Convert Office Documents with Zoho Viewer

Zoho Viewer, an online tool that lets you preview Office documents and PDF files in the browser without any desktop software, now supports document conversion as well.
You may use Zoho Viewer to convert Office 2010 specific formats (like docx) to the more common file formats (like doc) as well as for converting text and Office files to PDFs.

Click the “Convert” tab in Zoho Viewer to get started or directly go to viewer.zoho.com/converter. You don’t have to sign-up for performing document conversions.
Zoho Viewer doesn’t support a variety of file formats as Zamzar does but the service is instant and doesn’t ask for your email address.

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Nuance PDF Reader Can Convert Files Accurately

Nuance, the company you probably know for their speech recognition software, has released a free PDF viewer for Windows that you may not only use for reading documents but for also converting PDFs into other formats.

There's plenty of competition in this space – there are desktop tools like Adobe Reader and Foxit that are also free and then you have online viewers where you can read PDF files directly in the browser without requiring any software.
Since it can be a bit difficult to compete when rival products (read Adobe Reader) are equally good and available at similar prices ($0.00), Nuance has added some unique features to stand out.
When you install Nuance PDF viewer, they give you an option to completely disable JavaScript so PDFs with bad intentions are less likely to harm your system. You can turn off JavaScript in other PDF viewers as well but here you can make that choice at the installation stage itself.
Nuance PDF Reader includes support for basic annotations so you can highlight text with a marker inside PDF document and also save the changes.

The real reason why you want to give Nuance PDF Reader a try is PDF conversion. You can use the software to convert your PDF files to Microsoft Word and Excel formats with a simple click.
I just converted a fairly complex PDF document to Word and the conversion was quick and fairly accurate. The only problem is that conversion happens in the cloud and not on your desktop - you click the "Convert" button, the software will upload the PDF document to Nuance servers and the converted file will reach you as email attachment.
For more, check out nuance.com.

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Convert PowerPoint Presentations into DVD-Quality Video

With PowerPoint 2010, you can create a high-quality video file of your PowerPoint presentations that can distributed by burning a DVD or you can upload it to YouTube and other video sharing sites on the web.
The video file created by PowerPoint incorporates all recorded timings, narrations, and laser pointer gestures. It will also preserves all slide animations, transitions, and media that may be embedded in your presentations.
You can create videos from PowerPoint presentations in the following three formats:
1. Computer & HD Displays - For viewing on a computer monitor, projector, or high definition display (960 x720)
2. Internet & DVD - For uploading to the Web and burning to standard DVD (640 x480)
3. Portable Devices - For devices like iPod or Zune (like a video podcast); Small text may be difficult to read (320 x240)
PowerPoint will create videos in the Windows Media (wmv) format only.

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Use Google Docs as a Batch PDF Converter

If you have a huge bundle of Word Documents, Excel Spreadsheets and PowerPoint Presentations on your hard drive that you would like to convert into PDF at once without investing in commercial software like Adobe Acrobat, try Google Docs.
While it has always been possible to convert Office documents into PDF using Google Docs, the new export feature makes it even easier for you to batch convert Microsoft Office and OpenOffice file formats into PDF (or HTML) in three easy steps.

Batch Conversion to PDF with Google Docs

Step #1 - Create a new "input" folder in Google Docs where you'll upload all your documents and presentations that are to converted into PDF.

Step #2 - Now select the Upload Document option in Google Docs, set the destination folder to the one that you created in Step #1 and upload* all your documents.
Google Docs officially supports the following file formats though you may also upload images:

• Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt, .pps).
• Microsoft Word (.doc, .docx), OpenDocument (.odt) and StarOffice (.sxw).
• Microsoft Excel (csv, .xls, .xlsx) files and OpenDocument Spreadsheet (.ods).

[*] You may also use the email option to upload documents onto Google Docs but that would put everything on the main folder and managing documents can therefore become a issue especially when you have too many files.
Step #3 -  Once all files are uploaded onto Google Docs, open the dashboard again and select the "input" folder from the right sidebar. Select all the files in this folder and choose "Export" under "More Options".
Here's select "PDF" (or HTML) as the output format and all your Word Documents, presentations, spreadsheets, etc. will be instantly converted into PDF.

