have a look at my PDF results and see for yourself. - Mike Taylor

From Blog to Book.

miketips.wordpress.com

2

Contents 1 2007 1.1

1.2

1.3

1.4

1.5

1.6

1.7

1.8

11 January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11

#1 Seek And Ye Shall Find (2007-01-05 06:25) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11

#2 Seek And Ye Shall Find (Part 2) (2007-01-12 06:28) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

#3 Seek & Ye Shall Find (Part 3 of 3) (2007-01-19 06:31) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

#4 Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Bad Clipart (2007-02-02 06:39) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

#5 The art of the screenshot (2007-02-09 06:49) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

#6 NetMeeting (2007-02-09 11:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

16

#7 Linkification (1 of 2) (2007-02-16 11:52) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

20

#8 Linkification (2 of 2) (2007-02-23 12:05) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

22

March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24

#9 iNotes (2007-03-02 18:03) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24

#11 Do you PDF? (2007-03-16 18:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26

#12 Scanning with your MFD (2007-03-23 19:01) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27

#13 Free OCR Software (2007-03-30 19:20) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29

#14 Informal Learning (2007-04-05 14:05) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29

June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

#25: &!#@% Passwords (2007-06-22 13:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

October . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

#41: Shading Alternate Rows in Excel (2007-10-12 18:28) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33

A ”Delicious” Tip (2007-11-02 06:50) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33

December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35

#50: Use Excel’s AutoFilter to Analyze Data (2007-12-14 12:18) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35 3

2 2008 2.1

2.2

2.3

37 January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

#53: Rename a batch of photos (2008-01-01 17:58) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

#54 Shrink Your PowerPoint Files (2008-01-04 12:15) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

#56 Excel Shared Workbooks (2008-01-25 12:43) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39

May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40

#71: Use Tables for Document Layout (2008-05-09 10:40) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40

July . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41

#82 Sorting Excel Left-to-Right (2008-07-25 12:50) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41

3 2009 3.1

3.2

3.3

3.4

3.5

45 April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45

#137 Excel’s Custom Fill Series (2009-04-14 14:09) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

45

May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

46

#126: PowerPoint Presenter’s View (2009-05-29 12:46) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

46

June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

48

#128 Excel: Text To Columns (2009-06-12 13:42)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

48

#130 Excel: Double-click Tricks (2009-06-26 14:16) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

50

November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

52

#151: Presentation Cheat Sheet (2009-11-13 10:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

52

#152: Free & Easy Online Meetings (2009-11-27 10:45) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53

December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

56

#153: Easy (But Deceptive) Excel Tricks (2009-12-04 10:31) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

56

#154 Free & Easy Collaborative Writing (2009-12-11 15:55) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

57

#155 Word Shrink to Fit (2009-12-18 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

58

4 2010 4.1

4.2

4

61 January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

61

#157: Working With Non-contiguous Cells (2010-01-04 15:43) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

61

#158: Excel Conditional Formatting (2010-01-08 12:45) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

62

#159: Save Time Using Excel’s ”Big 3”String Functions (2010-01-13 19:59) . . . . . . . . .

65

#160: Excel String Functions: The Sequel (2010-01-22 12:03) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

66

Speed Up Your Email with Shortcuts (2010-01-28 12:35) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

68

February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69

PDFmyURL (2010-02-05 11:48) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

69

#162: Videos To Go (2010-02-12 12:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

70

4.3

4.4

4.5

4.6

4.7

4.8

#163: Become a Superhero with Excel Subtotals (2010-02-19 12:52) . . . . . . . . . . . . .

71

#164 Excel Subtotals (2010-02-19 18:41) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

74

3 Office Annoyances & How to Fix Them (2010-02-26 11:30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

76

March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

#166: How Good Are Your Passwords? (2010-03-05 12:55) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

79

#167: Managing Your Passwords (2010-03-12 11:43) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

80

#168: Collaborative Authoring Update-TypeWith.me (2010-03-19 10:06) . . . . . . . . . .

