Announcements

I don't know about all of you, but I'm very much in the holiday spirit.

We had our first good snow about a week and a half ago and it just put me in the holiday mood. Out came the Christmas music and the living room furniture was shifted slightly to make a place for the Christmas tree.

Now all I need is the time to make it all happen…

Wishful thinking - at least it was a start!

So, How's Your Typing??

We have an awesome piece of software called Typing Quick & Easy and it's been extremely popular in our online store (actually, we're having a hard time keeping it in stock!). It really makes learning to type fun and easy. And think about it - wouldn't your computer be easier to use if you were a better typist?

The price for this? Only $12.97 (retail $24.95)! Of course, shipping is free if you live in the US. Here's a brief description:

Typing Quick & Easy is the ultimate typing teacher!

Combining effective instructional techniques with easy-to-use menus, you'll learn touch typing quickly and easily. Typing Quick & Easy also adds fun and challenge to the process of learning to type, with timed tests and six exciting typing games.

You can :

Increase speed and accuracy
Test your skills
Track your progress
Play games to learn better

This retails for $24.95, we saw it at Office Depot for $19.95, we'll sell it to you for only $12.97 and it will be delivered right to your door! Check it out:

http://www.worldstart.com/store/typing-quick-easy-12.htm

Be sure to check out the link for tons more info on this fantastic product - including screen shots! Just think how much more you'll enjoy your computer with your improved typing skills!

MS Office 101

Mouse-less Text Alignment

Here are a few more key combinations for people who prefer the keyboard to the mouse.

The following combinations will change the alignment of the paragraph where the cursor is currently located. There's no need to highlight the paragraph - it will be applied to the entire paragraph regardless.

This can be done as your typing the paragraph or later by using the arrows to scroll through the document from paragraph to paragraph.

• Ctrl + L will Left Align the text.
• Ctrl + E will Center the text.
• Ctrl + R will Right Align the text
• Ctrl + J will Justify the text.

Happy Keyboarding :-)

Office Tip of the Day

And You Thought Excel Only Worked With Decimals!

Have you ever found yourself working in MS Excel and need to enter fractions? What did you do?

(Besides have flashbacks to middle school where you labored endlessly over those dreaded things…)

I know I've made them into formulas. Basically I divide the numerator by the denominator, add on the whole number, and convert the whole thing to a decimal in the process.

It works, but only if I don't need the fractions maintained.

Wouldn't it be nice to know how to work in Excel with the fractions, getting your answers back in fractions?

I find, at least sometimes, the ability to complete the work in fractions is a plus - so let's get to it.

When you need to enter a mixed number into an Excel cell simply type:

• The whole number
• Followed by a space
• The fraction numerator
• A slash (/)
• The fraction denominator

What you should see in the cell for let's say two and four-fifths would be

If you need to see the decimal equivalent simply take a look in the formula bar.

Now that we've seen the basics, let's look at a couple of special cases.

First, let's discuss the case of simple fractions (fractions without a whole number).

In order to get Excel to accept simple fractions and actually treat them as fractions, you'll need to enter 0 as the whole number, then the space, then the fraction as done above.

If you don't enter the whole number 0 then Excel will turn your fraction into a date and you don't want that! (For many people fractions are confusing enough without throwing unwanted dates into the mix…)

The second special case I wanted to discuss involves fractions containing 3 digit numerators or denominators.

In order to get Excel to keep the larger numbers you'll need to format the cells appropriately.

I could get the program to automatically accept fractions with 2 digit numerators or denominators. But, once I bumped it up to 3 digits the program automatically reduced the fraction back to 2 digit numbers - even in cases where the fraction could not be mathematically reduced. It simply approximated as close at it could to the originally entered data.

So I went looking in the Format menu, Cells choice and found a solution.

You simply need to set the fraction type as Up to three digits then click OK.

Now you can use fractions in your formulas, in many cases making the results more exact. I mean let's face it - we tend to round the decimals after a few places and Excel won't do that during calculations unless we force it to.

And that's it! Fractions made easy - say goodbye to those flashbacks…

~ April