Leverage PowerPoint To Save Almost Anything As A JPEG

Colleen McHugh at Orations of OMcHodoy contacted me recently with a problem: she needed to take a Word table and save it as an image. Using a simple Print Screen and pasting the screen capture into an imaging software like Microsoft Picture Manager was not an option. So what to do?

Many people don't realize that if you have Microsoft Office you probably have Microsoft PowerPoint[1]. Did you know that you can use PowerPoint to save items as JPEG files? Here's how:

1. Open PowerPoint.


2.  Clear any text boxes or placeholders on the default slide (CTRL + A then DEL).



3.  Open the item you wish to copy.  For this example I am using part of a Word table.  Select the area to be copied, click with the right mouse button and from the Shortcut Menu select Copy.

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4.  Switch to the blank PowerPoint slide.  Click with the right mouse button and select Paste.  The Word table portion appears.

5. On the File menu, select Save As.  In the Save File As Type drop-down list, select JPG (or another graphic format).  Click Save.



6. A prompt to save Every Slide or the Current Slide Only as a graphic file will appear. On our case, since there is only one slide, we can select either option.



7. Locate and open the graphic file.  Crop, edit or reformat as needed.



[1] Not all versions of Microsoft Office comes with the PowerPoint application - it depends on which configuration you purchase.

How To Burn a Feed - FeedBurner

Now that you have a better understanding of what it means to "burn a feed," you should first review the settings on your blogging platform.  For detailed posting on Blogger settings, see Burning Your Feeds - What Do Your Readers Want?

Here are the basic steps to burning a feed using FeedBurner:

1.  Go to FeedBurner and create an account.

2.  Burn a feed by entering your blog address in the Burn a feed right this instant field and clicking Next.  For this posting, I will use this blog, Bootcamp for Genea-Bloggers.

3.  You will be asked to identify the feed source.  In our case, we are choosing between the Atom and the RSS formats.  Select RSS.

4.  If all goes well and the feed can be readily identified, you will be asked to click Activate Feed.

5.  Click Next if you care to customize the FeedBurner Stats program or click Skip directly to feed management.  We will skip and come back to the stats later.

6.  Copy the entire feed address and paste it into a blank email or a blank document for later retrieval.  Our feed address is http://feeds.feedburner.com/FacebookBootcampForGenea-bloggers.

7.  Now you must adjust certain settings in Blogger in order to redirect the feed to FeedBurner and to offer an icon for your users to click to subscribe to your feed.

8.  On your Blogger dashboard, locate the blog and click Settings.  The Settings tab will display the various options.

9.  Click Site Feed.  In the Post Feed Redirect URL field, enter the full feed address displayed at FeedBurner.

10.  Click Save Settings.

11.  Return to FeedBurner and click on My Feeds.  Your feed most likely cannot be accessed since FeedBurner is still receiving all the redirected content.  You may be asked to check back, up to 24 hours from now. 

Now you need to add a means with which your readers can subscribe to your content:

12.  Return to the Blogger Dashboard, select your blog and click Layout.

13.  Click Add Gadget.

14.  The Add Gadget window appears.  Locate the Subscription Links gadget and click the image.

15.  The Configure Subscription Links window appears.  Click Save.

16.  A new Subscribe To feature appears on your blog.

That's all there is to it.  There are many different settings and tweaks which can be made to the feed once the feed is fully displayed in FeedBurner.

What Does It Mean To Burn A Feed?

The question of "what does it mean to burn a feed?" may seem very basic to most genea-bloggers but I bet when you first started your blogging habit, you had much the same puzzled look as I did when I first heard of "burning a feed."

The best place to start is to look at the two key words:

feed - refers to a Web feed which sends updated content to users. The terms web feed and news feed are inter-changeable. Users must subscribe to a feed - it is just like a magazine in that you won't have the content delivered unless you sign up or subscribe.

burn - just like "burning a CD," the content provider - usually a blogger - must actively create a feed to which users can subscribe.

