Tips for Windows 10

Whether you have tablet or computer, Windows 10 has some great features to make life easier for computer learners. There are a wide range of tutorials and guides to Windows 10 published on the web but a hands on session with one's own laptop or tablet gives people a chance to have their questions answered. Here’s a basic guide I used today at my local library with a keen group of senior learners.

To view full screen for clarity, use the four pointed arrowhead, press ESC to return to this page.

Useful articles and videos

• One of the best YouTube channels for short, well explained videos is the Windows10 Update channel. Each short video of two to four minutes duration explains how to use one app or how to get the best from a feature  of Windows.
• Windows 10 anniversary update This 7 min video explains a range of features that have changed since the first version of Windows 10.
• If you dislike the Quick access folder and would prefer that file explorer opened to “My PC” instead, this article from How to Geek explains how to change it.
• The  complete guide to Windows 10 privacy settings comes from  Makeuseof.com.
• This video from the Microsoft channel is useful if you want to use Edge as your browser - Windows 10 How to: Microsoft Edge.

Right click does the trick

Left click chooses, right click presents alternatives

.Following my post about Google Keep here’s a reminder of two useful Google Drive functions.

1. Text can be extracted from images in your Google Drive using right click to Open with Google Docs.
2. Upload a PDF, right click to Open with Google Docs to extract the text.

Google provides these tips to obtain the best results.

• Resolution: Text should be at least 10 pixels in height.
• Orientation: Documents must be right-side up. If your image is facing the wrong way, rotate it before uploading it to Google Drive.
• Languages, fonts, and character sets: Google Drive will detect the language of the document. You'll get better results if your image includes common fonts such as Arial or Times New Roman.
• Image quality: Sharp images with even lighting and clear contrasts work best. Blurry photos will decrease the quality of the text.
• File size: The maximum size for images and PDF files is 2 MB.

Right click on a PDF

Add-ons

There are plenty of add-ons for Google Docs and Sheets. These provide extra functions. Two of my favourites in Docs are Change Case and Easy Accents seen listed here in the Add-ons menu in Google Docs. Simply choose Get add-ons to explore the wide range available.

Some Add-ons for Google Docs

Google Sheets

The Power Tools Add-on for Google Sheets adds a myriad of functions under each heading: Remove, Clear, Text, Split, Functions, Data and Convert.

Do you have favourite Add-ons in Google Docs and Sheets?

Grab the image text

Remember that photo you took of a sign, newspaper article, page from a book?

Do you need the text to insert into a document or email?

Google Keep to the rescue. Keep is a note taking tool available for tablets, phones and on desktop computers. Once you are logged in to your Google account, it will synchronise your notes across all your devices.

On a recent trip I took lots of photos of newspaper death and funeral notices for recently deceased relatives. These recent newspapers are not available on line and I wanted to add the text to my family history database. I like to look for shortcuts to do these types of things. If I don’t need to type it all word for word, but only need to make a few corrections, that’s a bonus for me.

Here’s the process to get the text to copy and paste using a photo of an information board that I took at a scenic outlook.

Open Keep on your phone, tablet or computer. Choose the image icon on the right.

• On phone and tablet the choices are Take a photo or Choose an image
• On computers navigate to the image and add from local folder

Once your choice has been made and the image has uploaded, click/tap on the newly created Note to open it. Choose the three dots More Menu, located bottom right side, then Grab Image Text.

The image text will appear immediately below the image. Check for corrections and adjust any line breaks needed. Now the text is ready to copy and paste to your destination.

Other options at the bottom of the note are for choosing the colour of the note, picking a date and time, selecting a place, sending via share options. The menu options vary depending on the device you are using.

If you have not used Google Keep yet, here’s a quick 3 min introduction video to get you started. How to use Google Keep.

Use the powerful search options within Keep to search notes by place, colour, image, text and more.

To extract text from PDF files I use Google Drive but that’s a post for another day. 😉
How do you quickly extract text from images?

This post first appeared on http://librarycurrants.blogspot.com/2016/11/grab-image-text.html