Archive for the ‘Office’ Category

Office Tip: Macros

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

Macros allow you to automate something that you do often, and may require many steps to accomplish. Recording macros is a fairly simple process, but sometimes errors occur.  There may be times when someone else has created (or programmed) a macro in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) but didn’t thoroughly test it. If you run a macro and it gets stuck, or loops endlessly, press CTRL + BREAK and you’ll be able to enter the Visual Basic Editor and step through the remaining steps of the macro (or just exit!)

This tip will work for macros created in all Microsoft Office programs.

To learn more great tips, attend one of our many Microsoft Office classes.  We’ll hold a seat just for you!

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Office 2010 Tip: Screen Shots

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

Microsoft Office 2010 was released to big businesses 2 weeks ago, and should be available to all by June, 2010.  Many people have been using the beta version, and one of the neatest new features is the SCREENSHOT tool.

In Word, Excel and PowerPoint, there is now a button that allows you to easily insert a screen shot into your document. When you click the button, you will see all the open windows and have the ability to choose which window you want to insert.  Even better, you can create a clipping from that window to insert into your document (so you can choose a small portion of the screen.)

When the screenshot is inserted into a document, it becomes a graphic file.  You can format, add shapes and annotations, and text boxes onto the graphic.  This tool will make screenshots much easier to add instead of using the Print Screen function.

To learn more tips and tricks for Microsoft Office, attend one of our classes!  We look forward to helping you be more productive.

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Office Tip: Smart Art Customization

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Smart Art has been a great addition to the Microsoft Office suite in 2007.  It allows you to create complex and great-looking graphics to represent organizational charts, processes, lists and more. Sometimes, though, you want to add more information to the graphic and you might think you are limited to the Smart Art as it is presented.

The most common addition is adding a callout graphic to add a note to one of the pieces in your Smart Art graphic. In both Word and Excel, you will go to the INSERT tab, and then choose SHAPES in the ILLUSTRATIONS group. You will find a CALLOUT graphic, or any other shape you may want to add. Move the shape where you need it, and then add your text.

In Microsoft PowerPoint, you will find the CALLOUT graphics on the HOME tab, in the DRAWING group.

If you want to learn more ways to use Microsoft Office to increase your productivity and skill levels, please consider taking a class! We look forward to teaching you some of the tricks we know.

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Office Tip: Language Packs

Tuesday, April 20th, 2010

One of the frustrations of multi-lingual people using Microsoft Office has been the difficulty of having spell-check and other features in a language other than the installed language.  Microsoft offers FREE Language Interface Packs in a variety of languages to download, which gets rid of this frustration.

To check out the languages offered, visit this link. The Language Packs work in Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook for both Office 2003 and Office 2007.

For more tips and tricks on using Microsoft Office to the best advantage, take a class with us! We look forward to seeing you soon.

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Office 2010 Beta Version

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

2010Are you curious about what Microsoft has done to Office for the 2010 release? They are offering a free beta download for users to check out what’s new in 2010.  You can find the download at the Microsoft website.

If you decide to download and use the Beta version, you will be able to use it for free until October 2010.  After that time, you will have to purchase a license or it will stop working. If you’re not sure about changing from 2007, you can download it and run it on the same machine as Office 2007.

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced the pricing structure for Microsoft Office 2010.  There will be 4 versions, ranging in price from $99 to $499.

You can be assured that when Office 2010 is officially released, we’ll offer classes to get you up to speed on all the new features!

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Office Tip: Format Painter

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Have you noticed that small paintbrush on your formatting toolbar (Office 2003) or the Ribbon  (Office 2007)? As an instructor, I’ve found that most people ignore it, or don’t even notice it, because they don’t know what it does.

That little paintbrush is called FORMAT PAINTER.  It’s an extremely useful formatting tool that cuts down on formatting time as you work in any Office document (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher.)

Format any selection of text. Select that text and click the FORMAT PAINTER once and your cursor turns into a small paintbrush. You can now select a new chunk of text and the same formatting will be applied.  Once you click off the text, the paintbrush goes away and you can continue working on your document.

This is useful if you’ve applied bold, underline, and a new font.  Instead of choosing all 3 of those options again, you need to only choose the FORMAT PAINTER.

If you want to apply certain formatting to more than one selection, double-click the FORMAT PAINTER. Your cursor will remain a paintbrush and allow you to change the formatting to as many different areas as necessary. When you are done formatting, click the FORMAT PAINTER button again.

For more tips to help you be more productive, attend any of our Microsoft Office classes! All of our instructors love to help you learn all the tips and tricks!

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Microsoft Office 2003 to 2007

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

All of our public classes are taught in Microsoft Office 2007, and we do our best to help those who have recently transitioned to the upgrade.  I’ve been using word processors and spreadsheets with drop-down menus for almost 20 years, so the Ribbon took some time to become comfortable. I knew how to do everything from the drop-down menus, but once I learned the Ribbon, I learned to like it.

Microsoft knows that there have been major changes with how users interact with Office 2007, and they want to help make it easier.  At their website, they offer interactive guides to help you figure out how to do everything in 2007 that you did in 2003.  Using their online guides, you can enter a question (for example – how do I import data into Excel from an external source?) and it will show you how it was done in Microsoft Excel 2003, and then how to do the exact same thing in Microsoft Excel 2007!

These guides are available for all software packages in Office, except Publisher.

We’d love the chance to show you around Office 2007 in person, though! Attend any of our Microsoft classes for personalized and in-person instruction.

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Office 2010: What to Expect?

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Sometime in 2010, Microsoft will release Office 2010!  This news may encourage some users to upgrade to 2007, or they may decide to wait until 2010 hits the shelves.  No matter what version of Office you’re currently using, there are some great new features that will be available in Office 2010.

What can you expect in Office 2010?  While much of it will look the same, they have added the Ribbon to Outlook, Publisher, Visio and Project!  Each piece of the suite will now have a similar look and feel. Users will also be able to customize the Ribbon to make it more efficient for individual needs.

For users that loved the improvements to Pivot Tables in 2007, they will be excited at the upgrades for Pivot Tables in 2010.  Not only are there more features, but they have added Slices — which makes Pivot Tables even more useful and user-friendly.

Feel free to visit Microsoft’s website and watch short videos about the changes in Office 2010.  And, then plan to come in for some training so you can learn all the new tips & tricks next year!

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