82

#169: Editing in Word’s Print Preview Mode (2010-03-26 11:06) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

82

April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

84

#170: Finding Documents via Google (2010-04-01 17:58) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

84

#171: Using Snap Off Toolbars in Microsoft Office (2010-04-07 11:15) . . . . . . . . . . . .

84

#172: AutoFilter Formula (2010-04-15 17:26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

86

#173 Delicious: A Better Way To Bookmark (2010-04-22 18:21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

87

#174: Excel - The Power of ’IF’ (2010-04-28 14:17)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

90

May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

91

#175: Reroute Your Google Map (2010-05-04 12:37) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

91

#176: Evernote (2010-05-14 11:30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

93

#177: PDF-apalooza (2010-05-20 14:57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

94

#178: Make Your Own Application Shortcuts (2010-05-26 17:41) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95

June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

96

#179: PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts (2010-06-04 15:01) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

96

#180 Live Web Pages in PowerPoint (2010-06-10 18:30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

97

#181 Introducing Bookmarklets (2010-06-15 18:14) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

99

#182: Navigating Excel Tabs (2010-06-24 13:42) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

100

July . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

101

#183: Save or Close All Documents at Once (2010-07-02 10:38) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

101

#184: Urgent Care - PC Edition (2010-07-09 11:30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

102

#185: Quick & Easy Word Tricks (2010-07-15 13:43) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

105

#186 Quick & Easy Excel Charts (2010-07-23 11:45) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

106

#187 Removing Hyperlinks (2010-07-29 10:36) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

107

August . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

108

#188 Excel Auto-fill Options (2010-08-04 11:55) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

108

#189: PowerPoint - Just a little nudge (2010-08-12 18:18) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

109

#190: View/Hide Excel Formulas (2010-08-19 14:35) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

110

#191: Tame Your Word Tables (2010-08-26 17:53) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

110 5

4.9

September . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

111

#192: Pin Items to the Start Menu (2010-09-02 12:49) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

111

#193: Quick Launch Bar (2010-09-10 10:57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

113

#194: Copy Excel Page Setup Settings Between Sheets (2010-09-15 11:24) . . . . . . . . . .

115

#195: Import Outlines into PowerPoint (2010-09-22 18:09) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

116

#196: PowerPoint Notes Pane (2010-09-30 18:45) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

117

4.10 October . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

118

#197: Excel’s IF Function (2010-10-08 10:52) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

118

#198: Preventing PowerPoint Font Disasters (2010-10-13 13:02) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

119

#199 Excel: Automatic Column Sizing (2010-10-19 13:18) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

120

#200: BicenWEEKial (2010-10-29 10:36) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

121

4.11 November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

122

#201 PC Survival Guide - Part 1 (2010-11-04 18:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

122

#202: Murphy’s Law & More Handy Utilities (2010-11-12 12:21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

124

#203 Introducing the blog (2010-11-19 11:41) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

125

#204 Free & Easy Online Meeting Tools (2010-11-26 14:34) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

126

4.12 December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

127

#205 Right-Click Tricks (2010-12-03 10:07) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

127

#206 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Google Maps (2010-12-10 12:13) . . . . . . . . . .

129

#207 Excel Data from Elsewhere (2010-12-17 13:42) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

131

#208 Great Software: Quick, Easy & Free (2010-12-24 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

134

5 2011 5.1

5.2

5.3

6

137 January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

137

#209 Great Online ’to do list’ Manager (2011-01-02 12:50) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

137

Tip of the Week #210: Password Manager (2011-01-14 11:14) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

138

#211 Move & Copy Excel Worksheet Tabs (2011-01-20 14:11) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

139

#212 Word’s Powerful Find & Replace Options (2011-01-25 13:55) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

141

February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

142

#213 Excel Custom Sorting (2011-02-03 14:58) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

142

#214 Six Million Dollar Presentation Tips (2011-02-11 11:50) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

145

#215 Instapaper: A simple tool to save web pages for reading later (2011-02-18 11:37) . . .

