Archive for March, 2009

Hey do you remember how awfully slow searching for emails was in old versions of Outlook? 

Well thank you to the folk at Microsoft who fixed this up and gave us a far superior search feature!  But are you getting the most out of Outlook 2007 search?

Obviously you can do a standard basic search for keywords in your emails, and that works quite well.  But did you know you can get quite granular with your search and find the email you are looking for much quicker?

For example, it is quite simple to search for emails that are from your boss that had the subject “Payrise” in them – and get the results very quickly without having to scroll through dozens if not hundreds of results.

So with that in mind, I thought I would run through some of the different search criteria you can use to get the most out of search in Outlook 2007.  I can’t go through every single possible search query, but you will get the idea.  Just remember that you can combine any of the searches below, and include keywords at the end to really target the email you are after.

Search for emails from an individual

Simply type “from:insert name or email address here” and that will return all the emails from that person.

For example – from:bill, or from:bill@abc.com, or from:"Bill Smith"

Search for emails sent to an individual

Simply type “to:insert name or email address here” and that will return all the emails sent to that person

For example – to:bill, or to:bill@abc.com, or to:"Bill Smith"

Search for emails received in the last x number of days

Simply type “received:timeframe" and that will return all the emails in that particular timeframe

For example – received:yesterday, or received:last week, or received:this year

Search for emails with a particular subject line

Simply type “subject:subject line” and that will return all the emails with include that subject line

For example – subject:payrise, or subject:(leave application), or subject:(lunch on thursday)

Search for emails with particular words in the body

Simply type “body:keyword” and that will return all the emails that include that keyword in the body of the email

For example – body:payrise

There are plenty of other search criteria you can use… here is a list:

• If the email has been read
• If the email has an attachment
• Who was BCC’d on the email
• Who was CC’d on the email
• What categories the email was placed in
• The due date for any follow up on the email
• The importance of the email
• The flag status of the email
• What folder the email is in
• What size the email is
• When the email was last modified
• What sensitivity level the email has
• When it was sent
• When the start date of the email follow up is

So there you have it, a quick introduction to the possibilities with Outlook 2007 search.  Now you can be confident that you will always be able to find emails when you need them!

‘till next time!
TNP

I thought I would spend some time today checking out some of the other Office 2007 help/tutorial sites out there.  There are quit a few good ones, and in the interest of helping you get the most out of your Word 2007 experience, I thought I will publish a list of my favorite ones!

Now of course, you will find the best Word 2007 tutorials (if I do say so myself) here at TheNewPaperclip.com… but if you want a bit of variety… check out a few of these guys!

Microsoft Office Online – Word 2007 Courses (Microsoft.com)

There are 27 courses here, each ranging from 20-50 minutes on a wide range of Word 2007 topics.  And this is straight from the horses mouth at Microsoft!

Microsoft Word 2007 Tutorial – Free & Online (BayconGroup.com)

Full of practical exercises, this beginners tutorial is broken into five lessons so you can learn at your own pace!

Microsoft Word 2007 In Pictures (InPics.net)

This is a great visual tutorial that explains exactly how to get up to speed with the basics in Word 2007 – highly recommended!

Microsoft Word 2007 Tutorials (Word07.com)

Fairly comprehensive list of topics covering most of what you would want to know about Word 2007.

So there you have it – a quick selection of some of the best Word 2007 tutorials out there. 

And remember, if you want Word 2007 tips delivered to your inbox regularly, make sure you subscribe to the Office 2007 newsletter!

‘till next time!
TNP

We all know how handy track changes is in Word 2007… but did you know you can track changes in Excel 2007 as well?

I bet you didn’t!

It is just as easy to use as in Word… here is how!

1) Make sure you are on the “Review” tab on the Ribbon in Excel 2007

2) Look for the “Changes” group (should be the one on the far right hand side)

3) Click on “Track Changes”

4) Click on “Highlight Changes”

5) Check “Track changes while editing.  This also shares your workbook.”

6) Select what you want highlighted

7) Click OK

Once you have plenty of changes highlighted, just go back to the “Track Changes” button and click “Accept/Reject Changes”

Now you can really keep track of things in Excel 2007!

‘till next time!
TNP

Did you know that you can add a footer to each and every slide in your PowerPoint 2007 deck?  It is easier than you think.

