Bravo, Rose. This is excellent information that will surely benefit us all.
I love the idea of simply adding functionality to Text Edit, a marvelous program in its own right. Thank you again. Mark ________________________________________ From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com [mailto:macvisionar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Rose Morales Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 10:24 PM To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Subject: Word Service, an excellent addition to any word processing application (was Re: Microsoft Office 2011 and VoiceOver) Hi all, In the Office 2011 thread, we have been discussing several possible alternatives to Office for Mac. WHile this is not exactly an alternative, I thought it would be something nice for all to consider. I did a search through the group, and it seems no one has mentioned this Add-on before. In addition to offering the Bean app for download, the web site for Bean recommend a number of additional applications. One of which is WordService. THis is not so much an application as it is an add-on. THis add-on allows you to add extra functionality to a word processor which may not already be included: insert contents of path, insert short date, insert long date, insert time, convert to initial caps of all sentences, initial caps of words, make all words lowercase, set all to uppercase, convert spaces to tabulators, convert all line breaks to carriage returns, convert from Windows to Mac encoding, convert from Mac to WIndows encoding, remove line breaks, remove attachments, remove links, remove extra spaces, remove quotes in emails, etc. There are just too many functions to list here. The add-on adds all these options and more to your service menu. >From their readme: This service provides 37 functions to convert, format or speak the currently selected text, to insert data or to show statistics of the selection within all Cocoa applications (e.g. Textedit, Mail, Stickies, Notes, Fire, OmniWeb, ProjectBuilder or TeXShop) and Carbon applications supporting services. THey also make reference to this article which describes what services actually do on/for your mac. http://highschoolblows.blogspot.com/2005/11/mac-os-x-services-menu-you-never -go-to.html To install WordService, simply copy WordService.service into your services folder under the library folder that's in your home folder. An easy way to get to your home folder in Finder is to hit command-shift-h. The readme then recommends that you log out and back in again. However, there's an additional step to get this add-on working with Snow Leopard. The readme doesn't mention this. I would assume this is because the add-on is designed for earlier versions of OSX. But I did some research, performed these steps, and the add-on worked for me. You will have to go into system preferences, keyboard, keyboard shortcuts, and select the services category in the shortcuts categories table. You will then need to check the boxes of the services you wish to show up in your services menu. If you're like me, you probably bypass the readme when installing mac apps unless you see a crucial need. I highly recommend not bypassing this one. It lists all the functions of WordService and describes what each one does. It also explains how you can further customize this add-on if you so choose. On Sep 27, 2010, at 11:04 AM, Justin Ekis wrote: I have found a free word processor that has just enough extra features over textedit to make it sufficient for most of my writing needs in college. The program's name is bean. I don't have a feature list in front of me, but I do remember the address of the site. http://www.bean-osx.com I remember not being particularly impressed by the feature list on the site, but I was curious enough to read the change log for a little more detail. I realized that though it doesn't have all of the power of pages, it has those few little extra things that textedit lacked for my needs. For those interested in iwork, amazon.com is selling it for $49.99 which is about $30 less than retail and you get free shipping. Hope someone finds this information helpful. Justin On Sep 27, 2010, at 5:15 AM, Rose Morales wrote: The problem with something like Notepad is that notepad can only write text files. This is fine if you're just looking to jot down a note or ten. Hence the name notepad, :). MS Word is designed to let you format your text. Now, one could use Wordpad, but that doesn't have a spellchecker. Furthermore, MS Word is able to handle some pretty advanced word processing features: indices, table of contents, table of figures, table of authorities, outlines, bulleted lists, subdocuments, styles, track changes, tables, charts, simple excel calculations and formulas, mail merge, envelope labeling, and probably more I'm not thinking of. WHile your average MS Word user might not even know half of these features exist, there are others who simply cannot live without them. Personally, having taken a course in Office, I can certainly appreciate the idea of MS Word for mac. An awesome word processor on an even more awesome OS? That sounds lovely. Too bad that won't happen for awhile. With that being said, let's look at some of Pages notable features: numerous preloaded templates, the ability to create custom templates, easy insertion of headers and footers, styles, track changes, mail merge, footnotes, endnotes, bookmarks, tables, charts, and formulas. And Pages has the ability to export not only to word documents but epub, rtf, PDF, and html. You can't save as .docx yet, which is a pity, but you can open .docx files just fine. I'm not saying all this to suggest that everyone immediately love Pages. We can all agree it lacks some features which word has. Honestly, my first instinct is to fire up Word when I'm doing some intense document writing and editing. And I'm a hard core Mac girl. For my every day writing, I use Text Edit, and I love it. I call it WOrdpad on steroids because Wordpad doesn't have a spellchecker, the ability to save to PDF, or the ability to implement basic styles. At any rate, what I am suggesting is that we as Mac users (those of us