147

#216 Down with ugly charts (2011-02-25 11:24)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

150

March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

154

#217 Keeping It All Together (2011-03-04 11:27) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

154

#218 You’re Officially Invited (2011-03-10 16:22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

156

5.4

5.5

5.6

5.7

5.8

5.9

#219 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... (2011-03-18 10:43) . . . . . . . . . . . .

157

#220 Dropbox: Like ’Magic’ For Your Files (2011-03-24 14:02) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

159

#221 The Biggest Loser: PowerPoint Edition (2011-03-31 15:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

161

April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

164

#222 Special Characters (2011-04-08 10:34) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

164

#223 PowerPoint Show Files (2011-04-15 10:46) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

168

#224: Decrapifying Web Pages (2011-04-20 15:51) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

170

#225 One Number to Ring Them All (2011-04-29 10:59) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

174

May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

177

#226 Excel Readability (2011-05-05 17:05) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

177

#227 Tracking Document Changes (2011-05-12 10:58) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

179

#228 Zip It! Compressing Your Files (2011-05-18 12:25) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

181

#229 Tabbed Web Browsing (2011-05-24 18:35) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

182

June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

184

#230 Displaying Two or More Tabs of an Excel Worksheet (2011-06-02 12:20) . . . . . . .

184

#231 Navigating a Selected Range of Cells in Excel (2011-06-10 10:58) . . . . . . . . . . . .

185

#232 Do you F5? (2011-06-16 14:52) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

187

#233: Replacing Fonts in PowerPoint (2011-06-23 18:45) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

188

#234 Easy Excel Subtotals (2011-06-30 11:34) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

189

July . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

193

#235 Quickly Paint Formatting (2011-07-06 11:22) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

193

#236 Start Pages (2011-07-14 15:24) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

194

#237 Presentation Handouts (2011-07-22 11:07) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

198

#238 Google Mobile Apps (2011-07-29 10:04) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

200

August . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

202

#239 Excel Range Names (2011-08-03 16:15) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

202

#240 Keeping Your Audience Focused (2011-08-12 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

204

#241 Printing Spreadsheets (2011-08-19 06:41) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

207

#242 Super Fast Word Formatting (2011-08-26 11:24) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

209

September . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

210

#243 A Better Way to Switch Windows? (2011-09-02 06:38) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

210

#244 5 Things You Should Know About the Excel Fill Handle (2011-09-09 06:52) . . . . .

211

#245 Resizing & Cropping Images (2011-09-16 04:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

215

#246 Cleaning Up Your (Excel) Act: Part 1 (2011-09-23 05:57) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

217

#247 Cleaning Up Your (Excel) Act: Part 2 (2011-09-30 03:25) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

220 7

5.10 October . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

222

#248 Finders, Keepers. Losers, Weepers (2011-10-07 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

222

#249 Word: Cliffs Notes Version (2011-10-13 08:56) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

223

#250 Excel: Cliffs Notes Version (2011-10-20 10:36) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

224

#251 PowerPoint: Cliffs Notes Version (2011-10-27 06:30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

226

5.11 November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

227

#252 Lightning Fast Links (2011-11-04 06:19) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

227

#253 Shrink PDF Files (2011-11-10 08:39) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

229

#254 Do Word’s Revision Marks Have You Seeing Red? (2011-11-18 06:49) . . . . . . . . .

230

#255 Apps To Be Thankful For (2011-11-25 05:07) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

232

5.12 December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

234

#256 Save Time With Excel Workspaces (2011-12-02 05:41) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

234

#257 Extend Your Laptop Battery Life (2011-12-09 05:30) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

235

#258 Zoom! Zoom! (2011-12-19 06:57)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

237

#259 Selecting Overlapping PowerPoint Objects (2011-12-22 09:39) . . . . . . . . . . . . .

238

#260 2011 Top Ten Tips (2011-12-30 05:26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

239

6 2012 6.1

6.2

6.3

6.4

8

243 January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

243

#261 Highlighting Documents (2012-01-06 05:26) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

243

#262 Hiding PowerPoint Background Graphics (2012-01-13 05:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

244

#263 Word Ruler Shortcuts (2012-01-20 04:35) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

245

#264 Word Formatting Detective (2012-01-27 07:03) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

246

February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

248

#265 If I only knew how to... (2012-02-03 07:21) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

248

#266 Copy/Paste vs Inserting Images (2012-02-10 05:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

248

#267 Display Multiple Excel Worksheets Side-by-Side (2012-02-17 04:56) . . . . . . . . . .

