Technology How To

Overview

• Using Audacity to listen
• Using the Word document template
• Setting up your workspace for transcription
• Transcription tips

Using Audacity to listen to the interview

• Audacity is an audio editing program that is available on your Thinkpad under start >> Digital Media Tools >> Audio Editors. It is also available at http://www.audacity.com
• Obtain a copy of your oral history and open it in Audacity (Or right click>>Save as this training file)
• You will notice that Audacity has common stop, play, and pause buttons in the upper left hand corner of the screen. You can use these during playback to pause the audio while you catch-up on transcription.
• In order to transcribe at a reasonable speed, you probably want to slow down the playback. To do this:
  1. Click on Edit >> Select >> All
  2. Click on Effect >> Change Speed
  3. The Extent to which you slow it down depends on how fast your interviewee talked. Start out with a 15% decrease in speed and hit preview.
  4. If this works, click ok, the entire file will be slowed down. This will take several minutes
  5. If you are only transcribing a portion of the interview you can just slow down that portion.
  6. Be sure to save this as a new file (if you save it) so you do not overwrite your original recording.
• Once you have the audio at a speed which works, open the document template, familiarize yourself with the text-insertion shortcuts, and lay out your work-space for transcription

Using the Word document template

• Download the Word transcription template that has been setup for use with WFU oral histories
• Open the word document and enable Macros by clicking on the options button next to the security warning in the upper left-hand corner of the word document
• In the window that pops-up, select “Enable content” and click ok. This will enable macros for this session only



• This word document contains two macros
  1. CTRL-R - This macro inserts a properly formatted entry for the Interviewer
  2. CTRL-E - This macro inserts a properly formatted entry for the Interviewee
• You can use these two macros to help distinguish comments as you transcribe. You should hit “Enter” to move to a new line before using either of these two macros
• Once you have completed transcribing your interview, you can use Find/Replace in word to replace all of the occurrences of the phrase “Interviewee:” with the interviewee’s name

Setting up your workspace for transcription

• To setup your computer’s workspace for transcribing, it is best to manually re-size your windows so you can see both at the same time.
• You only need to be able to see the play/pause buttons in audacity once you are ready to transcribe.
• To re-size the window, use the window controls in the upper right hand corner to “Restore down” the window
• Grab the lower right hand corner of the application window and re-size it so that it fills only a portion of the screen. Grab the title bar to position the window over to the side
• Repeat thsi process with Microsoft Word so that you can see both applications at the same time.
• Setting up your workspace for transcirption

Transcription tips

• If you are transcribing with multiple people, break the interview into multiple segments and transcribe independently. At the end, merge all three transcripts into a single document
• While transcipriotns should be verbatim, it can be difficult to capture every word, pause, and punctuation. Don’t get overwhelmed trying to replicate the cadence and structure of content, getting accurate word and sentence structure is adequate.
• Make use of the pause button during transcription to keep up. Be sure to save your word document frequently!

• Note that the changes to MS Office are in the visual interface

• Functionality remains very similar to Office 2003

• Ribbons replace Menus
• The Ribbon brings the most popular commands to the forefront.
• The three parts of the Ribbon are tabs, groups, and commands.
• Each section of the ribbon has a dialog box launcher in the lower right corner if there is a corresponding dialog box
• Selecting an image will bring up the tab and ribbon with the corresponding commands
• When you select text and point at it, the Mini toolbar will appear faded. Point to the Mini toolbar to activate it.

• Where’s my Stuff?
• Office button
• Pin documents to most recent list
• File types (.doc/.docx)
• The new Office Open XML Formats (XML is short for Extensible Markup Language). Don’t worry, you don’t have to understand XML; it’s all behind the scenes. Just keep in mind that the new XML-based format:
• Word 2007 can open files created in all previous versions of Word, 1.0 through 2003. Word will open older documents in compatibility mode. You know this because at the top of the document "(Compatibility Mode)" appears next to the name of the file.