And if you are converting a large batch of documents into PDF, you don't have to wait in the browser for the conversion to finish as Google Docs will automatically send you an email once the processing is over. The email will have a link from where you can directly download all the PDF files in one large ZIP.

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BlackBerry eBook Readers – Read Books & Office Documents on the go!

Got a BlackBerry? Here's a round-up of some free BlackBerry apps that will turn your mobile phone into a proper eBook reader - not like Kindle or Sony Reader but close. Later, we looks at workarounds to help you catch up with business documents, downloaded web pages, PDFs, etc. on your BlackBerry from virtually anywhere.

Review of BlackBerry e-Book Readers

Following is a list of eBook readers currently available for BlackBerry - they are all free software and support most BlackBerry models including the latest ones like BlackBerry Bold and Storm.
1. eReader Pro - This eBook software from Barnes & Noble will help you browse and download books directly on to your BlackBerry device. It can read any of your existing eBooks that are written in the PDB format or you may download one of their free titles to get started.
Just connect the BlackBerry device to you computer, copy the PDB files on to the phone's memory card, disconnect and you can now read this eBooks inside BlackBerry. The eReader software includes a handy search function, you can bookmark pages and it automatically remembers where you left off.
2. Short Covers - This is a unique online book store that provides both a desktop and a mobile interface for reading ebooks. That means you can buy an eBook from Short Covers and read part of that book on your desktop browser and the remaining part on your BlackBerry or another computer. These mobile and online interfaces are always in sync so you can pick up from where you left off on the previous device.
The first chapter of any ebook / magazine available on Short Covers is always free so you can easily decide whether you want to make the purchase. You can also upload your own Word Documents or HTML web pages to Short Covers and either sell this content as other ebooks or distribute it for free under a Creative Commons license.
The BlackBerry Reader software of Short Covers is not perfect yet though their online store and reading interface is pretty nice.
3. MobiPocket Reader - This ebook reader is from Amazon, the same company that develops the popular Kindle e-ink reader. With MobiPocket, you can read files of virtually any format in your BlackBerry including PDF documents, CHM Help files, HTML web pages and Microsoft Office formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).
The eReader software supports annotations (or text highlighting), you can copy text from an eBook into the BlackBerry's clipboard (useful for emailing snippets), add notes on individual pages, the layout margins are adjustable and you can quickly navigate around the book with simple keyboard shortcuts. Just perfect.
Using BlackBerry as a PDF Viewer
To read Adobe PDF files in your BlackBerry, you can simply send that file as an attachment to your own email address and then use the built-in PDF viewer of BlackBerry's email client to read that document. The same idea may be used for reading Office documents, such as Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, on the BlackBerry.
That's one approach but if you have multiple PDF documents on your computer that you want to read on a BlackBerry, you may consider buying a standalone PDF viewer like the Documents to Go or Beam Reader. These apps can handle both PDF attachments and PDF documents stored on the memory card of your BlackBerry but they cost money so here're some free alternatives.
Read PDFs & Office Documents on a BlackBerry as eBooks

Amazon owned Mobipocket eBook Reader comes with a free Windows application to help you manage your entire eBook library from the desktop. This app has a built-in tool to convert Office Documents, PDFs, HTML pages, etc. into eBooks that your BlackBerry ebook reader can understand.
So all you have to do is import documents into the Mobipocket Reader bookshelf (see screenshot) and connect the BlackBerry to the computer. It can't get simpler than this.
Save HTML Web Pages as BlackBerry eBooks
If you like to read offline web pages (say a long article that you downloaded from The New York Times website) on your BlackBerry, try Stanza Desktop - you probably know Stanza for their popular eBook reader for iPhone that was recently acquired by Amazon.