249

#268 Comparing Word Documents (2012-02-24 07:02) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

252

March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

254

#269 Word AutoText (2012-03-02 06:32) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

254

#270 Demystifying Excel Pivot Tables (2012-03-09 05:08) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

256

#271 Add a Watermark to an Excel Worksheet (2012-03-14 05:40) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

259

#272 Automatic Separator Lines in Excel (2012-03-23 05:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

261

#273 Adding Information Fields in Word (2012-03-30 05:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

264

April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

265

#274 Using Format Painter to Copy PowerPoint Designs (2012-04-05 05:00) . . . . . . . . .

265

#275 Quick & Dirty Excel Data Comparison (2012-04-13 07:03) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

268

#276 Five Shortcuts Everyone Should Know (2012-04-20 05:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

269

#277 Google Cloud Print (2012-04-27 05:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

270

May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

271

#278 The Tips Will Live On & Why You Should Blog (2012-05-04 09:19) . . . . . . . . . .

271

#279 Are You (and Your Passwords) as Smart as You Think? (2012-05-11 06:03) . . . . . .

274

#280 Deciphering Shortened URLs (2012-05-22 07:31) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

274

#281 Keeping PowerPoint Images in Place When Resizing (2012-05-25 07:45) . . . . . . . .

275

June . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

276

#282 Using Word To Fill Scanned Forms (2012-06-01 05:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

276

#283 Better Than A Default Bullet (2012-06-08 07:00)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

278

#284 Roll Your Own Templates (2012-06-14 05:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

279

#285 Word Defaults You Can ”Set & Forget” (2012-06-22 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

280

#286 Hiding Zeros in Excel (2012-06-29 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

281

July . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

283

#287 Custom Formatting of Bulleted/Numbered Lists (2012-07-06 06:50) . . . . . . . . . .

283

#288 Four Ways to Customize Excel for the Way YOU Work (2012-07-20 06:00) . . . . . .

284

#289 How to Create a Table of Contents in a SNAP! (2012-07-27 07:00) . . . . . . . . . . .

286

August . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

287

#290 Updating Your Automatic Table of Contents (2012-08-03 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . .

287

#291 Browser Shortcuts (2012-08-10 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

289

#292 Many Ways To Navigate Word Documents (2012-08-17 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . .

289

#293 Show Only A Few Rows & Columns of Your Spreadsheet (2012-08-24 06:00) . . . . .

290

#294 How to Super Charge Word’s Find & Replace (2012-08-31 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . .

291

September . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

295

#295 Delete entire words quickly (2012-09-06 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

295

#296 DaFont, Da Whole Font & Nothing But Da Font (2012-09-14 06:00) . . . . . . . . . .

295

#297 Hyperlinking in Excel (2012-09-21 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

296

#298 Excel Zebra Stripes (2012-09-28 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

297

6.10 October . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

299

#299 Wi-fi Security Tips (2012-10-05 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

299

#300 I’m Back! (2012-10-12 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

300

#301 Defaulting to Your Favorite Font (2012-10-19 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

302

#302 Memorable AND Secure Passwords (2012-10-26 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

303

6.11 November . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

305

6.5

6.6

6.7

6.8

6.9

9

#303 Evernote: Info Everywhere (2012-11-02 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

305

#304 Round & Round We Go (2012-11-09 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

307

#305 Linking to Network Locations (2012-11-16 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

308

#307 All Things Word (2012-11-23 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

309

#308 All Things Excel (2012-11-30 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

313

6.12 December . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

317

#309 All Things PowerPoint (2012-12-07 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

317

#310 Automatically Repeat Table Headers in Word (2012-12-14 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . .

