Get rid of WinZip popups

There’s a special place in hell reserved for software developers that set things to run behind the scenes that pop up to annoy users. I’m looking at you, WinZip! Ever since I installed my current—paid for—version of WinZip Pro (version 24), it’s bombarded me with advertising and promotional popups several times a day, even if I’m right in the middle of work. Not only is it intrusive, but it’s unwanted and unwarranted for someone who has paid for a professional licence. And there’s nowhere in the interface settings where I could find anything that would turn off these popups and notifications. Today I snapped and decided to find out how to turn them off for good (or at least until I buy the next version of WinZip).

Because WinZip has no setting for this [grrrr!], you have to go into Windows task scheduler and turn it off there. Here’s how:

1. Open the Run window (click the Start button and type Run, or press Windows key + R).
2. Type compmgmt.msc
3. On the left of the Computer Management window, expand System Tools > Task Scheduler, then select Task Scheduler Library.
4. In the top panel, scroll down to the end of the list until you find the WinZip Update Notifier entries (I had three). Each is set to update and notify at certain times of the day.
5. Select any or all of the WinZip Update Notifier entries.
6. In the lower right panel, click Delete.
7. Click Yes to confirm the deletion.
8. Close the Computer Management window.

With luck, you shouldn’t get any further popup notifications from WinZip. (Update: you’ll still get the occasional one, but those that occurred several times a day should now be gone.)

And WinZip, if you’re listening, either get rid of these things altogether for licensed Pro users and/or give the user a simple way to turn the damned things off!

Further update (August 2021): I found another place where you can turn off those that may continue once a day. In Windows 10, search for Startup Apps and check if WinZip Preloader and WinZip Update Notifier are turned on. If they are, turn them off.

Update 20 Nov 2021: See the comment from Kimberly dated 20 Nov 2021, which has this info:

1. Remove/delete the 3 WinZip Update Notifier tasks from the Windows Task Scheduler (see main post).
2. Also delete the WZUpdateNotifier.exe file from the “C:\Program Files\WinZip” folder without causing any harm to the program.

I haven’t tried that second option yet so can’t verify, but will let you know when I do.

My writing technology journey

A post on Twitter got me thinking about how much the writing technology I’ve used since I learned to write at school has changed. And how much it hasn’t changed in the past 30 years!

Here’s a summary of my writing technology journey:

1. Crayons (before I went to school)
2. ‘Black Prince’ pencil (brand of thick pencil for the early school years)
3. Pencil (including my favourite—the ‘indelible ink’ pencil)
4. Ink pen with replaceable nib (wooden stylus; ink in an ink pot in the school desk, and later my own bottle of Quink ink)
5. Fountain pen with refillable cartridge, and later with ink cartridges you could swap out (oh, they were wondrous things—no more messy ink to deal with!)
6. Ballpoint pen
7. Manual typewriter
8. Electric typewriter (IBM Selectric, I think)
9. Typewriter with a tiny LCD display
10. MicroBee something-or-other word processing software, and a few others I’ve long forgotten
11. WordStar (an incredibly useful piece of software when it later came to writing HTML code as many of the tags were similar)
12. Microsoft Word.

My Word journey started in the very early 1990s, and I’ve used various Help authoring programs in the intervening years, but ultimately, Word has been my main writing tool for the past 30 years. It has changed a lot, yet still remains much the same in its basic functions.

See also:

• A sample of typewriters through the ages: http://www.mrmartinweb.com/type.htm
• History of pencil manufacturing in Australia: https://pencilly.com.au/australian-pencil-history/
• MicroBee computers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MicroBee
• WordStar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar

[Links last checked April 2021]

Word: Reformat text inside quote marks using wildcards

A user on an editors’ Facebook group wanted to know if they could use a wildcard find and replace to reformat (perhaps by using different coloured text, highlighting, bold, italics etc.) the text in between quote marks to distinguish the quotations from other text in the document.

This is an ideal job for using wildcards in Word’s find and replace.

But some warnings apply:

• There are several types of quote marks—single, double, with straight or curly variations for these, and some people may even type two single quote marks to represent a double quote mark, or use prime and double prime characters to represent a quote mark. The only SURE way to identify the marks used by the author are to copy them from the document and paste them into the Find field.
• This Find/Replace DOES NOT WORK with single straight quotes—the character used for an apostrophe and to start and end a quotation is the same, so you won’t get the results you expect. Any string of text between one apostrophe and another will also be captured.
• Make sure the quoted passage has both a starting and ending quote mark. If the end quote mark is missing, the change will occur to ALL text from the beginning quote mark to the next end quote mark found, which could be some pages away.
• Beware of apostrophes used within a quotation when the quotation is surrounded by single curly quote marks—the Find will find up to the apostrophe, NOT to the ending single curly quote mark. This is because the symbol for an apostrophe and the ending single curly quote mark is the same character.
• The safest practice is to check what’s found and click Replace if it matches, NOT Replace All.
• ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS test this on a copy of the document before you use it on the original document.