With Stanza Desktop, you can open any web page directly in the application and export it into a format that can be read on most mobile devices. It support epub, Palm PDB, Microsoft LIT, Adobe PDF and most other popular ebook file formats.
Unlike Mobipocket, Stanza formats web content (and Office documents) like a real book (sans any distracting elements) and you are therefore very likely to enjoy this layout for reading. You may transfer these Stanza ebooks into BlackBerry via MobiPocket Desktop.
How to Create eBooks for BlackBerry from Scratch
The tools and techniques discussed about are more about conversion but if you like to create an eBook from scratch for reading on a BlackBerry, check out Mobipocket Creator.
It's a free application that lets you create eBooks from scratch using text files, PDFs, Word documents and images. You may preview the eBook in a local simulator before publishing it to the world.

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Extract Tables from PDF files into Excel or HTML

Q: How do you extract tables from a PDF document (like the quarterly earnings report of a company) and paste them into Excel for further editing or what-if analysis.
A: If you have a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can open the PDF file, select the table with your mouse and copy-paste that data into Excel.
If you don't have Acrobat, you can upload the file the online PDF to Excel Converter here and specify you email address where you want to receive this PDF as an editable XLS document.
PDF documents converted with this utility will work in Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice, Google Docs, Corel WordPerfect and any other software that can open open XLS or XLSX files.
Remember that this utility won't convert your entire PDF into an Excel file - it will just identify the tables in the PDF and will package them into the XLS file while retaining the font styles, colors, cell height and other formatting.

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Save your Word Documents as MP3

If you like to listen to Word Documents on your mobile phone or an iPod, check the Save as Daisy add-in available for Microsoft Word.

This will convert the text of your Word Documents into a Daisy book along with an audio file in MP3 format. The audio is generated by the default text-to-speech (TTS) engine on your Windows computer.
"Save as DAISY" add-in is available for Microsoft Office works with Word XP, Word 2003, and Word 2007. It was originally created through an open source project with Microsoft.

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Now Upload Excel 2007 Files to Google Docs

This may seem like a minor improvement but would certainly help lot of Google Docs users who frequently exchange spreadsheets with people who use Microsoft Office 2007.

If a person on the other side sends you a spreadsheet saved in the newer Excel 2007 format, you neither have to ask him for a previous xls version nor do you need to upload that "sensitive" data on to a third-party website for online conversion.
That's because you can now upload Excel 2007 files (saved as xlsx) into Google Docs and it will import all cell data and formulas though the formatting was not preserved as you can notice from the above screenshot.
XLSX is the only format currently supported by Google Docs. You still need the help of other services for converting Word & PowerPoint 2007 files in a format that Google Docs can understand. Even Gmail can process Office 2007 files.

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Read Web Articles in a Beautiful & Distraction Free Environment

Language classes Individual+groups
Distraction-free writing tools transform your cluttered browser in such a fashion that you can focus on writing - everything else on the desktop screen stays hidden so you have nothing else to do but write.
Now something that applies the same concept to reading websites - it removes the clutter from web pages so it becomes easy to focus on reading.

This is possible through Readability - a brilliant browser bookmarklet that can format any web page on the fly without reloading the page.
Readability removes all the distracting elements (like sidebars, graphics, navigation, etc) from a web page and makes reading more enjoyable by changing the background colors, font styles and page margins to match that of an eBook, Novel or a newspaper - these are all documents that are designed for reading purpose only.
Technically, this is like switching the stylesheet of a site but without installing extensions or using any geeky hacks. And while the converted format may sometime resemble a printable version of that page, Readability isn't using the default print stylesheet as it did turn up a few unexpected results at certain times.
Here are some sample reading layouts as rendered by Readability - it's a bookmarklet and not an add-on so should work in all browsers including the latest Google Chrome and Safari. Don't miss it.

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Download FLV Video Editing Software for Free

The video clips that you download from YouTube are often encoded in Flash Video (FLV) format and therefore not compatible with Windows Movie Maker and other video editing software.
Another problem with FLV videos is that they won't play on most mobile phones so you'll first have to convert them into 3GP or some other popular format before transferring the clips to the phone.

