How to Choose an iBooks Author Template
Mac Tip #522, 08 February 2012

Apple is leading the pack again — this time with a new ebook authoring tool that pushes the limits of ebook publishing. iBooks Author makes it easy for Mac users to create “multi-touch” ebooks that combine text, images, video, and interactive elements with finely tuned page layouts. Our Guest Author, Maria Langer explains how to choose an iBooks Author template.

iBooks Author is a free 137 MB download from the App Store. It requires Mac OS X 10.7.2 or later.

Maria Langer is the author of more than 80 books and hundreds of articles about using computers since 1990. Her reader-friendly writing style has made her popular with fans worldwide. Visit her on the Web at www.MariaLanger.com.

Templates are consistent

In iBooks Author, all the books you create are based on a template. A template is a collection of page layouts, placeholder images, and paragraph and character styles.

When you create a new document, you use the Template Chooser shown below to pick the one you want. Then, in your new document, you replace the placeholder content with your own content.

The benefit of using templates is that they make it very easy to consistently format your document with an interesting design. And, through the use of a wide range of customization options, you can personalize a template so it has little resemblance to the stock version.

Some templates are better for certain types of books

Choosing a template might be the most important thing you do in preparation to create your book. Why? Well mostly because you can’t change your mind about the template you want to use after you’ve begun working. If you want to use a different template, you have to start all over with the new one. Choose wisely!

You might be wondering how to decide which template is the best choice for your book. In general, it’s a matter of taste. Some templates, however, are better for certain types of books than others. For example, you might find the Basic and Modern Type templates better suited for mostly text documents than the Art History and Craft templates.

You can preview all of the templates to make a better-informed decision by creating a new document based on each of them. You can then view the layouts and styles available in each document window to get an idea of how they might work with your content.

iBooks Author Template Chooser.

When you decide on the one you want, simply close the other five windows without saving them, leaving the window containing the template you want to use open. Or close that, too, and create a brand new document based on the template you want.

Which template to choose

Here are a few of my observations regarding the templates that come with iBooks Author:

• Basic has a very serious style that’s well suited for works that are academic or otherwise serious in nature. Only one of the template layouts has a placeholder image. It uses a very legible, very conservative serif typeface thoughout.
• Contemporary, which is the template I use for the exercises throughout my iBooks Author book, is a bit more modern. Several of its layouts include big or bright placeholder images. The font is sans-serif, perhaps a bit on the small side for good legibility.
• Modern Type is also modern (as you might expect from its name). Its big, colored chapter pages remind me of school textbooks that were trying to be fun. The font is sans-serif and larger than the font in Contemporary. Liberal use of graphic rules make each page visually interesting, even without images.
• Classic, like Basic, has a serious style with a serif font. Page backgrounds are an off-white color. Three of the layouts include placeholder images, and there are a few flourishes to add more interest to certain layouts.
• Editorial is similar to Contemporary, in that it includes large placeholder images on four of the layout pages. It uses a serif font and color is applied to some of the styles. It also makes use of bold graphic rules in many of the layouts.
• Craft has rather delightful — a word I don’t use often — style to it. There are lots of images, each with 3D-looking frames that make them pop from the pages. Page backgrounds are green or off-white, giving it an almost earthy feel. A sans-serif typeface is used throughout. I can imagine this template being used for a photo book or travelogue.

Of course, you can add images and change text styles and sizes for any template, making any one of them suitable for your work. That’s one of the great things about iBooks Author: its flexibility.

Give it a try. I’m sure you’ll like the way it presents your content to the world.

Need a whole book about iBooks Author?

iBooks Author: Publishing Your First Ebook, by Maria Langer.

iBooks Author: Publishing Your First Ebook, the third title in the Maria’s Guides imprint for Flying M Productions, helps you learn how to take advantage of iBooks Author’s amazing feature set to create your own ebooks without a lot of trial and error experimentation. Using an illustrated, step-by-step approach, it guides you through the creation of a sample ebook with features you’re sure to want in your own ebook publications.

Are you using iBooks Author? Tell us in the Comments online how this Tip helped you.

How to briefly magnify Dock icons
Quick Mac Tip, 05 February 2012

Do you have your Dock set to not magnify icons? But then are they sometimes too small to see what you need to see? This quick keyboard trick solves that problem instantly.

Set the Dock preferences

Dock preferences.

