Project 2007

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

Have you spent hours working on the perfect project plan, with literally hundreds, if not thousands of tasks!  Chances are you might have mistyped a few things.

Luckily Project 2007 has the same great spell checking ability you will find in other Microsoft Office products.

To spell check your Project in Project 2007

1) Click on “Tools”

2) Click “Spelling”

or… just use the “F7” key on your keyboard!

‘till next time!
TNP

So are you comfortable with the basics of Office 2007, and want to go a little deeper?  Maybe you want to build your knowledge around one particular product?  Maybe you just want something interesting to read!

If you are into Office 2007, you might not know it, but The New Paperclip is not your only option (if you thought it was, I am very flattered though!).  There are plenty of quality resources out there that you can leverage to make you far more productive using Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook or the rest of the suite.

Here are a few places you should look…

Number 1: Alltop’s Top Microsoft Office News – [http://microsoft-office.alltop.com/]

This is a great resource if you want to keep your finger on the pulse of everything happening with Microsoft Office.  This one page displays all the news from 30 or so of the web’s leading Microsoft Office sites, which means you can quickly get up to speed on exactly what the ‘blogosphere’ is thinking about when it comes to Office.

You can also read the latest AllTop Microsoft Office news simply by watching out for the AllTop section to the right of this article – it gets updated every hour!

Number 2: Inside Office Online – [http://blogs.msdn.com/inside_office_online/]

This blog is run by the folks who run Microsoft’s own Office help site – Office Online.  Great to get their perspective on what new and exciting things are happening in the world of Microsoft Office.

Number 3: The blogs of all the Office teams at Microsoft

There is nothing better than getting it from the horse’s mouth right!  These blogs are run by the folk who actually build the products in Office, so they are filled with interesting stories, tips, and tricks that will help you become more productive with Office 2007

• The PowerPoint Team Blog
• The Word Team Blog
• The Outlook Team Blog
• The Excel Team Blog
• The Project Team Blog
• The Groove Team Blog
• The Access Team Blog
• The InfoPath Team Blog
• The OneNote Team Blog (well one of the team anyways!)
• The Visio Team Blog

There are literally hundreds of other resources out there that you could find, and the ones I have listed in this article would be a great place to start… well, of course after you have read all the articles on The New Paperclip!

‘till next time!
TNP

They have been closed for a while now, but today I am re-launching The New Paperclip’s Office 2007 Forums!

What does that mean?  If you have any question at all about Office 2007, whether it is Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access or even SharePoint Designer… you now have a place where you can look for answers.

I will be there frequently, and we will be able to draw on the collective knowledge of the community to get your question answered!

Here are the links to each of the forums:

• Word 2007 Forum
• Outlook 2007 Forum
• Excel 2007 Forum
• PowerPoint 2007 Forum
• Access 2007 Forum
• Groove 2007 Forum
• InfoPath 2007 Forum
• OneNote 2007 Forum
• Project 2007 Forum
• Publisher 2007 Forum
• SharePoint Designer 2007 Forum
• Visio 2007 Forum

So there you have it – the quick and easy way to get your Office 2007 question answered!  See you on the forums!

‘till next time!
TNP

Is there a task you want to schedule in Project 2007 that will occur regularly?  Well did you know you can create that task so it recurs throughout your project plan?

Here is how to do it!

1) Click “Insert” in the Project 2007 menu

2) Click “Recurring Task”

3) In the “Recurring Task Information” window that appears, add all the details about your task – including the Task Name and the Recurrence Pattern you want

4) Click “Ok”

Easy!

‘till next time!
TNP

Did you know that you can get a regular email jam packed with Office 2007 tips direct from TheNewPaperclip.com!

All you need to do is register using this form

Register today and you will receive a free copy of my e-book “Your 10 minute guide to getting up to speed with Microsoft Office 2007″

’till next time!
TNP

Are you an Office freak from down-under?

On the weekend of the 15th and 16th of November, a group of Aussie Office fanatics are putting together a conference called Office DevCon2008.  From what is on the agenda it looks like a great event for anyone involved in managing Office products in their workplace, or for those interested in getting a little more intimate with the Office 2007 suite, SharePoint and more.

Registration is free… and there might be sneak previews of Office 14 as well!

If you are in Sydney in mid November, make sure you check it out.  You never know, you might bump into yours truly there as well

You can find out more by visiting the Office DevCon 2008 website

’till next time!
TNP

Want to be a desktop publishing great, spreadsheeting wiz or PowerPoint guru and help the environment at the same time?

Guess what – you might be already!

Microsoft have released an extra section on Microsoft Office Online called Lighten up: Reduce your carbon footprint and workplace costs.

Obviously they left one tip for reducing your impact on the environment… instead of investing in all those Office 2007 self help books, why not just bookmark your favourite Office 2007 help, tips, tricks and tutorial site!

’till next time!

TNP

Want to know lots of in depth techincal stuff about Microsoft Office?  Well if I can’t answer it, there are plenty of people at Microsoft who know their stuff!

One of them is Alistair Speirs, a Office Technology Specialst at Microsoft Australia.  If you want to dive deep into everything office (beyond the tutorials from yours truely!) then you should check out his blog…

http://blogs.msdn.com/alspeirs/

Check out some of his posts on Business Desktop Deployment, Enterprise Search, Office Busines Applications, OpenXML, and one he stole from me… Random text in Word

TNP and Alistair go way back… he knows his stuff!

’till next time!
TNP

A lot of organisations have had a chance to play around with Office 2007 for a while now, and are now walking down the road of deployment.  But where to start?  Deployment has changed a little from previous versions of Microsoft Office, so it might be a good idea to brush up on a few things before kicking off that Office 2007 deployment project.

First step is to visit the 2007 Microsoft Office System Plan and Deploy with Confidence site.  This site includes Webcasts (from level 100 through to 400), Virtual Labs, and Podcasts to help you get you complete your deployment successfully.

Secondly, check out some of the articles on deployment from media outlets such as Computerworld.  These start to give you a real world perspective on the types of issues you might face during your deployment.

Thirdly, if you are ready to go now, check out articles from experts in the community, just like Aaron Parker’s post on Deploying Office 2007 with Group Policy Startup Scripts.

Finally, once your deployment is complete, make sure you let everyone in your organisation know about Thenewpaperclip.com – so they can get up to speed quickly with the new features of Office 2007!  Remember… the key to a successful deployment is not the deployment itself, but the training and adoption that takes place afterwards.

’till next time,
TNP