Converting avif files to jpg

I don't know if you have ever been sent an AVIF file and been unable to open it? If so, it is an Apple compressed image file format.

In order for us to be able to open avif files on a Windows system, we need to be able to convert the format to a jpg or similar type of file. 

What we have to do is to:

• Head over to the free conversion website at https://cloudconvert.com/avif-to-jpg
• In the header, select "avif" in the left-hand dropdown
• In the right-hand dropdown, select "jpg"
• Use the red box under the header section to navigate to and to upload the avif file we want to convert
• Download the resulting file once it has been converted.

Too easy.

Sam

References:

Cloud Convert. (2025). AVIF to JPG Converter. https://cloudconvert.com/avif-to-jpg

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Aligning PowerPoint voice over and animations

This time we have a bit more on solving problems with creating a voice over PowerPoint. We look at how we can align the entry of animations to cue with our voice over in our sound file. This should be easy... right?

Well, it isn't. At least, not as far as I have found. I was able set up my animations on clicks, then record my voice over... then not be able to have the animations appear automatically as my voice over played. It didn't matter whether I used the "with" or the "after" timings: I was unable to crack this. I ensured that I set up the slide show, with "show without automation" being unticked; and "using timings, if present" being ticked. I set up my slides under Transitions with the Advance Slide set up to auto-forward after the number of seconds of the voice over plus a buffer. I had my sound file as the first item in the animation pane in the Animations tab. 

But the sound file remains the only element of animation that works as expected... until we are about to leave the slide, when all the other animations appear at once. So I went looking for some solutions. And once more a user problem was answered by Steve Rindsberg, MVP Volunteer Moderator. Steve's superb reply is paraphrased below (Freeman, 2023): 

"PowerPoint has *never* been able to make transitions/animations 'fire' reliably against a timeline. What [we] can do instead is use bookmarks and triggers."

"Add [...]our audio file, start it, then pause it when it reaches a point where [we]'d like an animation to occur."

"On the Playback tab [NB: Playback - on the far right of the ribbon - will only show if we are already clicked onto our embedded sound file], click Add Bookmark. [We then] Add bookmarks at each point where [we want] an animation to occur. It'll help later if [we] keep a list of each added bookmark, what the audio cue is and what action it's supposed to trigger. If [we] haven't already added [...]our animations" we need to do that before we can add the bookmarks. 

At this point I deleted all my existing animations and recreated them.  

"Now select the first animated shape, and on the Animation tab | Advance Animation group, click Trigger, click On Bookmark and choose the bookmark [we] want to act as the trigger for the animation."

"Now when the audio reaches one of your bookmarks, it will trigger the chosen animation."

Then, to move our slide on after our animation and voice-over is aligned, we go to the Transitions tab, and - in the Advance Slide area - enter our slide timing (i.e. the length of a voice over plus a second or two) into the "after" box.

Thank you very much, Steve. This actually works!

Sam

References:

Freeman, N. (2023, March 26). PowerPoint Animations will not occur automatically following a time schedule. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/powerpoint-animations-will-not-occur-automatically/24e49ca7-475d-42c0-af11-9107c55941c0

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Adobe drawing error

I work with Adobe Acrobat files all the time. I regularly scan screeds of analogue material, then OCR it so it becomes searchable - and so I can get rid of the hardcopy files without getting rid of the information contained within them. When I want to reuse portions of text, I may save the files as a Word document... the text will wrap once more, and it is a bit easier to pull out images and so on.

However, every now and again I get an Adobe error; either when I try to either run text recognition; or when saving the file as a Word document.  The error simply states: "A drawing error occurred". Not only is the error message not very informative, it doesn't really help us to track down and rectify the problem!

In searching online, I was unable to find anything helpful, until I stumbled over an old post in the Acrobat Library site from a user who was having difficulty when trying to amend large files, and getting the "A drawing error occurred" message (Eldridge, 2013). A kindly user suggested that they go to "File, Save As and choose either OPTIMIZED PDF or REDUCED SIZE PDF" (Eldridge, 2013). 

