By creating and applying a very simple macro, you can make sure that the next time you open that document, Word will scroll to the exact spot where your cursor was the last time.

If you want to use this trick, head on over to BNET to get the instructions on how to create the macro.

Do you have any neat and simple Word tricks? Please, share.

How do you learn to write? In particular, how do you keep your writing in shape once your studies are behind you? There are many ways, but my favorite is to read. And what do I read? Either good writing pieces or advice from seasoned writers.

My favorite source for good writing is, strangely enough, a blog about living on a farm. The lady who writes it is all about tending to crops and farm animals, and cooking. Oh, I know what you are thinking–how can short blog posts about farm life be an example of good writing? My answer is that the subject matter is irrelevant (although, in this case, it is one of my favorite subject matters). Good writing gets to you. It moves you, it makes you wonder, it raises questions, it provokes feelings. And Farmgirl Fare is all that. Take a look, you’ll see. While you’re at it, make sure you read the funky copyright notices below each post.

As for advice from professional writers, I have been receiving Daphne Gray-Grant‘s newsletter, Power Writing, for a while now. Once a week, she will send you a short text (usually less than a three-minute read) about writing. She simply shares her thoughts, techniques and tips on good writing. Her topics over the past few years included how to be a good reader (a skill not to be overlooked by translators), mindmapping (not only for writing, but for organizing pretty much everything, including your invoicing) and an entire series of newsletters on how to edit. In fact, on the latter, she says:

…my number one piece of advice is that you should be removing as much time as possible from your writing, and putting it into your editing.

Smart advice if you ask me. I have been collecting the newsletters ever since I have signed up and I now have a binder full of them.

I may be too busy freelancing to go back to school for writing classes, but taking a few minutes each week to read these people’s pieces sure keeps me in the loop. Whose writing do you read to keep those writing muscles fit?

Enter Launchy. Where have YOU been all my life?!? Launchy is a neat, simple freeware launcher. It allows you to launch just about anything–applications, files, websites… You name it. No more walking through a directory folder by folder or waiting for the Start menu to unfold!

To launch Launchy, you simply press Alt + Space. Then, you just type a few characters of a file name and Launchy automatically suggests the best match for it in your system. Press Enter to open it or, if the best match is not what you were looking for, scroll the drop-down menu until you find the appropriate file. Voilà. The neat thing is that whatever you pick in the menu, Launchy will remember it and it will propose it to you next time around, ahead of other matches. It’s like having a personal secretary all to yourself!

How does this relate to translation? Let me give you a few real life examples. When I want to start translating, I just call up Launchy and type “work”. Upon pressing Enter, Trados Translator’s Workbench launches. When I am doing my bookkeeping, I type “inv” and accept the proposed choice–and my Invoices folder opens like magic. If I need to look up a word, all I have to do is type “wordr” in Launchy and it will launch my default browser and load the Wordreference website.

Launchy indexes the directories you specify, so you can limit the number of irrelevant results. In other words, results will come only from the directories you told Launchy to keep an eye on. You can also use plugins for trickier functions. For example, you can search Google, Wikipedia and Amazon directly through Launchy. You can also use it as a calculator.

Launchy makes life simple and productive. I would have been happy to pay for it, but it is free! The author, Josh Karlin, welcomes donations, though.

For more information on Launchy, to download it and to browse plugins, visit www.launchy.net.

Since I have been using Launchy, I haven’t touched the Start menu. I haven’t used Windows Explorer either. They have become utterly useless. Oh, and there are no icons on my desktop–just a neat wallpaper. This is the single best weapon in my translator software arsenal.

I hope you will enjoy it!