FLV Video Editor Pro - Screenshot
The FLV Editor Pro software from Moyea has all the tools you need to edit an FLV clip - it can be used to crop selected portion from a video, for joining multiple FLV clips into one, for extracting still images from FLV videos or for converting FLV into other video formats like 3GP, Quicktime MP4, Windows Media, etc.  FLV Editor can also help you extract MP3 audio from a Flash Video clip.
You can go to this Give Away page and grab a software license for free. Update: The offer has expired but you check the FLV Video Editing Guide for more solutions on editing FLV videos.

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Convert Excel data to HTML Table

MXF tools, files and demonstrations Multiplatform and comprehensive SDK
Tableizer is a simple tool to convert data from Excel or any other spreadsheet software into HTML table code. You just copy the data and paste it into Tableizer, and it generates the HTML code that can be used on your blog or website.
Alternatively, you can download a copy of Windows Live Writer and copy-paste the Excel spreadsheet table into the Writer window. Now switch to the "HTML Source" view in Writer and you should see a nice formatted HTML table that can you copy-paste anywhere else.

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Open docx Files in Firefox without Office 2007

If you like to open .docx files without Office Word 2007, there's a new Firefox extension from Microsoft that should help. Available for Windows as well as Linux machines.

Open DOCX files as an HTML document in any web browser
Called OpenXML viewer, this plug-in (download link) lets you read docx files inside the Firefox browser just like any other HTML web page while retaining all the text formatting and layout.
There's a command-line version of OpenXML viewer (download link) available as well for converting docx documents into HTML files that you may then open in any other web browser.

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Get a Log of your Online Activity as an Image with FriendFeed

FriendFeed recently added an image based feed widget that lets you export a log of your online activity as a still image. This is helpful if you like to include your lifestream in an email message or need to embed it in a site that doesn't support JavaScript (e.g. MySpace & WordPress.com).

To get started, simply login to you FriendFeed account and go to Embeddable Widgets. Uncheck the Logo, Comments and Subscribe option to remove all the FriendFeed branding.
While there are enough services already convert feeds into images, the feed widget from FriendFeed is far better because it supports image thumbnails and you also have more control over the output image.
For instance, you may choose to convert either you full lifestream into an image or  selected service like pictures uploaded on Flickr, items you wish to buy on Amazon, your blog entries, LinkedIn updates, etc. The width of the image can be customized as well.
See some sample images (they appear still but will update automatically if new content is posted) - Blog, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube.

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Convert DOCX and other Office 2007 files to HTML with Gmail

Use Gmail as Office 2007 to HTML converter
You need no hacks to read those Word 2007 files (docx) files without Office 2007.
Just mail all the Office 2007 document(s) to your own Gmail account and click the View as HTML link near the email attachment to convert those files into text / HTML format that can be viewed in the web browser itself.

Gmail retains Docx formatting in HTML
This easy conversion method retains the document formatting (no images though) and works with docx, pptx and xlsx Open XML formats

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Get Blogs Delivered to your Email Inbox as a PDF Newsletter

Tabbloid is an interesting web service from Hewlett-Packard that delivers your daily dose of blogs as a print-ready PDF attachment.
The service works just like any other feed reader – you add a list of your favorite feeds, choose how frequently that email should be delivered (hourly, daily or weekly) and confirm your email address.

Your feeds will land in your email inbox as a PDF file that is formatted like a magazine and can also be printed. Thanks Steve.
You may find this very useful if your old smartphone can send & receive emails but has no built-in feed reader. Just get your favorite sites as a PDF file in your email and read the new content at leisure without your laptop.
Other than email delivery, there's an option to generate PDF files from RSS feeds in real-time which may again come handy if you want to print a blog for dad who prefers reading on paper than the computer screen.

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Convert Scanned PDF Documents to Text with Google OCR

There are two types of PDF documents – those created by sending Office files, images, etc. to an Acrobat like PDF printer and those created by scanning physical paper like pages of a book, legal documents, etc.


Google could always index PDF documents created by conversion but now they also recognize text from PDFs that are generated by scanning paper documents using OCR software.
This is a scanned document and this is the html text view of that same document converted by Google.
Since scanned PDFs are nothing but images, don't be surprised if Google adds a "search by text" function to their Image Search engine similar to OneNote or EverNote. That will surely be huge.