Look under the Apple menu for the Dock item and the option to turn Magnification on or off, or just call up the Dock Preferences.

The screenshot shows I have Magnification turned off — I don’t really use the Dock and all the bouncy stuff just gets annoying.

The next screenshot shows a portion of my Dock — it’s small, usually hidden and has small, unobtrusive icons.

My small Dock on the right-hand side of my screen.

Hold down Shift and Control to temporarily magnify

Occasionally I do want to use the Dock for something. This week I learned a nice trick, quite by accident: hold down Shift (⇧) and Control (⌃) to temporarily magnify the icons beneath the cursor.

Magnified Dock icons.

Do make sure that even though Magnification is turned off the size slider is all the way to the right or else it won’t work. Turn it on, slide the slider, then turn it off again.

On my machine there’s a slight delay when I hover over the Dock icons, but it does work.

Oh, and I’m using Lion, Mac OS 10.7.3 — in case that makes a difference. The trick may not work in older versions of the Mac OS.

Have fun.

Let us know in the Comments how this Tip helped you.

How to delete cookies on your iPhone (and why you might want to)
Mac Tip #521, 01 February 2012

Sometimes Safari on your iOS device misbehaves and the only solution is to delete the browser cookies. Here’s how to do that.

I use Google Apps with my main email address. That means that I’m using Gmail. But sometimes there’s one big frustration: the error message that stops me even seeing my mail. 414. That’s an error The requested URL … is too large to process. That’s all we know.

414 The requested URL is too large to process.

I don’t care very much for Apple Mail and since I like the way things work in Safari that’s what I use for reading, writing and sending emails on my iPhone and iPad. On my Mac I use the most excellent Mailplane. The same problem crops up on all of them though, and having taken some time to track down the solution, I want to share it.

These instructions apply to iOS devices: iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Even if you’re not using Gmail you’ll still learn about quitting iOS apps and deleting cookies in Safari on iOS. Both are handy troubleshooting techniques.

Quick Start

1. Quit the browser.
2. Go to Safari Settings.
3. Delete cookies.

Want more detail? Read the full Tip below.

Quit Safari

You may think that simply pressing the Home button gets you out of Safari, but you need to do a bit more as it may actually still be running in the background.

To actually and definitively quit an app on iOS:

iOS Quit icon in the list of running apps.

1. Press the Home button to close the app.
2. Double-press the Home button to bring up a list of recently used apps across the bottom of the screen.
3. Tap and hold on the app you wish to quit — in this case, Safari. All the apps in the list start to jiggle, and each displays a red delete icon at top left. The icon shows a white circle filled with red, and with a white dash across the middle.
4. Tap on the delete icon. The app is removed from the list of recently used apps. [Note: it's not removed from the iPhone.] The app has now been quit.
5. Press the Home button once to return to normal mode.

Delete all Cookies

When you visit websites they often store one or more bits of information on your computer or device in a small file called a cookie. The only solution to this Gmail problem I’ve discovered it to delete any Google cookies. To delete cookies on your iOS device:

Call up Safari settings.

1. Tap on the Settings icon to activate the Settings app.
2. If necessary, scroll down until you see the Safari item in the list.
3. Tap on Safari to display relevant settings on the right.
4. Scroll down the Safari settings until you see the item Clear Cookies and Data.
5. Tap on Clear Cookies and Data. An alert appears with options to Clear Cookies and Data or to cancel.
6. Tap the Clear Cookies and Data button to remove all cookies.

In writing this Tip I think I’ve noticed small differences in how my iPhone 4S and my iPad 2 work through these steps. They are almost identical though.

Now start up Safari again and have another go at using your Gmail account. You should have to log in again, but after that all should work as expected.

Selectively delete Cookies

The steps above delete all Cookies, rather than just those from Google.

Selectively delete cookies.

For a more selective approach use the Advanced button instead of the Clear Cookies and Data button.

1. Tap on the Settings icon to activate the Settings app.
2. If necessary, scroll down until you see the Safari item in the list.
3. Tap on Safari to display relevant settings on the right.
4. Scroll down the Safari settings until you see the item Advanced at the end of the page.
5. Tap on the Advanced button to display a list of all cookies stored on your device.
6. Tap the Edit button at top right of the screen. A red delete icon appears beside each item.
7. Tap once on the delete icon beside one item in the list, such as the mail.google.com item in my screenshot. The icon rotates and a red Delete button appears beside the item.
8. Tap once on the red Delete button. The item is removed from the list.
9. When you’re finished deleting cookies tap the Done button at top right of the screen.

