Announcements

 MUST HAVE - Awesome New Dictionary

We just received a new title - it's the Random House Webster's Dictionary and it's the best ever!

This dictionary is a must have (especially since most word processors still don't have one). This program has over 315,000 definitions (the largest number I've seen), 2,400 maps and illustrations, and over 120,000 professionally pronounced words!

What's with the word pronunciation? Just click the little "speaker" in the definition and you'll hear the word in your computer speakers. You don't even need to have the CD in the drive to use this feature (some other dictionaries require this).

If you've ever had a word come up and just weren't sure how to pronounce it (I think we've all been there), this dictionary can take that little mystery out of your life! I love it!

What about finding the word you need? This is the one of best I've seen. If you know how the word is spelled (or close), it finds it easy.

What if you don't know the spelling? Don't sweat it. You can search on words in the definition! For example, let's say you need to look up affenpinscher but aren't sure on the spelling (understandable). Since you know it's a dog (well, you do now :-), you can search for definitions with the word dog in them! Cool huh? Works great too.

Frankly, I didn't think they could put that much into a dictionary program. I have been using this on an almost daily basis since I installed it and am continuously impressed by it. I can't recommend this highly enough.

The price? That's the best part - right now it's on sale only $9.97! (Normally $12.97, retail $29.95) Shipping is FREE if you live in the US and if for some reason you don't like it, just send it back within 30 days (even after you've tried it out!).

You have nothing to lose, so head to the site and take a look at this must-have program. I love it, and I'm sure you will to :-)

http://www.worldstart.com/store/random-house-dictionary.htm

PS -Don't miss out - this is one of the best dictionary we've ever used and we highly recommend it!

MS Office 101

The Wonders Of F2 In MS Excel

When you're working in Excel and you need to edit something that is already in a cell what do you do?

Do you click on the cell, then click into the formula bar to edit the contents?

Sounds like a lot of clicking?

Yeah, it did to me too.

For people who don't really care for their mouse, it can turn into a living, breathing, clicking nightmare.

Want a way to get into the cell contents and edit without the mouse?

Yes? (I thought that at least some of you might.)

Next time you need to edit a cell, simply select it. If you want to avoid the mouse try navigating with Page Up, Page Down and the arrow keys.

Now hit the F2 key.

If the cell contained a formula then you should now see it displayed right there in the cell and you have a cursor for editing.

If the cell contained text or numeric data then you can see all the text or the data with a cursor as well.

When you finish your editing simply hit the Enter key to have Excel accept your changes.

Now that you've awaken from your nightmare—Happy Editing!

Office Tip of the Day

Playing The "Shifty Cell" Game

Have you ever found yourself happily working in a large MS Excel worksheet only to discover that you need some cells in the middle of the thing?

You'd add rows or columns, but that will mess with everything else in the worksheet. (You know—data way off yonder in the far reaches of the worksheet will suddenly be displaced causing mass chaos in the middle of your utopia.)

You could highlight just the data that needs to be moved and drag it down (or right, or wherever) but what if there's a lot of data? Isn't it time consuming to do all that highlighting and scrolling?

Well, so much for the "happy working".

Or... maybe not.

Did you know that Excel has the ability to give you empty cells in the middle of data, not just rows and columns?

See how only the one column of data was moved down? (Versus an inserted row which would have moved all data down.)

What it's actually doing is shifting cells either down or right based on choices you make. But the shifting is only for the specific area targeted for the move—not all data universally across a row or column.

The first step is to realize that you need to shift cells.

Now you need to decide how many cells need to be shifted.

Next you must highlight the cells that you need to be blank when this process is over.

Now go to the Insert menu, Cells choice. (You can also use Ctrl + Shift + Plus Sign.)

The Insert window will open giving you the following choices.

As you can see, the top two choices allow you to either shift the cells (and their data contents) right or down.

(The bottom two choices will allow for the usual insert of a column or row—but it's the top two that we're here for today.)

Click on the type of shift you want then click OK. (If you choose to do this part without the mouse then use the arrow keys to move up and down the list, stopping on your choice. Then Tab over to the OK button and hit Enter.)

Poof—your cells and data have been moved.

No fuss, no muss.

There's also a counterpart to this "insert of cells shift" which is considered a delete. It moves cells up or left, which will result in the loss of whatever was in the cells highlighted when the delete process starts.

(Basically the data to the right or below—depends on your choice yet again—will be moved over the selected cells. The data in the selected cells will be overwritten.)

To get to the delete window you can either go to the Edit menu, Delete choice or you can use the key combination of Ctrl + Minus Sign.

Either way you get a window that looks like this

As you can see, it's pretty much the same thing, with the exception of the cell movement directions.

Make your selection and click OK. (Or, the keys from above work with this window too.)

Well, you're all ready to get into the game—that new and amazing Excel game known as the "Shifty Cell Game".

~ April