Archive for April, 2010

Do you want to create a slide that is Portrait, instead of the default Landscape slide orientation?

To change to Portrait in PowerPoint 2007:

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

2) Look for the “Page Setup” group – on the left hand side of the ribbon

3) Click on “Slide Orientation”

4) Click on “Portrait”

To reverse back to Landscape, just repeat the process above, but instead of clicking “Portrait” at step 4, click on “Landscape”.

‘till next time!
TNP

Have you noticed when you spell check an email where you are replying to or forwarding another email, that sometimes spell check decides it needs to highlight the poor spelling of your friend or colleague?

Well if you get annoyed by that as much as I do, you will be glad to know there is a setting in Outlook 2007 to ensure that the spelling and grammar checker only checks the content you wrote.

To ignore the original message text in reply or forward:

1) Click “Tools”

2) Click “Options”

3) Click on the “Spelling” tab

4) Check the box “Ignore original message text in reply or forward”

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you have a column full of numbers in Excel 2007 that you would like to sort from highest to lowest, or biggest to smallest?

To sort from high to low in Excel 2007:

1) Select the cells you want to sort

2) Click on the “Data” tab of the Ribbon

3) Look for the “Sort & Filter” group

4) Click on the “Sort Z to A” button – it is the one that has a Z on top of an A with an arrow pointing down.

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you want to do some hard core data manipulation in your PowerPoint presentation?

Well instead of adding a simple table layout to your slide, you can actually add an Excel spreadsheet.  You have all the features of Excel – like formulas, but in a nice looking PowerPoint table.

To insert an Excel table in PowerPoint 2007:

1) Make sure you are on the slide you want to include the table in

2) Click on the “Insert” tab of the ribbon

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

4) Click on “Excel Spreadsheet”

5) Enter your data, manipulate it, and format the table as you desire

‘till next time!
TNP

Those of you who have been desktop publishing for a while will know what Widow/Orphan control is. 

For those that don’t… imagine that you are writing a paragraph, and the last line of the paragraph doesn’t quite fit on one page, so it jumps to the next page.  That would look pretty silly right? 

Well Widow/Orphan control is the way that Word makes sure that the exact situation described above does not happen.  By default Widow/Orphan control in Word 2007 will be turned on, but like everything in Word, you can toggle it to meet your needs.

To toggle Widow/Orphan control in Word 2007:

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

2) Look for the “Paragraph” group

3) Click on the little square and arrow icon in the bottom right hand border of the “Paragraph” group

4) Click on the “Line and Page Breaks” tab of the box that appears

5) In the “Pagination” group, uncheck (or check) the “Widow/Orphan control” checkbox

‘till next time!
TNP

The To-Do bar in Outlook 2007 is a great time saver – a quick way to understand your current workload, and upcoming appointments.

By default there should be three upcoming appointments shown in the to-do bar – but did you know that you can customise it so you can show more, or less appointments?

To increase or decrease the number of upcoming appointments shown in the Outlook 2007 to-do bar:

1) Right click on the To-Do Bar

2) Click “Options…” from the menu that appears

3) In the “To-Do Bar Options” box that appears, change the number of appointments to your preferred number.

Whilst you can have more appointments visible than that can fit on your screen, don’t go to overboard… 5 or 7 would be the upper limit for it to be useful.

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you regularly resize the width of your columns and cells in Excel 2007?  Maybe you make them bigger?  Maybe you make them smaller.  Either way, there is a quick method to change the width of all the columns (and therefore cells) in your spreadsheet.

To change the default width in Excel 2007:

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

2) Look for the “Cells” group

3) Click on “Format”

4) Click on “Default Width…”

5) in the “Standard Width” box that appears, type in the desired width of your columns

6) Click “OK”

‘till next time!
TNP