Archive for January, 2010

If you regularly use the quick search feature of Outlook 2007, you will be very familiar with the yellow highlight that is used to highlight search terms found in your inbox.

But did you know, if yellow isn’t your favourite colour, you can change the search highlight to any colour you want?

To change the search highlight color in Outlook 2007:

1) Click on “Tools”

2) Run your mouse over “Instant Search” to expand the menu

3) Click on “Search Options”

4) Look just over half way down the “Search Options” box, and click on “Change…”

5) Select your favourite colour from the “Color” box that appears

6) Click “OK”

Now you can highlight your search terms in pink, blue, red, orange or any other colour under the rainbow!

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you want to stop people messing with your data, formulas, formatting, or all of the above in Excel 2007?  Well did you know you very quickly protect your spreadsheet from those rogue operators!

Here is how you do it:

1) Make sure you are currently looking at the sheet you want to protect

2) Click on the “Review” tab in the ribbon”

3) Look for the “Changes” group”

4) Click on “Protect Sheet”

A little “Protect Sheet” dialog box will appear that will give you a number of options, so you can be very granular in how much control you want people to have over the sheet.

For example, you can allow users to select cells, but not format them.  You can allow people to insert rows, but not insert columns.  And best of all you can add a password to the sheet to ensure only you can make any changes to what can and can’t be modified.

Now, you are really in control!

‘till next time!
TNP

Are you doing a school assignment, or a report for work, and have been told you need to use “Double Line Spacing”

In Word 2007, is is fairly simple to do just that.

1) Select the text in your document that you want to apply double line spacing to

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

3) Look for the “Paragraph” group

4) Look for the button that has an up arrow and a down arrow, with lines beside them – that is the “Line Spacing” button.  Click on that, and select “2.0” – that is double line spacing.

To change back to the default spacing (1.15) or single line spacing (1.0), simply repeat the procedure above.

‘till next time!
TNP

Have you ever built an awesome slide with lots of different objects?  Well then I am sure you will understand how frustrating it can be when you need to select an object that is behind 3 or 4 other ones!

Did you know there is a great tool you can use called the “Selection Pane”, that will help you select those pesky, hard to get to objects?

Selection Pane simply lists all the objects that are on a slide, in a simple to use task pane to the right hand side of your PowerPoint 2007 screen.  Using Selection pan you can quickly select any object, not matter how far to the back of the slide it is.

To turn on the selection pane:

1) Make sure you are on the “Home” tab of the ribbon

2) Look for the “Editing” Group – you will find it on the far right hand side of the ribbon

3) Click on the little arrow beside the “Select” button

4) Click on “Selection Pane…”

‘till next time!
TNP

You know there are just some times when you really need to make a point!  And using a double underline is a great way of making sure your readers know exactly what you mean!

Doing a normal, single underline in Word 2007 is easy… but what about a double underline?  Well it is just as easy.

1) Select the text you want to double underline

2) Make sure you are on the “Home” tab of the ribbon

3) Look for the “Font” group"

4) Click on the little down arrow beside the “Underline” button – that is the one that looks like a U with a underline below it

5) Select the underline that you would like to use.

‘till next time!
TNP

Are you sick of those extra long forwarded emails that seem to go on forever and ever?  Did you want to keep all that content for reference, but make sure that what you have to add to the forward is clearly delivered?

One way to do that is to forward an email as an attachment.  Instead of a long email thread appearing below your message, it is neatly tucked away in an attachment so your message gets all the attention!

To forward an email as an attachment in Outlook 2007:

1) Select the email you want to forward

2) Click on “Actions”

3) Click on “ Forward as Attachment”

4) Compose your message, and hit Send

‘till next time!
TNP

Just like a header or footer in Word 2007, you can quickly add a header or footer to a workbook in Excel 2007.  You can add the date, time, filename or any other information you would like to make available to readers of your spreadsheet.

To create a header or footer in Excel 2007:

1) Make sure you are on the “Insert” tab of the ribbon

2) Look for the “Text” group – it will be on the right hand side of the ribbon

3) Click on “Header & Footer”

You will see a new tab appear on the ribbon called “Header & Footer Tools – Design”.  Using the buttons on this tab of the ribbon, you can quickly add:

• Page Number;
• Number of Pages;
• Current Date;
• Current Time;
• File Path;
• File Name;
• Sheet Name; or a
• Picture

To the header or footer of your document.  To switch from the header to the footer, simply click on “Go to Footer” which you will find in the “Navigation” group about half way along the ribbon.

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you want to quickly change some text from lowercase to uppercase, without having to retype it?

It is really simple in Word 2007!

1) Select the text you want to change to UPPERCASE

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

3) Look for the “Font” group

4) Click on the “Change Case” button – which you will find directly below where you select the font size

5) From the menu that appears, click on “UPPERCASE”

Whilst you are there, check out some of the other case options you can have… like Sentence case, lowercase, Capitalize Each Word, and tOGGLE cASE.

‘till next time!
TNP

Did you start creating a presentation in PowerPoint 2007, only to realise after you perfected 67 different slides that you really should have used Arial instead of Verdana?

Well there is a very quick way to replace one font with another in PowerPoint 2007.  Here is how:

1) Make sure you are on the “Home” tab of the ribbon

2) Look for the “Editing” group – which you will find on the right hand side of the ribbon

3) Click on the little arrow beside “Replace”

4) Click on “Replace Fonts…”

From the box that appears, simply select the font you want to replace, with the new font, and click “Replace”

‘till next time!
TNP

Did you know in Word you can automatically select all the text in a document that shares the same formatting?

For example, you can select all text that is Arial, 12pt.  Very handy if you are not using styles, yet want to apply a formatting change across select blocks of text.

To select text with similar formatting in Word 2007:

1) Select some of the text you want to select

2) Make sure you are on the home tab of the ribbon

3) Look for the “Editing” group on the right hand side of the ribbon

4) Click on “Select”

5) Click on “Select Text with Similar Formatting”

‘till next time!
TNP