And that was when the lightbulb went off for me... just how large WERE the files I was working with?

Oh, yeah: 200,000Mb. That might be why there was a problem. By simply saving first as a Reduced Size PDF, all the 'drawing error' messages went away. I was able to OCR and save as Word like billy-oh.

Doh!

Sam

References:

Eldridge, V. (2013, August 12). Acrobat Pro XI 'a drawing error occured'; error processing page. An internal error'!. Acrobat Library. https://answers.acrobatusers.com/Acrobat-Pro-XI-drawing-error-occured-error-processing-page-An-internal-error-q118224.aspx

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Word codes for Find and Replace

I use Word a lot for editing text. I often import scanned text into Word, and - because importing text rarely results in clean formatting - sometimes I need to clean up the text a bit. 

That is when using Find and Replace can be very helpful. While I have written on this topic before (here), there is always something else we can add.

In that earlier post, I explained how we can find and replace a hard return (^p) for a soft return (^l), also known as a line break - thanks to McFadden (2008). However, we can also swap out non-breaking spaces using "^s", and tabs using "^t", thanks to DiggerDavey (2025). 

And if we don't know which ones of those we have, we only need toggle on the pilcrow symbol on the Word Home ribbon (¶) to see what gets replaced when we run a find and replace. We can read more on the pilcrow here.

A quick find and replace in a document can processing text faster, easier, and more accurate. 

Lovely!

Sam

References:

DiggerDavey. (2025, January 20). What is the "soft return" symbol when trying to replace it with a Hard return. Microsoft. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/what-is-the-soft-return-symbol-when-trying-to/f9232008-4e09-4cff-bde0-9638b7ba2006

McFadden, R. G. (2008, October 8). Is it possible to replace soft returns with hard returns?. https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/is-it-possible-to-replace-soft-returns-with-hard-returns.3641701/

read more "Word codes for Find and Replace"

Changing Google calendar colours

I am a colour junkie. So when I create new sub-calendars in Google, I change the sub-calendar colour to fit with the organisation I am delivering that collection of tasks for, as an additional aide-memoire.

However, each year I struggle to remember HOW to change the sub-calendar colour. I can create calendars hand-over-fist, but changing the colour is simply not an intuitive thing. Each year I expect the option to be in the calendar settings itself, and each year I have to search online - usually wasting a couple of hours - until I stumble across the setting again... usually by accident. 

So here are the instructions!

We create the calendar. We invite those whom we want to send a link to. Then we go out of the calendar settings. We create a couple of appointments for that calendar. Then, in our normal Calendar page view, in the left-hand pane, under the "My calendars" list, we click the three flaming menu dots alongside the new sub-calendar. And lo! The colour options pop up.

Sigh.

Sam

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Excel number formatting on trim

I was recently trying to trim a page number from a journal title in some imported text data, to log in my articles database. I wanted Excel to automatically recognise the imported data as a number, and it wouldn't. I wanted a one step auto-function, rather than me having to apply another step to the text clean-up.

Grr.

However, a quick DuckDuckGo search found a nifty formatting formula (Exceltip, 2014) which we can apply alongside a trim: we specify value in the function. Even better, if we are after a standard number format, we don't even need to specify exactly what type of value we want.

Our formula looks like this: =VALUE(LEFT([cell reference],[number of characters we want to trim])); so for my purposes, this was:

=VALUE(LEFT(Q3,4))

And I got my page range, formatted as a number, all in one step.

Result!

Sam

References:

Exceltip. (2014, October 20). Make LEFT Function recognize a number in Excel. https://www.exceltip.com/excel-text-formulas/make-left-function-recognize-a-number.html

read more "Excel number formatting on trim"

Changing image size in Excel print headers

There are some things which I do so regularly, I never need to write myself an instruction: the process is rehearsed again and again. Then there are other tasks which I do so rarely, that when I come to do them again, I have little recollection of how to do it.

While I have written before about using Excel for marking before (here), this particular post is on something slightly more technical: how to change the size of images which have been embedded into Excel print headers.

