Creating a Tile from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio or Acrobat PDF

The DNE can communicate directly with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and Acrobat. The DNE does more than just save documents and files created in these applications but also assists in managing the development of the work done in these files. The DNE does this be making it easy to track the development of a document, and easy to bookmark important or troublesome passages to make it easy to find them later.

Because the DNE can communicate directly with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and Acrobat, tiles can be created directly in each of these applications and sent to the DNE. Three different types of tile can be created directly in each of these applications. If the DNE is open when the tile is created, then by default the tile will be affiliated with the active NE in the room visible in the DNE.

1.

The entire document can be saved as a tile. This allows the file to be accessed in the DNE by playing its tile. The tile for an entire file displays the icon for that tile type, as on the right. Once saved as a tile the file can be managed in the DNE, affiliated with the appropriate NEs, etc. The document can either be saved copied or linked to the DNE. If it is copied, then the tile is separate from the original document, which means that any change made in one copy will not be reflected in the other. If it is linked, then the tile calls the original document in its current form.

2.

A screen snapshot can be saved as a tile. A snapshot is not a live document but a picture of what appears on the screen. A snapshot tile can be distinguished from the tile for the complete file because, along with the icon for the tile type, a snapshot tile features an "eye" image icon, indicating that it is also an image tile, as on the right. This allows you to preserve a stage in the development of a document. As such, it is a quick way to ensure that an important piece of information or an interesting idea is not lost during the evolution of a document.

3.

A section of a document can be bookmarked. If a document is bookmarked, then the whole document is saved, as per (1), but the passage that you want to bookmark is highlighted. This makes it easy to tag a passage you are working on, and allows you to retrieve tagged passages immediately. If a data highlight from a file is saved as a tile, the tile displays both the tile icon and the data icon (which differs with the nature of the data), as on the right. There is no need to search a 200 page document for a particular passage when you can simply save that passage as a tile. Play the tile for a bookmarked document, and the document will open right to the bookmarked passage. Because the tile is created as a bookmark rather than an excerpt, the tile is not removed from its context.