There are three areas at the bottom of each slide that the default master slide (think of it is the master layout for your PowerPoint slides) sets aside so you can add footer information to each of your slides.  Information like, the date, the slide number, and the title of your presentation

To add a footer to your PowerPoint presentation, simply:

1) Make sure you are on the “Insert” tab in the Ribbon

2) Look for the “Text” group

3) Click on “Header & Footer”

4) In the Header and Footer box that appears, select what you want to include on the slide. 

5) Click “Apply”, to apply to the current, single slide, or click “Apply to All” to apply to every slide in your presentation

There you have it – PowerPoint footers the easy way!

‘till next time!
TNP

Has this ever happened to you?  You start working on your masterpiece in Word 2007, and then you send the document out to a number of people for their feedback.

They all add their two cents (some add twenty!) and then email the document back to you.

But now you are stuck in a dilemma… how do you quickly merge all those changes together into one document, without having to read each line and try to understand what they changed.

Well there is a great feature in Word 2007 called “Combine”.  You can use it to simply combine to documents, and see all the differences between the two documents.  You can track what has been inserted, what has been deleted, what has been moved, any formatting changes, and see any comments they made.

But that isn’t the best part.  It also creates a new combined document without losing the original and revised document.

So how do you do it?

1) Make sure you are on the “Review” tab in the Ribbon

2) Look for the “Compare” group

3) Click on the little arrow below the “Compare” button

4) Click “Combine”

5) Select your “Original Document” and your “Revised Document”

6) Click OK

7) Check out your brand new combined Word 2007 document!

How easy is that!

‘till next time!
TNP

For all those Visio lovers out there, then you should already know about the Microsoft Visio Toolbox.  If not, you seriously can’t call yourself a Visio lover!

The Visio Toolbox is a collection of articles, case studies, and most importantly add-ins for Visio 2007.

So if you are looking for justification for your boss to upgrade to Visio 2007, articles on interesting topics such as “Silverlight and Visio”, or add-ins such as the Rack Server Virtualization Add-In, the Disk Space Monitoring Add-in, or the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Visio Add-in… then you need to check out the Microsoft Visio Toolbox!

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you HATE Tahoma?  Would you prefer something that suits your style?  Like a classy Georgia?  Or a disturbed Comic Sans MS?

Well it is really simple to change the default font in Office Communicator 2007.

1) Click on the big “Status Indicator” in the top left hand corner of your Office Communicator 2007 window

2) Click on “Options”

3) Select the “General” tab in the options box that appears

4) In the “Instance message settings section, click on “Change Font…”

5) Select your favourite font

6) Click OK twice to close all the dialog boxes

There you go… now your instant message conversations in Office Communicator 2007 will match your personal style… or as the marketing gurus say… your personal “brand”.

‘till next time!
TNP

Are you building a gem of a spreadsheet, but feel that it would look much better if it didn’t have those lines in between all the cells?

Well those lines are called “Gridlines” and they are really easy to turn on and off

To hide gridlines in Excel 2007:

• Make sure you are on the “View” tab in the Ribbon
• Look for the “Show/Hide” group
• Click on “Gridlines” checkbox, which will make the tick (and the gridlines) disappear

To show gridlines in Excel 2007:

• Do the same as above, but just make sure that you check the checkbox!

Simple as that!

‘till next time!
TNP

Are you a traditionalist who hates Graphical Interfaces.  Do you love WordPerfect classic mode, or run Vim at home, but have to use Word 2007 in the office?

Or do you just want to focus on writing, and none of that formatting stuff that an editor can deal with for you?

Well you might be surprised to know that you can very quickly set up Word 2007 to get rid of the Ribbon, get rid of the status bar, and change the colours to a classic monochrome green with a black background!

Bet you didn’t know that!

Well our friends over at the Microsoft Office Word Team Blog have described exactly how to set up Word 2007 in a quasi-classic mode!  You can read more about it in their post called Word Throwback “Just Write” Edition… which was coincidentally inspired by one of my favourite authors and bloggers, Tim Ferriss.

How cool is that!  Takes me back to 1989!

‘till next time!
TNP

Are you a hardcore spreadsheet king?  The number cruncher?  On the Accounting A-team?

Then chances are… your spelling is… well… not very good at all!

Luckily Excel has a spell checking feature that will stop people from noticing your spelling mistakes!

1) Click on the “Review” tab in the Ribbon

2) Click on “Spelling”

or alternatively just use the “F7” keyboard shortcut!

‘till next time!
TNP