Why would we have an image in a header? Each instruction or feedback document which I pass to my students is 'led' with an organisational brand image. Not only does it make the documents look more professional, but it reminds students who is providing the training. It never hurts to do a bit more marketing! And when the organisation's branding changes, we need to be able to replace the old logos with the the new version. 

While inserting an image is pretty easy, adjusting the new image to show in the header at an appropriate size is more problematic. Hence the need for this post. 

OK. So there are two parts to the instructions. Firstly, we need to insert the raw image:

1. Open the Excel workbook, and navigate to the sheet. Go to the Page Layout ribbon, and in the Page Setup section, click on the bottom-righthand corner expansion arrow
2. In the Page Setup dialogue box, click on Header/Footer. Select your Header from the dropdown list
3. In the Header dialogue box, click in the section containing your image (usually shown as "&[Picture]"). Click the image button. A message box will appear saying that "Only one picture can be inserted into each section of the header". Click replace
   
   
   
   
   
4. A second message box may appear, saying "The service required to use this feature is turned off. Check your privacy settings". If this appears, click "Work offline"
   
   
   
   
   
5. Now an insert file window will appear - navigate to where your desired logo image is stored, select the file, and click "Open"
6. Click OK, and OK. 

Our new image should now be present. If we do to print preview, we should now see how it looks: and it may or may not be the right size. I tend to find that the images will be shouty-loud and huge in the print area, so usually want to down-sample them by at least 50%. And that brings us to the second part of the instructions, where we reformat the image size, as follows:

1. In the Excel workbook, on the sheet you wish to adjust the header image size, go to the View ribbon. In the Workbook Views section, select the Page Layout view
   
   
   
   
2. Click in the header area containing the image
3. Go to the Header & Footer ribbon
4. Select the Format Picture icon
5. In the Format Picture dialogue box, change the image size to the desired percentage, and click OK
   
   
   
   
   
6. Click out of the header and check the size (repeat to adjust)
7. Once happy, change back to the Normal view
8. Save.

I hope this is helpful!

Sam

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Unable to sign in to make blog comments

I ran into an interesting problem last year: not being able to log in as myself on my own website to reply to commenters on blog posts on the Brave browser. I would go to enter a reply to a commenter, and instead of being automatically logged into my own blogger account (as I had to be in order to approve comments), I was suddenly "anonymous". When I tried to log in using my Google account, I was unable to - the entire process of logging in did not work - and there was no captcha. I would get taken to the top of the page again, and, when I went down to the reply link below the comment, I would have a message: "Unable to sign in to comment. Please check your browser configurations to allow sign-in. Learn more. You can still comment anonymously or with name and URL"

Having run my own blog for years, and this having worked seamlessly for years, I was quite surprised, and figured it was something that Google had changed. So I tried Firefox, and ran into the same barrier; I didn't bother trying Edge. However, I was still able to reply to commenters using the Chrome browser - I was still logged in with my blogger account there - so I replied to my commenters using that browser, while writing my posts and approving comments in Brave.

Until Chrome stopped automatically carrying over my log in as well this year.

OK. So NOW it was time to do something about this: it had gone from a niggle to a problem. I was (a) not logged in to Blogger, and (b) could not log in using my Google account. So what I tried was:

• Blogger Help (Evans, 2019; Satu, 2019), which suggested clearing out all cookies. I did that, shut down, and restarted my PC. No change: still no log in.
• Reddit (somuchsong, 2024), which suggested third party cookies should be enabled. I did that, shut down, restarted. No change: still no log in.
• Reddit (somuchsong, 2024), also suggested that "enhanced tracking protection" might be the problem, so disabling it might work. I did that, shut down, restarted. No change: still no log in.
• Blogger Help (D'Angelo, 2025; Evans, 2019) and Reddit (somuchsong, 2024), suggested that third party apps were causing problems. D'Angelo (2025) pointed the reader to a blogger blog post by Auster (2023) which talked about many things, including whitelisting sites. So I added the URLs of my blog, and blogger to the sites ignored by tracking protection. Shut down, restarted. No change.
• Coming back to this idea of third party apps causing problems, I re-read the three most useful posts (Auster, 2023; Evans, 2019; somuchsong, 2024), and I decided to search the Chome settings for 'party' and white list the URLs of my website and blogger everywhere. Shut down, restarted. No change.
• Sigh. Then my eye caught a line in the somuchsong (2024) question, asking them if they were using Privacy Badger. Damn: I use Privacy Badger. I reloaded the blog page in Chrome, and saw that Privacy Badger immediately flagged four cookies and blocked them. I slid the slider across to green for my site. Shut down, restarted. I could now comment.
• Then I went to Brave, and turned off scanning on my website. Now I can write posts, comment and reply all in Brave.

