation Linker listed only LexisNexis holdings (6 mos.), ProQuest Historical Newspapers (to 1985) and a HOLLIS link.  Factiva -- absent from this SFX results list -- had the time period the student needed to search. 

I notified OIS of the problem via the Comments line and was told that after a recent update, the SFX software was not parsing Factiva links properly.   The good news is that they're aware of the problem and addressing it; I don't know how soon the fix will happen, however.  As of this writing, the Citation Linker list for the LA Times  is still incorrect.

Until the problem is resolved -- or  just whenever you have the feeling that your Citation Linker  results are not quite right, Factiva is another place for you to try.

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.

Articles from ScienceDirect

This morning a patron was unable to open PDFs of articles from journals in Elsevier's ScienceDirect database. (The PDFs appeared to open, but all the pages were blank.) He was using Internet Explorer. We discovered that Firefox would open the PDFs properly, with full content on the pages. The problem with Internet Explorer only lasted temporarily; I tried a couple of machines soon after, and the PDFs from ScienceDirect opened correctly in IE. However, if you encounter a similar problem with accessing a web-based resource, you might try switching browsers.

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").

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).

Setting the Printer Default

The computers at the Reference Desk are supposed to print to the HP Laserjet 1300 under the desk. But they have recently been switching their defaults either to Adobe PDF or to the color printer in Administrative Services, next to Lynn Sayers' desk (called lamont-admincolor-q). If you find that your printing jobs aren't coming from the HP Laserjet as they should, check to see if the printing defaults have changed. To do this, select File > Print and see which printer appears in the "Select Printer" box (if they all appear there, the default printer will be marked with a checkmark). Then, if you need to reset the default, go to Start > Settings > Printers, right-click on "hp Laserjet 1300" and choose "Set as Default Printer." Another way to do this is to go to File > Print, right-click on the desired printer in the "Select Printer" box, and choose "Set as Default Printer."

I'll test both machines again and, if I see that they've changed the default again, I'll notify ITS about it.

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

Printer Problem Tip

If the public printer won't release a print job, check to see if the printer is asking for legal-size paper (or anything else besides 8.5x11"). It will do this if the print job was formatted for that size. Our paper trays only carry 8.5x11" sheets, so if the user really wants legal-size, he or she will have to open the top door and feed legal sheets in by hand. Or, to release the print job without special paper, just press the Checkmark button to accept the paper that's available.

Printer Problems

Tonight the printers have been taking money without delivering print jobs and, at other times, not recognizing legitimate cards. Turning off printers and CPUs for a minute brought them back to normal (and released previously paid-for print jobs).

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.