Monthly Archives: July 2007

Save Paper with OpenOffice Brochure Printing

OpenOffice can print with a “brochure” layout, so that you print your document with two pages to a sheet, then fold the resulting document in half, staple it, and all the page numbers are automagically in sequence.

Pretty cool if you have a duplex printer, which I don’t.

If you too have a printer which can only print on one side of the paper, here’s what you do:

  • Go to File -> Print
  • Click “Options”
  • In the “Pages” section, uncheck “Left Pages” and check “Right Pages”, “Reversed” and “Brochure”
  • Click OK to dismiss the Printer Options dialog
  • Back on the Print dialog, click “Properties…” and ensure your printer is set to print in landscape mode
  • Click OK, and make a cup of tea while it prints…
  • Now, take the printed stack and turn it so the blank side of the stack is uppermost. Take a peek under the top sheet, you should see it contains page 1. That’s good, as we’re about to print 2 on the back of it…
  • Pop the stack into your paper tray. On my printer, the side to printed goes uppermost, and the top of the sheet is towards the front of the printer. I’m hoping yours is the same, so the blank side of the stack should be uppermost, and if you take another quick peek underneath that first sheet, you should find page 1 is frontmost towards the printer. Good. You’re all set…
  • Run back to the computer, hit Print, go to the Options again, this time, check “Left Pages”, uncheck “Right Pages”, uncheck “Reversed” and check “Brochure”
  • Click OK to dismiss the Options dialog, then OK to print
  • Now dash back to the printer. By this point you will be giddy with excitement
  • Pick up the stack, reverse the order, then fold it over so page 1 forms the front cover
  • Staple it together and smugly hand copies to your colleagues. Job Done

I’m really writing this post so I can repeat this trick in future, but I hope someone else finds it useful!

Yahoo ZoneTag

Now that I’ve got pastebin back on an even keel, there’s lots of Geograph work to be done. I’ve been slowly working on a tagging engine which is nearing completion, but this morning Barry Hunter pointed me in the direction of Yahoo’s ZoneTag project (via HighEarthOrbit)

ZoneTag can suggest your location and tagging information based on cellphone tower, zipcode or latitude & longitude. The last piece of the tagging system I’m working on is the suggestion engine, so this was of great interest.

I gave it a quick test run, and predictably, it’s a case of feast or famine. A request for my home town of Baldock in the UK produces two results – “Plinston Hall” and “Letchworth” – so not entirely useful. More fruitful was a request for the location of the London Eye – you’re deluged with a plethora of data – here are the “venue” tags it suggests:

Waterloo, cleopatra’s needle, Eurostar, Downing Street, Eagle, London Eye, Guard, Waterloo Station, Parliament, Somerset House, Whitehall, Westminster, Memorial, skyline, Big Ben, Embankment, Thames, graffiti, Hungerford Bridge, Dali, SW1, horse, Eye, Banksy, train, Trafalgar Square, National Theatre, St Martins Lane, trains, station, Ferris Wheel, bridge, river, Guards, church, SE1, pub, Waterloo Bridge, Protest, IMAX, Horse Guards Parade, Wheel, River Thames, Charing Cross, Underground, View, sign, Southwark, House, Tube, Palace of Westminster, Horse Guards, Red, night, London Aquarium, Victoria Tower, england, sky, UK, Lion, long exposure, blue, statue, Trafalgar, Lambeth, Millenium Wheel, Demonstration, Peace, Anti War, Bus, Elephant, Europe, Clock, Nelsons Column, Street, Oxo Tower, Guess Where London

Perhaps a few too many there, but still, not a bad result. As it’s an experimental beta, not sure we can use it directly for Geograph, but it might serve as a useful comparison for our own suggestion engine. We could even offer a compatible service based on our own data too…