Innovation in Global Power - Parsons Brinckerhoff

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Networking http://www.pbworld.com/news_events/publications/network/ And, like PowerPoint ® ,Visio ® has its limitations: • You are limited to between one to five swim lanes. • Connection lines that cross each other will change shapes to reflect the process “fly over.” This feature is one of my least favorites, particularly because Visio ® does not give you a choice about using it. • There is an extra-cost involved for most users because Visio ® is not part of the standard PowerPoint ® suite of products. Which Application Is Right for You? This is a question that only you can answer. If you have access to both applications, then your answer will probably depend on how much freedom you want and how much help you think you will need when creating your swim lane diagram. I suggest you make a few sample diagrams in each program to see which one is more comfortable to you. Conclusion Figure 5: Visio’s ® pre-made diagram layout. 8. From the left side of this screen, select the “Basic Flowchart Shapes” menu bar to see a list of premade shapes you can use to create your diagram. You simply drag and drop these symbols onto the working area and then use the tools included with Visio ® to insert or modify lines, line types, line ends, shading, etc., as needed until your diagram looks the way you want. Pros and Cons of Using Visio ® . Using Visio ® to create your swim lane diagram provides you with the following benefits over using PowerPoint ® : • It comes with a template for faster creation and less need to “eyeball” the layout. • It provides more pre-made shapes and templates to choose from. • The line tool adjusts automatically to make it easier for the reader to follow the flow. As we mentioned in the first article, using swim lane diagrams to analyze and improve your business process is not rocket science. Figure out which tool and symbols work best for your purposes and don’t feel tied down to one set way of creating these diagrams. What is important here is to make sure you properly capture the process and deliver the message within the diagram in a way that all readers can understand. If your team can look at it and understand what you’re trying to say, then you are on the right path and well on your way to making your process more efficient. Next Time In Part 3 of this series, we will demonstrate how to take an existing process and capture it into a swim lane diagram, using what we have learned to this point. Kurt Sloan is the client services manager for the PB Project Information Management Technical Excellence Center in Denver, Colorado. 2008 represents Kurt’s 20th year providing information technology support and guidance to companies such as PB, Accenture / Andersen Consulting and Bank of America. PB Network #68 / August 2008 98
http://www.pbworld.com/news_events/publications/network/ Working with Text in Adobe Acrobat Pro: COPY TEXT TO OTHER SOFTWARE APPLICATIONS, USE BUILT-IN OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION, MAKE CORRECTIONS WITH THE TOUCHUP TEXT TOOL By Jim Hinshaw, Austin, Texas, 1-512-347-3504, hinshaw@pbworld.com Figure 1: Text selection. Most PB computers have a copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional installed thanks to a corporate license. Many users are not aware, however, that editable text can be copied from unsecured Acrobat files and pasted into Microsoft Word or other files. Acrobat even has a built-in optical character recognition function that lets users create editable text from scanned documents. These techniques will not work with Acrobat Reader software. Selecting and Copying Text Copying and pasting an image, text, and tables from a .PDF document to an MS Word document is easy. Click the Text Selection Tool (Figure 1), and click and drag over the text you wish to copy. Copy the text to the clip board (click on Copy under the Edit menu), and then paste it into your text document. This technique should work with any software that handles text and has a paste command. If you want to select all the text on a page, click your right mouse button and choose Select All from the contextual pop-up menu. Let your mouse hover over the selected text for a moment and you will see an Acrobat button appear. Move your mouse over the button, and more buttons appear giving you several options for copying or marking up the text (Figure 2.). Or, right click your mouse and this list will appear. If you want to copy all the text in a .PDF file and retain the formatting, choose Save As under the File menu and select Rich Text Format from the Save as type pop-up menu. Then save the document as a Rich Text Format (*.rtf) file. Microsoft Word will open the Rich Text file as if it were a native Word document. Be aware that text spanning several pages may contain header and footer text that you may not want to keep. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for Copying Text Figure 2: Options for copying or marking text. If you have a document that you want to copy text from but can’t select the text, it is likely that the document was scanned. You are seeing a picture of the text that is not editable. Acrobat comes to the rescue with its built-in OCR function. OCR is a process whereby the software recognizes letter forms and converts their images into editable text. Click on the Document menu at the top of your window and select the Recognize Text Using OCR command (Figure 3 on the following page). For most scanned documents, you can use the Start sub-command to convert all letter forms to editable text. A dialog box will appear asking you to specify the pages that you want converted. After Acrobat has finished OCR, use the copy and paste steps outlined above. It is a really good idea to proof-read the text after copying it, however, because OCR can make mistakes with a poor quality original. 99 PB Network #68 / August 2008
Page 1 and 2:
A technical journal by Parsons Brin
Page 3 and 4:
http://www.pbworld.com/news_events/
Page 5 and 6:
Thermal - Achieving New Efficiencie
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
GENERATION: Hydropower - New Techno
Page 23 and 24:
Hydropower - New Technologies, New
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48: Renewables - The Risks, Concerns an
Page 51 and 52: http://www.pbworld.com/news_events/
Page 59 and 60: Transporting Power Across the Grid
Page 69 and 70: Distributing Power to Users Researc
Page 71 and 72: Distributing Power to Users The fin
Page 73 and 74: Distributing Power to Users initial
Page 75 and 76: Distributing Power to Users A Surve
Page 79 and 80: Distributing Power to Users http://
Page 81 and 82: Planning and the Role of Regulators
Page 91 and 92: DEPARTMENTS PB’s power specialist
Page 93 and 94: Networking • What CPUs and PLCs w
Page 97: Networking 8. Dash Style. You can u
Page 101 and 102: Going Green: Walking the Walk!! By
show all

Innovation in Global Power - Parsons Brinckerhoff

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?