So, if you’re using double quotes (straight or curly), or single curly quotes, you can use this Find/Replace. I explain what the settings mean after these steps, if you’re interested. Meantime, here’s my solution, which works in all versions of Word:

1. If you want to identify the quoted sections with a highlight colour, choose it first. Ignore this step if you want to change the font colour or styling.
2. Select the text you want to change (e.g. entire document, selected paragraphs, selected columns or rows of a table).
3. Press Ctrl+H to open the Find and Replace dialog box.
4. Click the More button.
5. Select the Use wildcards check box.
6. Put your cursor into the Find what field—what you do next depends on the type of quote mark used in the document:
   • Straight double quotes: type the quote mark, followed immediately by an asterisk, then another quote mark.
   • Curly quotes (single or double): copy an opening quote mark from the document and paste it into the Find field, then type an asterisk immediately after it, then copy/paste the ending quote mark immediately after the asterisk.
7. In the Replace with field, type: ^&
8. Click the Format button.
9. If you want to apply highlighting to the found text, select Highlight. If you want to apply character formatting (colour, bold, italics, etc.), select Font, select the character styling you want, then click OK.
10. Your Find and Replace dialog box should look something like this, with the highlighting or character styling choice shown below the Replace with field:
    
11. Click Find. Check the text found is what you expect—if so, click Replace, then click Find Next. Avoid clicking Replace All unless you are absolutely certain all quotes have a starting and ending quote mark and that there are no apostrophes within a quote.

What it all means

The quotes in the Find are self-explanatory. The asterisk between them says to find any number of characters (including spaces, punctuation marks, letters, numbers, etc.) between the first quote mark found and the next one found. NOTE: If the find/replace doesn’t match anything, check the type of quote marks you’re using and make sure you copy/paste the opening and closing ones into their correct position in the Find.

The ^& in the Replace says to replace whatever is found with itself (in other words, make no changes to the characters), and the font styling/highlighting below the Replace field tells word to make the replaced text that colour or style.

See also:

• Replace text in quotes with bold: https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/word-2003-replac-text-in-quotes-with-bold-text/
• Replace and reformat text within square brackets: https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/word-replace-and-reformat-text-inside-square-brackets-using-wildcards/
• Replace excess spaces: https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2009/01/11/word-replace-excess-spaces/
• Find and replace any number of spaces: https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/word-find-and-replace-any-number-of-spaces/
• Change the number of spaces after a period: https://cybertext.wordpress.com/2009/01/23/word-change-the-spaces-after-a-period/

[Links last checked April 2021]

You can change attitudes, one word at a time

One word. That’s all it was. One small word, but a word I’d seen used by those working for my main client a couple of times in the past few weeks (I’ve been working for them for 13+ years, and this was the first I’d seen the word in this context). To me, this word was SO out of context in how they’d used it that I wondered where it came from and why it was used in that way, and why it was starting to proliferate.

The easy thing would be to say nothing, do nothing, and let it slide on by. But I couldn’t, because that one word held a lot of very negative meaning in other contexts, a meaning that was offensive to many Australians and made others, like me, uncomfortable.

In other contexts, it’s a perfectly fine word, but it was out of place in the context where I’d seen it used.

So I spoke up. I emailed two people further up the chain to make them aware that this word was being used, that it was often offensive (uncomfortable at the very least) to many Australians, and suggested other perfectly fine words that could be used instead in that context. Speaking up always carries with it risk, but I’ve been emboldened by what I’ve seen in other situations this past year or so (political, BLM, LGBTQI+, sexual harassment etc.), so I figured the risk was worth it.

Here’s a summary of my email (identifying information removed) and the response I received—it shows that speaking up CAN change attitudes and perspectives. It’s just one small step to a kinder, more inclusive society.

My email

As you are well aware, [company] has policies on inclusion and diversity, including sensitivity to others’ cultures and experiences. In light of this, I’d like to bring to your attention something I’ve noticed recently from some in your team, and that’s the use of the term ‘native’ / ‘natives’ when referring to original Word documents. I’ve seen it used in emails and in folder names in the past few weeks. I don’t know where this has come from as it’s the first I’ve encountered it in 13 years working with [company] docs.

The problem is that this word has multiple meanings, not all of them good or acceptable or appropriate for the context, and for some people, this word is offensive. Macquarie Dictionary has this to say as a usage note: ‘The use of the term native to refer to an indigenous person is associated with European colonialism and is often regarded as old-fashioned and offensive.’

While that usage note refers to usage specifically in regards to indigenous people, it’s a term that is increasingly tainted with its colonial past even when used in other contexts. In terms of documents and their lifecycle, I see no reason to use this word (which could be offensive to many) when there are perfectly fine words that can be used instead—words that don’t have multiple meanings, or that don’t cause offence to others. Words such as ‘original’. The lifecycle of a document as it goes through revisions could be ‘originals’, ‘current’, ‘archived’, ‘in progress’ or similar, with no need to use the word ‘natives’.

I ask that you consider whether this term should be used or if it should be substituted with other, clearer, terms that are more appropriate to the document lifecycle. If you decide to not use this word in this context (it’s fine in regard to describing species), could you please pass on that decision to others on your team.

Response I received

… thank you for taking the time to help me understand that the term has been [is] offensive. I am checking in with our internal Document Control lead to determine the prevalence of this term in our internal systems. … its use here may have originated from our US parent office. As an immediate step, I will ask my team to stop using this term, and I will stop using the term also. … my apologies for any offence caused. And thank you for your ongoing support.

My follow-up email included this

Language use is cultural too—for example, those is the US may not have the same reaction to ‘native’ as we do in Australia, just as we use ‘thug’ here with little understanding of how offensive that word can be in the US.

It’s only by being aware how language can exclude or marginalise people that change can happen. That’s not to say that every word with multiple meanings needs to be sanitised, but that word usage needs to be considered when writing to ensure it doesn’t ignore, offend, or marginalise large sections of the readership.

Update August 2021: A major professional organisation for editors has made a statement on the use of ‘native’ in terms of ‘native’ and ‘non-native’ English speaker: https://blog.ciep.uk/ciep-terms/

[Links last checked August 2021]