A bit of a palaver, but not really a Google issue as this is third party app blocking. BUT. It shows that the Blogger platform is getting out of step with the rest of the internet with tracking and cookies. If Google are to keep Blogger going, there seems to be a need for an upgrade.

Something to watch out for.

Sam

References:

Auster, A. (2023, December 20). Blogger comments and engagement. Too Clever By Half. https://too-clever-by-half.blogspot.com/2023/12/blogger-comments-and-engagement.html

D'Angelo, I. (2025, January 3). Logged into Blogger, can't reply to comments on my blog via blogspot. Blogger Help. https://support.google.com/blogger/thread/316567484/logged-into-blogger-can-t-reply-to-comments-on-my-blog-via-blogspot?hl=en

Evans, J. (2019, April 12). Can't Leave Comments. Blogger Help. https://support.google.com/blogger/thread/4035725/can-t-leave-comments?hl=en

Satu. (2019, March 30). I can't answer the comments. Where's the problem?. Blogger Help. https://support.google.com/blogger/thread/3263553/i-can-t-answer-the-comments-where-s-the-problem?hl=en

somuchsong. (2024). Blogger: Can't comment on my own blog (or any blog) with Google account. Reddit r/blogspot. https://www.reddit.com/r/blogspot/comments/17yi6cb/blogger_cant_comment_on_my_own_blog_or_any_blog/

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Disabling Windows lock screen weather app

After a Windows update earlier this year, I suddenly noticed a weather app showing updates on the lock screen. I personally loathe this type of app, finding it intrusive and annoying - largely because Microsoft doesn't ask if we want these apps. They just impose. And, let's face it, if most of us want to check the weather, we can look outside.

It took me several goes to turn the damn thing off. I ended up going with one fix, but had to apply it several times, as the flaming thing kept coming back - like the Terminator. But thanks to the Windows 11 Forum (2021) the first fix eventually proved sticky enough to last.

What I found most useful was as follows to turn off lock screen notifications for the current user (Windows 11 Forum, 2021): 

• Open Settings using the Windows and the "I" key 
• Select System in the left-hand sidebar, then Notifications & Actions on the right
• Toggle to expand the Notifications settings​
• Uncheck "Show notifications on the lock screen" to turn these off (in fact, I turn most of these annoyances off)
• Close Settings.

If the weather app keeps coming back, try doing the following, then repeat the process above:

• Open Settings using the Windows and the "I" key 
• Search for "Lock Screen" in the search field
• Check that no apps are listed for the lock screen. If there are any listed, remove them.

Hopefully that will continue to work with future updates!

Sam

References:

Windows 11 Forum. (2021, August 2). Enable or Disable Notifications on Lock Screen in Windows 11. https://www.elevenforum.com/t/enable-or-disable-notifications-on-lock-screen-in-windows-11.823/

read more "Disabling Windows lock screen weather app"

Viewing old ppt files

I ran into an interesting issue earlier this year: I went to look at an old PowerPoint slide deck (from 1996!) that I had created during my undergrad degree, only to find that the format was so old, PowerPoint 365 would not open it. I got an interesting message from within the PowerPoint app: "PowerPoint can't open this type of file" then the location link.

Oh-kay....