• Word Options
• New location of most items previously found in Tools menu under Options



• Home Tab
• Insert Tab
• Page Layout Tab
• Margins
• Page Setup
• Review Tab
• Spell Check
• Quick Access Toolbar
• Easy way to make shortcuts to common tasks
• How to customize the Quick Access Toolbar
• right-click on a command and select "Add to Quick Access Toolbar"
• Location of commonly used tools/features
• Help
• Blue circle with white question mark in top right corner of the window
• Tips
• Double-click the active tab to hide the groups for more room.
• Press ALT to display the Key Tip badges for the Ribbon tabs, the Microsoft Office Button, and the Quick Access Toolbar.
• Zoom using the slider in the lower right corner



• New Feature
• SmartArt Graphics
• Themes
• Math Equations
• New WFU PowerPoint Template

With the combination of Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, the mail merge tool is an easy way to make a universal document that is personalized individually for a large list of people. The two most common uses of mail merge are in letters and labels. The following document shows the basic steps to complete a full mail merge for labels.
First, create a list of people whose information is to be included on the mailing labels. The spreadsheet can be created within Microsoft Excel 2007 and can include any information needed such as addresses, phone numbers, etc. Here is a sample spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel 2007:

It is very important to have field titles such as “last name, address, city, etc.” because these field names will be needed later in the mail merge. Be sure to break down fields to their smallest piece of data, for example, instead of using “name,” use “first name” and “last name.”

Save this spreadsheet in order to retrieve it through Microsoft Word later.

To begin the mail merge, open up Microsoft Word 2007 and click on the Mailings Tab located at the top of the Microsoft Word ribbon. From here, click on the Start Mail Merge option and scroll down to Labels.

From here, the Label Options screen will appear. This screen gives a large list of labels to choose from with many different brands and model numbers. The standardized label is an Avery US Letter 5260. If needed, a description of each label is given when selected in the Label Options screen.

A blank document full of blank labels will now appear on the screen. Before inserting the mail merge fields, select the spreadsheet that is to be used for the mail merge.
Click on the Mailings tab in the Microsoft Word ribbon. Then click on the Select Recipients option, and scroll down to Use Existing List. Search through the hard drive for the desired Excel spreadsheet.

Once the correct spreadsheet is selected, the “Select Table” box will appear. Highlight the sheet(s) necessary for the mail merge and click OK.

Now all labels should have Next Record in their available space except the first label in the top left corner of your screen. The Next Record placed in all of the other labels is extremely important, because it represents all of the names on your spreadsheet. DO NOT DELETE THE Next Record MERGE FIELD!

In the blank label, insert the Merge Fields. Go to the Mailings tab and click on the Insert Merge Field option. A list of all the title fields in your spreadsheet will appear. Insert each merge field in a preferred location, making sure to add any necessary spaces or punctuation between the fields. A sample label is shown below:

Now that the format has been set up for one label, all labels can be updated by clicking on the Update Labels option located in the Mailings tab.

Once the labels are updated, the screen should look like this:

Preview the labels by clicking on the Preview Results Option. All of the information from the spreadsheet should now be included within the labels.

A sample preview is shown below:

The mail merge is finally ready for completion. Simply click on the Finish & Merge option on the top right section of the Mailings tab and scroll down to Edit Individual Documents. This will put the labels in a separate document. Save and Print this document.

With the combination of Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word, the mail merge tool is an easy way to make a universal document that is personalized individually for a large list of people. The two most common uses of mail merge are in letters and labels. The following document shows the basic steps to complete a full mail merge for letters.
First, create a list of people who are to receive the letter. The spreadsheet can be created within Microsoft Excel 2007 and can include other information such as addresses, phone numbers, etc. However, for a letter mail merge, only the name fields are needed. Here is a sample spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel 2007:

It is very important to have field titles such as “last name, address, city, etc.” because these fields will be needed later in the mail merge. Be sure to break down fields to their smallest piece of data, for example, instead of using “name,” use “first name” and “last name.”

Save this spreadsheet in order to retrieve the list through Microsoft Word later.
Now that the spreadsheet is complete, open up Microsoft Word and create the letter that is to be sent to all of the people on the list. Leave the space after “Dear…” blank in order to leave room for the mail merge name fields.

When the letter is complete, access the mail merge options by selecting the Mailings tab on the Microsoft Word ribbon. Begin the mail merge by clicking on the Select Recipients option, and scrolling down to Use Existing List. Search through the hard drive for the already existing Excel spreadsheet.

Once the correct spreadsheet is selected, the “Select Table” box will appear. Highlight the sheet(s) necessary for the mail merge and click OK.

When complete, the name merge fields can be inserted. These will be placed directly after your greeting (i.e. dear , ) Click on the space located directly to the right of the greeting and then click on the Insert Merge Field option located in the Mailings tab.

You will notice that all of the title fields are included in this tab. However, for this letter, only the first and last name title fields are necessary for use.
Click on the First_Name title field; click the spacebar, then insert the Last_Name title field; insert a comma and the greeting should now look like this:

To check to see if the name merge fields were successfully inserted, click on the Preview Results button and scroll through the names using the arrow toggles in the Preview Results tab. Both options are highlighted in the image below.

