Some comments from students in the 2012–2014 PDF markup and MS Word courses. Students are typically working editors with a mean of 15 years’ experience. There are a couple long comments that are kind of fun.
Big revelation! And I applied that to some work-related markup today … whee!
— JM
I just finished the first lesson and I’ve already gotten my money’s worth.
— anon.
The YouTube demos: Those are great, Adrienne!
— JB
Thanks for the basic and gentle introduction to a topic that has intimidated me for years. I just automated a process that I had been doing manually, and I’m thrilled at the time it’s going to save me as I start this new project.
This is an amazing class. I had no idea how much I didn’t know!
— anon.
Just sending along my week 1 course exercises. This has been great — I’ve been using PDFs to proof for a long time, but knew I wasn’t really scratching the surface of what I could do. I’ve already added a few new tricks to my bag!
I never had any idea that a PDF could be marked up without buying some expensive software, and I’ve had such fun learning otherwise.I suspect it won’t be too long before the hard copy stuff goes away completely.
I know I’m in a profession I love when I’m so excited about some aspect of it that this is all I can talk about over pre-dinner cocktails with friends. (And yes, they pretended to be as excited, well, at least for a few minutes). Why am I so thrilled? This class!I’ve been intimidated to use wildcards and macros since the first day I learned those words. I downloaded Paul Beverly’s “book” and macros a few months ago but was too scared to do anything with the folder except peek at the instructions. But after Adrienne’s lessons, I attempted the Polo Bear macro, and much to my happiness, after typing in my own troublesome words, bam! It worked on a client’s project. Then I wrote my own little macro to do some file clean up. It worked, too. Yippee! And then, oh my gosh, I tried that little trick of replacing “xx” in autocorrect with an oft typed author query. That one alone must have saved me half an hour today.So, I’m gushing. I know. But many, many thanks for your help, Adrienne, from my aching rear end and lower back to my edit-weary eyes. I know I’ll actually be entering and using some of Paul’s macros now. I might even be brave enough to try those macros recently written for the Mac at Editorium.
I am thrilled to have expanded my knowledge and skill set. It gives me more confidence when looking into new-to-me writing and editing opportunities.
Thanks so much for this great course! I will definitely be using macros, wild cards and more keyboard short-cuts to make my on-screen editing more efficient, and I’ve already shown some of these tricks to a colleague.
I would advise others to put the time into learning macros and other more advanced tools in Word and Acrobat. It may take awhile at first, but I think it will really improve productivity, accuracy, and ultimately, profitability.
I’m so glad I took this course.
— SW
I just finished the second lesson and I am still loving this course–so many cool new tricks to learn! I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate the things you have taught me–you were absolutely right about the [stamps]. I love that feature!
— CM
Thanks for putting together such an informative class and giving so much of your time.
I finally got over the fear of really getting into a pdf — thanks
— JM
Adrienne, that was exactly the problem. Thank you so much!
— DA
Thanks so much for this course. It was awesome.
It worked. Thanks so much, Adrienne!
Many thanks for putting together an excellent course.