So - of course - I scurried around the web looking for a solution. Microsoft had all sorts of psychobabble about fudging around with formats, file extensions, and other rubbish; which were all absolutely useless 'solutions'. 

However, I found an article by Technology Trish who had run into this problem before (2007). It turns out that an enterprising soul has built an online conversion platform where we simply upload our old file, select our desired output version, click convert, and wait (Zamzar, 2024). And it is free. By going free we are limited to converting only two slide decks per day, but that should be enough for most of us. Brilliant!

We simply go to https://www.zamzar.com/ (Zamzar, 2024), and upload our ancient slide deck. I selected "pptx" as my file type, converted, and waited until the old deck had converted, then downloaded it and saved it alongside my original file. Now I should be future-proofed for the next thirty years.

Too easy.

Sam

References:

Technology Trish. (2007). Old PPT files Won't open in PowerPoint 2007 / 2010. PPT Alchemy. http://www.pptalchemy.co.uk/convert_PPT_95.html

Zamzar. (2024). File Conversion Made Easy. https://www.zamzar.com/

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Phantom locked cells in Excel

Did you know it was Excel's 40th anniversary this year? Amazing! So what happens when you are working in a spreadsheet, and suddenly you notice a strange flicker on the page... and when you go to enter your next piece of data, the data won't enter into the cell?

I struck that problem earlier this year. I paused. I saved. I tried again. The data would still not enter.

I closed the spreadsheet. I reopened it. The data would still not enter.

I closed the spreadsheet. I shut down the PC. I restarted the PC, reopened the spreadsheet. The data would still not enter.

I noticed that, despite the fields where I was entering data being set to unlock, the locked cell icon on the toolbar looked like it was toggled on. But it shouldn't have been. I checked that the sheet was unprotected. It was. 

Sigh. I headed off to Microsoft Support and entered "Unlocked Excel cells locked even though sheet is unprotected" (here). I found a post where the title looked promising - You are unable to select unprotected cells in Excel - (Microsoft Support, 2020). But when I went to look at the page, it was basically telling me to manually unlock the cell.

Right. Perhaps I needed to assume that the cell, despite being unlocked, was actually locked, in order to fix it. 

So on the Home tab, I expanded the down arrow in the Fonts group, clicked the Protection tab, and then unticked the Protection tab. Click OK. And hoped it would all be good again.

It was :-)

Sam

References:

Microsoft Support. (2020, August 20). Unlocked Excel cells locked even though sheet is unprotected. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/you-are-unable-to-select-unprotected-cells-in-excel-0edc57a3-805c-40f9-f137-441a1ea405dc

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Deselecting multiple tabs in Excel

I had an interesting problem in Excel earlier this year, where I had selected multiple tabs in a workbook to change the tab colour, and suddenly found myself unable to deselect them again. I tried the standard thing, where I simply closed the workbook, and hoped to find - on reopening - that the problem had sorted itself out.

It hadn't.

So I did a search for "how to deselect multiple tabs in Excel". A great post by Excel Learner (2022) popped up, giving me very clear instructions for three methods to deselect those pesky worksheets.

Firstly, I could "press and hold the Ctrl key" and click those tabs I wanted "to deselect using [my left] mouse" button (Excel Learner, 2022). I did that, and the problem seemed to reverse, then stop. So whatever had occurred, that was a great fix for me.

Secondly, we can "press and hold the Shift key, and then use our mouse left key to click the first excel worksheet and the last excel worksheet, then all the worksheets between the start and the end worksheet will be selected" (Excel Learner, 2022).

Thirdly, we can "right-click any one worksheet in the excel workbook, and then click the Select All Sheets menu item in the popup menu list", and "all the worksheets in the excel workbook" will be selected. To "deselect them all, you can right-click any one worksheet and then click the Ungroup Sheets menu item in the popup menu list" (Excel Learner, 2022).

I hope one of those options works for you too!

