Archive for June, 2007

When you are writing a document, you need to make it easy to read.  Professional writers sometimes talk about things called “Entry Points”…  points where a reader can quickly and easily start reading your document and pick up what you are trying to say.

Bullet points do exactly that!

Bullet points allow you to quickly structure information so your audience can easily interpret exactly what you are going on about!

So how do you use bullets in Word 2007?

1. Select the text you want to apply bullets to (you can do this by clicking and dragging across the text you want)
2. On the “Home” tab of the ribbon, look for the “Paragraph” group
3. In the top left hand corner of the paragraph group, you will find a button that looks like three lines with bullets.  Click on it

   

That’s the easy way to use bullets in your document.  But what if you don’t want to use the standard black dot bullet?  Maybe you want to use something with a little more flair?

How to use custom bullets in Word 2007…

1. Again, select the test you want to apply bullets to, then find the bullets button in the “Paragraph” group on the “Home” tab of the ribbon
2. Instead of clicking on the bullets button, click on the little down arrow beside it.  This will display a library of different bullets you can use.  Feel free to use any of those, or….
3. Click on “Define New Bullet…”.  This will allow you to create any bullet you like, whether it be based on a letter, a number,any character out of any font you have installed on your computer, or even any picture that you have on your computer!!!
4. Select the style of bullet that you want… then click ok.

There you have it… the quick and easy way to include bullets in your Word 2007 document!

’till next time,
TNP

Do you have a message that you want to send to multiple contacts, but you don’t want to do the old BCC trick?  Better yet… do you want to actually personalise the message for each recipient? 

Instead of “Hi all”, what about “Hi Bill”, “Hi Jane” etc?

You can, with email merge in Word 2007.

Email merge works exactly the same as a standard mail merge… except for one big difference.  Instead of printing individual letters or envelopes or labels… Word 2007 will generate individual emails, send them to your Outlook 2007 outbox, and then when you are next online in Outlook, Outlook will send each your personalised emails to each addressee.

Kicking off a email merge in Word 2007 is easy.

1. Open up Word 2007
2. Type your email in Word 2007
3. Click on the “Mailings” tab in the ribbon
4. In the “Start Mail Merge” grouping, click on the “Start Mail Merge” button.  It will show a list of mail merge options available.  You can choose Letters, E-Mail Messages, Envelopes, Labels or Directory.  In this case as we want to send an email… click on “E-Mail Messages”
   
5. Next you need to select the recipients of your email merge.  These names could come from any number or sources… maybe an Excel 2007 spreadsheet?  maybe your Outlook 2007 Contacts… or you could just type them yourself.  

   To do that, click on the “Select Recipients” box in the “Start Mail Merge” group.  Either find your data source, your outlook contacts, or create a new list.

6. If you want to edit any of the recipients in the list, now is the time to click on “Edit Recipient List” in the “Start Mail Merge” group.
7. The next step is to add the appropriate fields to personalise the greeting, the recipients name, or to add any other piece of data you might have on the contact anywhere throughout your recipient list.  

   You can find the appropriate fields in the “Write & Insert Fields” group (still on the “Mailings” tab).

   More than likely you will want to add at least a greeting line (Dear Bill… or something like that).  To do that click on the “Greeting Line” button in the “Write & Insert Fields” group.  The following dialog box appears
   

8. Once you are happy with your greeting line format, click “OK”.  Word 2007 will now drop the field into your document.
9. Now you can preview your results to ensure that everyone’s name is coming up correctly.  Click the “Preview Results” button in the “Preview Results” group… then use the forward and back arrows beside it to run through your recipient list.
10. If you are happy with the preview, not is the time to finish things off and compete the merge.  In the “Finish” group on the “Mailings tab” you will see a button called “Finish & Merge”.  Click on it, and then click “Send E-mail Messages…” 

    

11. Now Word 2007 automatically generates all the individual emails, and sends them to your Outlook 2007 outbox (or your default email client).
12. Open up Outlook or your email client, and watch all your emails be sent!

So there you have it… your 12 step guide to Email Merge in Word 2007!

’till next time,
TNP

If you are like me… you always click send… and then realise just before the email disappears that there is a huge spelling mistake right in the middle of your email.  Don’t you just hate that!  I have been caught out so many times… if only there was a way to automatically spell check all my outgoing email so I can get away with being forgetful!

The good news is that there is a way to automatically spell check your email when you send it in Outlook 2007.

1. Go to the menu and click “Tools”, and then “Options”
2. Click on the “Spelling” tab
3. Check the box beside “Always check spelling before sending”

Too easy… now you will not look like an idiot for all those spelling mistakes in that email you sent to your boss!

’till next time
TNP

Here is a quick way to control how the pop up email notification (you might know it as the desktop alert, or toast) acts and looks in Outlook 2007.

1. Got to Tools, then Options in the menu
2. On the preferences tab, in the E-mail section click on the “E-mail Options…” button
3. Then click on the “Advanced E-mail Options…” button
4. Then click on the “Desktop Alert Settings…” button

From this window you can control how long your Desktop Alerts appear for, and how transparent they are.

By default, your email notification/popup/desktop alert/toast will appear for 7 seconds.  The minimum you can set this to is 3 seconds, the maximum is 30 seconds.

As for transparency, the default is 20%.  It can be solid (0%) or can go to a maximum of 80% transparency.  Any more and you couldn’t see it!

If you don’t want desktop alerts at all… read about how you can turn them off in an earlier article I wrote – How to turn on or off new email notifications in Outlook 2007

’till next time
TNP

Some people like them… some people hate them.  That’s right, we are talking about new email notifications.  It doesn’t matter what you call them… the popup thing in the bottom right hand corner… the envelope down the bottom beside the time… the toast… some people love them, and some people hate them.

How to turn on or off email notifications in Outlook 2007

1. In the menu, click on Tools, then Options.
2. On the preferences tab, in the E-mail section, click on the “E-mail Options…” button
3. Click on the “Advanced E-mail Options…” button
4. Look for the “When new items arrive in my Inbox” area…
5. Tick or untick all the notifications you want to receive.

Note that there are four notifications that Outlook can give you when you receive an email in your Inbox

• Play a sound
• Briefly change the mouse cursor
• Show an envelope icon in the notification area
• Display a New Mail Desktop Alert (default Inbox only)

From the Advanced E-mail Options window, you can control each of these as you wish.  Now you wont get distracted by email when you want to be productive… or you know how to turn the notifications back on if you don’t feel like doing any work!

’till next time
TNP