Resources for students / small businesses / Word users
How
Want to navigate your way around the useful articles you can find on the libroediting blog?
Resources for businesses – freelancers and small businesses mainly.
Resources for students – who might also want to see …
Resources on blogging and social media
++ Resources for businesses
Setting up your business
Setting up as a freelancer (1) – are you suited to it and before you start
Setting up as a freelancer (2) – organising yourself and outsourcing, etc.
10 things you can do to prepare for going freelance – tasks for those last weeks of employment
How to get a good start in self-employment
Not taking risks – you don’t have to jump in to business with no safety net!
Proofreading as a career – a subject I am often asked about!
How do I get freelance work? – a general guide for all freelancers
Growing your business
Developing your business – what next – a summary with links to the rest of the posts
Outsourcing tasks case studies
Employing staff and a case study
Expanding into offices, regional offices and case studies
Organising yourself
On time management – ignore the Santa bits, unless it’s Christmas!
Are you guilty of presenteeism? related to time management and PR
Top tips for working from home (guest post)
Keeping organised – the famous Gantt Chart
Outsourcing (1) – what tasks can you outsource?
Outsourcing (2) – how to work out if it’s worth doing
Top ten tips for working with freelancers – if you outsource to freelancers, read this!
Top ten tips for freelancers – work the best you can with your clients
How to decide who to work with – find good clients and don’t get ripped off
How to turn a new customer into a regular customer – tips I have used that work!
What’s the best mix of customers to have? – getting that balance
How to make more money in your freelance business
How do customers get in touch?
How do I cope with the ups and downs of the freelance life 1: when the work goes away
How do I cope with the ups and downs of the freelance life 2: when there’s too much work
How to cope with six common freelancer crisis situations
Transcription as a career
How do you start a career in transcription? – are you suited for it?
What are the types of transcription?
What is verbatim transcription?
The professional transcriber – the technology you need
10 top tips for transcribers – what every new transcriber needs to know
Why do you need human transcribers, anyway? – I explain why!
Keyboards, ergonomics and RSI – the risks and keeping safe
Transcribing multiple voices – hints to make it easier
Why do transcribers charge by the audio minute? – explains it all
How can I transcribe more quickly? – general tips to help
Editing as a career
Should I edit outside my areas of experience?
Making the switch to fiction editing (guest post)
Using a style sheet for editors and their clients
Copy-typing as a career option
What is copy-typing and how do you charge for it?
General business theories and practices
Using the Olympics to market your services – be careful!!
Is it worth the stress? – and how to escape the stress!
Emotions in business – why it’s OK to have them and the need to acknowledge them
On feedback – how to get it and what to do with it when you have got it
On mutual support – helping others and being helped – do it today!
On goal-setting – both in life and in business
On luck – and why you have to create it yourself
On motivation – long and short term – theories and the reality
Networking – it’s not scary, really! Lots of tips and hints here
Networking and social media marketing – leveraging groups of contacts
Why running a business is like running a marathon – yes, really!
Why you should keep an eye on your stats – they can be fascinating!
Posts about tax
Am I automatically registered to submit my tax return online? (hint: no)
Why I do my tax return in April – the benefits of filing early
Payment in Advance – watch out if your tax comes to more than £1000
Am I automatically registered to submit my self-assessment online (hint: not always)
The freelancer / small biz chat posts
What it’s all about – explaining my weekly feature and how you can get involved
All the interviews – every interview I’ve done so far
Index to the interviewees – by name, business name and type of business
++ Resources for students and individuals
Writing essays and dissertations
Essay tips for new students – handy for undergraduates
Top tips for dissertations and theses – from people who’ve been there
Top tips for writing up your PhD
Appropriate language in academic writing
On creative and academic writing (a guest post)
Plagiarism and quoting sources
Plagiarism – what it is and how a proofreader should work with student material (and my terms and conditions)
Referencing – how to keep track and how to refer to your reference materials
How to quote sources without plagiarising – rewording and quoting appropriately
How do I include quotations? Should I change their spelling?
Working with a proofreader or editor
Working with an editor 1: requesting a quotation
Working with an editor 2: negotiating and booking in
What should I ask my beta readers?
How to choose a proofreader – and hopefully avoid some common and costly mistakes
++ Resources for Word (and other Microsoft Office software) users
My explanation of why you need these posts
Laying out your document: all about margins, tabs, breaks and indents
Page breaks – how to do them properly and more efficiently for you!
