Depending on how bad is my eyesight at any given moment and/or what mood I’m in, I like to change the font I’m using for reading, as for writing—and I’ll often use different fonts for note taking and for the more creative part of the job.
Month: September 2019
Convert Multiple JPG Files Into a PDF
What to do on a Saturday night?
Well, convert a bunch of Jpeg images of course. Like scans of the XXIVa 1883 issue of the “Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale”. What else is there to do?
Something quite easy to do under macOS, but that I had no clue how to do under Windows… Long story short: it’s a lot easier. Continue reading Convert Multiple JPG Files Into a PDF
A Minimalist but Powerful PDF Reader: Xodo
Xodo comes with every tool and feature I need:
- Annotation tools (pen, underline, highlight, comments), that work great with the Surface Pen,
- Basic page editing: reorder, delete or add pages to a PDF. No heavy editing tools, though. If you need to edit the content of a page, or use an OCR on it, it can’t,
- It has a Modern UI,
- It fully respects Windows 10’s dark theme,
- It’s lightweight and fast,
- It can be used in a true full screen mode,
- It’s totally free: no ads, no in-app purchases, nada!
Just get if from the Microsoft Store.
One thing that has always bothered me though, is the screen real estate wasted by tabs and the menu bar. But there is something, I’ve just discovered: you can hide it!
A Surface Book with a Matte Screen?
I’ve never been a fan of glossy screens. I have been cursing at Apple the day the introduced glossy screens on their iMac lineup, and then on their MacBook Pro line too. Because what Apple does will eventually—and have since then been—copied by the rest of the industry.
So we now have amazingly color-accurate screens that are also mirror like and riddled with distracting light reflections. Everywhere.
Of course, this is a totally subjective opinion. Glossy screens are not worse or better per se. But I can’t stand them, as it makes seeing what’s on screen much more difficult for me, with my already bad eyesight. And what’s making things worse is that we almost have no choice anymore: it’s glossy or nothing. Even more so when you’re looking for non 16:9 laptops.
In that regard, the Surface Book 2’s screen is very reflective, much more than, say, my 15” retina MacBook Pro was. Since I’ve started using the Surface, it has been a constant problem for me. So I did the same thing I did with my glossy MacBook Pro, I put a matte screen protector that, once again, did its magic.