Author Archives: southamptonexamfactory

add a ‘standard conditions’ sign

To add the standard conditions sign to enthalpy changes or electrode potentials I used to use an ordinary o crossed-out and superscripted: However, I now use the symbol ϴ as a superscript. It’s too big so I make it font size 8 then raise it by 3 points. I wouldn’t want to do that everyContinue reading “add a ‘standard conditions’ sign”

draw an electrode potential table

If you are producing resources for the electrochemistry topic you often need to draw this table: It looks like a two-column table but if the left-hand column is actually three columns you can keep the equilibrium signs underneath each other in their own narrow column which has no left or right border. Once you haveContinue reading “draw an electrode potential table”

remove automatic numbering but keep the numbers

Automatic numbering is a good servant but a bad master. It’s possible to turn it off but what happens if you have somebody else’s document with lots of automatic numbering that you want to turn off but keep the numbers generated by it? My Australian colleague Ned Alaru gave me such a document. The codeContinue reading “remove automatic numbering but keep the numbers”

replace the short minus sign, raise the superscripts and lower the subscripts

If you write the formula for the nitrate ion in Arial you get this: The minus sign is too small and the subscript and superscript look wrong. There is a better minus sign than the one on the keyboard, called the n-dash since it takes up the same space as a letter n. Use theContinue reading “replace the short minus sign, raise the superscripts and lower the subscripts”

align [marks] to the right

At Southampton Exam Factory we do AQA GCSE, which puts [3 marks] at the end of a question, and OCR A level, which puts [3] at the end of a diagram question. Both are aligned right, but the Chemistry House style macro here justifies the document. So when I convert a question paper pdf toContinue reading “align [marks] to the right”

change text font in a text box

We had a colleague in the Chemistry Department, Laura End, who went off to teach in Malaysia. She generously left behind a large number of Chemistry resources but they were all in Clown font – Comic Sans. If you change the font of a document to Grown-Up font, Arial, it won’t change the contents ofContinue reading “change text font in a text box”

format a document in House style with one click

Dan L Urea, my American colleague in the Chemistry Department at Southampton Exam Factory, said, ‘Wouldn’t it be good if you could convert any document to our House style with just one click.’ House style in Chemistry is Arial size 11, justified, single line spacing and tab stops every 1cm: If, in every Chemistry documentContinue reading “format a document in House style with one click”

add ‘Your answer’ and the box to multiple choice questions

I produce a lot of practice papers for my A level students and I take multiple choice questions from AQA and Edexcel papers. This means that I need to add the ‘Your answer’ and the box. I used to just copy and paste it from a different paper but now I click on my macroContinue reading “add ‘Your answer’ and the box to multiple choice questions”

format all subscripts and superscripts with one click

Every year at Southampton Exam Factory we set our Year 12 students a project to write on an area of interest to them. The end results are wonderful in their scope and execution but why won’t they use the subscript and superscript buttons? It really grates on my nerves to see Pt(NH3)2Cl2 (sorry). My colleagueContinue reading “format all subscripts and superscripts with one click”