Section breaks – vital if you want to have varied formatting throughout your document
Indents and margins – right and left margins and how to set indents
Top and bottom margins – how to change them
How to display your rulers – displaying the rulers in the margins
Using tabs effectively – the best way to line things up! First, the tab key
Setting tabs using the top ruler – how to set tab stops
Paragraph spacing – and what to do when it won’t behave
Changing from spaced to indented paragraphs – and vice versa
How to create a new line, paragraph and page – and indents
Headers, footers and page numbers
How to add page numbers to your document 1 – the basics
How to add page numbers to your document 2 – advanced editing etc.
How to make your page numbers read “page 1 of 2” – by popular request!
Footnotes – how to add them and how to access the options
Endnotes – how to add them and how to access the options
Changing footnotes to endnotes
How do I change the format of my endnotes and footnotes?
Headings and tables of contents
How to use headings styles – make your headings clear and consistent
How to set up numbered headings – ones that automatically update themselves!
How to create a Table of Contents – read the posts on Headings first
Table of Figures and Table of Tables – how to create these tricky ones
How do I add or remove auto-captions?
Two-line caption, one-line entry in the Table of Figures: how?
How to update Tables of Contents, Figures and Tables
Tables of Contents for editors – helping the editing process run smoothly
Track changes and comment boxes
Track changes 1 – why use it, where can you find it, what can you do with it?
Track changes 2 – customising Track Changes
Track changes 3 – working with a document with tracked changes
How do I accept one reviewer’s changes?
Formatting comments balloons – everything you have ever wanted to know!
What to do if your comment boxes go tiny in Word – A common problem, hard to find the answer!
What to do if your comment box text runs right to left – Useful if you edit texts from Arabic authors
Changing the language in your comment balloons – From US to UK English and beyond …
How do I add comment balloon numbering in Word 2013 and 2016?
How do I make my picture appear next to my comments in Word 2013 and 2016?
How do I highlight the text related to my comment balloon in Word 2013 and 2016?
Why are my tracked changes changing colour?
Search, replace and spellcheck
How to search for almost any text … anywhere – including Microsoft office and browsers
How to use Spellcheck in Word 2007 and 2010 … and 2013 (a separate post)
How to tell Word what not to spell-check – exclude and include paragraphs easily
Find and Replace – the basics
Advanced Find – finding specific words and all the forms of a word – plus Wildcards
Finding formatting – how to find and replace formatting
How to change the language of your Word document – important for spell checking!
How to change your editing language – subtly different but solves a big problem
Checking your grammar and writing style
Checking for gender-specific language
How do I count the number of times a word appears in my document?
Autocorrect and autoformatting
What is AutoCorrect and where do you find it / How to personalise AutoCorrect
Automatic formatting as you type (and how to get rid of it)
Tables in Word
Tables 1 – menus and options – all the different ways to create a table
How to maintain table headings over several pages – get them at the top of each page!
Protecting your Word document
Setting up a Watermark in Word – for marketing and protection purposes
Protecting your Word 2007 document – all the tools in Word
Protecting your Word 2010 document – all the tools in Word 2010 (yes, slightly different!)
Appearance and formatting
How to put text in alphabetical order – very useful for bibliographies
How to change text between UPPER CASE and lower case – did you know you could?
Bullet points – how and when to use them – see below for more!
Bullet points – their grammar and punctuation – how to keep it consistent and readable
The Line Space button – formatting spaces between lines and paragraphs
How to highlight text in a Word document – three good ways, one bad
Changing the colour of text in Word – why and how
Format painter – so useful for copying the format of a piece of text
Portrait and landscape – which way round is your document?
How to combine several Word documents into one – the proper way, not the cut and paste way
Bits and bobs
Adding shortcuts to the Quick Access Toolbar – how to keep a shortcut button visible
How do I access the Customize Ribbon menu?
How do I assign a shortcut key?
How to count the words in a Word document – by popular request!
Full dialogue boxes for fonts and more – what ARE those little arrows in the corners?
Paragraph marks and other hidden marks – what are those funny symbols?
Using the split screen view in Word – helps make you more efficient!
