Mark W.F. Condon: Blog

It’s been my experience with software that folks use it as a tool, to help them do a job they want to do. Otherwise we leave the tool in the tool box and don’t think about it much. We therefore tend to learn how to do what we want to do, use the tool, then put the tool down and walk away. But here’s the revelation: If we don’t already WANT to do something, if we don’t know what the tool can do, then we never learn how it works. The feature that does stuff we never knew we could do just doesn’t exist for us. 

Though I’ve been using Microsoft WORD for a decade or more, I’ll bet I find a new feature in it every month or so. That’s because previously I had never conceived of what the feature did, so I never looked for it. It was always there. I just didn’t see it!

All that to say, I’ll bet there are some features or tools in RealeWriter or in the RealeLibrary system that you don’t even know are there. Here are some examples for you…

Our friend Keith Gilbertson, an adult educator from Rock Castle, Kentucky has created a RealeBook about his family’s genealogy (See it today in the Signature RealeLibrary (http://signature.realelibrary.com/index.php/read/53). This is clearly a ONE family focused book and as such would normally just be emailed to family members for their enjoyment, not sent to the library. However, Keith saw its value as a demonstration for others to try, so he sent this in for consideration. Thanks, Keith!

When Keith’s genealogy book arrived I noted several things that I thought others might find useful / interesting. One is a RealeWriter feature he is using. Others are things he (and you) might consider using in the future:

The pictures in the book are “screen shots,” meaning that they were things Keith had on his screen that he captured for use in his RealeBook. He did this by getting a web page on the computer screen, opening up RealeWriter and in the Image menu, clicking on Capture Screen (The keyboard short cut is hitting Ctrl+K for PC or Cmd+K for Mac). In this case, Keith captured a web site where he and his family have organized their family tree. (Genealogy is a fascinating hobby for lots of folks. Keith’s family “trees” have been traced back to colonial days.)

This screen capture feature of RealeWriter allows you to capture any image on your screen for use in a RealeBook. When the screen is “captured,” an image of the entire screen will appear in your Image Organizer. Then you can drag and drop it onto any page, just like other image. You can also pull it up in the Image Editor (Image menu) to trim off the screen stuff you don’t want, like the tool bars, the random note to yourself, desktop icons, etc. RealeWriter gives you 10 seconds after you click on Capture Screen to arrange it the way you like, before the capture occurs. This provides time for getting RealeWriter out of the way, maximizing the window you do want to capture, etc. It’s a nifty feature that I’m betting most of you have missed, so Keith’s book has given me a chance to sing its praises.

The second issue I noted in Keith’s book was that the screen captures that Keith used had two problems.

The screen captures appeared to be faded out and

The print on the images was too small to read onscreen when opened from the Signature RealeLibrary where the book was contributed.

I took care of the fading by opening each image in the Image Editor (Image menu) and pushing the Contrast control to the right until things became more vivid. This works with scanned artwork by kids or adults, too. It makes colors and print much sharper.

If you print Keith’s RealeBook in one of the larger formats (half sheet or sheet) you can read his genealogical information just fine. If you don’t have the book printed out however, the screen version is no help, the print’s just too small. Now, if you download the RealeBook from the RealeLibrary into RealeWriter, then you can use the Zoom function to read small print (It’s a little icon that looks like a magnifying glass with a + in the middle.) There are two Zoom icons, one under each page of a the displayed page pair. Once I boosted the contrast and then used the Zoom feature, I could read everything just fine!

Now, you may or may not have used the Capture Screen or Image Editor or the Zoom, or the Contrast control features of RealeWriter before, but at least now you know what they do and that they are available for you.
You also know (if you didn’t before) that there may be other things in RealeWriter you have yet to discover. When you get a few minutes, just spend some time exploring the pull-down menus and the various tool sets on RealeWriter’s panels.

There may be fabulous tools in your RealeWriter tool box, just waiting for you to find them.