Digital Hacks

CleanText.org | This is hands down one of the most useful websites out there. It’s very basic, but it gets the job done perfectly. If you copy and paste things, you may have noticed that the formatting of the text can get all wonky! (Have you ever received an email that has different size, color, type of font and you can just tell it was copied and pasted?) Okay, so you take the chunk of text you want to clean and then the website will “pretty it up” it up for you. It removes links, bullet points, number formatting, etc. It’s so brilliant and so simple. Bookmark it!

Emoji Keyboard | I do most of my tweeting from my computer. For the longest time I had no idea that there was an easy way to add emojis. I had been using a website to copy and paste emojis, but you can actually unlock an emoji keyboard. Control+Command+Space Bar. It will pop right up and should look exactly like your iPhone. This is a great way to add emojis to your tweets from your computer or add an emoji or two to an email subject line.

Merge Pages into One PDF | For years I had no idea how to merge pages into one PDF. I can’t tell you how helpful this would have been to know back when I was in college. (I would save images and paste into a word document and then save that as a PDF. So dumb.) Let’s say you have four separate documents, each one page, that you need to merge into one PDF. Select all of the pages and open with preview. (Draw a box over the files if they’re on your desktop, right click and open in Preview.) In Preview, mini images of the pages will all show up on the left side with lines in between them, signifying different documents. Start by dragging one document on top of the other and it will give you a green display button. Then you should have two files between those lines. Keep adding each page to that grouping.

Do Not Disturb | This isn’t really hack, more a piece of advice. Put your phone on do not disturb mode!!! (I call it sleepy-mode.) My phone buzzes and dings what seems like all day long. When I’m working, the last thing I want to hear is the buzzing. It’s so distracting. Even if I don’t unlock my phone, if it buzzes I’ll at least glance at it. Not good for my productivity. This is a step above silent. Nothing will come through except for alarms you have set, someone who calls twice (good for emergencies), and calls from contacts on your favorites list. The screen doesn’t light up for anything. I do this at night and while I’m at my desk.

Do you have any must-have websites or tips/tricks for your digital life?