Office 2007 & 2010 Help – The New Paperclip

Have you ever wanted to quickly know what cells directly impact on the calculated value of a cell in Excel 2007.

By using the “Trace Precedents” feature, you can very quickly understand exactly which cells influence the output of a cell.  The best part of this feature is, that you will see big arrows that enable you to visually see the relationship, so you don’t have to decipher formulas and cell names to make sense of it all.

To turn on Trace Precedents:

1) Select the cell you want to see the precedents of

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

3) Look for the “Formula Auditing” group (about 3/4 of the way along the ribbon)

4) Click on “Trace Precedents”

Now you will see arrows pointing you in the right direction!

‘till next time!
TNP

Is there a section of text in your document (or your whole document!) that isn’t “English (United States)” or another language.  Well to make sure that your spelling and grammar checks in Word 2007 work well, you need to make sure that text is marked as the right language.

So how do you mark a section of text as a different language?

1) Select the text

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

3) Look for the “Proofing” group”

4) Click “Set Language”

5) Select your preferred language

Now you can be confident that spell check is doing the right thing!

‘till next time!
TNP

Have you ever noticed that your PowerPoint Presentations are running a little sluggish?  Maybe they jump through every transition, or just take a long time to load up?

There is one way to help accelerate your PowerPoint deck – and that is to lower the resolution that it displays at.

To alter the resolution that your PowerPoint presentation uses:

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

2) Look for the “Monitors” group

3) Select your preferred resolution from the “Resolution” drop down box

To put it simply, the lower the resolution, the higher the performance of your presentation will be, but at a cost of lower fidelity.  On the flip side if you want to turn up the visual quality of the presentation, and don’t mind a little performance hit, crank up the resolution to as high as your computer (or more importantly your projector) can handle.

‘till next time!
TNP

Do you want to produce a document that uses a different paper size than Letter or A4?  What about Legal, A5, A3, Tabloid, Japanese Postcard or the dozens of other paper sizes available?

Well Word 2007 is very accommodating when it comes to paper size – and it is very easy to change.

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

2) Look for the “Page Setup” group

3) Click on “Size”

4) Select your preferred paper size

You can also create a custom paper size if you want – just select “More Paper Sizes…” and then “Custom”

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