Mayrie and Roger; the funny thing is I won a full Office copy and can't bring myself to install it since I like starter so well and the only downside is a small ad mrgin on the right side of the screen I don't even notice now. Works great for me and my proofreaders have had no complaints... Valerie Join us in celebrating our 10th Anniversary! Bookshare: Bringing Reading to Life for 10 Years http://www.bookshare.org/ ________________________________ From: Mayrie ReNae <mayrierenae@xxxxxxxxx> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sun, July 15, 2012 3:45:35 AM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: a couple of questions Hi Valerie! Yaye! Thanks for chiming in on this! I thought you'd know. Mayrie ________________________________ From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Valerie Maples Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2012 9:48 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: a couple of questions Roger; I actually prefer Word starter to full Word as there is less bloat and it does everything I need for either preparing my scans or proofreading. Another blind person can tell you how to handle ribbons, but less clutter with everything else I need makes it my choice for Bookshare work. Hope this helps some... Valerie ________________________________ From: Roger Loran Bailey <rogerbailey81@xxxxxxx> To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Sat, July 14, 2012 6:49:38 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: a couple of questions This is interesting. A long time ago I decided that my niche as a volunteer was a submitter. When I started out I proofed, but at that time the only word processor I had was Wordpad and it only read page breaks on certain books and then as I upgraded JAWS it stopped even that. I did not have Word and I didn't want to spend the money for it for one thing and for another thing I didn't want to have to learn it. You may recall that I have said here before that I taught myself to use a computer in the first place and with no help it is an utterly exhausting chore to learn the slightest thing. Nevertheless, the more I learn the easier it is to learn more. This very list has helped me to learn a lot of things about using a computer and from here I have discovered other technical support lists which have been a help too. However, I still decided to concentrate on submitting because I did not have the equipment nor know how to do a really proper job of proofing. Without Word or a decent word processor I am unable to enlarge chapter headings or bold things or a lot of the tasks that have been discussed here. When I scan a book for submission I do preproof it. In fact, right now I am scanning an old mass market paperback that is falling apart and so I am scanning it one page at a time and reading through each of those pages and doing a spell check before scanning the next page. It is slow going, but that is how I am doing it and I am using Open Book for that. The formatting and other tasks that make a book ready to add to the collection I leave for the proofreader. Since my submissions are preproofed I think they are pretty easy proofs, but there are still things for the proofreader to do. Then this past November my computer went kaput and I got a new one. It does have Word starter on it, but I haven't done much with it and have not looked very closely at what I can do with it because I figured it was a really dummed down version of Word. On reading this message to which I am replying, though, I decided to try the instructions on how to make it read page breaks and -- voila! -- it worked. That makes me interested in what else I can do with it. Here is my question for now. Can Word starter be used for the various proofreading tasks that are commonly discussed on this list? If it can I am thinking that I just might try proofreading again or more thoroughly preproof my own submissions. If I do that I can warn you that I will be asking questions that have been discussed here time and time again and that did not seem relevant to me so that I never paid much attention. I have plenty of time to consider it though. After all, the need right now seems to be for submitters, not proofreaders.