Announcements

Hey Folks,

For those subscribers in the US, I hope all of you enjoy the long, upcoming holiday weekend. For readers outside the US, enjoy your weekend too!

FYI - due to the holiday, there will NOT be a Tuesday newsletter next week. (Just wanted to keep you up to date.)

Talk to you in September!

~April

Here's One You've Gotta Grab!

We have The Complete National Geographic in stock!

This is a 31 CD set that features every National Geographic magazine from the original in 1888 thru 1998.

I have to admit, I wasn't sure about this title at first. However, after I installed it I had a terrific time going through all the old articles, pictures, and ads. Each issue is presented exactly as it was when it was originally published - every page, every picture.

I spent over an hour just browsing through dozens of old issues. I especially like to look at old advertisements, you know, checking out what the "cutting edge" stuff was way back when.

Here's some more info on the program:

- 178,000 Spectacular photographs and illustrations.
- Search engine helps you locate the issue / content you're looking for.
- Over 9,400 articles!
- Over 188,500 pages in all!
- Print any page with the click of a mouse
- Access to online resources
- And more!

I don't need to tell you that this would be a fantastic gift idea (I've already set several aside as really early Christmas gifts). Of course, it would be a great gift to give yourself too ;-)

The price on this is only $64.97 with FREE US SHIPPING (list $149.95)!

Here's the info and order link:

http://www.worldstart.com/store/national.htm

Finally, there is a very limited quantity of these available, so head to the site ASAP if you want yours!

Don't miss out!

MS Office 101

Wrappin' In MS Excel

We've all had them. They're everywhere. They're impossible to kill and hard to shrink.

What am I talking about? (Sometimes I wonder about that myself.)

I'm talking about those column or row titles in Excel that are so long they're awkward.

If you stretch the column width to accommodate the whole title, then the two-digit number looks ridiculous in the 3-inch wide column. If you try to shorten the words, then the title becomes meaningless. You could try to separate the words and place them stacked in two cells in two different rows. But that can be a pain too.

What's the solution? Why word wrapping, of course.

Wrapping in Excel means to wrap your text within a single cell. Basically the height of the row is stretched to the height needed to keep your text in one cell without increasing its width. (You're still free to stretch column width, but it doesn't have to get ridiculous.)

So, how exactly do you get Excel to wrap? It's as easy as 1, 2, 3.

1. Select the cell(s) that need text to wrap.
2. Go to the Format menu, Cells choice.
3. On the Alignment tab, check the Wrap Text box and click OK.

That's it - now you're a wrappin' expert too.

Office Tip of the Day

Symbols Galore

You're working on a document and you need a character other than the ones available on the keyboard.

For example maybe you need one of these:

or maybe something a little different just for the affect:

Whatever the need it all comes down to one thing. How do I get these special characters (known as symbols) into my document?

Believe it or not, it had nothing to do with finding clip art. (Although clip art is a source for great designs, we're talking about necessary symbols or small touches to finish a document.)

To begin, place your cursor where you want to insert the symbol.

Then go to the Insert menu, Symbol choice.

The Symbol window will pop open showing you your choices.

Notice the pull-down list of font choices. Any choice from the list will bring up a set of characters to choose from. Some of the symbols will be repeated in each set but look slightly different. (Just like any letter looks slightly different from font to font.)

I know the pictures of the symbols are small and hard to see, but if you click on a box, the symbol will pop-up in a slightly larger box that is much easier to see.

When you find what you're looking for, leave the display on the symbol you need then click on Insert. This will put the symbol into your document right where you left the cursor.

Once the symbol is in the document, you can adjust the font size, copy, delete, paste and apply formatting to your symbol just like all of the regular characters.

What about the symbols you need over and over again? Is there something you can do to speed up the insert?

Notice the "AutoCorrect…" and "Shortcut Key…" buttons in the window? These are your "speed it up" options.

The AutoCorrect button will take you to the AutoCorrect window and allow you to set a character combination that will tell the program to replace the characters with the symbol you chose. (Be careful when choosing a character combination. After all, you don't want to set a common word to change to a symbol every time you type it in a document.) For more information on setting AutoCorrect see our archives at http://www.worldstart.com/archives/index.htm. Look in the April 4th issue of MS Office Tips & Tricks.

The Shortcut Key button will take you to a screen that allows you to set a key combination (for example Alt+H or Ctrl+Y) that would insert the symbol without going through the Insert menu and then the Symbol window. Again, you want to be careful here. You need to select a combination that isn't already in use.

How can you tell if it's in use? Well, when you press the key combination the program records your keys in the space provided and then just below lets you know what that combination is currently assigned to.

If it comes up assigned to something else then erase the key combination and try again.When you find a combination that works, click on the Assign button.

Pick combinations that make sense to you and will be easy to remember. Otherwise, you'll just have to use the Insert, Symbol thing again anyway.

All of this is located on the Symbols tab of the Symbols window.

See that other tab? The one called Special Characters?

If you click into this tab you should see a short list of special characters and some of them have current keyboard shortcuts listed. It's for my keyboard users (those of you who remember key combinations no matter what) that I mention this tab. Here's some of the symbols many people need and a quick way to get them into your document without touching the "dreaded mouse."

Ok - so there you go. When I started I thought this one would be short and sweet. But it didn't turn out that way, did it?

Well, anyway, take a look at it - I find it to be both useful and just a good way to make documents fun. Functional and fun…. Wish I had more of that.

PS - You can also insert symbols in MS PowerPoint to jazz up the old presentation!