Thursday, October 14, 2021

Tech Inept

I'm currently the secretary for a state-wide fellowship. About a month before each of the four yearly business meetings I put out a call for the reports that will ultimately go into the minutes. I never get everything, but a week before the meeting I organize what I've received and send them out to the members. During the meeting I follow up with the people who haven't sent me a report. After the meeting I compile everything, add the results of voting on motions, and send the final minutes to the website to be published.

This procedure usually works well. The vast majority of people send me their report in a Word file or Google doc. With those I can copy their information and paste it into my document. However, a couple of days ago someone sent me a photo of their typed report. It was a very nice photo, but impossible to get the information into my document unless I retyped all the information. 

I asked the author if she could send me the information in a Word file. She said she would, but instead she sent the photo again. I believe the woman is about my age, but she is more hands-on than technology oriented, and not very tech savvy. I sent her a message asking what program she used to type the report, and saying I needed the report from that program.

The next day I received a message saying that she would send me the information. Instead of what I was looking for, I got a message from a copy store in the woman's town with a PDF of the information attached. 

OY!

I tried one more time, sending a message to the woman asking if she had typed the report or if someone else had done it for her. I said that whoever did the typing should send me the file. Later in the day I got a forwarded message from the woman with the information I needed attached.

Five years ago: This Happened The Other Day....

14 comments:

  1. https://www.onlineocr.net/
    "Extract text from PDF and images (JPG, BMP, TIFF, GIF) and convert into editable
    Word, Excel and Text output formats"

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    Replies
    1. Holy Cow! Thank you. Every other converter I'd found was fee-based.

      I still think people should follow directions and do what I ask them to, but now I have a Plan B.

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    2. I'm always on the look out for free stuff that works decently. A good sign is free with a fee-based upgrade. Like ccleaner that I've been using for 30 years for free. I've thought about paying them out of guilt, but it's not a one time cost.

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    3. Yay, Mike! Who knew?!
      Good for you, Kathy, for your patience. I've been in this position. No patience left!

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    4. Wow! That's awesome advice from Mike.

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  2. Yikes. I used to have a PDF file converter app but its gone with my last PC and I so rarely used it I didn't bother to renew.

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  3. You are very patient. I couldn't handle this.

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    Replies
    1. I try to remember that everyone has strengths and weaknesses.

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  4. Brings back memories of clerking for the township.

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  5. And now I have a glimpse into what it's like when my boys ask me to do anything computer related that I don't understand. But in the end, your patience payed off.

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  6. Interesting ... another one to show to my techie!

    God bless.

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