Leveling Up Your Debate Software

In this post, we will go over nine pieces of customized software that you can use to simplify and speed up various elements of your debate workflow. We will start with two stand-alone utilities, then move into modifications to Verbatim. The instructions below will assume that you generally know what Verbatim is and how to use it. If you don't, you can go here to download Verbatim and here to read Verbatim's documentation.

Let's get into it!

Tabroom Pairings Utility

Everyone in debate is familiar with the feeling of scrolling through a pairing, using find in page to locate the teams and judges that you care about. No more.

How do we do this?

1. Go here. Download both files and store them in the same folder.
2. Click on index.html. You will see an interface with instructions for how to enter teams. Fill in all information that you care about, exactly as it appears in the tabroom entries for the tournament.
3. When you are done, click 'Generate Bookmarklet.' Then, right click 'Highlight Teams,' and choose 'Copy link address' from the context menu.
4. Create a new bookmark with the copied address as its URL.
5. Go to any pairings page from the tournament you are attending. The script will delete irrelevant teams and highlight relevant teams and judges. 'Top' teams are dark red, 'comparable' teams are a lighter red, your teams are blue, and your judges are green.

The video below demonstrates this process.

This utility works on both Mac and Windows.

Fast Debate Paste

When you cut a large number of very long cards, it takes time to repeatedly Alt + Tab between your source text and the document in which you are processing your evidence. This utility automates that process.

1. Download the latest version of Fast Debate Paste from here. Save it somewhere you will be able to find it.
2. Start the application. It will run in your taskbar. You will be prompted to choose a 'target window' - this is the window to which text will be sent. Choose the window in which you are processing evidence.
3. Selecting text and then hitting Ctrl + Shift + C will send the text to your target window. If you select something matching the pattern WORD NUMBER (e.g. Table 5, Figure 11.1) the utility will paste [WORD NUMBER OMITTED] (e.g. [TABLE 5 OMITTED], [FIGURE 11.1 OMITTED]).
4. To change your target window, hit Ctrl + Shift + W.
5. The script requires your paste function in Verbatim to be bound to F2.

The video below demonstrates this process.

As this is a .exe, the utility works only on Windows.

Advanced Verbatim

The Verbatim customizations below have all been configured within this Debate.dotm template file. If you would like to install them all at once, feel free to download this file and replace the one currently in your templates folder.

The easiest way to find your Templates folder on Windows is to install Everything Search and look for 'Debate.dotm.' The easiest way to find it on Mac is to open a Verbatim document, search the options for 'Templates and Add-ins,' click 'Attach...', right click any file in the folder that opens, and choose 'Show in Finder' from the context menu.

This template file adds eight major functions:

Analytic Style

Allows you to format analytics separately from tags and cites so that Verbatim can treat analytics as a separate group. This is bound to Ctrl + F7.

Undertag Style

'Undertags' are notes about a card that you write 'under' a 'tag.' As with analytics, this allows Verbatim to treat undertags as a separate group. This is bound to Ctrl + F8.

Invisibility Mode

Deletes all text from your document that you are not going to read out loud; leaves only analytics, tags, cites, headers, and highlighting. This is activated, as before, by pressing the eye icon in the Debate ribbon.

A few cautionary notes:

1. Unlike the old version of invisibility mode, this version cannot be undone except using the 'Undo' button. Do NOT run this macro in your speech doc master copy. Always create a new document, copy your speech to that document, and run the macro there. This is what the 'Create Read Doc' function below does automatically.
2. If you are experiencing an issue in which running the macro causes your entire document to collapse into a single paragraph, change your highlighting color to anything other than 'No Color' and try again.

Create Read and Send Docs

Create Read Doc. Saves a separate document in the same location as your speech doc and runs invisibility mode on that document. This is bound to Ctrl + Shift + R for a slower version that eliminates all paragraph breaks within a card, or to Alt + Ctrl + Shift + R for a faster version that leaves those paragraph breaks in.

Create Send Doc. Saves a separate document in the same location as your speech doc and deletes undertags and analytics. This is bound to Ctrl + Shift + S.

Word Count Selection

Tells you how many words within your selection are marked for reading out loud (whether by highlighting, a tag style, or a cite style) and how long it would take you and your team members to read the selection. This is bound to Ctrl + F11.

For Reference & Highlight -> Background Color

For reference. Shrinks the selection, changes the text and highlighting in the selection to gray. For cases in which you would like to include an excerpt from a card already read in an earlier speech. By convention, this is labeled with something like: '<<FOR REFERENCE>>'. This is bound to Ctrl + Shift + F11.

Highlight to Background Color. Changes highlighting in the selection to a background color; this stops it from being affected by standardize highlighting. Useful to make the 'for reference' text mentioned earlier permanently gray, or to make the color of your rehighlighting for opponents' cards permanent. This is bound to Ctrl + Insert.

Notes

A few things to note:

1. All Verbatim modifications will work on both Mac and Windows.
2. All of these functions REQUIRE the user to CONSISTENTLY format using the built-in Verbatim formatting. Functions that interact with the text of your speech document require these styles to work properly. There is a small chance that running these macros on documents formatted improperly will cause you to clip.
3. To change the keyboard shortcut for any macro, go to Verbatim Settings, Keyboard, Other Shortcuts. Save changes in 'Debate' and navigate to the Macros section. Your screen should look like this; find the macro you are interested in, add your shortcut, and click 'Assign.'

If you would prefer to install these changes manually, you can download the new macros from the file below. All macros go in the Custom module except for Updated Invisibility Mode, which replaces the existing Invisibility Mode code at the bottom of the View module.

If you want to add the Analytic and Undertag styles manually, you can retrieve them from this document. In the styles menu under the Home tab, right click on your desired style, choose 'Modify,' check 'New documents based on this template,' and click OK. If you are subsequently prompted to save changes to the Debate template, confirm that you do. This will add the styles to your Verbatim template.

Feedback

If you encounter problems with any of the software above, please let me know!

Feedback Form

Feature requests, bug reports, general feedback

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