Sam

References:

Excel Learner. (2022, July 31). How To Select/Deselect Multiple Or All Worksheets In Excel Workbook. https://www.excel-learner.com/how-to-select-deselect-multiple-or-all-worksheets-in-excel-workbook/

read more "Deselecting multiple tabs in Excel"

Seeing VBA code in MS Access

One of my office system is still underpinned by MS Access. It is an old system which works well enough, but each year needs to be manually updated... "rolled over", if you will. 

However, this year as I was updating, I found myself unable to remember how to bring up the visual basic code (VBA) pane to review and update the underlying code and functions within the database forms. I was sure that there was a very easy way to do this - i.e. a set of hot key strokes - but for the life of me, I could not remember what they were. 

A protracted online search (largely because I could also not recall the appropriate terminology!) finally yielded me the short keys, which I will repeat here for anyone else finding themselves in this position: 

Alt +F11

Thank you to SpookiePower for asking the question, way back in 2012. Keying this will USUALLY bring up a separate VBA pane, where we can amend the underlying code. 

However, I have noted that the shortcut keys sometimes don't work; which is puzzling. As cover, I have also added in the VBA icon shown above as a custom icon in the header bar.  

Sam

References:

SpookiePower. (2012, February 11). Where to see the VBA code behind the form?. https://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/threads/where-to-see-the-vba-code-behind-the-form.221754/

read more "Seeing VBA code in MS Access"

An Excel Ctrl & End problem solved

I use shortcut keys a lot to navigate files. In Excel, two of my favourites are Ctrl & the Home key (which takes me to the first active cell in my spreadsheet), and Ctrl & End (which takes me to the end). Once I start getting quite a bit of data, those two shortcuts are amazingly helpful.

But. Every now and again I have a problem with where there must be some stray formatting in a cell which means that Ctrl & End takes me to somewhere far, far away in the spreadsheet. Earlier this year, in a 230 data row dataset with live columns to AC, Ctrl & End landed me in row WWH in a spreadsheet at row 270. WWH was definitely a few columns too distant for me.

So I highlit (ha, ha; like that new word?) the columns and used the clear tool on the Home Ribbon. Then Ctrl & Ended (another one!) again... but no. Still at WWH. I re-highlighted the problem columns and stepped through clearing formatting, contents etc one by one in the clear section, then tried again. Ctrl & End still took me out to column WWH.

Time for an alternative. A bit of digging provided a great solution - and using short cuts, as follows (Kader, 2024):

• Select the last active column in your spreadsheet
• Key Ctrl, Shift & the Right Arrow to highlight all the 'live' columns
• Key Ctrl & - (minus, and I used the number pad for this key) to delete cell contents
• Key Ctrl & S to save

Close out. Reopen and try Ctrl & End again. 

And lo! I was at AC230 :-)

Sam

References:

Kader, E. (2024, February 12). [Solved!] CTRL+END Shortcut Key Goes Too Far in Excel (6 Fixes). Exceldemy. https://www.exceldemy.com/excel-ctrl-end-goes-too-far/

read more "An Excel Ctrl & End problem solved"

Accidents with statistics

I read a national news article earlier this year which announced boldly that "You’re more likely to hurt yourself while wearing jandals than high heels, according to ACC data" (Harcourt, 2024). For non-New Zealanders, 'jandals' is the Kiwi term for the concatenation of Japanese sandals. I was intrigued: I wondered what modelling the article writer had used to compare the groups of women - and a few men - who wear high heels against pretty much the entire population over 18 months who might wear jandals.

The answer? No clever comparison. Only raw numbers. The article said, as follows:

"New Zealanders are nearly twice as likely to hurt themselves while wearing jandals than heels, ACC data shows. There were 4200 jandal-related injury claims made to ACC between 2018 and 2022. Injuries involving high heels had 2500 claims, and injuries involving Crocs only had 140 claims in that period" (Harcourt, 2024).

And ACC pretty much said the same thing (2023). These stats are for 4200 jandal accident claims, over five years (ACC, 2023; Harcourt, 2024), which will apply to claims from the entire NZ population regardless of gender who are walking. Say over 18 months of age. Yes, I know that a number of us will not walk due to infirmity or disability, but as a rough rule of thumb, this should be OK.

