Content Creator’s Toolbox: Top 12 MS Office Productivity Plugins

Computer Productivity

Productivity has an altogether different meaning today than it did ten years ago, let alone five. It doesn’t mean just getting things done anymore — it means being able to get more complex things done in the same amount of time. This is especially true for content creators.

If you’re a blogger, freelance writer, analyst, presenter or online marketer, then creating content in MS Office is your bread and butter. It requires meeting tight deadlines and turning over projects quickly. Productivity-wise, it means your workflow and tools have to keep up.

One problem, though. The plugins that worked before won’t work effectively now. With the complexity of digital tasks increasing, you need a better list.

That’s why we put together a super collection of 12 productivity plugins for taking your work to the next level.

Note: Using any of these plugins requires an account with MS Office and in some cases an account with the plugin’s website, as well. To install add-ins, click on My Add-ins from the Insert menu. A window will appear that will display your options. Double-clicking an add-in will open it. Or you can click on the arrow next to the button and you can pick one of your recently-used add-ins from there.

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Top 5 Data Journalism Myths Busted

data journalism myths busted

A good journalist is a master storyteller. Telling compelling stories with data has become a new challenge and a growing trend in journalism today. The Internet has unlocked the world of information and made a huge amount of data available. Data journalists dig through all that data and transform it into valuable content.

There is a continuous and growing demand for data journalists, but many traditional journalists still shy away from it. Data journalism is kind of shrouded in mystery due to many myths about who can be a data journalist and which skills are required. We’ll delve into the most common myths about data journalism and unfold reality to help you better understand it and be less intimidated.

Myth #1: Data journalists must have a knack for math

“I am in journalism because I don’t have a knack for math” is the first thing most journalists and journalism students will say about data journalism. However, just because data-driven journalism involves numbers, it is not all about numbers. And it  certainly is not required that you be a math wizard to create stories with data.

As a matter of fact, not all data-driven stories have to rely on numbers. They can actually be based on something a lot more palatable, like wine, for example. If you don’t believe it, check out this interactive timeline that shows us how wine colonized the world.  

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5 Tips on Optimizing your PDFs for Search

optimize PDFs for search

The PDF is the world’s favorite format for sharing documents like reports, studies, survey results, guides and tutorials, manuals and more. As a website owner, you probably want to showcase documents relevant to your business and make them publicly available for download and use.

If you share PDFs on your website, you definitely want people to find them easily. Not just on your website, but through search engines like Google as well. For example, let’s say that you’re offering free Excel cheatsheets for download in PDF on your website. You’ll want people searching online for Excel keyboard shortcuts or Excel formula cheatsheets to easily find your handy freebies through search engines like Google.

To help people to find your PDFs, you first need to make it easy for search engines to discover and understand them, so they can include them in their index and then show them as high as possible in their SERPs (search engine result pages) for relevant queries.  

Now, the question is, how to optimize your PDFs for search engines? Fortunately, it isn’t rocket science and we have some easy tweaks for making your PDFs more search engine friendly.  

How To SEO Your PDFs

Follow these five tips to make your PDFs easy on the eyes of search engines:

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Top 6 Canadian Tech Inventions

Top tech inventions invented by Canadians

The big weekend is ahead of us. Yes, July 1st is just a few days away. And if you’re a Canadian, you already know what we’re referring to. If not, let us explain why this milestone is so important to us.

July 1st is the National day of Canada a.k.a. Canada Day. On this day all Canadians celebrate the anniversary of the enactment of the Constitution Act, which united the three separate colonies of Canada (Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick) that took place on July 1st, 1867.

The holiday is celebrated nationwide with many outdoor public events,  parades, concerts, festivals, and of course, the traditional barbeque and fireworks. Since the festive spirit is already permeating our office, we’ve decided to brush up on our knowledge of Canadian ingenuity and take a look at some inventions brought to us by those from Great White North.

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7 Ideal Jobs For Excel Users

Working With Excel

Microsoft Excel is a common application. You may have used it on the job or for school, but chances are that you only used it for its most basic uses.

However, Excel skills are more important than ever. And those who know how to tap into Excel are in a better position to find a better paying job. Even simply knowing how to convert PDF to Excel can increase your chances.

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