320

#311 Speedy Excel Charts (2012-12-21 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

321

#312 Recovering a ’Lost’ Window (2012-12-28 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

322

7 2013 7.1

7.2

7.3

7.4

7.5

10

323 January . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

323

#313 1000 Words Worth of Pictures (2013-01-04 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

323

#314 Mail Merge (2013-01-11 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

325

#315 UN-merging Cells in Excel (2013-01-18 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

329

#316 Cutting & Pasting Without Screwy Things Happening (2013-01-25 06:00)

. . . . . .

331

February . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

333

#317 Make Vertical Selections in Word (2013-02-01 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

333

#318 Make Simultaneous Changes to Multiple Worksheets (2013-02-08 06:00) . . . . . . . .

334

#319 Smartphone Home Screen Shortcuts (2013-02-15 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

335

#320 Word: How to Replace Tabbed Columns With a Table (2013-02-22 06:00) . . . . . .

336

March . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

337

#321 New SUMIFS Excel Function (2013-03-01 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

337

#322 Are You In Control? (of Your Web Browser Tabs) (2013-03-08 06:00) . . . . . . . . .

340

#323 Be a Better Googler: Using Advanced Search Options (2013-03-15 06:00) . . . . . . .

343

#324 Closing iOS Apps (2013-03-22 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

345

#325 Hiding Zeros in Excel (2013-03-29 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

346

April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

349

#326 Precise Placement of Images in PowerPoint (2013-04-05 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . .

349

#327 Office Web Viewer (2013-04-12 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

350

#328 Use Conditional Formatting to Find Duplicate Values (2013-04-19 06:00) . . . . . . .

351

#329 Set PowerPoint Shape Defaults (2013-04-26 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

353

May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

354

#330 Web Browser Tricks Everyone Should Know (2013-05-03 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . .

354

#331 Insert or Delete Cells with AutoFill (2013-05-10 06:00) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

355

Chapter 1

2007 1.1

January

#1 Seek And Ye Shall Find (2007-01-05 06:25) Happy New Year! I’ve been wanting to start something like this for awhile now and after kicking around a bunch of ideas I’ve landed on sharing one small item per week that I think might be helpful. My hope is that from time to time you’ll be able to learn something new from these that will help save you some time or maybe allow you to do some things a little bit better. If you’d like to be removed from this list just let me know. Feel free to forward this along to anyone you think might like to get a copy and let me know if anyone else would like to be added to the list and get a copy of their own. Seek and Ye Shall Find (Part 1) Some tips for better online searches

1. Exact Phrase in Quotes: Sometimes you’ll only want results that include an exact phrase. In this case, simply put quotation marks around your search terms. For example, ”Rigging Safety Training” Try this search both with and without the quotes. With the quotes Google returns 1,063 results while without the quotes you get over 1 MILLIONresults! 2. Exclude Terms: Putting a minus (-) sign in front of a word in your search means that your search results MUST EXCLUDE that word. For example: rigging -sailboat 3. Include Terms: Placing a plus (+) sign in front of a word means that word your search results MUST INCLUDE that word. For example: rigging +scaffold 4. Site Search: Have you ever wanted to search only one specific web site? You can use Google to search a single specific site. This is handy if the site doesn’t provide a search function of their own. For example: ”Getting Started” site:[1]www.questiomark.com This will return all results from the Questionmark website that match the exact phrase of ”Getting Started” Try these out and you’ll be able to get the information you’re looking for quicker and easier. Stay tuned for even more great search tips next week. 11

1. http://www.questiomark.com/

#2 Seek And Ye Shall Find (Part 2) (2007-01-12 06:28) This is the second in a series of three tips on better searching with Google. If you missed the first one you can check them it here: [1]Part 1

1.

Use the symbol to search for synonyms: Put a tilde ( ) in front of a word to search for that word plus the word’s synonyms the any alternative endings for the term as well. For example, inexpensive will return ”inexpensive,” ”cheap,” ”affordable,” and ”low cost” while run matches ”run,” ”runner’s,” ”running,” as well as ”marathon” The tilde operator works best when applied to general terms and terms with many synonyms.

