Guides

Does resizing an image reduce quality? Making an image smaller throws away detail and usually looks fine. Making it bigger invents detail and usually does not. The difference matters more than the tool you use. How to convert HEIC to JPG HEIC is what your iPhone saves by default and what half the internet cannot open. Converting is straightforward: the parts worth knowing are what you lose and how to stop producing them in the first place. How to open a WebP file Every browser already opens WebP. The trouble starts when you hand one to something older. Here is how to convert it without losing anything you care about. How to remove the background from an image What actually makes a cutout look real is the edge, not the shape. Why hair and glass are hard, what a soft edge is for, and how a model running in your own browser compares with the paid services. JPG to PNG: when it helps and when it is pointless Converting a JPEG to PNG does not restore quality. It makes a bigger file containing the same damage. Here is when the conversion is genuinely useful, and when it is cargo cult. Putting text behind a subject: the Photoshop way and the fast way The effect where a title passes behind someone's head. In Photoshop it is a selection, a mask and a layer order. In a browser it is a model doing the selection for you. What JPEG quality setting should you use? What the number actually controls, why 100 is a waste, and how to find the point where a file stops getting better. Why OCR gets things wrong, and how to get better results Text recognition accuracy is decided mostly before the tool runs. Resolution, contrast and skew matter more than which engine you use. Here is what to fix and what to expect.

Does trimming an MP3 lose quality? Only if the tool decodes it. Cutting an MP3 can be done by copying bytes, and then nothing is lost at all. Here is how to tell which kind you are using. How to extract frames from a video Getting stills out of a video needs no upload and no software: the decoder is already in your browser. What to watch for on frame rate, format and naming. How to step through a YouTube video frame by frame The comma and full stop keys do it, and almost nobody knows. Here is the full set of shortcuts, why a frame step is not always one frame, and how to get a still out. YouTube thumbnail sizes, and which one you actually want Every thumbnail file YouTube generates for a video, what each is for, why the good one is often missing, and how to tell a real thumbnail from a grey placeholder.

Electronic signature or digital signature: what is the difference? One is a picture of your signature on a page. The other is cryptography that proves the document has not changed. They are not the same thing, and most of the time you need the first. How to merge PDF files Combining PDFs is page copying, not redrawing, done properly nothing is re-rendered, re-compressed or flattened. Here is what to check, and what the free online tools do to your file. How to put photos into a PDF without making them worse Most photo-to-PDF tools quietly re-compress your pictures. JPEG and PNG can go into a PDF as the exact bytes they already are. Here is when that happens and when it cannot. How to split a PDF Pulling pages out of a PDF should copy them, not re-render them. What the page ranges mean, where the off-by-one errors come from, and how to get one file per chapter without doing it by hand. What DPI should you export a PDF at? PDF pages are vector instructions with no resolution of their own, so exporting to images means choosing one. Here is how to pick, and why 300 DPI is usually wrong for screens.

Distraction-free writing, without installing anything The research on interruption is worse than most people assume, and the fix is mostly removing things rather than adding them. What actually helps, and what is procrastination wearing a productivity costume. How to check word count, and why two tools disagree Word count is not one number. Different tools count hyphens, numbers and contractions differently, which is why your editor says 1,847 and the submission form says 1,852. How to turn text into speech and get a file you can keep Your browser can already read text aloud, and cannot save what it read. Why that is, and what it takes to get an actual audio file without paying per character. Sentence case vs title case Which words to capitalise in a heading, why the three style guides disagree, and the rule that stops you having to care. What is Lorem Ipsum, and should you use it? It is mangled Cicero, it has been in use since the 1500s, and it exists to stop people reading. Here is where it came from and when a different placeholder is the better choice.

Do QR codes expire? A QR code is printed text and never expires. What expires is the service in the middle, and knowing which kind you have is the whole question. How to fix a JSON syntax error What every JSON error message actually means, where to look, and the six mistakes that cause almost all of them. UUID versions compared: v4, v7, v1 and v5 Which UUID version to use, why v4 is a poor database key, and what v7 fixed. With the one case where a random ID is exactly wrong.

How long should a pomodoro be? Twenty-five minutes is the default, not the answer. What the research actually says about focus blocks, when 50 or 90 minutes is better, and why the break is the part people drop. How to make flashcards that actually work Why most flashcards are badly made, the rules that fix them, and how spaced repetition changes what you get for the same amount of time. What is a good typing speed? What the average actually is, what counts as fast, and why accuracy matters more than speed for anyone typing real work. With the difference between the four figures typing tests quote.

AirDrop for Windows: what actually works There is no AirDrop on Windows, and the alternatives are worse than people expect. What Nearby Share does, what it does not, and why a browser link is often the fastest route between two machines.