How to insert non-standard characters into almost any text
How to put a dot above a number to indicate a repeating decimal
ASCII codes for common characters
Combining words and pictures in Word 1
Combining words and pictures in Word 2
Inserting clip art in Word and other Microsoft applications
How to hide the taskbars in Word and other Microsoft applications
Where has my Windows taskbar gone?
How do I show and hide the horizontal scrollbar in Word?
What do I do when Word just won’t work?
PowerPoint
How to count the words in a PowerPoint 2007 presentation – useful for students and editors!
I’ve also covered PowerPoint 2010 and PowerPoint 2013
Excel
How to view two workbooks side by side in Excel 2007 and 2010
How to view two pages of a workbook at the same time
How to print the column and row numbers/ letters and gridlines
How to change a column into a row or a row into a column
Freezing rows and columns in Excel – and freezing both at the same time
++ Blogging and Social Media
Social media in general
Reciprocity and Social Media – how to negotiate social media kindly and politely
How to maintain a good online reputation – my hints and tips
Social media infographic – how it all works!
How to leverage your social capital
Blogging
10 reasons to start a blog – why you should do it now!
10 reasons NOT to write a blog – and why you should stop and think, at least!
Top 10 blogging sins – avoid these if you can!
Scheduling blog posts and keeping going – scheduling the posts and the writing of them
Guest posts (1) hosting – how to be the host(ess) with the most(est)
Guest posts (2) guesting – how to be the perfect guest
Ten top tips for pitching your guest post – how to maximise your chances of success
Dealing with requests for guest posts – ten top tips for automating that stream of requests
Why writing a blog post is (a bit) like writing a sermon – people enjoyed this sideways look
Five ways to drive and increase engagement with your blog
How to keep people engaged with your blog
How to deal with spam comments 1: what are they and why don’t you want them?
How to deal with spam comments 2: how to recognise them
How to deal with spam comments 3: how to prevent them happening
Websites and WordPress
Is it worth having a website for my business?
WordPress 1 – the basics – joining and setting up a blog
WordPress 2 – adding pages to create a website
WordPress 3 – adding images to your post or page
WordPress 4 – adding slideshows and galleries of images
WordPress 5 – linking your blog to your social media
WordPress 7 – adding an avatar picture
WordPress 8 – setting a static landing page
WordPress 9 – setting up a Posts page
Adding links to blog posts – how to do it on the major blogging platforms (and email)
How do I enable Likes on comments?
How video can help your blog or website
Six things you can do to increase your SEO
How to get back to the old WordPress dashboard in WordPress.com
How to delete posts and block users from your Facebook page
How to add a moderator or admin to your Facebook page
How do I stop videos auto-playing in Facebook and Twitter?
How do I stop seeing new comments on a Facebook post?
How do I hide a Facebook post?
How do I stop my friends seeing my posts in a Facebook group?
How do I remove a member from a Facebook group?
How do I delete a Facebook group?
How do I save a Facebook post?
How do I create a Facebook event?
How do I communicate with people coming to my Facebook event?
How do I change the time of my Facebook event?
How do I cancel a Facebook event?
How to find a job using Twitter
Using Twitter for your business
How do I stop videos auto-playing in Facebook and Twitter?
Using LinkedIn for your business
MailChimp Masterclass
MailChimp 2 – setting up a subscriber list and importing contacts
MailChimp 3 – setting up a sign-up form
MailChimp 4 – setting up your newsletter template
MailChimp 5 – linking to your sign-up form on your website and social media
How to avoid two common MailChimp errors
Other social media
What is Storify and how do I use it?
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Contact me via email or via my contact form.
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LibroEditing proofreading, editing, transcription, localisation 
Johanna Robinson
June 21, 2012 at 9:14 am
Thanks Liz! I have just signed up for my HMRC course for new businesses!
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Liz at Libro
June 21, 2012 at 9:18 am
I’m so glad this has proved helpful for you!
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The Story Reading Ape
October 15, 2014 at 6:38 pm
Hi Liz, I’ve added you in my blog Authors Resources Central section under Information about Business, using MS Word, Media and MORE – see it at:
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Liz at Libro
October 15, 2014 at 6:41 pm
Thank you very much – and that’s a great resource section!
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The Story Reading Ape
October 15, 2014 at 6:42 pm
I try Liz 😀
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Tina Frisco
October 16, 2014 at 7:31 am
This is an amazing resource list! Thanks so much, Liz 🙂
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Liz at Libro
October 16, 2014 at 8:19 am
Thank you!
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