2. Search for Images Only Looking for the perfect picture for your next presentation? Did you know that you can search for images? Just click the Images link or go directly to [2]http://images.google.com/google [3] * Don’t forget to make sure you aren’t infringing upon any copyrights. In an upcoming issue we’ll give you lots of other great resources for finding photos & clip art. 3. Search for particular types of documents By using the filetype: operator you can limit your search results to one of the following document types: * Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) * Microsoft Word (.doc) * Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt) * Microsoft Excel (.xls) * Rich Text Format (.rtf) For example, ”confined space entry” filetype:ppt will result in PowerPoint files containing the exact phrase ”confined space entry” Next week we’ll wrap up this series of searching tips with a few resources you can use to learn even more great search tips. 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/01/1-tips-for-better-online-search-results/ 2. http://images.google.com/google 3. http://tspototw.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=5

#3 Seek & Ye Shall Find (Part 3 of 3) (2007-01-19 06:31) This is the last in a series of three tips on better searching with Google. If you missed either of the first two you can check them out here: [1]Part 1 and [2]Part 2 Can’t remember them all? Hungry for more? Google’s Advanced Search Page: By clicking Google’s ”[3]Advanced Search” link you don’t need to remember anything. There are tons of search options right there for you in a nice, easy to use, fill-in the blanks form. [4]Check it out for yourself.

Soople.com: [5]Soople is another website that also makes it easy for you to do complex Google searches without knowing all the behind the scenes tricks. With this site you can easily search in the latest news, look up definitions and even use Google as a phonebook or a calculator. 12

Google Cheatsheet & Guide: Finally, here are two other great references for getting the most out of your Google searches. [6]Google Cheatsheet is a handy quick reference to use for your future Google searches. [7]Google Guide is an online interactive tutorial and reference for experienced users, novices, and anyone in between. Definitely worth checking out. Next week we’ll share some great resources for finding graphics for your presentations and other projects. If you have anything you’d like to see covered here please let your voice be heard and [8]send them along. 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/01/1-tips-for-better-online-search-results/ 2. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/12/2-seek-and-ye-shall-find-part-2/ 3. http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en 4. http://www.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en 5. http://www.soople.com/ 6. http://www.google.com/help/cheatsheet.html 7. http://www.googleguide.com/ 8. mailto:[email protected]

1.2

February

#4 Friends Don’t Let Friends Use Bad Clipart (2007-02-02 06:39) Have you ever used your Print Screen button to take a picture of what you see on your computer? If you haven’t you are missing out on a handy way to share what you see on your screen. If you are asking yourself, ”Why would I ever want to do that?” you’ve probably never had to call anyone for technical support on your computer. ( Aren’t you lucky!) Sometimes showing someone exactly what you see on your screen is the quickest and clearest way to communicate. Here are a few good ideas about how you can use screenshots:

• Capture error messages • Document procedures • Enhance training documents • Take a snapshot of a website • Include any of the above in a PowerPoint presentation • The possibilities are virtually endless 13

How does it work? When you press the Print Screen key on your keyboard, a picture of exactly what appears on your computer is saved to the [1]Windows Clipboard. From there you can past this picture into an email, a Word document, a PowerPoint slide, or just about anywhere else. To capture the entire screen:

1. Press the Print Screen key - Sometimes, depending on your keyboard, it may be abbreviated as Prt Scr. 2. Open the email or document that you want to paste your screenshot into. 3. Using your keyboard, press Ctrl + V This will Paste the screenshot from the clipboard into your email or document. Warning: You can only have one item on the clipboard at a time. So be sure to paste your screenshot somewhere before you copy anything else or you will lose it. Using an ALT-ernative method: Now, for those who’ve made it far, I have another cool little feature of the Windows Print Screen Key. Pressing these keys ... Alt + Print Screen ...will take a screenshot of the currently selected window, not the entire screen like the normal screenshot function. This allows you to target that specific window and nothing else. No more cropping those screenshots to grab the content you were after! Print Screen example:

ALT + Print Screen example:

