Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2024 January 7

= January 7 =

Creating a 3D-curved (concave) Wordart online
I wanna create a concave 3D curved Wordart for free online, like this:, without downloading any program or making any accounts. I've tried doing it in OpenOffice, but it doesn't have a regular concave shape like that. The only app that seems to check all the marks (including that exact concave shape) is Word online, but it requires an account. There are millions of online "curved font" creators, but they're entirely 2D, rather than 3D. On the other hand, there are millions of "3D logo creators", most of which don't offer concave curvature either and that add lotsa surface and color effects that I don't need.

I basically wanna re-create exactly that effect and design with that font (Decade Condensed seems closest) as text or SVG, with different words (two words, two lines, one word per line), no fancy colors or texture or shadow or bevel effects. No bending of the outer edges on the left and right. --2003:DA:CF4E:6392:B022:9BA1:4C22:73B8 (talk) 12:39, 6 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I was about ready to cave in and get an account to try Word online, only to find out Wordart only works in the paid desktop version. After about 6 hours, I've only just finally found out I can do it for free by means of Photoshop instead. --2003:DA:CF4E:6376:B8D6:185:68DC:1786 (talk) 19:27, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

Difference between phone keypads and calculators
Why is there a difference between phone keypad and calculator layouts? Calculators have 1 on the bottom row whereas phone keypads have 1 on the top row. Why? —Panamitsu (talk) 03:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The letters associated with each digit of a telephone number would be out of alphabetical order if the lower digits were not at the top. On the other hand, the adding-machine key layout was designed to put the most frequently used digits at the bottom where they are most easily reached. --142.112.220.136 (talk) 03:33, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * ABC News gives an (incomplete) answer. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:26, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure that it is answered more fully in one of the Imponderables books, but I gave my books to my daughter. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:34, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Most telephones have "1 2 3" on the top row and "7 8 9" on the bottom row. Most calculators have "1 2 3" on the bottom row and "7 8 9" on the top row. There are too many exceptions to list. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 12:46, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * More pertinently, why should they be the same? Two totally different products; you wouldn't try to calculate on a 1950s phone, nor would you phone using a 1970s calculator. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 12:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Because a lot of input methods are standardised. For example, type writers, computer keyboards, and smartphone keyboards all use qwerty by default despite being different products. —Panamitsu (talk) 21:36, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * They don't all use QUERTY. Some are Dvorak, for instance.  Also, until IBM put out the Model M keyboard (1985), special keys on a computer keyboard varied a lot.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 23:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * But smartphones only have QWERTY keyboards because them mimic computer keyboards. Computer keyboards themselves mimic typewriters, but with the addition of mimicing a calculator.  The difference between that and the calculator/phone dichotomy is that there was no logical connection in the latter case, just independant development. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:48, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Asside: and I think that is a bad idea for them to use QWERTY. I am a touch typist, so my fingers automatically know where to go on a real keyboard.  On a touch screen, it makes more sense to put them in alphabetical order.  (My previous GPS had that option.) Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 23:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * For Android devices you can install any on-screen keyboard app you want, here's Florisboard which is FLOSS, change the key layout at will with JSON: (if you want more features consider giving the dev a few currency units if able) Slowking Man (talk) 06:00, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes if you don't want QWERTY just change to something else. For a completely virtual keyboard, it should be your choice. That said, I'd disagree it's a bad choice. If we put aside questions over whether QWERTY is really the best layout for anything (physical or virtual), noting these might not be the same answer and indeed even within virtual keyboards it may depending on how you 'type' (one finger touch, two finger touch, drag/swiping); at the dawn of touch screen smart phones most people expected to use them for English would be reasonably familiar with the QWERTY layout to a varying degree especially touch typists. As a touch typist myself, while I cannot use a phone or tablet virtual keyboard completely unsighted I know more or less where any letter key on a phone or tablet is and am fairly sure I knew from early on precisely because I know the same for a physical keyboard. So my leaning time to use a virtual keyboard was likely significant reduced. So while perhaps I would have been better off leaning some other layout in the long term, this was probably something I wouldn't have bothered with even if I considered it. (And also even if I did, I somewhat doubt it would be with an alphabetical layout. This seems almost the worse of both worlds in that it's both a new layout I'm almost complete unfamiliar with even if I did know the alphabet, but also one which I strongly suspect no one designing a keyboard would consider a good layout.) Noting also despite getting into the smart phone era somewhat late (~2011), phones in those days especially cheap ones were still fairly small with touch screens which weren't that great. I'm fairly sure I'm not the only one who this applied to. There's an interesting question over whether it might be better for people who aren't already familiar with keyboards who are starting off with smart phones to start off with something else but for a variety of reasons I suspect this is unlikely to happen and again I doubt this will be alphabetical. Nil Einne (talk) 05:56, 15 January 2024 (UTC)


