Archive for April, 2009

Don’t you hate when you print your spreadsheet, and one or two columns end up going over onto a second page?  It happens to me ALL THE TIME!

But there is a way to save you from stressing, and save the environment at the same time

There is a page setup option in Excel 2007 which you can use to fit your spreadsheet onto a single page (or onto a particular number of pages that you set!)

Here is how:

1) Click on the “Page Layout” tab in the Ribbon

2) Look for the “Page Setup” group, and click on the little square with the arrow pointing out of it in the bottom right hand corner

3) In the “Page Setup” box that appears, look in the “Scaling” section, and select “Fit to:”

4) By default, it will be set to one page wide by one page tall.  Select how many pages wide or tall you want your spreadsheet to be printed as.

5) Click “Print Preview” if you want to take a look at what the scaled or up version of your spreadsheet will look like, and if you are happy with it – click “Print”!

6) Click “OK” to close the Page Setup box

‘till next time!
TNP

Are you lazy like me and hate typing dates?  Well did you know you can add one of those cool calendar style date pickers to your Word 2007 document?

It is pretty easy:

1) Make sure you can see the “Developer” tab in the Ribbon.  If you can’t, click on the Office menu (you know… the old file menu) in the top left hand corner of Word 2007, then click on “Word Options”.  Then simply check the third checkbox “Show Developer tab in the Ribbon”

2) Click on the “Developer” tab in the Ribbon

3) Look for the “Controls Group”

4) Click on the icon that looks like a tiny calendar (should be the second icon on the second row)

5) Click on the control that now has been added to your document, and select your favourite date!

‘till next time!
TNP

Page up and page down are great tools to quickly move through your Word 2007 document.  But they are not that precise.  Wouldn’t it be good if you could browse by things that matter in your document – like all the headings, or the tables, or the graphics?

Well you can!

In fact you can browse by all of the following:

• Fields
• Endnotes
• Footnotes
• Edits
• Headings
• Comments
• Sections
• Graphics
• Tables
• and of course, the default – Pages

… simply by using CTRL + PgUP (Page Up), and CTRL + PgDn (Page Down) – or the up and down arrows in the bottom right hand corner of your Word 2007 window

So how do you set which thing you want to browse by?  There are two ways:

1) Click on the “dot” in the bottom right hand corner of your Word 2007 window (the dot in between the two up and down arrows) – and then select what you want to browse by

or…

2) Use the shortcut “ALT + CTRL + HOME” and then select your preference

So for example, say you select “Browse by Heading”, every time you press CTRL + PgDn, the cursor will move to the next heading.  Likewise if you selected “Browse by Table”, every time you press CTRL + PgUp, the cursor will move to the previous table.

This can be a very powerful tool to use, especially if you are editing or reviewing your document!

‘till next time!
TNP

Are the normal line spacing (or “Leading”) options in Word 2007 just not enough?  Not very many people know it, but you can have some very fine grained control over the space between your lines.

In fact, you can say how many “Pts” space there is – for example, 12pts, or you can get really precise and give a spacing in cm, mm, or inches.

Here is how to do it!

1) Select the text you want to change the leading/line spacing of

2) Make sure you are on the “Home” tab in the Ribbon

3) Look for the “Paragraph” group, and click on the little square with an arrow pointing out of it in the bottom right hand corner of that group

4) Look down the box that appears until you get to the “Spacing” options.  In the right hand column you will see a “Line Spacing:” drop down box.  Select “Exactly”

5) Beside that dropdown box, there is a dropdown box called “At:”.  Type in your desired line spacing or leading in pts, cm, mm, or "

6) Click “OK”

Now you have precise control over exactly how far apart your lines appear in Word 2007!  How good is that!

‘till next time!
TNP

If you have been around the block a few times with Word 2007, you will be more than familiar with codes.  You know… amongst other things that backwards “P” that you see at the end of the paragraph.

Well did you know you can have the same codes appear in your Publisher 2007 document as well?

It is really easy to turn on and off:

1) Look for the “backwards P” icon in the menu, and click that!

or you can just…

2) Press “CTRL + SHFT + Y”

Now you have even more control over your Publisher 2007 design!