I generally delete all the cookies from Google, just to be sure. If you delete only one and that doesn’t fix the problem try repeating all the steps and deleting more or all Google cookies.

Gmail seems to run out of steam

This problem crops up for me at regular intervals. Occasionally I see a message about increasing storage space and always agree. Deleting cookies as described above is the only technique that has helped me get back to using Gmail in Safari on my iPad or iPhone.

What do you think? Did you try this Tip out? Tell us in the Comments online how this Tip helped you.

Can I put a Mac app on my iPhone?
Quick Mac Tip, 29 January 2012

Can you move a Mac app to your iPhone, or vice versa? Sadly, no. Here’s the full story.

A client asked me the other day:

I bought Bejeweled for the Mac. Can I move it to my iPad?

The quick answer is No, though it’s slightly more complicated (not much).

Bejeweled for iPhone or Mac.

Mac OS and iOS are different platforms

Apple make both Macs and devices such as iPhones, iPods and iPads. Because they make both they also make them seem very much alike.

For example, both a Mac and an iPad run the Safari web browser, and it looks and works pretty much the same on both devices.

But under the hood is the Operating System, or OS.

Macs run on the Mac OS while iPads, iPhones and the iPod touch run on the iOS.

Those are what are known as platforms.

It’s a little bit as though your iPad is thinking in German while your Mac is thinking in Chinese.

You need separate apps

iOS Version 5.0.1 (9A405).

Because of that difference in what’s going on behind the scenes you can’t just transfer or copy an app from one device to the other. Your Mac can only run apps designed for Mac, and your iPhone or iPad can only run apps designed for them.

The slight quirk with iOS

There’s one slight quirk though: just because the iPod touch, iPhone and iPad all run on iOS doesn’t necessarily mean they can all run the same apps.

One clear example is that an iPhone can make phonecalls, while an iPad can’t. So an app that does something with the phone wouldn’t be able to run on an iPad.

There are other differences between the devices too, so some iOS apps will only run on one version of a device and not another. For example, the first iPad didn’t have a camera, while the iPad 2 does.

Another quirk, or annoyance, is an app that’s not available in all regions. Some apps just aren’t available outside the US, for example.

Different versions of the OS

Mac OS Version 10.7.2.

The other quirk is that Apple keep on developing and changing the Operating Systems. I started using Macs a couple of decades ago back when the OS was at version 6. Now it’s up to 10.7.2. The iOS is currently at version 5.0.1.

Each version of the OS brings new and different capabilities, but may need the device it runs on to have certain hardware.

That means that OS 10.7 won’t run on older Macs, for example. Or an app may run on an iPad 2 but not an iPad 1.

Buy the right apps

Whether you’re buying from the Mac App Store, the iOS App Store or from a website, look for the version that matches the computer or device you use.

Bejeweled has separate versions for Windows, Mac, and iPhone or iPod touch. You need to buy the correct version for the device you’re using. And the same goes for all apps.

Check your OS version

Not sure which version of the Operating System your Mac or iOS device is running?

For Macs, see How to find your software version.

For iPhone, iPod, iPad: go to Settings > General > About and look for the Version section.

Let us know in the Comments how this Tip helped you.

Gather files fast with this Lion Tip
Mac Tip #520, 25 January 2012

If you’re like me one or more of the folders on your Mac has a huge mess of unsorted files in it. To clean up you may like to move those files to various subfolders. Lion’s New Folder with Selection command makes this a whole lot easier than it used to be. Here’s how it works.

Quick Start

1. Make sure you’re using Lion, OS 10.7.
2. Select a group of files in the Finder.
3. Choose New Folder with Selection ([x] items) from the File menu.

Want more detail? Read the full Tip below.

Select multiple files

If you’re cleaning up a mess of files you may want to move some to one folder and others to other folders. The old way involved making folders first. But in Lion you can start with selecting the files.

In Icon, List or CoverFlow view one easy way to select a bunch of files that are next to one another is to click near one of the files and drag a selection rectangle around the files you need. As you drag, files within the selection rectangle are selected. See later in this Tip for other ways to select multiple files.

Use the New Folder with Selection command

New Folder with Selection (8 Items).

