It happens in every library... a user approaches the service desk with a problem -- the PC won't read their file. File conversion issues have always been around. But until lately, the only solutions available were the those that were locally installed on PCs. But enter Zamzar.com (my new best friend). This website offers on-the-fly conversion of text, image, audio and video file formats without ever installing a download. The best thing about the site is that you don't even need a login to convert. Simply browse for your file, select the new format type and it does the magic and even emails the results to you. A big bonus is the pdf converter- which is one I know I'll use a lot. PDF stands for "portable document format" and is a file type that maintains a document's original look format outside of the program it was created in.
Discovery Exercise:
- Take any document you've created in a word-processing program (Word, Open Office, WordPad) and try steps 1 through 4 at Zamzar.com to convert the file to pdf.
- You'll need to check your email once it's done for the final product.
- Create a post about how this service might be of use to yourself or your library.
Note: Personally I love the option that allows me to convert YouTube videos to mpg. This is especially helpful for including video in PowerPoint presentations when you don't have access to the Internet. Thank you Zamzar
5 comments:
This was a great tool to learn about.
Thanks
Zamzar is very easy tool to learn.
I plan to use the YouTube conversion to solve an issue I had submissions to a library animation this summer!
This also will convert Microsoft Works files to Word. What a godsend!
I love it! I'm an open office grl at home and a microsoft grl at work so i do a lot of converting and copying and saving double copies "just in case" something corrupts. But this takes all that away.
Post a Comment