Archive for April, 2008

Do you want to pretty up your spreadsheets just a little?  Why not add a picture in the background!  It could be a company logo, a nice relaxing beach landscape or a picture of your kids… whatever it is… it is really simple to add a background image to your spreadsheets in Excel 2007

1. Open up your spreadsheet
2. Click on the “Page Layout” tab on the ribbon menu
3. In the “Page Setup” group, click on the “Background” button
4. Select your image

Simple as that!  Now you have a nice background to complement your hard Excel work!

’till next time!
TNP

Are you like me and tend to write lots and lots in your cells in Excel 2007?  It might be a good idea to make the text wrap.

What does wrapping text mean?  Basically it is where you take one long line of text, and make it "wrap" around onto a number of lines instead.  That way you have a nice readable block of text, instead of the line that goes on forever.

How to you wrap cell text in Excel 2007?  Simple!

1. Select the cell with all the text
2. In the ribbon menu, on the "Home" tab, look for the "Alignment" group
3. Click on the "Wrap Text" button.

’till next time!
TNP

It has happened to the best of us.  Your day is going along great, and then all of a sudden you get an Outlook reminder… a reminder for that meeting you totally forgot about.

Now you just have 15 minutes to salvage something out of nothing and impress the boss/wife/colleague/all of the above.

Don’t want to get caught out again?  Apart from memorising your entire calendar every morning and keeping an eagle eye on you watch (unlikely)… why don’t we just increase the default reminder time.

Its quite simple actually!  In Outlook 2007, all you need to do is:

1. Click on “Tools”
2. Click on “Options”
3. Look on the “Preferences” tab, in the “Calendar” section (second from the top)
4. Select your preferred reminder time from the drop down box.
5. Click ok

If you think you are a hotshot… set the reminder to 0 minutes.  If you are a lost cause, maybe 2 weeks is more appropriate

’till next time!

TNP

Are you like me and need more than 15 minutes to prepare for those meetings you ALWAYS forget about?

Yesterday I told you all about how you can use Merge and Center to get some text to run across a number of columns, rows, or both.

Well Jon Peltier quickly got onto the comments box and let us know about an alternative to Merge and Center in Excel 2007 called "Center Across Selection".  It’s just like merge and centre, but without all the hassles that merging cells cause.

Center Across Selection is a little harder to find than Merge and Center, but in true The New Paperclip tradition… I am going to show you how!

1. Select your text and the cells you want to centre your text over.
2. On the ribbon, make sure you are on the "Home" tab, and then look for the "Alignment" group.
3. Click on the little square with the arrow in the bottom right hand corner of the "Alignment" group.
4. In the "Format Cells" box that appears, look for the "Horizontal" drop down box
5. Select "Center Across Selection"
6. Click "ok"
7. Look in amazement at your perfectly centered text

How easy is that!  Thanks again Jon for the heads up!

’till next time!

TNP

Wonder how your favourite accountant/analyst/spreadsheet guru makes those cool looking headings that go across a number of columns and rows?

Chances are they are using a great feature of Excel 2007 called "Merge and Center".  What does merge and center do?  Exactly that – it merges all the cells you have selected, and then centres the text!

So how do you do it?

1. Select the cells you want to merge
2. In the ribbon menu (the one at the top) make sure you are on the "Home" tab, and then look in the "Alignment" section
3. Select "Merge & Center"

Simple as that!

Have you selected multiple rows?  Well you will notice that whilst the text will be horizontally centered… it will not be vertically centered.  How do you fix that?  Just near the "Merge & Center" button in the menu there are three buttons.  One that has lines at the top, one that has lines in the middle, and one that has lines at the bottom (the one with lines at the bottom will be selected).  Select the one with the lines in the middle – that will center the vertical alignment of your selection.

’till next time!

TNP

Want to be a desktop publishing great, spreadsheeting wiz or PowerPoint guru and help the environment at the same time?

Guess what – you might be already!

Microsoft have released an extra section on Microsoft Office Online called Lighten up: Reduce your carbon footprint and workplace costs.

Obviously they left one tip for reducing your impact on the environment… instead of investing in all those Office 2007 self help books, why not just bookmark your favourite Office 2007 help, tips, tricks and tutorial site!

’till next time!

TNP

Have you ever noticed if you select some text in Microsoft Excel 2007 you get a little pop-up menu.  You know the one, it lets you change the font, the font size, the font colour and a lot more.

Some people think it is great.  Some people think it is annoying.

I think it is great, but as a service to you, I will let you know how to turn it off, and stop it from popping up!

1. Click on the menu – the “Office Orb” (that circle in the top left hand corner which used to be the file menu!)
2. Click on “Excel Options”
3. Look in the “Popular section”, under “Top options for working with Excel
4. Untick the “Show Mini Toolbar on selection” checkbox
5. Hit ok

There you go – no more annoying (not) popup mini menu in Excel 2007

’till next time!

TNP

Have you ever poured your heart and soul into absolutely awesome background in your word doc?  Maybe you coloured it bright yellow, or purple, or ‘mother of pearl’? 

It looks great on the screen, but when you print it… you can’t see it!

Did you know by default Microsoft Word 2007 that background colors and images are not printed?

It is easy to print them out though.  Here is how:

1. Open the file menu (the circle in the top left hand corner of the screen
2. Click on "Word Options"
3. Click on "Display" in the left hand menu
4. Look in the "Printing options" section"
5. Tick the "Print background colors and images" check box
6. Click ok

How easy!  Just a word of warning though… printing a bright yellow background on every page will not only cost you an arm and a leg in ink and toner, but will also require you and your colleagues to invest in sunglasses.

’till next time!

TNP

How many times have you lost everything in your document?  Word crashed?  Maybe the power went out?  Whatever it was that happened… I bet it happened just before you were going to save, right?

By default, Word 2007 makes an Auto Recover save every 10 minutes.  But if you are clumsy like me, or don’t trust your computer… you can set Word to autosave your document a lot more than normal.  Here is how:

1. Click on the old file menu (the office orb)
2. Click on "Word Options"
3. Click on the "Save" option in the left hand menu
4. In the first section "Save Documents", look for the second line which reads something like "Save AutoRecover information every XX minutes
5. Set your preferred time.  Mine is now every 1 minute

Just remember when increasing the AutoRecover frequency… that you do see a slight performance hit every time it saves.  Not really noticeable every 10 minutes, but when it happens every 60 seconds it could be annoying!

’till next time!

TNP

Have you ever noticed if you select some text in Microsoft Word 2007 you get a little pop-up menu.  You know the one, it lets you change the font, the font size, the font colour and a lot more.

Some people think it is great.  Some people think it is annoying.

I think it is great, but as a service to you, I will let you know how to turn it off, and stop it from popping up!

1. Click on the menu – the “Office Orb” (that circle in the top left hand corner which used to be the file menu!)
2. Click on “Word Options”
3. Look in the “Popular section”, under “Top options for working with Word
4. Untick the “Show Mini Toolbar on selection” checkbox
5. Hit ok

There you go – no more annoying (not) popup mini menu in Word 2007

’till next time

TNP