Provided you have more than 1 file selected Lion now gives you the option to make a folder containing those files. Use one of these methods:

• Control (⌃) click within the selection. A contextual menu appears. Choose the first item: New Folder with Selection ([x] items). The [x] will be replaced with the actual number of items you have selected.
• Go to the File menu and choose New Folder with Selection ([x] items). The [x] will be replaced with the actual number of items you have selected.
• Type Control (⌃) Command (⌘) N.

A new folder is created and named New Folder WIth Items. The name is selected ready for you to edit though.

New Folder with Items – rename this folder.

Type a useful name for the folder and press Return to finish the task.

Select with a modifier key

If selecting a group of files in the first place is a challenge here are some tips. Note that the modifier keys may have different results depending which View you’re using.

Shift click

In List, Column or CoverFlow view click on one file then hold down the Shift (⇧) key. Keep the Shift (⇧) key down and scroll if you need to then click on another file. All the files between the first and second clicks will be selected.

In Icon view this technique simply adds whichever files you click on with the Shift (⇧) key down to the selection.

Command click

In all views click on one file then hold down the Command (⌘) key. Keep the Command (⌘) key down and scroll if you need to then click on another file. Every file you click on will be added to the selection. Command click on an already selected file to remove it from the selection.

If you already have the Command (⌘) key down the Shift (⇧) key has no effect.

Update: oops! An earlier version of this had Control (⌃) key where of course it should have been Command (⌘) key. Thanks to alert reader Graham for spotting this.

What do you think? Did you try this Tip out? Tell us in the Comments online how this Tip helped you.

Book Review: Mac Kung Fu
Saturday, 21 January 2012

Would you like to win a copy of this book? Read on for instructions.

Mac Kung Fu.

I recently received a printed review copy of Mac Kung Fu by Keir Thomas — over 300 Tips, Tricks, Hints, and Hacks for OS X Lion. Published: November 2011, 301 pages.

After you’ve uncovered the basics in Lion, Mac Kung Fu is your next step. You’ll learn how to master everyday tools such as the Dock, Spotlight, Mission Control, Launchpad, and Dashboard. You’ll discover other amazingly useful tools and built-in add-ons that you never knew existed. You’ll customize the OS X interface; refine your workflow; learn valuable security tricks; work better with photos, movies, and documents; and test your Mac hardware. You’ll wow friends with your insanely great Mac knowledge!

How to read Mac Kung Fu

Don’t do what I did! Since I was reviewing this book I was trying to be quick and made 2 grave errors while reading it. For one thing I read, or rather skimmed, the book in just 2 or 3 sessions.

This is a bad idea. There are a lot of great techniques in this book.

It would be better to let them trickle through your brain and seep in, rather than trying to let them rush through as a torrent.

I was reading the paper version of the book. Whichever version you read, paper or PDF, I urge you to make notes as you go along.

You may be able to annotate the PDF, or perhaps copy and paste relevant chunks into some kind of storage. At the very least, you should be able to bookmark tips that interest you.

If you read the paper version you absolutely must either mark the book in some way, or note down page numbers of tips that you feel will be useful.

My favourite items

I was glad of the reminder in Tip 42 that holding down a key in some apps may bring up a pop-out menu of accented variations.

Meanwhile Tip 235 taught me about a technique (for advanced Mac users) that pipes the output of a Terminal command to a specific app.

I learned Tip 198, Always see Expanded Save Dialogs, several years ago, so was glad to see it here — it’s extraordinarily useful.

Other tips also caught my eye. After all, with 315 to choose from even seasoned Mac users will find several items to improve their Mac habits.

The writing is clear and simple

All the tips are clearly and economically written. Some are just a paragraph long, while others need a page or more to cover. Screenshots are sprinkled through the book and display useful information.

Minor nitpicks

After one session of skimming through a dozen or 2 of the tips I put the book down and went to my computer to try a couple out. Foolishly, I hadn’t marked the actual tips and when I went to try them I found I needed to refer back to the book.

I think that would be a fairly common scenario.

The Index failed me, twice

The first thing I did was to turn to the Index at the back. But in both my searches the Index let me down.

One tip was about inverting a selection. In the Index, I couldn’t find this tip under either I for inverting or under S for selection. The same thing happened with another tip about piping Terminal output to a specific app (Tip 235). I found that rather disappointing.

One thing it does is highlight how crucial a thorough index is in a printed book. I’d expect to be able to find such things in a flash in a PDF.

