Tech for Luddites

Today’s T3 includes tips for the navigating Amazon videos with the Roku remote, creating PDFs with live links from Word for Mac, and booking professional home services through Amazon.

1. Navigating with the Roku 3 remote

I recently received an email from T4L reader Judy who was frustrated by trying to skip back and forward through Amazon Videos playing through her Roku 3 streaming media player. This tip will help with that situation and may also help with videos from other providers and with other Roku models.

Unfortunately, Roku has a history of creating confusing remotes that is second only to its history of creating confusing model names. Each model’s remote has different combinations of buttons and capabilities, made even more confusing by the fact there is nothing on the remote itself to identify which models it works with.

In the specific case of the Roku 3, that was the first model that introduced voice search, adding a microphone button on the remote to use that feature. However, instead of putting an additional button on the remote, it replaced an existing one‐the Skip Back button (circular arrow), which used to make it easy to skip back a few seconds in case you missed an action or a piece of dialogue while watching a video.

Because of this change, you would now only have the option to use the Rewind button (double arrow) to skip back, but it doesn’t work the same. For one thing, the Skip back button wouldn’t keep going back further unless you pressed it again, whereas the Rewind button continues to go back until you stop it. Also, if you hold down the Rewind button, which is common with other remotes, it moves very quickly so is difficult to stop at the right place.

NOTE: The Fast Forward button works the same as the Rewind button, just in the other direction.

However, you can slow down the navigation by simply pressing and releasing the button quickly. When you do that with an Amazon video, the video moves back or forward in 8-second increments. At the same time, a small box comes up at the bottom left of the screen that shows you the time of the video so you can see exactly where you’ll stop when you hit the Play/Pause button, giving you a lot better navigation control.

Tip: If you don’t want to listen to the Edelweiss song every time you watch The Man in the High Castle, the opening credits end at around the 1:20 mark. 🙂

Additional Tips

• If you hit the Rewind/FF buttons a second time, it will move back/forward in approximately 2-minute increments and if you hit it a third time, approximately 5-minute increments. You can also use the OK button to speed it up.
• If you want to slow down again, you use the opposite button. For example, if you’re moving forward in 5-minute increments and want to go back to 2-minute increments, press the rewind button once.
• Once the end credits come up for an Amazon video, you can’t use the Fast Forward button anymore. However, a small box will come up at the bottom right of the screen that says Next Up. As soon as that appears, if you click the OK button (not Play/Pause), you can stop the current video and move immediately to the next one on the list.
• Amazon has a number of remotes with the Skip Back button instead of the Voice Search button that are listed as working with the Roku 3. I haven’t tried them out myself, but I do have remotes from other Roku models and some of them work with each other, although not all features will work with all models. And the remote for the Roku Ultra, which has both a Skip Back and a Voice Search button does NOT work with the Roku 3.

2. Saving Word for Mac docs as PDF with live links

A friend of mine recently posted a question on Facebook. She had created a document in Microsoft Word for Mac with links in it but when she saved it as a PDF, the links no longer worked. I don’t have a Mac and the links are preserved in Word for Windows, so I didn’t have an answer for her. Someone else suggested she move the document (or, in future, create it) in Pages, the default Word Processing program for Macs, which keeps the links live when you export to PDF. My friend tried it and it worked for her as well, so there you go Mac fans!

3. Amazon Home Services

The beginning of March is a time when a lot of people’s thoughts turn to spring cleaning, home improvement, and yard prep. For those tasks you can’t do yourself, Amazon offers all sorts of professional Home Services including house cleaning, furniture assembly, appliance installation, Smart Home setup, TV mounting, handyman jobs, painting, landscaping, plumbing and electrical repair and more.

Amazon Home Services are currently available in select U.S. cities. The company works with independent contractors and backs all services with a Happiness Guarantee.

Learn more about Amazon Home Services. >>

You may also be interested in:

Roku: What Is It and How Does It Work?

Create Different Headers in Word

Amazon Products: News, Views, & How-Tos