The ATA Chronicle - May/June 2017 - 19

Quickbooks and Expensify allow you to
snap a photo of an expense receipt for
automatic filing and categorization, thus
avoiding lost receipts and menacing piles
of receipts awaiting entry.
For your social media marketing, try
using Feedly and Alltop to track new
content on your favorite websites and
blogs, and Buffer to quickly schedule
social media posts that share your favorite
articles or promote your own content.
(See Figure 2 on page 18.) Mailchimp,
a service for email distribution lists,
allows you to view and send your email
campaigns and monitor their delivery
statistics almost in real time.
And speaking of email, it can be
overwhelming at times, so why not try a few
email apps for tablets that bring new ideas
to the game, such as snoozing incoming
email, read receipts, or sending messages
later. If you're intrigued, take a look at
Newton (Android, iOS) or Spark (iOS).

DIGITAL NOTE-TAKING
Alexander: In some ways, using a tablet
and stylus (a digital pen that mobile
devices recognize on their touchscreens)
to take consecutive notes digitally
instead of on paper is the holy grail of
"tablet interpreting," although it may not
immediately seem superior to the old way
of doing things. I think it's simply a lot of
fun to try out!
The perfect hardware combination for
this, in my opinion, is an iPad Pro with an
Apple Pencil. But unless you already own
those two, don't go out and buy them
just to see if digital note-taking is for you.
Instead, work with the tablet you already
have. If you don't own a stylus yet,
borrow one or buy an inexpensive option.
For example, Wacom's Bamboo styluses
are very affordable and widely available.
Incidentally, Wacom also provides a free
note-taking app: Bamboo Paper. As almost
all note-taking applications, it works
with the familiar notion of notebooks
organized on a shelf or in a library. When
you open up Bamboo Paper, you'll see
one or more blue notebooks that you can
rename to your liking. Tap on a notebook
to open it. At the top of the screen, choose
your favorite writing utensil (e.g., ball
pen or felt pen), stroke width, and writing
color. An eraser is also available. Now
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Figure 3: A screenshot of handwritten notes in the Notability app

On top of standard spreadsheet
features like filtering, sorting,
or rearranging terms, databasedriven apps allow for faster
searches and give you more
control over importing existing
glossaries and exporting your data
to another format.

you're good to go! I don't recommend
taking interpreting notes straight away.
Instead, you might want to start slowly
by doodling to get a feel for how the
app works. Move on to jotting down a
shopping list or short text, and when you
feel more comfortable, try taking notes for
a short test-style speech from Speechpool
or the European Union Speech Repository.
If you get hooked, then digital note-taking
is probably for you. Great note-taking
apps for iPad are Notability and Noteshelf.
(See Figure 3 above.) They both integrate
with lots of styluses, including the Apple

Pencil, and they support cool stuff like
audio recording.
Holly: I haven't tested digital note-taking
on recent Apple products, but I've had
great results on Android tablets and my
current sweetheart, the Microsoft Surface
Pro 4 (laptop/tablet hybrid).
Samsung tablets use the Android
mobile operating system and come with
a free app called S-Note that meets all
my note-taking needs. For example,
it offers continuous page scrolling (no
searching for a button to go to the next
page) and automatic deactivation of hand
recognition (ensuring your palm doesn't
mark or move the digital paper, allowing
for a natural hand position for writing).
Samsung discontinued the Note line of
tablets that featured a pen-size stylus that
nested neatly into the body of the device,
but there are many compatible stylus
options to suit any preference. Just look
for the one that feels natural for you and
play with the settings in your note-taking
app to get the type of stroke you like.
Another option, if you want to do
all your computing and note-taking on
one lightweight device, is the Microsoft
Surface Pro 4 or a similar laptop/tablet
hybrid-many manufacturers are following
American Translators Association

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