‘till next time!
TNP

Hey, we all love our Gantt charts, but as project managers sometimes you don’t want the Gantt chart to be the first thing you see in the morning (ain’t that the truth!)

There are literally dozens of different views you can have in Project 2007… like:

• Bar Rollup
• Calendar
• Descriptive Network Diagram
• Detail Gantt
• Gant Chart
• Levelling Gantt
• Milestone Date Rollup
• Milestone Rollup
• Multiple Baselines Gantt
• Network Diagram
• Relationship Diagram
• Resource Allocation
• and many many more!

So how can you set one of these views as the default view in Project 2007?

1) Click on the “Tools” menu

2) Select “Options…”

3) On the “View” tab, the very first dropdown is “Default view:”.  Simply select your preferred default view

4) Click “OK”

Now you don’t have your Gantt chart popping up first thing in the morning, the flashbacks to all those bad projects should stop

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you receive those loooooooooooooong emails at work which have about 14 different message replies or forwards included in the body of the email?

Wouldn’t it  be good to start from scratch and have all that content in an attachment?  Well in Outlook 2007 you can do just that – forward an email as an attachment.  What does that mean?  That the recipient of your message can focus on your message, and not all the boring messages that came beforehand

So how do you forward an email as an attachment in Outlook 2007?

1) Select your message

2) Press CTRL + ALT + “F”

3) Type your message and hit send!

Simple as that!  If you want to forward multiple emails as attachments, just select all the messages first before typing CTRL + ALT + “F”

‘till next time!
TNP

If you are a keen user of OneNote 2007, you by now will have 3, 4, 5, 10, 20 or more workbooks.  One way that you can differentiate between those different workbooks is the colour that each one has.

That’s right!  Did you notice that each workbook icon is in fact a different colour? 

Well like most things in Office 2007, it is really easy to change those workbook colours.  Maybe you want to do it so one or two key workbooks stand out… maybe you just want to show some of your personality.  Either way, this is how you go about it!

1) Right click on the OneNote 2007 Workbook

2) Select “Properties…”

3) Select your favourite color from the colour palate.

4) Click “OK”

‘till next time!
TNP

I am sure you are more than familiar with the default layouts that you regularly see in PowerPoint 2007.  The first one you always see is the “Title Slide” layout, and whenever you add a new slide after that, you will see the “Title and Content” layout.

But did you know that there are plenty of other layouts you can use, which might help you lay out the information on your slide a lot cleaner, nicer, better etc etc.

If you are on the “Home” tab of the Ribbon you will see the “Slides” group, and in that group, the “Layout” button.  If you click on that, you will see all the different layout options at your disposal:

• Title Slide
• Title and Content
• Section Header
• Two Content
• Comparison
• Title Only
• Blank
• Content with Caption
• Picture with Caption

There are two simple ways you can use these layouts in your PowerPoint deck.

Create a new slide with a specific layout

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

2) In the “Slides” group, click on “New Slide”

3) Select your preferred layout from the gallery

… alternatively you can change the layout of specific slides in your presentation.

Change the layout of an existing slide

1) Select the slide or slides you want to change the layout of

2) Right click on the selected slide(s), and move your mouse over “Layout”

3) Select your preferred layout from the gallery

‘till next time!
TNP

(not only that… but how to change the colour of the tab as well!)

Hey if you have been using Excel 2007 for more than five minutes, you would have noticed the three tabs down the bottom.  You know the ones “Sheet1”, “Sheet2”, and you guessed it… “Sheet3”.

But what if you don’t like those names, and you want to rename them to something more meaningful?  Like “Expenses”, or “Assets”, or “Team Sick Leave Tracking”?

Well all you need to do is:

1) Right click on the tab that you want to rename

2) Click “Rename”

3) Type in what you want the sheet to be renamed to

4) Hit enter

That was pretty easy… but what if you need to distinguish between the sheets in your workbook even more?  Well did you know that you can change the color of each of the tabs in your workbook?  It is really easy:

1) Right click on the tab that you want to recolour

2) Move your mouse over “Tab Color”

3) Select your favourite colour!

4) Look in awe at your colourful worksheet tabs!

Simple as that!  Now get back to tracking sick leave!

‘till next time!
TNP