 * On pulse dial rotary phones the zero comes after nine because it's really a ten (sending zero pulses would be pointless. This pattern was copied over to phones with buttons. With calculators the zero is in the arithmetically more logical position of before the one. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 19:15, 7 January 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia has coverage of this question on Telephone keypad. -- Beland (talk) 01:11, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Are flatbed scanners still improving?
I'm about to digitise a batch of old photographs.

I do have a somewhat old MFP, a HP Photosmart Premium C309g, which is broken as a printer but still works as a scanner. I could use this one, or I could but a much (well, somewhat) newer flatbed scanner, such as a CanoScan LiDE 400.

In terms of image quality, would there be any noticeable improvement with the new one?

Or has not much really happened the last decade or so?

--Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 18:12, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * The 2012 specs look like its more than adequate for the task. But I would test it out with some photos first to make sure everything still works and you have a functional workflow, making sure to preview the images on a display for any imperfections.  So try it out and tell us how it looks. Viriditas (talk) 22:28, 7 January 2024 (UTC)


 * For what it's worth, a slightly older scanner (c. 2008-2010) that I tried to use recently was so poor that I gave up and just made a rig for my phone to take the pictures. To be honest, the only issue was the rig not adequately keeping the phone from shifting slightly so that the resulting picture got tilted a bit. Matt Deres (talk) 20:25, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * For another anecdote, I use a scanner that has to be at least 10-15 years old (possibly older) now and then and I haven't noticed any issues with it; and while it isn't super fast if you want to scan at a very high quality, the list of options for dpi goes far higher than I've ever needed. LittlePuppers (talk) 06:05, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you all for your suggestions and insights. A different aspect, of course, is that the old MFP is rather bulky, so if I find a new flatbed scanner with good reviews at a good price, I might go for that option. Otherwise, the old MFP will likely do a decent job. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:47, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

PDF to Excel
How do I get the lists on page https://caguas.gov.pr/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Lista-Sectores-por-Barrios-Separados.pdf into an Excel spreadsheet?--Ratzer (talk) 21:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * For me, and I do a lot of document processing, copying and pasting the individual columns and tables would be the easiest way to do it. I don't know of any OCR that would do the job that well. --Ouro (blah blah) 22:25, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * When I copy the pdf into a text file I get text from which one could derive a csv with only a modest effort (compared to re-typing it) by using some emacs or vi foo or one or two simple Python scripts. --Lambiam 23:08, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * There's a number of sites on the web that will do OCR on pdf and will convert a pdf to Excel, all for free if you only have one or two to do at a time. I've got Omnipage which could do that easily but I've had very little use for it recently so I'd go for a free web app unless you have a lot of work to do. NadVolum (talk) 13:28, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I thought OCR was needed because I failed to select the text, but trying it again it i text and can be selected. So a straightforward pdf to Excel converter on the web will do the job. If you just select the text and paste you need to be careful that it puts the entries in a line into separate columns and some jiggery pokery is needed to do that. NadVolum (talk) 13:39, 15 January 2024 (UTC)