That’s one reason I very much prefer ebooks.

Table of Contents – sample from the book’s website.

A very long Table of Contents

There is a 9 page Table of Contents that lists the title of each of the 315 tips in the book. Of course this is a good thing, but since almost every page contains a list of about 40 tips I actually found it a little hard to read.

I suspect a good designer could find a way to break up the uniformity of the page and make it a little easier for the eye to distinguish one tip from another.

Overall impression

This would be an invaluable reference book for any intermediate or advanced Mac user.

It’s the kind of book to skim through to get a good idea of what it covers. As you skim through, you may find techniques you want to use straight away.

But after you’ve put the book back on the shelf and you’re working as usual you’ll think “Ah, I remember that Mac Kung Fu had a quick way to deal with this”. At that point you’ll want to pick the book out from the shelf and find the relevant tip so you can follow the instructions.

While I was reading I actually thought it was a lot like this MacTips website, though skewed to more advanced users. Not every tip or technique will be interesting or relevant for every reader, and some will be useful later.

I noticed quite a few items that Mac King Fu and MacTips have in common.

Who the book would be good for

This book is aimed at users of Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) and above. It’s intended not for beginners, but those who want to learn more once they have the basics in hand.

With its eclectic mix of Command Line hacks, keyboard shortcuts, settings tweaks and simple instruction, it seems to me it would be best suited to intermediate and advanced users.

I consider myself an advanced user and was thrilled to discover several techniques that were new to me.

Book details

Mac Kung Fu by Keir Thomas. Published: 18 November 2011, 300 pages. It is available as a paperback for US$35, as an ebook for US$22 (epub, PDF, mobi, DRM-free), or both together for US$44. ISBN: 978-1-93435-682-1.

Win a copy of this book

Now that I’ve read my review copy I want to give away the printed copy. Would you like it?

To be in for a chance at winning this book you must:

1. Leave a comment on this Review.
2. Tell me one thing you think that would improve the MacTips website and the Tips I share. Any sensible and serious suggestions are welcome.
3. Or suggest a topic you’d like me to write about on MacTips.
4. Use a valid email address. The address won’t be published and will be used only for contacting you in relation to this review and your comment. It won’t be supplied to anyone else or used for any other purpose.

If you have more than one suggestion leave separate comments — each published comment counts as one entry.

I reserve the right to not publish comments if they seem spammy to me or otherwise disruptive.

Entries close at 07.00 am (New Zealand time) on Tuesday 31 January 2012.

I’ll pick one email address at random from all entries.

Postage at the cheapest rate is free. If you win and you’re overseas you can pay for postage for speedier delivery. Books can take up to 3 months to travel from New Zealand to Europe or the USA at the cheapest postage rate.

How to Track Friends with your iPhone
Mac Tip #519, 18 January 2012

Sometimes my partner walks part of the way home from work, for the exercise. Meanwhile I may drive down the hill with the dogs and start walking towards her, so the dogs get their walk too. iPhone’s Find Friends app makes it easy to see when and where we’ll meet up. Here’s how it works.

Quick Start

1. Request permission to follow someone.
2. Once they’ve accepted, open the Find Friends app and select their name.
3. Tap the address of their current location to see a map.
4. Look for the pink pin.
5. Choose Hide from Followers or Remove from Followers for added privacy.

Want more detail? Read the full Tip below.

Request permission to follow someone

If your iPhone or iPad has iOS 5 you should have the Find Friends app. To use the app you will probably have to enter the password associated with your Apple ID or iCloud account.

Open the app and tap the + symbol at top right of the screen. A message window opens.

Enter the email address of someone with a suitable device, and add an optional message, then send. The app sends an email to the address you entered.

Your friend accepts your request

Find friends request from Miraz Jordan.

Your friend receives an email with instructions. If they’re willing to allow you to ‘find’ them they must open the email on a device using iOS 5 and click the View Request link. To accept your request they follow the instructions on screen.

Open the Find Friends app and select a friend

The All screen on the Find Friends app shows a list of all friends who’ve accepted your request. A green badge by their name shows approximately how far away they are.

I have one friend in Canada and another in Arizona who accepted my request. The badge simply shows them as being 99+ Km away from me in New Zealand.

To ‘find’ a friend click on their name in the list. A new page appears showing contact details and the address where they are now.

