Category Archives: More

WMDS team – help wanted

We need students to help with WMDS. Jobs to be done include-but-aren’t-limited-to:

  • camera operator
  • audio operator
  • onscreen reader [i.e. what Jonathan and the guys have been doing]
  • Video creator/editor
  • Idea person [how to make WMDS better]

You do NOT have to know anything in advance – we’ll train you! None of it is THAT tricky.

You DO have to be dependable and want to learn.

See or email Coach Jones or Mr. Rule for more details.

Textilus part 0: What it is & what it will do

textilus logo

Textilus Pro is the word processing app that Mount de Sales is rolling out campus wide for use on the iPads. It has all of the standard word processing features needed in the 21st century, talks with several different cloud services [iCloud, Drive, Box, etc], and enables creation of MLA style documents.

Here is an overview of the features in Textilus Pro:

✓ Easy to Use, Stay Organized

✓ Powerful yet very easy to use rich-text word processor for iPad

✓ Create, edit and share your documents effortlessly. No settings. No cluttered interface

✓ Document Folders: Drag&Drop to create. Use different color covers for different projects

✓ MagicCursor: Quickly move around the cursor and select text

✓ Typewriter (Focus) mode. Distraction-Free mode that keeps only the paragraph you’re typing at the center of the screen, letting you focus on what you’re writing

✓ Create and edit documents for Microsoft Word, Open Office, Scrivener, Nisus Writer, etc.

✓ Insert photos, comments, footnotes, charts, signatures and drawings in your documents. Compose sketches

✓ Sign your documents realistically with your finger

✓ Export and mail your work as PDF , RTF , RTFD , TXT, PNG , Markdown and HTML

✓ Sync your documents with Dropbox , Google Drive, Box, iCloud , Scrivener or Evernote

✓ Text to Speech and Voice Dictation support

✓ Over 32 supported languages including Japanese , Chinese , Arabic , Hebrew

Powerful RTF Rich-Text Engine

✓ Rich-text formatting: Bold, italic, underline, highlight, subscript/superscript, alignment, line spacing, first-line indent, type size, page breaks, pre-defined styles, text and paper color, etc.

✓ Insert inline photos, charts and drawings in your documents. Compose sketches.

✓ Over 60 high quality (Retina ready) fonts included. Insert special symbols, math symbols, date, current GPS location, pictographs and web links in your documents

✓ Extra keyboard row with direct access to styling and punctuation functions. Quick keys for tab, forward delete, up, down, left, right, etc.

✓ Easily set custom 25 toolbar buttons to your commonly-used keys, special symbols, text snippets or hard to reach characters

✓ Multi-language: Over 32 languages supported including Japanese, Chinese, Arabic and Hebrew

✓ Markdown support

Essential Writing Tool

✓ Find and replace: Quickly search within a document, and it gives you the option to replace those terms with another

✓ Instant text statistics and counters: characters, words, reading time, sentences, average word length

✓ Direct search on Google , Wikipedia , Dictionary , Thesaurus, etc. So finding external online information, synonyms and related words is quick and easy

✓ Security Passcode: Only you will be allowed to open documents in your iPad

✓ Built-in Text to Speech will read aloud your documents and selected text in more than 30 languages (No Internet connection needed)

✓ Create backup snapshots of your documents anytime

PC/MAC Compatible

✓ Universal RTF based document file format (Rich Text Format)

✓ Textilus standard RTF documents are compatible with hundreds of word processors and text editors: Apple Pages, MS Word, Office, OpenOffice, LibreOffice, Nisus Writer, Textedit, Wordpad, Scrivener, Evernote, Mail, Pages, Word, Notes, iA Writer, Bean, Abiword, QuickOffice, TextMaker, Documents To Go, Jarte, etc.

✓ Export your documents to RTF , RTFD , PDF , Plain text, PNG and HTML

Auto-Syncing with iCloud , Dropbox , Google Drive, Box, Scrivener and Evernote

✓ Includes automated iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and Scrivener Syncing, Evernote posting and iTunes File Sharing

✓ Open-in email attachments (MS Word or RTF documents). Send multiple documents in the same email

✓ Open-in your Textilus documents with other apps

New and powerful PDF document Reader & Processor

✓ Textilus PDF support allows you to read, annotate, edit, fill out forms, sign, insert bookmarks, comments, text, images and stamps, validate Digital Signatures and even markup with different highlights and handwriting in your PDF documents, books, papers, journals, magazines, etc. Now you can create PDF documents right on your iPad too.

