Computer Tips for All

Free online PDF to Word conversion service

2010-11-28T12:51:00.000+07:00

There are a number of free or inexpensive utilities that print Office documents to a PDF file. Unfortunately, reversing the conversion isn’t so easy. That’s because a PDF file is really a collection of images, and not text. Utilities are available, but they’re relatively expensive — until now. PDF to Word, an online service, will convert your PDF documents to Word for free.

Simply upload your PDF file, choose the format you want (DOC or RTF), and wait. The service will send you an e-mail with a link to the converted document. It couldn’t be easier and the results are something you can put to use right away.

Link: http://www.pdftoword.com/

Convert Word 2007 documents to PDF format

2010-11-28T12:44:00.000+07:00

Office 2007 lets you convert your documents, spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations to PDF — optimized for online documents, printed documents, or both. Before you can convert your document to PDF format, you need to download and install the support for PDF and XPS from the Microsoft Web site. (Be sure you have an active Internet connection so you can download the support for PDF and XPS.) Now follow these steps:

In Word 2007, go to Word 2007 Help, type PDF in the Search box, and then press [Enter].
Scroll to and click Enable Support For Other File Formats, Such As PDF And XPS.
Under “What Do You Want To Do?” click Install And Use The Publish As PDF Or XPS Add-In From Microsoft.
When the Web page displays, click Microsoft Save A PDF Or XPS Add-In For 2007 Microsoft Office Programs.
Follow the instructions to download the add-in.

To save a Word 2007 document as a PDF file, open the document and follow these steps:

Click the Microsoft Office button, move to Save As, and click PDF Or XPS.
Click the Options button to set Bookmarks, designate whether you want to save a part of the document or the entire document, and/or exclude document elements from the file. Click OK.
Click the appropriate button for Standard or Minimize optimization.
Click Publish.

You can follow these same steps to convert your spreadsheets and PowerPoint files to PDF.

Windows Tip: Shutdown Your Computer With The Command Prompt

2010-11-23T16:51:00.003+07:00

You don’t have to use them all, but the switches you do use must be in the following order:

shutdown [-i | -l | -s | -r | -a] [-f] [-m file://computername/] [-t xx] [-c "comment"] [-d up:xx:yy]

How To:
Open the command prompt: Windows Key + R then type the command below and hit OK: cmd
This will open the command prompt. Now we can play!

Shutdown Local MachineThis only takes a couple of keystrokes. Type the code below and hit OK:

shutdown -s

“shutdown” tells the computer what command we want to execute and the “-s” switch tells it what to do, which is to shutdown!

Specify Time

shutdown -s -t 60

Now we have added the “-t” switch and a variable, which in this case is “60?. This number is the number of seconds before the computer is shutdown. A dialog will open and display a count down timer!

Give Us Some Info!

shutdown -s -t 120 -c "You better finish, because I shut you down foo!"

The “-c” switch will allow you to give the user some information for the reason of the shutdown.

Shutdown A Remote Computer

shutdown -s -m file://desktop/ -t 45

I really like this one! The “-m” switch will allow you to shutdown a remote machine, in this case, a computer named “desktop”. For this to work, you must have administrative access to the computer! To see of you do, hit Windows Key + R then type the computer’s name, i.e.:

\\desktop

If you can connect to it, you will be asked to log into the machine with a user name and password. Once confirmed, a window will open displaying the directories available to you. Now you know you can shut it down remotely.

Cancel Shutdown
Let’s say that you need to cancel a shutdown in progress. Go to the computer in question, hit Windows Key + R then type command below:

shutdown -a

This will abort the shutdown, assuming there is a counter and it hasn’t reached zero yet!