with Pages at least) step back and say, okay, Pages isn't word. But what can it offer me? Is there some word processing I could be doing in Pages which I previously only did in Word? And if we don't know the answer, why not try creating that document in Pages when we're not on a time crunch? We might just surprise ourselves. In an effort to remain objective, I will also take the opportunity to include this link in my post. It is to Pages reviews on macupdate.com. http://www.macupdate.com/reviews.php?id=17494 On Sep 27, 2010, at 5:51 AM, ISAAC OBIE wrote: Hi Kawal, Frankly, I don't like programs like MS Word because it's too big for what I want to do. It's huge, clumsy and plain a pain in the posterior. I love notepad! I think Notepad can do all I want including cleaning up a file. Now when I really get in to the Mac I think Text edit might do the trick. I honestly don't know yet. Maybe Esther's "Simplenote" might do it. I'll have to explore that at some point. Isaac ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kawal Gucukoglu" <kawal_gucuko...@sent.com> To: <macvisionaries@googlegroups.com> Sent: Monday, September 27, 2010 4:27 AM Subject: Re: Microsoft Office 2011 and VoiceOver I too will be switching to I works rather than working with Microsoft Products in the future. Kawal Gucukoglu On 27 Sep 2010, at 12:53 AM, gkearney <gkear...@gmail.com> wrote: It is interesting to note that the ribbons were accessible, much of the user interface is as well. It is the main content areas that are not accessible. Greg On Sep 27, 6:16 am, "Dave Taylor" <davetay...@tafn.org.uk> wrote: I bet that if they tried, they would soon realise that the ribbons would be difficult if not impossible to implement with VO anyway. As it is, their insistence on these awful things is one of my key drivers for making the switch, though there are many others too. Mike, the podcast where you install Snow Leopard is as good a demonstration as anything of how far things have come on the Mac side, I'm afraid it is the opposite story, almost the reverse story, on the windows side! Cheers Dave -----Original Message----- From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com [mailto:macvisionar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mike Arrigo Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2010 11:03 PM To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: Microsoft Office 2011 and VoiceOver I don't think he said it was a beta. It is very disappointing indeed, really, Microsoft has no excuse for this one, it's not like they were not aware of accessibility and voice over, they just chose not to do anything with it. Apple has created a built in screen reader and provided the APIs to make programs accessible, Microsoft has definitely shown their interest in this. At least on the mac, there are alternatives that will handle Microsoft Office files, namely iwork and open office. On Sep 26, 2010, at 3:18 PM, M. Taylor wrote: Hello Greg, Thank you so much for providing this info. I cannot begin to relay how sad and disappointed I am at the news of Microsoft's Office 2011 VoiceOver inaccessibility. Wow! You know, when I installed the very first beta of Windows 7, it was completely accessible. That is to say, as soon as one launched the installation program for Windows 7, a very clear voice prompt asked if audio assistance was required. This came as a total surprise to me, to say the least. I answered in the affirmative and was able to install Windows 7 without any sighted assistance, whatsoever. I installed that first beta on three of my computers. By the way, the voice that was used to guide me through the setup was not that of Narrator--it was much clearer. Astonishingly, with the release of the next beta of Windows 7, this feature was removed. I was shocked, disappointed, and angry, to say the least. It was then that I began considering purchasing a Macintosh. It's been much too long to recall how I came to learn Microsoft's reason for removing this feature but they said they removed it for security concerns; to which I exclaim, "TommyRot!!!!!" Or, to put it in the vernacular, "That's a load of crap!!!!" Greg, is it possible that the final release of Office 2011 will be VoiceOver accessible? I mean, you reviewed a beta, did you not? Perhaps I'm just grasping at straws, eh? (Smile) Thanks again for giving us a proverbial "heads-up" on this one. Most Sincerely, mark - -----Original Message----- From: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com [mailto:macvisionar...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Greg Kearney Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2010 1:22 AM To: macvisionaries@googlegroups.com; macvoiceo...@freelists.org; Mary Beth Janes; Mike Shebanek Subject: Microsoft Office 2011 and VoiceOver It is my sad duty to report that after getting a chance to test Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac that it is no more accessible in this version than in any of the previous versions. As in the past it is impossible to interact with any of the content areas of the program. You are not able to review, read or edit the text area in Word or Excel. It should not be clear to all that Microsoft has no intention of ever fixing these issues. I communicated directly with Microsoft over the same failing in Office 2008. The fact that after a complete rewire of the programs they remain inaccessible to the built in screen reader of the OS to me speak volumes about Microsoft's total lack of commitment to accessibility on the Macintosh platform and may well speak to Microsoft's general commitment to the platform as well. Gregory Kearney | Manager Accessible Media Association for the Blind of WA - Guide Dogs WA PO Box 101, Victoria Park WA 6979 | 61 Kitchener Ave, Victoria Park WA 6100 Tel: 08 9311 8246 | Fax: 08 9361 8696 |www.guidedogswa.com.au Tel: 307-224-4022 (North America) Email: greg.kear...@guidedogswa.com.au Email: gkear...@gmail.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group athttp://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To post to this group, send email to macvisionar...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries?hl=en.
