MS Office 101

Printing The Grid

Along the same lines as Tuesday's 101 tip pertaining to displaying gridlines, I think it might be a good idea to discuss printing gridlines.

I mean, it seems inevitable, whatever you're system is trying to print (gridlines or no gridlines) you'll want to do the exact opposite.

The question is where are the controls to these things? You just have to know that cell bordering is not the most efficient solution!

The magic of gridlines is found in the Page Setup, so let's get there.

Page Setup can be found in the File menu.

Once the Page Setup window is open, you're looking for the Sheet tab.

Now that you've found the place, printing the gridlines is accomplished by checking the Gridlines box located in the Print section. The reverse is also true, uncheck the box to prevent the gridlines from printing.

Click OK.

And that's it!

To print the grid or not to print the grid—it's all up to you.

Office Tip of the Day

What's This?

Have you ever found yourself asking the computer "What's this?" only to hear absolutely nothing in response?

I know I've certainly run into situations where I needed a quick and easy answer—preferably one that doesn't require me to come up with a keyword for the office assistant.

Good news! There's more help than you may have realized built right into the MS Office Suite.

Next time you're looking for a quick explanation of a button or element of a window give the "What's This?" option a try.

"What's This?" is located in the Help menu.

When you choose it from the menu (or use Shift + F1) your mouse pointer will change. It will now have a question mark with it—like this.

Take the pointer and move it to the item you need help with.

Click on the item.

Instantly an information window will open.

When you're done with the information click anywhere to close it.

Well, that's fine and dandy for everything within the usual program window—but what about when you have another window open, like the Customize window—the Help menu is useless then.

Now what?

Fear not! "What's This?" is built into those windows as well.

Believe it or not, you can get to it three ways within one of these windows.

The first way is the little question mark to the left of the closing X in the window title bar.

Click on the question mark and then click on the item you for which you need information.

Your information bubble will open—same as it did with the Help menu's "What's This?".

The second way is to right click on the item.

A pop-up menu will appear with only one item: What's This?.

Choose it and you're on your way.

The third way is to place your mouse pointer over the item you need help with and use Shift + F1.

The information pops open immediately opens—no further clicks required.

Any way you choose to do it, this is a great little trick that provides quick information while still avoiding keyword searches.

~ April