If you’re like me then when MS Outlook let’s you know that you’ve got a new message you usually see an envelope down in the bottom corner of your taskbar (the system tray).
I happen to have a love/hate relationship with that little envelope.
I love that it let’s me know that a
Having the ability to save your files in PDF format can be an invaluable tool. Let’s face it, if you’re just trying to send someone the information in a file, without them needing the actual file, then a PDF would probably work.
At this point most everyone has Adobe Reader to open them which drastically reduces the chances of the recipient having difficulty getting at the information… Continue reading
You’re working in MS Word and you’ve got a beautiful table. I mean, it’s perfect!
Well, almost perfect.
Unfortunately, for whatever reason, you’ve just come to the conclusion that it really should be two different tables.
Now what?
Are you having copy/paste nightmares?
Or, worse yet, you’re picturing a situation where you’ve got to create… Continue reading
Here’s a handy little trick I stumbled across during my OpenOffice explorations…
When you use the OpenOffice icon to start the programs, you get the main screen where you choose which type of file to work with.
But what if you’re already working on a file in Writer, but also want to start a new Impress file?… Continue reading
If you’re an Excel user who tends to use the Hide feature for columns and rows, then you’ve probably run into this problem a time or two.
When you chose to hide either Column A or Row 1 were you able to get it back?
It can be quite tricky since we usually highlight the column or row on each side of the hidden… Continue reading
Here’s yet another great one for my PowerPoint 2007 users.
Ever have a bulleted or numbered list and wish that you’d thought to put it into SmartArt from the beginning?
Well don’t start kicking yourself for not thinking of it earlier and don’t retype it all into a diagram. In fact, don’t even start with the copy / paste thing… you really don’t need… Continue reading
The other day we looked at a few quick ways to alter the toolbars found in the OpenOffice Suite of programs.
Well today I’d like to take that a bit further… all the way to creating a custom toolbar that contains any combination of commands of your choosing.
If you’ve ever wondered why the programmers didn’t just put a button on your toolbar… Continue reading
Did you know that you can get Excel to rank a set of values… without rearranging the data?
It’s like sorting data without actually sorting.
Basically what we do is tell Excel to compare all the data in the range of cells we designate and then it numbers them in either ascending or descending order (your choice).
For example, maybe you… Continue reading
Now that we’re all spending some time investigating our new “toy” – you’ll have to excuse me, new programs are toys to me since I love to see what I can get them to do!
Anyway, back to what I was saying… now that we’re all investigating OpenOffice I thought that we might want to take a look as how we can tailor it to our individual… Continue reading
Have you ever had some data that needs to be pasted in around some already existing information?
Maybe you have a setup something like this:
Then let’s suppose that you need to produce a report where the commission rate is replaced by the actual commission amount. Unfortunately, in the example above, you just happen to have that calculated… Continue reading
Are you an Outlook 2007 user who misses the color-coded messages you were able to use in older versions of Outlook?
You know… the color coding rules that would actually change the color of the text in your message list based upon the sender?
Well, I don’t know about you but I used it for lots of messages. I found that it really helped… Continue reading
Since we regularly discuss OpenOffice and why you might want to use it, today I thought that it might be a good idea to go over what comes with your free OpenOffice download.
Once you’ve run the setup wizard and launched OpenOffice, you should bump into this:
From this
Many of us know that when you run a slide show with timings (meant to progress automatically based on the timings) you can exit the presentation using the Esc key.
This works great if you’re ready to close it up for the day but not so great if you simply needed to stop it or maybe you need to move back or forward in the presentation…… Continue reading
As many of you may have caught in one of last week’s newsletters, it was announced that this particular portion of Computer Tips is taking on a new look starting today.
If you’ll notice the section is no longer entitled “MS Office Tips” – but instead is now called simply “Office Tips”.
The reason for the change is that now I will be including… Continue reading
When you use Microsoft Outlook do you find yourself moving messages from place to place with the old drag and drop?
For many people that process works just great – but what about all those people who would prefer to use a key combination over the mouse?
Is there any help for them?
Well, of course there is… you just have… Continue reading
How many times have you found that you’ve put very important information buried in the center of an Excel worksheet?
Whatever the information is, it’s important and you need to present it well.
Is it information that can, or maybe should, be presented so that it stands out – font, text size, color, whatever you deem appropriate.
But all… Continue reading
If you’ve ever used MS Publisher then you’ve probably have run across the “phenomena” of linked text boxes.
Not being a regular user of such things you probably don’t know what’s going on when you bump into such things…
Well, it’s just what it sounds like – the boxes are linked and when the first one fills up with text it will overflow into… Continue reading
These days we all have a whole lot of fonts in our computer systems – which is nice on the side of creativity and giving things your own personal touch – but not so nice on the side of changing from font to font.
We’ve all done it… select some text then go to the Font drop-down list and scroll, scroll and scroll some more to get… Continue reading
I’m sure that we all know about the wonders of the format painter in all of the Microsoft Office Programs but did you know that in Excel you can get it to paint more than one format type at a time?
No, probably not – but it’s definitely worth the time to take a look.
How many times have you had multiple formats within… Continue reading
Give a lot of PowerPoint presentations?
Tired of all the click, click, click required to give your presentation?
What about the hassle to move back a step, once you’ve made that extra click?
Do you have a scroll wheel on your mouse?
Yes? Well, good, because I just might have a suggestion you may take a liking to.
While giving a presentation, try scrolling the mouse wheel down.
Scroll… Continue reading
Ever have an Excel column or row that is designed to continually expand with additional data?
Do you have calculations – may a sum or average or whatever – from the set of data?
And when the amount of data increases what do you do with your formulas?
If you’re changing the cell range each time then I know… Continue reading
When using Outlook 2007 do you frequently flag messages?
If so, would you like a one-key way to flag them?
If you’re thinking that this might be a good idea then here’s what you need to know.
– First, select the message(s) to be flagged. (Yes, it works with multiple messages highlighted as well as it does for a… Continue reading
If you’re like me then you use a variety of different signatures in your e-mail… a signature for every occasion or mood?
Well, not exactly that many but one for messages to friends, one for business communications – even a few that are basically a template of text for frequently repeated / similar messages.
But, as we all know, no many how many different… Continue reading
No, this has nothing to do with ribbon dancing or professional present wrapping – Ribbon Hero is actually and add-in for Microsoft Office 2007 that helps to increase your Office proficiency. Office Labs describes it as:
[Ribbon Hero provides] “online training in the nature of tutorials and “how to” demonstrations in the field of business application software; educational services, providing training and educational materials in
By default your e-mail messages are listed with the “From” information before the message subject.
For many people that arrangement is just fine with them – it’s how they operate.
But if you find yourself looking for the subject first then maybe that’s the way you’d like the information listed… with the message subject first.
If this is you then here’s… Continue reading
When you’re highlighting entire rows or columns in MS Excel the program will let you know how many have been selected as you go.
But, have you ever noticed that you can’t get that same information when you’re highlighting a range of cells?
I mean, we often need just a partial row and column and that handy-dandy little counter doesn’t… Continue reading
