Stupid SECRETARIAL/WORD PROCESSING Question

I am late to this party....but I am seldom here.

Fonts?

I am a person who was (for a short time) absolutely addicted to fonts.

Yes, it's true. It can happen.

There are websites that allow you to download fonts!

If you have any interest (at all) in font design, I will warn you in advance...... go there at your own risk.

It can be compulsive (and horribly addictive) to keep on clicking on images of fonts (not yet viewed).....it never ends.

Before it was all over (and I went cold turkey) I had downloaded fonts, by the thousands, that could never....ever... be used in any format whatsoever!!

They were so damn beautiful/funny/incredible/unique that I HAD to have them.

I would try to find letters....whatever ....where I could use them.

You can't use them!

In fact you can't even read them when strung together.

And the names of them, were also so addictive....

Actually I never deleted these sites from my favorites file.

And until this day, I was clean and sober!

But (alas) I tripped upon this thread......and God help me........

I could fall off the font wagon!

Fonts:

......they are not just........ letters!

They are ..... (addictive) art.

A lot of HR offices nowadays want "scannable" resumes, meaning you should avoid special formatting such as bold, italics, etc.; Times or Times New Roman seems to be the most common font. Also, 12 pt font is recommended over 10 pt as some scanners may have resolution problems with small font sizes.

Well now I have another question re: the college app. we are working on.

In addition to the regular fill in the blanks application, we had 7 different items to type up seperately. They are:

1. The main essay/It's on 2 pages
2. 2 Short essays/Both on the same page
3. An creative writing essay/2 or 3 pages depending
4. An opinion piece/1 page
5. Resume/1 page
6. Portfolio list/1 page


I read the fine print and only one of them (the creative writing piece) specified the type and size of the font to use. It was New Roman Times 12.

So, I figured it would be best to do them all alike. So with some tweaking of format and margin size, I managed to get most of them on one page.

Is it Kosher to cheat the margins from 1 inch all around
to .75 inches all around to get them on one page if possible? I don't think it looks akward, but my son is freaking out about it.

1 in. margin: Main college essay, Short Answer essays, opinion piece, and the creative writing sample if it's on 3 pages

.75 in margin: Resume, Portfolio list and the creative writing sample if it's on 2 pages.

Is that more than you ever wanted to know?

..or would it be better to have 1 inch margins all around but different fonts? (Regular Times might work it's alot more compact, but perhaps harder to read in the essays.)

Id rather see a compilation of documents in the same sized font with adjusted margins...I dont think going from 1" to .75 is all that big a deal.

Fealola - Do the directions call for one inch margins? Better to stick with that... or just squeeze a little bit by going to .85 or .9 margins. Some other things you can do... change your font size to 11 point, even if it doesn't show on the screen, just type in 11 and see if your WP will accept it. Condense the font -- go to Font, then character spacing and condense the font as much as possible. Look for words in the essay that can be pulled. (Almost every essay has words that can be eliminated.) You can also change the spacings between paragraphs to a smaller font.

I hope your son is appreciating all your hard work!

Thanks for responding. They don't specify margin size, soo.... I'll probably stick with what I have. We've edited out some and that's helped, and still need to do a little more polishing. So far it seems like margin size isn't a big deal if it doesn't look bad. I think it's ok. But my little arteeest is getting nervous. Does he appreciate it?...... Maybe he'll admit to that when he's 40!

Oh. I see Wy and I offered v. similar advice. heehee... great minds... or should I say, sneaky ones!

Fealola, these are the kinds of wonderful things parents do that kids don't remember. Please consider having him write a sweet note to you that points out all these good things you've done for him. Then when he's 40 and says Huh? I thought I did that myself ... you produce the note and say, au contraire, mon cherie. Memories are such wonderful things, especially when bolstered with hard evidence.

Good one, Piffka!

I'm finally appreciating, now that I have a teenaged daughter, the amount of time my mother spent pressing her lips tightly together... It's quite a skill!

grrr!

Pursing your lips to keep from saying anything... following that maxim:
"The older I grow, the more I listen to people who don't say much." - Germain G. Glidden. It's that body language.

My daughter's 20 & I'm glad, we get along lots better then when she was 15. <wiping sweat from brow>

I'm just looking out for you, Fealola. [size=7]When is your college project going to be finished?[/size]

I hope to have it in the mail tomorrow or the next day. 11/30 deadline.

So how ya doin -- got it finished yet, Fealola?

Well guess what. Going to submit it via the internet! The last time we checked that feature wasn't ready but now it is! In a few minutes we will press a button and it will be one down, and a few more to go! (no margin,
type style or bad handwriting worries! Yay! No mail screwup worries either!)

Good! Good! Good! Hope he gets into the school he most wants.

Thank you! The button has been pushed! This is his first choice-- going for an early acceptance. The rest should be alot easier now that we know what we're doing.