Level 100 – Beginner

Are you one of the thousands of businesses around the word looking to use Microsoft’s Office 365 “cloud” service, but don’t know where to start?

Well Microsoft Press have made available a free e-book which helps you get started.  Called “Microsoft Office 365:  Connect and Collaborate Virtually Anywhere, Anytime.”

I like this book for a few reasons.  Firstly – FREE!  Secondly, it covers a lot of the questions you probably have about Office 365 and gives you some pretty good answers.  It covers topics like:

• Getting Started with Office 365
• Administering an Office 365 Account
• What your team can do with Office 365
• Creating your Team Site with SharePoint Online
• Posting, Sharing and Managing Files
• Adding and Managing Workflows
• Working with Office 2010 Web Apps
• Going Mobile with Office 365

It is a good blend of technical content for the folk that need to set up and run Office 365 for others, plus a little bit of user content to help you understand exactly how Office 365 works under the covers, and how you can use it to work better, faster, and stronger!

You can download the free Office 365 ebook from Microsoft here.

Are you just starting out with Project 2010?  Maybe you are a “real-world hardened” project manager looking to create a better Work Breakdown Structure?

Microsoft have put together a great site to help you get more out of Project.  You can learn about:

• Easier Planning with User-Controlled Scheduling
• Enhanced Copy & Paste
• Intuitive Access with the Ribbon
• Add Key Milestones to the Timeline View
• Add a New Column and Save as a Custom Table
• Manage Resources with the Team Planner
• Add Project Summary Tasks & Outline Numbers
• Make Smart Scheduling Decisions with Task Inspector
• Sync with SharePoint
• Focus on Data with Auto Filter

You can find all those tips and tricks articles over at the Microsoft Project 2010 site, on Microsoft.com

Are you deploying Office 2010 in your organisation and looking for a great (ie FREE!) way to increase the adoption of Office 2010?  Or maybe you are a home user just interested in learning more about Word, Outlook or Excel?

Either way – Microsoft have a great training tool available which can help you or  your people get more out of Office 2010.  It is the Office 2010 Getting Started Screensaver.

Now you need to be running Windows 7 to use it, but if you are, it is one of the better ways I have seen to learn more about Office.

Click here to download the screensaver today.  Thanks to Ian Palangio from Microsoft Australia for pointing it out!

‘till next time!
TNP

If you are like me and follow Rugby Union (Go the ALL BLACKS!!!), you will love something that the team at the Excel Blog posted the other day.

It is a spread sheet that you can use to track your team’s progress during the world cup.

Read more about the Rugby World Cup score tracker and get your hands on the free Excel spread sheet on the Excel Blog

Ok… so being The New Paperclip you know I love everything Office. Well my old friends at Microsoft are just about to launch something new. It is a little different to the Office that you are used to though. But don’t worry, it is a good thing!!

They call it Office 365.

So what is Office 365? Well if you run a small business, or are a manager at a larger one, you might be interested. Office 365 gives your business:

• Email & Calendar functionality so you can manage your day
• Office Web Apps, so you can view and edit your documents, spread sheets and presentations from any computer with an internet browser
• A website for your business
• The ability to instant message, video conference and set up professional online meetings

All of that out of something Microsoft calls “The Cloud” – that is just a fancy way of saying you don’t need to run your own servers if you don’t want to – Microsoft will do it for you.

The other exciting part is that instead of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars up front for the above, you get to pay per user per month. Depending on which Office 365 version you sign up for… you can also get a subscription based version Office 2010 on your desktop as well, without having to pay up front!

If any of the above sounds like it would help your business, you should check out Office 365 at www.office365.com

In the mean time, here at TheNewPaperclip.com we are broadening our content – we are now publishing tips and tricks and other articles that will give you all the Office 365 Help you need. You will see more and more of that content appear over the next few weeks and months.

’till next time!
TNP

Hi – looking to see how to create a 2011 calendar in Word 2010 – click here.

With 2010 behind us in most parts of the world, now is the time to start creating your own 2011 calendars using Word 2007.

It is a lot simpler than you think!  Here is how you do it.

1) Make sure you are connected to the internet

2) Click on the Office Orb in the top left hand corner of the screen (the old file menu)

3) Click on “New”

4) In the “New Document” dialog box that appears, on the left hand side you will see a long list of different template types you can find on Microsoft Office Online.  click on “Calendars”

5) Click on “2011 calendars”

6) Pick your favourite design from the dozens that appear!  Once you have selected the one you like, just click “Download” in the bottom right hand corner

7) After Word downloads the Calendar, it will appear ready for you to use, edit or print straight away.

It couldn’t be any simpler than that.  Wishing you and your family a wonderful year ahead!

‘till next time!

TNP

Well it is New Years Day in most of the world – Welcome to 2011!!!

So with that in mind lets figure out how to create a 2011 Calendar using Word 2010.  Creating a personalised calendar – whether a simple month view or something a bit more complicated which you can record appointments, see the lunar phases, or public holidays – is an absolute breeze.

Here is how to create a 2011 Calendar in Word 2010:

1. Go to the File menu, and click New
2. Look at the Office.com Templates section.  If you are connected to the internet you will see a folder called “Calendars”.  Click on it!
3. Click on “2011 Calendars”
4. Select your preferred style from the library of calendar templates.

Simple as that – now you can go ahead and personalize the calendar to suit your needs, save it, print it out, and be more organised in 2011!

‘till next time!

TNP

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

To sort from low to high 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 A to Z” button – it is the one that has an A on top of a Z with an arrow pointing down.

‘till next time!
TNP

So if you are a bit of an Office freak like me, you will know that Office 2010 was RTM’d last week (Released to Manufacturing – a fancy way of saying “yep, its ready”).  It will be available in the shops in the next few months, but if you are a corporate customer with a volume licensing agreement – or you have a subscription to MSDN or TechNet – you will find you can get the Office 2010 bits, and product keys already.

With RTM comes a shift in content here at The New Paperclip.  Whilst I will still produce Office 2007 content, there is a whole new world of Office 2010 that is to be explored, documented, and published in easy to understand language just for you kind folks!

Before we get into the nitty gritty of Office 2010 – there is one thing I would love to share with you.

One thing that most of you will like (and people that work on IT Helpdesks will LOVE) about Office 2010 is that the File Menu is back!  Well, technically it never left, but in Office 2007 it wasn’t called the File Menu, it was simply this weird looking “Office Orb”. 

So IT Managers – if you are looking for a quick win to cut your helpdesk calls dramatically (you know… all the ones that were like “Where has Print gone”, Where has Save gone” etc) – just upgrade to Office 2010.  Because everyone knows, you find them in the File Menu.  And you will not get as many calls about

“What is that funny looking circle thing… what do you mean you want me to click on it?  It doesn’t look like a button!”

If you are upgrading to Office 2010 – make sure you subscribe or check back regularly for more tips, tricks and tutorials.

‘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