Sometimes friends may not be able to be found — there’s an easy button that allows for privacy.

Tap the address to see a map

Here’s where the real fun starts. Tap the address for where your friend is currently located to call up a map.

Tap the ‘page curl’ icon at bottom right of the screen to reveal options for the type of map to display:

• Standard: a street map
• Satellite: a satellite view from above (as in my screenshots)
• Hybrid: a combination of both Standard and Satellite.

Use the pinch and spread gestures on your phone to zoom in and out of the map.

My partner and I are at opposite ends of the Wellington waterfront.

Look around the map to see a blue pin inside a blue circle. That shows where you are. A pink pin and pink circle show where your friend is.

The wider the circle, the less accurate the reading.

The pins move

I had to tap Refresh to update the display. My partner and I should meet up in a few minutes.

As you and your friend move, so do the pins on the map — in theory at least.

If a person gets ‘stuck’ in one place, and you expect them to be moving, tap the Refresh button at top right of the screen to force an update.

Go private

I find this app extremely useful, at least as far as my partner’s concerned. We can each keep track of where the other person is without having to send texts or make calls. It’s particularly useful when it comes to collecting my partner from the airport or other locations.

But there may be times when you want a bit of privacy. In that case, tap the Me button at the bottom of the Find Friends main page. Your own Profile is displayed.

Look for the section Hide from Followers and tap the Off button so the word On is displayed. Now your friends will not be able to see where you are. Remember to turn it on again later to allow others to see your location.

Remove a follower

If you change your mind about a particular person you had previously allowed to follow you or had followed yourself, you can remove them from the list.

Tap the Me button at the bottom of the Find Friends main page. Your own Profile is displayed.

Scroll down and tap on the name of the follower you wish to remove. A page appears with information about that person.

Scroll down to the end to see two buttons: Remove from Followers and Stop Following. Tap the button that reflects your wishes.

One wish

The app is lacking something — internal messaging.

As my partner and I walk towards each other I’d like to be able to tap her name and type out a quick message. Instead I have to leave the app and switch to messaging. Maybe in iOS 6…

What do you think? Did you try this Tip out? Tell us in the Comments online how this Tip helped you.

Make your Mac much louder
Quick Mac Tip, 15 January 2012

Trying to watch a video or listen to iTunes and finding you can’t hear well enough, even with the volume turned all the way up? I often have that problem. One way to solve it is with a wonderful piece of software called Audio Hijack Pro (US$32). I use this trick all the time.

Quick Start

1. Use Audio Hijack Pro.
2. Add the app you wish to hear better as a Source.
3. Add a Double Gain effect for that Source.
4. Hijack.

Add a source for Audio Hijack Pro

After installing Audio Hijack Pro — it has a free trial you can experiment with — open it up. A window appears.

The Audio Hijack pro window. I have already added sources.

From the Session menu choose New. A new item appears in the left hand column labelled <Select a Source>.

In the area on the right hand side of the window select the app whose sound you want to amplify, for example, Quicktime Player, or Safari.

I chose Safari as my Source application.

Add a Gain Effect

Click on the Effects tab on the right-hand side of the window. The window changes to show boxes where you can add effects.

Click on one of the boxes and a menu appears.

Choose 4FX Effect so a submenu appears and select Double Gain from the submenu. An image of knobs like those on an amplifier appears.

A Double Gain effect in Audio Hijack Pro.

Turn up the Gain

Now comes the hard part as it’s actually tricky to turn the knobs. I find I have to move my mouse in the opposite direction…

Turn the knobs clockwise to increase the gain.

Hijack your audio

Now start up the Source application you chose previously, Safari for example, and get ready to play your movie, podcast or whatever.

Switch back to Audio Hijack Pro. Make sure the same Source is selected in the left-hand column, then press the Hijack button at top left of the Audio Hijack Pro window.

Start playing your movie.

Now I can actually hear the TV show.

Adjust your Mac’s volume using the usual keyboard Volume buttons until you have it at the right level.

Enjoy. And let us know in the Comments how this Tip helped you.

How to make a simple year planner in Numbers.app
Mac Tip #518, 11 January 2012

It’s the time of year when people make plans, and for that a calendar comes in handy. But an actual calendar isn’t always what you want. So how about a list of dates instead? I set up a simple year planner in Numbers ’09 (NZ$24.99, US$19.99). Here’s how you can too (or just download mine, if it’s easier).

