Better Fonts in Windows XP

Want better looking fonts in Windows XP? There is a powertoy from Microsoft to enable ClearType technology in Windows XP. Download ClearType Tuner powertoy from microsoft’s website and install.

This PowerToy lets you use ClearType technology to make it easier to read text on your screen, and installs in the Control Panel for easy access.

If you have LCD screen, turn on ClearType, you will experience the difference immediately. To adjust more just click on Start Wizard button or You can adjust settings from Advanced tab too.

Opening odf files with Microsoft Word

 Open Document Format is an open standard file format OpenOffice.org and others use. File Extensions include .odt(text), .ods(spreadsheet), and .odp(presentation). By default Microsoft Office does not recognise these file formats. However it is possible to open and edit these files after installing a pluggin from Sum Microsystems.

For office 2003 users

If you have Microsoft Office 2003, simply download and install the Sun ODF Plugin should just work.You can download the Sun ODF Plugin from here.

For office 2007 users

1. First you need to Install Service Pack 1 for Microsoft Office 2007.
2. Install Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office.
3. Open ODT document via File > Open, or by double-clicking the ODT file and when prompted for the application to open it with, choose Word.

If you don’t have administrator privileges to install software, you can try an online converter such as Zamzar or Media Convert. You can also upload ODT documents to Google Docs or Zoho Writer.

If you want to open ODT documents locally but want to stay away from MS Office, try the lightweight, cross-platform Abiword or the full-blown suite of OpenOffice.org.