When you create a PowerPoint presentation do you almost always use the same design theme? Maybe one with your company logo or one that simply has elements you use a lot?
If this is you then you’ve got to be tired of going to the Design tab the moment you start work on a new presentation only to choose the same theme every time.… Continue reading
How often do you find yourself squinting while using MS PowerPoint’s slide sorter view? (I know that when I’ve got some major slide rearrangement to do it’s my view of choice.)
Those slides can be pretty tiny and if they resemble each other too much, it gets even harder to distinguish one from the other.
Looking for an easy way to make the thumbnails… Continue reading
Do you use a lot of bulleted lists in MS PowerPoint? I bet if you’re a big PowerPoint user, they are a part of your daily life, right?
I’d even bet that somewhere along the way, you’ve had a list where individual items had sub-points below them.
For those sub-points, we need to indent them further than the main list and usually, the bullet… Continue reading
Do a lot of work with lists in MS Word, Outlook or PowerPoint?
I’m quite positive that you already know that you can start a numbered list by simply typing “1.” or “1)” then hit the tab or space key. Word takes over from there and you’re on your way.
But, what about the times when you need a bulleted list?… Continue reading
Are you an MS PowerPoint user who frequently uses the Slide Master or Handout Master?
What about the Set Up Show dialog box?
Are you tired of all the menu searching you have to do to get where you need to be?
Some of you may have solved your problem by adding more buttons to your already crowded program window. This… Continue reading
Ever combine a couple of lists in MS Word?
You know… where you copy and paste one list onto the bottom of another?
Were they formatted the same way to begin with?
Probably not so, I must ask, when you finished did you sit there and wonder who decided what formatting to apply to the combined list?
So, if you’re like me then when you started working with Office 2007 and found that you couldn’t customize the Ribbon you were a bit frustrated.
After all, in previous version we could add and remove individual toolbar button, create custom menus, rearrange the menus as well as the items on them… heck, we could even change the icons on the toolbar buttons.
But… Continue reading
Ever have a need to bring text from one Word file into another? Maybe, whatever the reason, you need a bulk of the text from one file brought into this one.
What do you do?
The obvious answer is to open the other file, highlight and copy the text needed, switch back to the document you’re working with, paste the text and then finally… Continue reading
So, the other day, I was sitting next to my sister as she worked on creating a new page of address labels. She was looking to have an entire page of the same address, which is a pretty common thing.
As we were talking, I’m watching what she’s doing. She types the new address in the first label, copies it and then individually pastes it… Continue reading
If you’re like me, you don’t really mind the automatic numbering and bulleting MS Word does with lists.
You know, when Word realizes you’re creating a list and it helps you along with the same continued formatting.
But, after working with many different people, I have found that some folks just don’t seem to know how to get out of the list. That is… Continue reading
Not too long ago, I got an e-mail from a reader who needed to know the keyboard shortcuts for the current date and time in MS Word.
Since these are always handy tidbits to know, I thought it would make a quick and useful wrap-up to the week!
In MS Word:
Alt + Shift + D will insert the current date… Continue reading
Ever open a PowerPoint presentation from someone else only to find yourself looking at way too much information?
You’ve got the thumbnails, the notes and the slide.
Or, maybe you’re looking at the slide and the outline… too bad you don’t like the outline and prefer the thumbnails. So, where are they?
Well, you could go through the hassle of resetting… Continue reading
If you’re a big users of the Navigation Pane in MS Outlook then you may have, at one time or another, wished that they had consulted you about the order of the buttons.
I’m sure that we all use the Mail button the most but right after that you’ll find the Calendar, then Contacts, Tasks and so on…
But what if that order isn’t… Continue reading
Do you use MS Outlook for e-mail?
Ever notice that as you type in an address to send an e-mail, a short AutoComplete list of recently used addresses is displayed?
