Expert Tiny-Writing Cheat Sheets
byRaise your hand if you’ve ever had a class where the professor has said, “You’re allowed for the test 1 page back and front of whatever you can fit,” and then you spend about five hours with a cramped hand writing in barely legible writing trying to fit twelve pages of notes and homework onto one paper.
I’ve had several of these classes, and while there are many variations (one 3×5 card, 10 pages of anything, 5 pages handwritten only, etc.), the Tablet PC can be a real time saver (or at least a real hand saver), especially if your notes are already digital.
Step 1: Open your favorite notes program to a blank page.
Step 2: Change the pen settings to Extra Fine Point, or the tiniest pen tip you can make. Turning off Pressure sensitivity helps make the tip smaller.
Step 3: Zoom in alllllll the way, 200-300%.
Step 4: Either copy, paste, and shrink your notes down on to the blank page, or rewrite your notes for extra smallness. When you’re zoomed in 200%, there’s no need to worry about writing small (since writing normal size will still make it very small) although you can write smaller than normal, no problem. Drawing diagrams and color coding is also no sweat, since it’s all right at your fingertips. I usually draw a line down the middle so I have a sense of where I am on the paper.
Step 5: Make sure your printer has enough ink, then print on the best setting, just to make sure everything’s readable.
On the picture above, I could have easily written more except I didn’t need to. We had 10 pages, back and front, plus the book. I actually found it’s easier to take notes zoomed in at 200% simply because when it comes time to review, I have entire chapters on one page.
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That’s a great tip. Another option is to use PocketMod (www.pocketmod.com) to shrink any PDF document to a tiny eight-page booklet using a single sheet of paper. In fact, you could combine the tips by creating your ink notes in Word 2007 and using it’s PDF output feature and then use PocketMod to shrink it down.
December 21st, 2006 at 2:36 pm[...] I wish I had a Tablet PC when I was in college, because, as Tracy Hooten points out in this How To, a Tablet PC makes the process so much easier. [...]
December 21st, 2006 at 4:02 pmThat is a wonderful tip. I will be sure to use it when classes start back. I will probably have teachers like that because I have a few Online classes. I love Online classes. Anyone else?
December 22nd, 2006 at 2:12 amI’m doing 3 onlines this aummer. I can’t stand those mandatory core classes (like history and government) during the regular semester. I haven’t done an online couse before, but it sounds better than an extra semester!
December 22nd, 2006 at 4:38 amThere is also a Program called fine Print which allows printing to multiple pages from one to eight. Theresa free trial available.
December 23rd, 2006 at 7:38 amGreat tip Tracy! In fact, I used OneNote 2007 to do this: making cheat sheets and single page summaries. Unfortunately, OneNote has horrible memory management, and Paged File (Virtual RAM) usage can go to insane amounts (1GB+) with a horrible lag. Does Journal suffer from this problem?
December 25th, 2006 at 7:38 amI use this technique to create study sheets for midterms and finals… just doing the summary helps to pull tother the main concepts from the whole course, and then I have a final study sheet… for that last minute review…
I posted a sample at http://pabica.blogspot.com/...
(and I continue to prefer Journal to OneNote)
December 26th, 2006 at 9:59 am[...] Link to The Student Tablet PC » Blog Archives » Expert Tiny-Writing Cheat Sheets [...]
December 30th, 2006 at 10:30 amhaha i used to do this all the time!! however, if you use journal, you should do it in sections and then group each section. if you dont do that, journal gets bogged down.
January 5th, 2007 at 12:15 am