Convert Scanned PDFs to Text

Now if you have bunch of scanned PDF files on your hard drive and no OCR software, here's what you can do to convert them into recognizable text.
Create a folder in your website (say abc.com/pdf) and upload all the PDF images to that folder. Now create a public web page that links to all the PDF files. Wait for the Google bots to spider your stuff.
Once done, type the query "site:abc.com/pdf filetype:pdf" to see the PDF documents as HTML.

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Clean HTML Files Online – Remove Tags Added in Word Documents

If you ever tried converting an Excel sheet or a Word document into an HTML web page, you know the amount of useless tags and styles that are added to the output making the HTML file bulky and complex.
Similar is the situation when your copy-paste rich text from an existing web page into another text editor. CSS formatting styles that become part of the copied text actually make no sense once that HTML snippet is used elsewhere.


Word Off removed all the inline styles from the HTML table of Word doc. file
To keep your HTML clean and beautiful, Tom Dyson has created an online utility at WordOff.org that takes your dirty HTML and strips out all the junk while preserving the links and basic formatting.
Word Off will delete all HTML elements that are empty, removes every <span> and <div> tag and reduces the number of line breaks.
Developers can integrate WordOff into their web application using the CURL API. The tool will also come handy for people who use WYSIWYG HTML editors like Dreamweaver as they too can sometimes generate bloated code.
If you are into web design, do check this set of tools to strip junk from CSS Stylesheets.

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Convert PDF Files to HTML Web Pages with Quick PDF – For Windows Only

If you like to read PDF documents on a mobile device or some e-book reader that doesn't include native support for PDF format, the "Convert PDF to HTML" (yes, that's the full name) utility from Quick PDF will come handy.
To download this $50 Windows-only freebie, quickly jump to GOTD.com as the giveaway will end in another hour or so.


Convert PDF to HTML Dialog Box - No Batch Support
There are tons of other options for converting PDF documents online but this software may be useful if you like to perform the conversion offline – much faster and you don't have to upload or download any files.
In case you miss the deadline check this guide on how to convert PDF to HTML with Gmail. The difference is that Gmail will only convert PDF to Text while the above utility will extract both text and images from the PDF.

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Bulk Convert Old Documents to Office 2007 Format

Say you got tons of Excel sheets, PowerPoint presentations and Word documents on your computer that were written in Office XP or 2003. How do you convert all these files to the new Office 2007 format.
One option is that you open all of them in the associated Office program and manually save them in the newer (docx, xlsx or pptx) format. Or follow these steps and convert all documents in one go.

Step 1: Download Migration Manager kit and extract it into a new folder - say: c:\office.

Step 2: Download and install the Office Pack - this step is required even if you have Microsoft Office 2007 already installed on your computer.
Step 3: Assuming that you extracted the Office Manager files in c:\office directory, go c:\office\tools, open ofc.ini using notepad and add the following line.
fldr=c:\users\labnol\documents
This refers to the folder location that holds your office files. I am pointing this to my Documents folder but it could be different on your machine.
Step 4: Open command prompt and go to c:\office\tools. There you'll see a utility called ofc.exe - this is the Office File Converter that will convert all old Office files to the new 2007 Office document format in bulk. Run.

Immediately all old Office files in that folder (and sub-folders) will get converted to the new format and are saved in a new folder.
This utility works with Word (doc to docx), Access databases, PowerPoint (ppt to pptx), Visio diagrams, Excel (xls to xlsx) and Microsoft Project files. The conversion may however fail for password protected documents.

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Send a Web Page via Email as PDF Attachment with PDF Download

PDF Download is an all-in-one PDF toolkit for Firefox that just got even better.
It features a new "web to PDF" feature that enables you to send a web page as email attachment in PDF format. Alternatively, you can save the web page as PDF to your local drive.

Unlike other desktop based PDF writers, PDF Download will convert web pages to PDF online so you need not wait for the conversion to finish. The PDF will arrive in your inbox as soon as the conversion is complete.