So the next step is to discuss how each end of the connection - the blogger/content provider and the user/reader - perform their functions and which tools are used to not only send content out to users but also how users can receive and read that content.

reader - there are various news readers (aka feed readers) available to users, all of them more appropriately being described as aggregators. An aggregator is a program which combines all the various feeds to which a user has subscribed and allows the user to read and organize the content. The most common web-based readers are Google Reader (which is what yours truly uses) and Bloglines. There are also desktop based readers aka client readers which are not as common. Most readers allow you to create folders, tags and labels to organize the content of the feeds.

burner - the content provider/blogger must select a program to use in order to prepare the content to be fed to the user. This process is called "burning a feed" and is usually accomplished using the Atom or RSS standard. The most common program used to burn feeds is Feedburner.

Some considerations to keep in mind when deciding whether or not to burn a feed and which settings to use:

- most blogging platforms allow you to burn full posts (showing the entire post) or partial posts (either a teaser headline or the first few lines of a post)

- if you have a readership that accesses your content through a mobile device (smart phone), very often they want the full content since they may not have access to a Web browser to view your original post

- bloggers prefer, of course, to direct traffic back to their blogs so they very often only burn partial posts into a feed

- burning full posts to a feed also helps with the proliferation of splogs or spam blogs since the content is freely available to anyone who subscribes

My New Genealogy Page and More!

Well, I've been working much of the weekend on my new website, thomas 2.0 including thomas 2.0 - The Blog. I think I'm ready to let the cat out of the bag on this one!

First, thomas 2.0 is basically a way of pulling all my various projects, both career and genealogy, into one area of easy access. What I am excited most about are these two parts of thomas 2.0:

thomas 2.0 - Genealogy: I've greatly expanded my genealogy page especially the links portion. There are now over 100 links that I find useful for my genealogy research. Take a visit and perhaps you will too. Special shout outs to Lorine of Olive Tree Genealogy and Jennifer of Rainy Day Genealogy Readings. As you can see, I find their sites very useful and have bookmarked a few of their posts!

thomas 2.0 - The Blog: I found the need for a more personal blog about me and about technology. With the byline "A treasure trove of technical tips, tricks, tweeks and treats" (talk about aliteration!), this site will contains posts pertaining to new technologies, many of them freeware, open-source or Web 2.0, and how to apply them to your own desktop, blog and more.

While you are at thomas 2.0 take time to look at my current Ventures or any other are and send me some feedback if you have a chance. Thanks!

My New Backup Toy

I promised Mr. MacEntee that I would share some infomation with our fellow genea-bloggers about my newest toy – a 1 TB external drive – 4.5 by 7.5 inches by Acomdata™. I never thought I would be describing a drive in these words but it is actually cute!

On August 1, 2008 when Thomas published Today is Data Back Up Day on Destination: Austin Family, he included a photograph of a burnt-out computer tower. That was a wake-up moment for me. What immediately came to mind was the Oakland Hills Fire of October 20, 1991, almost seventeen years ago. The fire (just two years after the Loma Prieta Earthquake) guaranteed my continued involvement with a local disaster preparedness committee. I spent several years helping to organize neighborhoods, including my own, so that people who live in earthquake-country and in fire-prone areas, had the skills, supplies and information necessary to deal with the aftermath of a disaster.

One of the lessons learned was to create a "grab list" – a handy listing of the important items to take with you in case you are forced to evacuate your home in a hurry. Family photos are at the top of most lists but computer data are probably a close second. One look at that burned-out computer reminded me that over the years I had neglected to update my preparedness list to include the changing technology.

Thomas had suggested a specific drive but I found that it was not compatible with my iMac and its operating system. I found the Acomdata pureDrive – priced right, small enough to grab in an emergency and with one terrabyte of storage! We've come a long way from the megabytes we needed to store back in 1991.

The new toy in its new home.

Thank you, Thomas, for the nudge. What about the rest of you? Do you have a data backup plan?

American Red Cross Preparedness Information

Disaster Preparedness for Pets

Small Business Preparedness

State of California Office of Emergency Services with downloadable pdf tip sheets.