Typewriters
I thought this story in the Santa Rosa Press- Democrat on typewriters was a fun read. Typewriters: remember them? I guess they're not that far gone that most of us don't remember them.
I never really used typewriters much back in the day. Maybe it was because I never knew how to type until I self- taught myself a few years ago. With the old typewriters it seemed like you had to have some expertise to make it worthwhile. I fumbled with one we had at home as a kid and it was just too much hassle.
We bought one from an in- law some years ago. I later thought we paid more than we should have. I remember thinking we probably could have bought a new one for the same price. It was an electric Smith- Corona, if memory serves me correct, and used a cartridge for the ribbon. Much better than that old non- electric one I tried to use as a kid.
One thing where typewriters shine- and I believe the reason we bought that one- is for filling out forms such as job applications. I still don't see how you can do that with a computer, although many employers allow you to apply online now. I suppose there's some way to do it with a home computer but I would think it would be more trouble than it's worth.
I kinda wish we still had that old Smith- Corona. We loaned it to someone years ago who needed it to fill out a job application and never saw it again.
posted by Fred Mangels @ 9:47 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
A PDF form, if designed properly, can be typed into, and you can save your typed text. If not, you can open the PDF as an image in your favorite image editing software (Photoshop, etc.) and type text onto the form.
Yep. I was thinking you could scan the form, convert to pdf and then add text fields, but that's more hassle than it's worth.
With a typewrite you just scroll through the form and fill out the fields, although sometimes it could be hard getting the placement just right.
And probably even easier to just fill it in by hand, although if you have crappy handwriting as I do that could be a problem.
PDF should be stricken from the planet in my opinion. Just hate it when you go to a PDF site. Not only is it hard to navigate, you cannot copy anything from PDF pages which if you're concerned about people stealing your stuff is valuable but if you're just researching information, it's a pain in the tuckus. Also have no use for Open Office either for anything more than Word Pad type letters. I use dinosaur Microsoft FrontPage 98 for my website word processing which is a delight for non-tech writers whereas Dreamweaver is a another tech nightmare for writers. Techies don't understand that most writers aren't techies and could care less for all the gadgets and goo-gahs. Just want a basic word processing systems, like the old typewriters..
Some of my best work was done on a little ancient Hermes portable but them days is gone with laptops.
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