Now, my question is, have you ever accidentally sent an e-mail to a bad address and then later, you’ve seen that same bad address on the AutoComplete list over and over again?… Continue reading
Often I find myself working with a table in MS Word and trying to number each row… whether it be that I’m creating an answer sheet of some sort for my students or just a table of data where I need the entries numbered.
It seems that I’m forever typing 1, down arrow, 2, down arrow, 3, down arrow… and on and on and on…… Continue reading
Are you an Outlook user who finds yourself frequently navigating through the folder list?
Or, maybe you spend a lot of time clicking in the Navigation Pane, jumping from place to place.
You may even know the basic shortcuts for jumping to the Inbox (Ctrl + Shift + I) and the Outbox (Ctrl + Shift + O), but what about the rest of the… Continue reading
If you’re like me then you have multiple programs continually running and the task bar gets pretty full, pretty fast.
After a while there’s so much going on that it feels a bit overwhelming.
Well, here’s an Outlook trick that can help with that particular feeling.
I’m sure you’ve noticed the Outlook icon in the Windows notification area of… Continue reading
When you decide that you actually need a hard copy of an e-mail message what do you do?
Do you open the message then go hunting for a print button?
Or, maybe you use the old Ctrl + P then deal with the Print dialog box…
Both work very well but if you were ready to shoot the message straight to… Continue reading
When you put together your PowerPoint presentations do you find that you’re bored with the same old bulleted list time after time?
Well, if you’re bored then you’ve got to wonder if the audience is tired of seeing information presented that way too…
So, even if it’s to battle our own lack of enthusiasm for the never ending bulleted lists of information… Continue reading
Do you like the Format Painter in MS Word and MS PowerPoint?
Do you find it frustrating that when you forget to double click the button, it shuts off after just one paste?
Or, have you ever tried to interrupt the process of format painting by editing some text, only to find that the program has “forgotten” the formatting you intended to paint once… Continue reading
Work with MS Word tables?
Ever try to remove cells, rows or columns by highlighting them and then hitting the Delete key?
What happened?
Certainly not what you had hoped for, I’m sure. Instead of deleting the cells, only the data is gone.
Now what?
Well, I suppose you could rehighlight the cells… Continue reading
If you’re like me, there are just times when you need random text inserted into MS Word for demonstrations or just for testing the effects of different features in the program.
Whatever your reason, you need text and just typing random letters usually doesn’t behave like true text. Character strings tend to be too long so wrapping and other things just don’t work as they should… Continue reading
Here’s quick tip for my frustrated Excel users who find themselves constantly dragging the fill handle around for information duplication only to discover that they dropped it either too soon or too late.
I don’t know about you – but I hate that!
You either repeat your work by using the fill handle to fill in the space you didn’t fill when you dropped… Continue reading
Ever find yourself running a spell check on a document, slide or email only to notice a different error nearby… one that Spell Check isn’t going to help you fix?
What did you do?
Most people believe that they have two options:
#1 Stop the spell check, fix the error and then restart the spell check.
#2 Try to remember (or write… Continue reading
Ever wonder what the difference was between these ways to remove information from your document, presentation, worksheet or whatever?
For that matter, is there a difference?
I mean, really, when I use Ctrl + x (cut) or the delete key or the backspace key I get the same result… the information is gone.
Well, while you may not realize it there… Continue reading
Ctrl + Shift + > : Increases the selected text’s font size to the next one on the font size list (except in Excel).
Ctrl + Shift + < : Decreases the selected text’s font size to the previous one on the font size list (except in Excel).
Ctrl + ] : Increases the selected text’s font size by 1 point (except in Excel).
Ctrl + [… Continue reading
Ctrl + Shift + C : Copies only formatting.
Ctrl + Shift + V : Pastes only formatting.
Ctrl + Spacebar : Removes formatting of selected text
(except in Excel).
Word:
Home : Moves cursor to the beginning of the current line.
Ctrl + Home : Moves cursor to the beginning of the document.
End : Moves cursor to the end of… Continue reading