Now, the names of the people on the list should have replaced the and fields within the letter as shown on the right. The names will change accordingly to the next person on the list when using the toggle arrows.

To complete the mail merging process, simply click on the Finish & Merge button and scroll down to Edit Individual Documents.

Select “All” when asked what records to merge. This will place the personalized letters in one document with each page addressing a different person on the chosen spreadsheet. Save and Print this document to complete the letter mail merge.

Microsoft Online Training Central

Microsoft Word 2007 Online Training

The New Ribbon for Microsoft Word 2007

With the new Ribbon installed on Microsoft Word 2007, many of the options have different locations than the previous versions of the program. Within these tabs, the user can still access the old Microsoft Word dialog boxes by clicking on the boxed arrow located at the bottom right of each tab option box.

Tab Contents for Microsoft Word 2007

Home
• Clipboard- includes cut, copy and paste
• Font- change font face, size, bold, italics, etc.
• Paragraph - add bullet points, numbers, and align text
• Styles- choose from various amounts of style headings
• Editing- find, replace, and select

Insert
• Pages- insert cover page, blank page or page break
• Tables- insert a table
• Illustrations- insert pictures from file, clip art, charts or NEW Smart Art
• Links- insert hyperlink, bookmarks and c

Cross-references
• Header & Footer- insert and edit header and footer for page
• Text- insert text boxes, word art, date and time, etc.
• Symbols- insert symbols not on keyboard such as copyright or trademark

Page Layout
• Themes- choose from many new themes to help make your document look professional
• Page Setup- this option used to exist under “File” and still contains important options such as orientation (portrait or landscape), columns and margins
• Page Background- Set borders or colors for your page
• Paragraph- Edit indents and spacing on your page
• Arrange- includes options such as text wrapping and the positioning of inserted object

References
•Table of Contents- insert and edit your table from this option
•Footnotes- insert endnotes and edit footnotes
•Citations and Bibliography- insert citations and select formatting style
•Captions- insert picture captions
•Index- insert index and mark entries
•Table of Authorities- insert table of authorities and mark citations to be added into the table

Mailings
•Create- make envelopes or labels
•Start Mail Merge- select recipients of document and send to all
•Write and Insert Fields- add address blocks and set what gets included in mail merge
•Preview Results- view what is to be a part of the Mail Merge
•Finish and Merge- complete and print Mail Merge

Review
•Proofing- spell check, word count and thesaurus are located here
•Comments- add and delete comments
•Tracking- track all changes made within your document
•Changes- go through these changes and accept or reject them
•Compare- side by side comparison of what changes were made to the document
•Protect- restrict how people can access the document

View
•Document Views- see document in print layout, full screen, web layout, etc.
•Show/Hide- gridlines, ruler, document map, thumbnails
•Zoom- all options for zooming within a document
•Window- open a new window containing a different view of the current document
•Macros- record new and view already existing macros

Add-Ins
•Menu Commands- remove hidden data, access End Note, insert special symbols, etc.
•Tool Bar Commands- access Microsoft Reader
•Custom Tool Bars- contains End Note options

New Features in Microsoft Word 2007

Word Options Menu
The new Word Options menu allows the user to edit the options of the program itself. The Word Options menu can be accessed by the clicking the Office Button and selecting the Word Options button located at the bottom of the screen. Word Options allows the user to edit anything from proofing to display or save options within the Microsoft Word program. An important feature within the Word Options menu is the user’s ability to change the document format of the file they are working on. By entering the Word Options menu and selecting the Save tab, the user can scroll through the “Save files in this format” option box to select the new Word format (.docx) or the old Word format (doc.). This option is useful because not all computers are compatible with docx.files. As a result, the conversion to .doc is extremely helpful.

Document Inspector
The Document Inspector is another new feature within Microsoft Word 2007. Before the user sends their documents to professors, colleagues, or students, they can make sure that all personal information such as comments, revisions, properties and notes remains private. To access the Document Inspector, select the Office Button, scroll down to Prepare, and select Inspect Document. A menu will appear in which the user can select what information they would like the Document Inspector to search through. When the information is selected, click the Inspect button and the process is complete.

Bibliography and Citations
Citing sources on Microsoft Word 2007 is now a feature that is directly installed within the program. The feature keeps a collection of all of the sources used within the paper and creates an instant bibliography with the touch of a button. To access the citation options, click on the Reference tab within the ribbon and view the Citations & Bibliography tab options.