TEXTILUS part 1: Opening, new document, settings

This is the first in a series of articles on setting up and using Textilus, the word processing app MDS is using on the iPads.

Part 1 will cover opening the app, look at some of the links and icons on the opening screen, and deal with setting some of the layout options [including setting the default font, linespacing, and page layout]


 

Here’s the screen when opening up the app.

I already have a file in my library, plus a folder that contains sample documents.

Textilus 1 A


 

Click on the LOCATIONS link at top left gets you this screen.

Textilus 1 B

Notice that storing document in your iCloud account is an option. You can then retrieve them on a desktop machine by surfing to iCloud.com and logging in.


The GEAR icon, top right, has these options:

Textilus 1 C

WARNING: IF YOU SET A PASSCODE AND THEN FORGET IT, the MDS tech team CANNOT help you. You will have lost your data.

You can email a backup of all your papers to yourself for safekeeping. This is a GOOD idea, especially when your library contains College Application essays, term papers, etc.

The WIFI TRANSFER option can be used to share documents. Be warned, though, that MDS takes a VERY dim view of plagiarism and cheating. I suggest you doublecheck with your teacher to make sure it’s ok to share.


 

The PLUS icon options:

Textilus 1 D

This is where you create a new document and folder. Notice you can also pull a file down from several different Cloud Services [Drive, iCloud, etc] – AND you can scan a physical document into Textilus.


 

Click the SELECT link at top right, and you see this:

Textilus 1 E

 

After clicking SELECT and then a document:

The EXPORT icon lets you send the document to a variety of places.

Use “Add to Template Chooser” after you setup an initial document with all your settings [like margins and fonts and headers and such hint hint] to add that setup to the Template Chooser. It would save some time later, trust me.

Textilus 1 F

 

The FOLDER icon is how you create a new folder, or move a document into a folder.

Save time and mental stress – keep your papers organized.

Textilus 1 G

 

The TRASH CAN icon is how you delete files. Click

  • SELECT,
  • the document,
  • the trash can,
  • then the “MOVE TO TRASH” link.

Textilus 1 H

 

The WRENCH is yet another way to mail a document.

Textilus 1 I

 


 

 

Clicking the SAMPLES icon opens up a folder that contains folders

There are many documents in here that show you what’s possible with textilus. Take some time to nose around and see what can be done.

Start getting outside your little mental box!

Textilus 1 J

 


 

 

Once you have a document created and opened, here are some instructions on setting up some of your document parameters.

First step: SELECT SOME TEXT.

  • Click on a word with your finger, and hold your finger down until this box pops up. Since we are changing settings for the entire document, SELECT ALL is the best choice.
  • If you don’t have anything to select yet, go ahead and type a few words.

Textilus 1 K

 

SECOND step: After some text is selected, Click the “t” icon, top right. You’ll see Style, Color, and Layout tabs, along with several additional options.

Textilus 1 L

 

THIRD STEP: Let’s set the layout first.

Click the LAYOUT tab.

Set your LINE SPACING to 2.0 by clicking the + sign.  What you see in the graphic is what you’ll need to have 1 inch margins all the way around.

Now click on PAGE SIZE.

Textilus 1 M

 

“Letter” is what you want for English papers at MDS.

Textilus 1 N

 

FOURTH STEP: Now click on the STYLE tab.

  • Click FONT
  • Select TIMES NEW ROMAN from the list.
  • Click on the i icon next to TIMES NEW ROMAN. Make sure “Regular” is selected.
  • Go back to the Style tab.
  • Make the font size 12.

Now that you have things setup, click the button SET AS DEFAULT FOR NEW DOCUMENTS. These settings will automatically be there when you create a new document.

NOTICE: you can create User Styles. I STRONGLY suggest you create a user style for the Works Cited page [with a hanging indent], and then perhaps some indented text [for when you quote someone]. More on that in Part 2 of the series.

Textilus 1 O

 

 

Textilus 1 P

 

 

Textilus 1 Q

 

 

Textilus 1 R

 


 

The key to learning this software is to PLAY with it when NOT UNDER A DEADLINE. It’s really difficult to compose text, type it, keep track of the formatting, AND mess around with the software.

So reduce your stress in advance – play with the software BEFORE you absolutely have to use it a create a paper.