crop in illustrator

From klf:
Something for mat-illustrator-labor wot I just learned here (http://forums.adobe.com/thread/319423):

You know how you can crop things really easily in Photoshop but not in Illustrator?  This is a huge pain for figures with a lot of white space that you want to get rid of before submitting the figures for publication (e.g., for Matlab figures imported into Illustrator).  Here's a workaround in Illustrator that'll let you do what cropping does.

1. Open your big figure.  This figure includes some stuff you want to keep (e.g., data) and some stuff you want to get rid of (e.g., white space).
2. Create a shape on top of the figure the size and shape of the area you'd like to crop.  E.g., a rectangle.  Place it right over the stuff you want to keep.
3. Color that rectangle some color (e.g., white).  Doesn't matter what color.  Just make it something you can see.
4. Use the transparency palette to set the opacity of the rectangle to 0%.
5. Select the rectangle and the underlying figure.
6. Click on Object > Flatten transparency.  (Use 100% vector on the quality slider, and make sure the "Preserve alpha channel" box is unchecked.)
7. Ungroup the result.
8. Click on the things outside the rectangle and delete them.  Done!

compress a PDF online

http://compress.smallpdf.com/

Just compressed a 21 MB to 2 MB. Original pptx was 6 MB. Random.

Germanic or something

matlabor lives.

On to a new topic of writing and manuscript reviews:

An example for me to remember from bd:

It is a matter of writing style- but I have never liked the “we must understand” language.  Rather than talking about “must do” just do it.  If you tell us the why’s you don’t need the ‘must’ and it seems so…. Germanic or something.  You use this kind of statement in each of your paragraphs.

Sliding and impact erosion both contribute to total erosion, so to predict bedrock incision rates by granular flows, we must understand the controls on mean and fluctuating boundary forces.

My alternative—no “must”- it is implied and something more is stated:

In natural granular flows in which heterogeneous grain sizes are mixed with a viscous matrix, both sliding and impact erosion likely contribute to bedrock erosion.

No Germanic fist pounding—still new information coming in.  Try it out- it’s fun…

****

I shall try, I shall try...

adding arrowheads to lines

A long-standing source of frustration is adding arrowheads to lines just the way I want, or making a "nicer" looking arrow.

Here is an article
http://luanneseymour.wordpress.com/2012/10/30/creating-arrows-and-arrowheads-in-illustrator-cs6/

more illustrator tips

- Select more than one item, ctrl-J to join
- Use layers, make a layer for the fill, highlight something then drag the colored square from one layer to another. lock and view layers.
- AV: shortcut for black arrow
- A: arrow for white arrow
- P: shortcut for pen, bezier pen, add or remove points, hold for menu
-T: shortcut for text
- gradient tool, draw line in the direction of gradient, adjust top, bottom, and middle handles; view gradient menu to change from linear to radial. Need to have gradient swatch/swath available.
- To sub-script, need to click on the menu and "more options" in the character window

dictation

This web app will take your dictation

http://ctrlq.org/dictation/

scalebox

You have a table for LaTeX and it is too large for your page, even when you use landscape. Annoying!

Use scalebox

\scalebox{0.7}{
  \begin{tabular}...
  \end{tabular}} 

more info: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Tables