Numbers is a spreadsheet app from Apple. You may use Microsoft Excel, or some other app. The same principles should apply whatever you use. This Tip is written using Numbers ’09 and Lion but it should work for any version of the app or the operating system.

Quick Start

1. Create an empty spreadsheet in Numbers.
2. Put a date such as 01 January 2012 in a cell such as B2.
3. Set the cell format to date, and select the date format you prefer.
4. Fill down to cell B366. (2012 is a leap year, with 366 days.)
5. Add colours and other formatting features if you wish.
6. Add columns as needed for events and activities.

Want more detail? Read the full Tip below.

Prefer to download my template for a 2012 year planner? I have a general template and one that includes New Zealand Public holidays (regional holidays not marked). Download the General 2012 year planner template (115 Kb zip file). Download the New Zealand 2012 year planner template (115 Kb zip file).

Please subscribe to the MacTips channel. Or just visit this video on YouTube, leave comments and rate it, as that helps spread the word about MacTips.

Create a new blank spreadsheet

Open Numbers and select New from the File menu. The Template Chooser appears with the Blank template selected.

Click the Choose button or press Return to create a new blank spreadsheet.

Enter the starting date

Click in the cell where you want to first date to appear. When you create a new blank spreadsheet cell B2 may already be selected. If you start there it leaves room for headings above and to the left.

Type a date such as 01 January 2012.

You could instead type 1/1/2012, if you prefer.

Press the Return key to enter the date and move down to the next cell.

Set the cell format to date, and choose the date format.

Set the cell format

Numbers ’09 probably recognised what you entered as a date, but it’s a good idea to make sure. Also, you can choose how to actually display that date — you may prefer the name of the month spelled out, day first or month first, and so on.

Select the cell with the date in it (probably B2) and choose Show Inspector from the View menu. The Inspector window appears.

If necessary, click on the Cells inspector (the 4th icon from the left at the top of the Inspector window) to display cell formatting options. The icon for the Cells inspector is a small square containing the number 42.

From the first pop-up menu — Cell Format choose Date and Time.

From the Date pop-up menu choose the format you prefer.

From the Time pop-up menu choose None.

You’ve now finished with the Inspector for the moment. Close it if you wish.

Fill down to enter a series of dates. I gave the starting cell a background colour so all the filled cells automatically get that colour too.

Fill down

Make sure the cell with the date in it is selected. When it’s selected it has a line around it, and at the bottom right corner of the cell, where the border lines meet, is a tiny + symbol or a tiny circle. Drag that + symbol downwards.

The cursor changes to a black + symbol with a white outline when you’re in the right place. Otherwise it’s a white + symbol with a black outline.

As you drag you should see sequential dates appear in the cells.

If instead the whole date moves to another cell then press Command (⌘) Z to Undo what you did and try again. Be sure to drag the tiny + symbol.

When you reach around February 13 you probably won’t be able to drag any further as you’ll run out of rows.

Make more rows

To make more rows look for the tiny grey handle below the number of the final row. Drag that handle downwards.

Make more rows by dragging the handle beneath the number of the final row.

As you drag rows are added and the page scrolls so you can continue to drag. Stop dragging when you have enough rows.

Now scroll back up to where you stopped filling in dates. Select the last date you filled and again drag the tiny + symbol downwards until you’ve filled dates for the whole year.

If you keep dragging, dates for the next year will be filled too. The page should scroll as you drag, allowing you to fill dates for the whole year.

Add formatting features

You could do this step before you fill all the dates, or afterwards. It’s up to you. If you apply formatting to the starter cell, that formatting will apply to all the cells you fill.

Select the cells you wish to format.

Tip: click in the first cell, then scroll to the last one and hold down the Shift (⇧) key before you click. That will select all the cells from the first to the last one you click on.

With one or more cells selected choose Show Inspector from the View menu. The Inspector window appears.

If necessary, click on the Graphic inspector (the 7th icon from the left at the top of the Inspector window) to display Fill, Stroke, Shadow and Opacity formatting options. The icon is a small square containing an overlapping square and circle.

Choose colours, lines and so on from the options in the Graphic inspector. I found it handy to set the background colour for each month to one of 3 colours to help distinguish adjacent months.

Select some cells and press Command (⌘) T to call up the Fonts inspector to set font size, family and colour.