There are no ads anywhere in the PDF file and conversion is more or less perfect. If you frequently send web pages to your own email account for reading later, you will find PDF Download particularly useful as it will send a copy in a single click without prompting your for an email address.
PDF Download - The PDF files may be printed in either Portrait or Landscape mode. The same add-in can also be used for converting web PDF files to HTML pages.

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Visualize Units of Measurement Without Getting Technical

Someone just told you that he has a farm in the countryside that spreads across two acres.
This would have much easy for you to visualize had you known that an acre is roughly the equivalent size of nine basketball courts or three Olympic-size swimming pools.


Enter Sensible Units - a web based unit conversion service that helps you visualize complex units and measurements using real and more sensible objects like CDs, golf ball, Harry Potter books, elephants or even AA batteries.
So 10 kilometres are like putting 23 Empire State building on top of each other, 100 meters is like 12 double-decker buses standing end to end while 100 GB is the same as 62 installations of Windows XP or 12 Windows Vista installations.

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Publish PowerPoint Presentations as Flash Movies with iSpring

Make free animated slideshows from your travel photos in minutes!
iSpring is a free PowerPoint add-in that will convert your static presentation slides into a standalone Flash movie. iSpring supports all formats including .pptx that was introduced with PowerPoint 2007.
There are two advantages here – the converted presentation will weigh less (because of Flash compression) and second, the Flash movie will preserve all slide transitions, hyperlinks and animation effects that are otherwise lost when you upload slides to PowerPoint hosting services.


If you have any audio narrations or video clips in the PowerPoint file, they’ll also become available in the published Flash movie.
iSpring converts standard PowerPoint shapes and options into vectors, pixelation won’t happen if your audience decides to view the Flash presentation in full-screen.

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Join Multiple Video Files of Various Formats Into One Movie

Say you have several short video clips that you want to merge into a single movie. The videos may be on the desktop or on sites like YouTube & MySpace.
If these offline videos are in standard Windows Media  or AVI formats, you can easily use Windows Movie Maker or Video Spin to join the clips. Just drag the clips onto the timeline and publish a new movie.

Now consider a more complicated scenario - you have downloaded a Flash video from YouTube, a 3gp clip from your mobile phone, an MPEG video from your digital camera and an MP4 podcast from your iPod.
How to you join these files of various formats into one video ?
One option is to convert all the videos into WMV format using a free encoder like SUPER - now join the converted clips using Windows Movie Maker, Virtual Dub .
The second option is that you join videos online using a service called movavi  - upload the files, select an output format and it will join the videos for you.
Movavi is especially useful if you want join several web videos from sites like YouTube, MySpace or Google Videos - you just supply the video URLs, movieavi will fetch the clips from YouTube onto their servers, join the clips and send you link once the merged movie is ready to download.

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Convert Web Pages, Office Documents to MP3 Files Online

ReadThatWords.com is an online tool that can instantly convert Web Pages, Office documents and  PDF files into MP3 files.
While there are other free tools that can convert text to MP3, ReadThatWords offers two distinct advantages:

1. It can turn almost anything into MP3 including PowerPoint slides, Word Docs, PDF, HTML web pages and even RSS feeds.
2. You have an array of different voices to choose from - like a US male voice, UK female voice or a voice that has an Indian accent.
And if you are converting a large document to an MP3, you need not wait in the browser for conversion to finish - ReadThatWords.com will send you an email when the recording is done and MP3 is ready to download.
readthewords.com - The service is primarily created for people with disabilities but others will find it useful as well.

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How to Embed RSS Feeds into HTML Web Pages – The Easy Way

Make free animated slideshows from your travel photos in minutes!
Q. Yugalkishore is looking for a simple solution to help him embed RSS feeds from Reuters website into his HTML web pages.
A. While there are tons of scripts that convert RSS feeds into Javascript*, I recommend using Google Gadget Creator for adding feeds to web pages - it's easy as well as customizable.
*If you are looking for a non-Javascript solution, get one of these Flash based RSS widgets from Yourminis or WidgetBox.

