Visio: Tracing pictures

This page gives detailed instructions:
http://www.visguy.com/2008/04/16/importing-images-as-backgrounds-for-tracing/

Windows: Print to text file

I wanted to "print" a web page directly to a text file, to let me manipulate it before actually printing it. Unfortunately, Chrome and other browsers print text as images (??), so this won't work. I'm leaving it here anyway, because I might end up with another use for it.

Here's how, in Windows 7:

1. In Control Panel, find the Printers list.
2. Right-click and select Add Printer.
3. Choose these options:
1. Local
2. Existing, then FILE: (Print to File)
3. Manufacturer: Generic
4. Printers: Generic / Text Only
4. Type a name for this new printer.

Each time you print, enter a path to a writable location

Chrome: Screenshots

Use the Full Page Screen Capture extension to capture long web pages in Chrome.

Make sure you keep the mouse still during the capture process.
You might need to crop the resulting screenshot.

Visio: Drawing Explorer & themes

How to turn on the Drawing Explorer:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/visio-help/edit-your-drawing-in-the-drawing-explorer-window-HA010357451.aspx

To make a theme available to other Visio files:

1. Save the new theme with a name.
2. Save the document as a template,
3. Use this template to create each new file.

I haven't worked out how to apply a custom theme to an existing Visio diagram.

Word: Use STYLEREF to put useful info in a footer

This shows how to capture the text of most recent instance of a style, and paste it into the header or footer. Much nicer than embedding it manually.
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/use-words-styleref-field-to-efficiently-reuse-text/

Word: Moving styles between documents

This lets you update a style in a template, and then propagate the modified style to the documents that were created with that template.
http://superuser.com/questions/479090/copy-styles-from-office-2010-word-document-to-another

1. Open the target document.
2. Open the Styles window on the right, then click the Manage Styles button at the bottom.
3. Click Import/Export.
4. Choose the source document, then off you go.

PaintShop Pro: Transparency in PSP5 images

How to handle transparency.

This page has lots of nice detail about using masks to make images partly transparent. http://www.campratty.com/1faq/faqpages/7.html 
However I usually don't need my image to have fading edges. I just want the background to be transparent.

This post records the steps that worked for me in PSP 5.

1. Make sure that the Layer palette is visible (use View, Toolbars).
2. Create a new image.
3. In the Layers palette, create a new layer. 
4. Draw or paste in the new layer.
5. Turn off the visibility of the Background layer.

Hm, It's been a while since I did these steps. I'll have to check again when I have an actual task to do.