So I wondered how that compared to 2500 claims for women between 15 and - say - 65 (that is probably a bit generous: most women I know don't wear heels at all). NZ in 2022 had a population of 5,124,100, and 2,581,200 women (Statistics New Zealand, 2022), with 65% of them aged between 15 and 65. Following is the raw population counts of our total population and the likely female heel-wearers (Statistics New Zealand, 2022): 

Year	Total Population	Women aged between 15 and 65
2018	4,900,600	1,618,100
2019	4,979,200	1,638,800
2020	5,090,200	1,671,600
2021	5,111,400	1,668,900
2022	5,124,100	1,664,700

OK. So how many so we need to remove from the general population figures? Those of us who are under 18 month old? Statistics New Zealand to the rescue again (2024):

Year	0 Years	1 Years	2 Years	Age 0 to1 + 50% of Age 2
2018	59,720	60,510	60,960	150,710
2019	59,390	60,080	61,390	150,165
2020	59,730	59,860	61,020	150,100
2021	59,990	60,000	60,310	150,145
2022	61,070	59,980	60,240	151,170

So let's remove the walking population from the total population. That gives us:

Year	Total walking Population	Women aged between 15 and 65
2018	4,749,890	1,618,100
2019	4,829,035	1,638,800
2020	4,940,100	1,671,600
2021	4,961,255	1,668,900
2022	4,972,930	1,664,700

OK, again, I know this is immensely rough, but if we get an average of each group, that is 4,890,642 for the walking population, and 1,652,420 for women (Statistics New Zealand, 2024). And if we look at the percentage of accidents (ACC, 2023; Harcourt, 2024), over five years we get a .086% accident rate for jandals versus a .151% accident rate for heels. It seems obvious that heels are almost twice as dangerous as jandals.

In my view, those who reported on the dangerousness of jandals did not apply common sense. We need to remember to not only report whole numbers, but look at percentages against a population group.  

Sam

References:

ACC. (2023, May 10). Think with your feet to avoid injury. Accident Compensation Corporation. https://www.acc.co.nz/newsroom/stories/think-with-your-feet-to-avoid-injury/#:~:text=Our%20figures%20show%20we%20accepted,injuries%20between%202018%20and%202022

Harcourt, A. (2024, January 9). Jandals are a national icon but they suck. One News. https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/01/09/jandals-are-a-national-icon-but-they-suck/

Statistics New Zealand. (2024). Infoshare: population data. https://infoshare.stats.govt.nz/ViewTable.aspx?pxID=2e075861-c2b5-4db2-93d4-8c8000ad96a1

Statistics New Zealand. (2022, August). National population estimates: At 30 June 2022. https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/national-population-estimates-at-30-june-2022

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Adobe save as image error

I have struck an interesting problem with a regular report that I receive. When I go to save some of the pages as images (so I can copy them into the appendices of my own reports as evidence), I get the following Adobe error. 

 "Adobe could not save the page in this document because of the following error:" "The image is too wide to output. Please crop it or reduce resolution and try again". 

The trouble is the page is not too wide. There are no objects off the edge of the page. I tried cropping the page. That didn't work. I tried extracting each page as a separate pdf, then trying to save each page as a jpg individually. That didn't work. I tried doubling the page size to A3. That didn't work. I tried copying the components to a new document. That didn't work. I tried decreasing the output image to 300dpi. That didn't work.

So in the end I tried my fix for an Adobe file which won't print. And that worked. The repair is as follows:

1. Open the pdf in Adobe Acrobat
2. Go to File | Export To | PostScript (not an encapsulated PostScript file; just a plain PostScript)
3. Save the file with the desired name/location (changing the name if the original file is also in this folder is a good idea, otherwise it will be overwritten in the next step)
4. In Adobe Acrobat, go to File | Create | From File. Select the .ps file and save as pdf. The new pdf will be saved in the same folder
5. Check to see if the error still occurs, by having a crack at deleting a page.

While I have written about this error before (here and here), and I hope this helps someone else!

Sam

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