Step 1: Copy the URL of that RSS feed to the clipboard (make sure you copy the location of the feed, not the website).
Step 2: Append the feed URL to this string- http://gmodules.com/ig/creator?url=
Confused ? Let me illustrate that with a quick example. Say the RSS feed address is http://feeds.labnol.org/labnol, then our string becomes:

http://gmodules.com/ig/creator?url=http://feeds.labnol.org/labnol

Step 3: Open this new link in your web browser, adjust the dimensions of the gadget, change the border color and finally click "Get the Code" button.

<script src="http://gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://feeds.labnol.org/labnol&amp;synd=open&amp;w=320&amp;h=200&amp;title=&amp;border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999&amp;output=js"></script>

Place this Javascript code anywhere in your web page where you want the RSS items to be displayed.
Your site visitors can now scan the Reuters news headlines without leaving your website.

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Flash Video Editing Made Simple – Learn Everything about FLV Videos

Flash Video (flv) has become the default video format on the web and almost every video sharing site uses FLV to stream videos online. And its not just the YouTube clones, even media properties like CNN have switched to Adobe Flash Video.
Other than viewing Flash videos in your browser, some of download FLV files locally to enjoy web videos offline.

Everything You Wanted to Know about Editing FLV Flash Videos
Watching videos in an FLV player is half the fun - you can do so many other things like split FLV videos into multiple clips, trim the introductory part, convert flv videos to MP3 songs, extract image frames from the video, etc. Lets get started:
Q: How to Edit FLV Videos with expensive video editors ?
There are no standalone FLV editors around but if you have Adobe AIR, I highly recommend RichFLV - a lightweight flv editor that lets you do almost everything with FLV video clips.

With RichFLV, you can split flv files by adding cue-points, join two or more FLV video clips by stitching or add new MP3 sound tracks over your existing FLV video. Perfect if you want to edit YouTube videos on the computer.
Mac users have another good option - download Perian that turns Quick Time Pro into a FLV editor.
Q. How to convert FLV videos into MP3 audio files ?
To extract audio from flv files, get the free FLV Extract utility from moitah.net - the video is saved as an MP3 file and the quality of sound in the original video is maintained as there's no encoding done to save the audio.
Alternatively, you can extract MP3 from FLV files only using Vixy.net - an online service.
Q. Which media players can play Flash Videos on the desktop ?
To play FLV video files on the desktop, you can use Adobe Media Player, VLC Media Player or this standalone player which I think is the best flv player around for XP or Vista.
If you are on a Mac, you can play FLV videos downloaded from YouTube in your QuickTime player using the free Perian component discussed above.
Q. How to extract image frames from FLV Videos ?
You can export any image frame out of the FLV video using either the RichFLV editor or through VLC Media Player.
Open the .flv file in VLC, navigate to the frame that you want to save as an image and press Ctrl+Alt+S (or Video -> Snapshot). Note that the regular Print Screen key will not work for capturing screenshot from FLV file.
Q. Where can you upload FLV Video files on the web ?
Blip.TV - none of the other video sharing sites accept FLV format files.
Related - Why Choose Blip.TV over YouTube
Q. How to Embed FLV video clips in web pages ?
Read this guide on how to embed flv files in web pages. Alternatively, you could upload the file to Blip.TV and use the embed code provided by Blip.TV.
Q. How to Convert FLV videos to other video formats like WMV, AVI, etc ?
Use SUPER - the program may look complex at first glance but don't worry, it's very easy. I think it even lets you convert SWF movies into FLV videos.
Q. How to create new FLV movies files from scratch ?
VideoSpin is the only free video editing software I know of that can export movies into Flash Video format. An alternate trick is export your video into Windows Media or AVI and convert it into FLV using a converter program like SUPER .
For more tips and tricks regarding YouTube and Google Videos,

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Convert Word 2003 Documents to .docx Online with Zoho Writer

You can now convert any text file, image or a .doc document into the new Word 2007 .docx format using Zoho Writer. Just import your source file into Zoho and then export that document as a DOCX file.

And like Adobe Buzzword, Zoho Writer also lets you create docx files from scratch inside the browser without requiring Word 2007.
Currently, you cannot import docx files directly into Zoho Writer but that feature may be added soon.

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