Add headings for columns

Now that you have dates in one column, perhaps column B, you can add information to the other columns. I use one column per project, such as Tech Universe, MacTips, and so on.

Use my template

To use the template I’ve created download the zip file. Double click the downloaded zip file to expand it. Then double click the template file.

Numbers.app should open and create a new, unnamed, spreadsheet already filled with 2012 dates.

Edit it and add your own information to suit.

Save your document

Once you’ve created your planner save it in a place and with a name that will mean something to you.

What do you think? Did you try this Tip out? Tell us in the Comments online how this Tip helped you.

Lumin Turns Your iPhone into an Illuminated Magnifier

by Adam C. Engst

Republished with permission. The images have been resized and the resolution reduced for publication here — visit the original article for better quality and larger versions.

My eyes aren’t terrible, at least if I’m wearing the corrective lenses that fix my massive myopia. But there are plenty of times when I need to read something that’s too small to make out in the current lighting conditions — a serial number on the back of a device, a restaurant menu in dim lighting, the details on some piece under the car dashboard. I’ve become fond of my Petzl Tikka 2 head lamp for throwing bright light on whatever I’m working on, but I can’t go out in public with LEDs glaring from my forehead, and even then, it doesn’t help with things that are too small to see well.

The deceptively simple solution for such situations is Mahboud Zabetian’s $1.99 iOS app Lumin. It performs two basic tasks: magnification and illumination, but when you combine them on an iPhone, you end up with a device that can help anyone whose eyes aren’t what they used to be.

Lumin uses your iOS device’s camera to display a magnified image of whatever you point it at. Most of the time you’ll want to use the higher-resolution rear-facing camera, but you can switch to the front-facing camera (to make sure you don’t have lettuce in your teeth). Lumin’s magnification goes beyond what the Camera app allows, perhaps because Lumin’s goal is just to let you read something, rather than stressing about whether or not it would be a good photo. And if you want to magnify even further, the normal pinch-to-zoom feature of the iPhone works fine.

The controls in Lumin – screenshot by Adam Engst.

If you’re using an iPhone 4 or 4S, a tap on an onscreen button turns the flash into a little LED flashlight, illuminating whatever you’re looking at. There’s nothing new here — Apple is rejecting flashlight apps because there are too many in the App Store already — but being able to shine a constant light on small print in a dark area is way easier than using the flash normally, where it’s on only for the instant the picture is being taken.

Lumin illuminates the subject — image by Adam Engst.

In most situations, you’ll use Lumin in real time as a live magnifying glass. But when you want to transcribe a serial number or look at something carefully, a tap on a lock button freezes the image. You can even pinch to zoom further, if the magnification level of the frozen image isn’t sufficient. The image sticks around until you tap the lock button again, unless you instead use the share button to save it to the Camera Album, share it via email, or post it to Twitter. And when you’re saving a picture to the Camera album, Lumin gives you the option of saving the magnified image, the original unmagnified photo, or both.

The share button in Lumin — screenshot by Adam Engst.

The only problem I had with Lumin is that because of the extreme magnification level in the camera, holding the iPhone steady long enough for Lumin to focus sometimes proved tricky. You won’t want to use it for reading a bunch of stock prices from the newspaper, for instance, unless you could make a little stand that would hold it steady at the right distance from the page. Having to tap the on-screen lock button was also difficult in some situations; it would be great if Lumin could freeze the image when the volume up button was pressed, as the Camera app can do in iOS 5.

You’d be hard pressed to find a normal illuminated magnifying glass for less than $5 (most I found were in the $20-and-up range), much less one that can take photos and is always in your pocket or purse. So if you find yourself wishing small things weren’t so hard to see, give Lumin a try.

Reprinted from TidBITS#1081/20-Jun-11; reuse governed by Creative Commons license. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit tidbits.com.

Miraz says

As soon as I read Adam’s article, republished above, I bought and downloaded the app. I’ve reached that age where small print is always a problem.

Ingredients in Marmite.

I usually end up taking off my glasses and peering at the item I’m trying to read. Often it’s a food item in the supermarket and I want to check the ingredients.

A quick test on a jar of Marmite in the cupboard made it clear this would work nicely.

Rather than write my own item about the app, I asked Adam’s permission to republish his. After all, he’d already said everything I would have said, and more besides.

If you haven’t ever read TidBITS do yourself a favour and take a look. I’ve been a subscriber for a decade or even two now and find it always an invaluable source of information.