Uploading tables from Word 2007 directly to my blog

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Word 2007 and beyond can upload content directly to blogs. So, I was curious to see how well Word can post tables to my blog.  Results below, untouched and exactly as they appeared after upload.

The actual data uploaded by Word is amazingly clean/simple! I thought it would be horribly complicated but I was delighted to be wrong! Clearly, the presentation you see is affected by this site’s WordPress theme CSS. Which I admit does not look that good.  In the WordPress content editor, the tables look great and are easy to edit. See screenshot below.

As a way to write offline and then post to your blog, it could have its uses.

Screenshot of the behind-the-blog content editor.

Raw and untouched tables: a selection from Word’s “Quick Tables” facility. Compare with the content editor view above.

City or Town

Point A

Point B

Point C

Point D

Point E
Point A

—
Point B

87

—
Point C

64

56

—
Point D

37

32

91

—
Point E

93

35

54

43

—
ITEM NEEDED
Books 1
Magazines 3
Notebooks 1
Paper pads 1
Pens 3
Pencils 2
Highlighter 2 colors
Scissors 1 pair

Enrollment in local colleges, 2005

College New students Graduating students Change
Undergraduate
Cedar University 110 103 +7
Elm College 223 214 +9
Maple Academy 197 120 +77
Pine College 134 121 +13
Oak Institute 202 210 -8
Graduate
Cedar University 24 20 +4
Elm College 43 53 -10
Maple Academy 3 11 -8
Pine College 9 4 +5
Oak Institute 53 52 +1
Total 998 908 90

Source: Fictitious data, for illustration purposes only

LuaTeX can connect to networks

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One feature of LuaTeX which might prove useful in some circumstances is its ability to connect to networks through TCP/IP. This facility is due to the luasocket TCP/IP networking library which is built into the executable. In addition to the low-level TCP/IP facilities, luasocket provides a number of support modules which make the following tasks quite easy to do:

  • HTTP (e.g., web access)
  • SMTP (sending e-mails)
  • FTP (uploading and downloading files)

To use luasocket you need to load the libraries and away you go. Here’s a trivial example which makes an HTTP call to a server, stores the server’s response in a Lua table and typesets it. To build more advanced examples you’ll need to read about the ltn12 module.


\directlua{

local ltn12 = require("ltn12")
local http = require("socket.http")

function grabtext(httplink)
local tab = {}
local res = http.request{url = httplink, sink = ltn12.sink.table(tab)}
return tab
end

local t = grabtext("http://your_url_here")
tex.print(t[1])
}

Vastly more complex examples could be built, of course.

Looking for a new position in publishing

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Hmmm, I was in two minds on whether to make such a post but hey, nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say. I have this blog so I might as well use it!

Life circumstances have taken a bit of a turn recently and I’m now looking for a new position in publishing. If you drop by this site and know anyone in publishing who could use my experience/expertise, do please get in contact through the contact me page. I’m based in Bristol, UK.

Profile: 20 years of publishing experience, spanning senior editorial roles (Publisher and Senior Publisher) through to highly technical positions in print/electronic journal production and software development. Proven innovator, versatile and creative individual able to make significant contributions across multiple functions.

  • Track record of winning prizes for publishing process and product/service innovation.
  • Desire to be involved with projects which fundamentally redesign digital publishing workflows: content strategy, authorship systems, component content management systems. To integrate content creation, review/approval, production, publishing and maintenance.
  • In-depth understanding of journal publishing and production workflows (including peer review).
  • World-class expertise in proceedings publishing.
  • Significant experience of open access publishing.
  • Expert in Editorial Manager (journal submission and peer review system): from configuration to full site deployment.
  • Extensive technical expertise applicable to a wide range of publishing operations.
  • Able to communicate with, and work very effectively across, numerous publishing functions.
  • Innovative “out of the box” thinking, problem-solving attitude.
  • Strong interest in STM publishing opportunities presented by new web technologies.

Career interests: I am not seeking a purely technical position. Ideally, I would like to leverage my experience within a team environment focussed on product development, automation and innovation of publishing workflows, business analysis, process efficiencies, creation of new products and services.

Professional values: Deeply committed to, and passionate about, delivering outstanding customer service and experience. Methodical, with a high level of attention to detail. Enjoy seeing ideas being put into practice and yielding tangible results.

If this sounds interesting, do please get in contact.

Many thanks!

Installing Node.js and CouchDB on Windows

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Node.js and CouchDB are two very interesting technologies which are well worth exploring. Windows users can get prebuilt binaries/installers from the following locations.

Update: to follow the examples in the O’Reilly online book (http://guide.couchdb.org/) Windows users will need to download curl (a command line utility).

I have installed all the above on my desktop PC and so far everything is working well.