Want more options? If you need more options than this there are several more sophisticated applications that can capture items such as menus, text, objects, scrolling windows and other specific regions of your screen. [2]WinSnap is a good free alternative, while [3]SnagIt probably has just about everything you’ll ever need in a screenshot tool for about $40. Or use some of the i[4]mage [5]search tips from a previous edition to find the one that suites you the best. 14

And remember when it comes to bad clipart....JUST SAY NO! 1. http://readplease.phpwebhosting.com/htmlframedseppage/windowsclipboardtutorial.htm 2. http://www.ntwind.com/software/winsnap.html 3. http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.asp 4. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/12/2-seek-and-ye-shall-find-part-2/ 5. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/12/2-seek-and-ye-shall-find-part-2/

#5 The art of the screenshot (2007-02-09 06:49) Have you ever used your Print Screen button to take a picture of what you see on your computer? If you haven’t you are missing out on a handy way to share what you see on your screen. If you are asking yourself, ”Why would I ever want to do that?” you’ve probably never had to call anyone for technical support on your computer. ( Aren’t you lucky!) Sometimes showing someone exactly what you see on your screen is the quickest and clearest way to communicate. Here are a few good ideas about how you can use screenshots:

• Capture error messages • Document procedures • Enhance training documents • Take a snapshot of a website • Include any of the above in a PowerPoint presentation • The possibilities are virtually endless How does it work? When you press the Print Screen key on your keyboard, a picture of exactly what appears on your computer is saved to the [1]Windows Clipboard. From there you can past this picture into an email, a Word document, a PowerPoint slide, or just about anywhere else. To capture the entire screen:

1. Press the Print Screen keySometimes, depending on your keyboard, it may be abbreviated as Prt Scr. 2. Open the email or document that you want to paste your screenshot into. 3. Using your keyboard, press Ctrl + VThis will Paste the screenshot from the clipboard into your email or document. 15

Warning: You can only have one item on the clipboard at a time. So be sure to paste your screenshot somewhere before you copy anything else or you will lose it. Using an ALT-ernative method: Now, for those who’ve made it far, I have another cool little feature of the Windows Print Screen Key. Pressing these keys ... Alt + Print Screen ...will take a screenshot of the currently selected window, not the entire screen like the normal screenshot function. This allows you to target that specific window and nothing else. No more cropping those screenshots to grab the content you were after! Print Screen example:

ALT + Print Screen example:

Want more options? If you need more options than this there are several more sophisticated applications that can capture items such as menus, text, objects, scrolling windows and other specific regions of your screen. [2]WinSnap is a good free alternative, while [3]SnagIt probably has just about everything you’ll ever need in a screenshot tool for about $40.

1. http://readplease.phpwebhosting.com/htmlframedseppage/windowsclipboardtutorial.htm 2. http://www.ntwind.com/software/winsnap.html 3. http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.asp

#6 NetMeeting (2007-02-09 11:59) Do you see what I see? Using NetMeeting to share your computer screen

16

Last week we saw how easy it is to share what you see on your computer screen by taking [1]screenshots. This week we’ll look at an even better way to share your screen and everything that happens on it in real-time. Microsoft NetMeeting is a great way to let others ”peak over your shoulder” and watch your screen - even if they are physically located in some far off place. What can I do with NetMeeting? With NetMeeting you can do things like share and collaborate, use a whiteboard, send files, and text chat. Share your desktop to: - show someone how to use an application - troubleshoot a problem - show presentations or notes during conference calls - capture brainstorming ideas, ....and too many others to list here. Use tools like a whiteboard, chat & file transfer Control someone else’s desktop remotely; with their permission of course. How do I get NetMeeting? You probably already have it. available.

All computers running Windows XP have already have NetMeeting

To run NetMeeting:

1. From the Windows Start button select Run... 2. Type conf 3. Click OK. NOTE: If this is the first time you have accessed NetMeeting you will be presented with an installation wizard. [2]Click here for setup instructions. How can I connect with someone else? There are a few different ways to connect with someone via NetMeeting. easiest include:

The most common and

Using the NetMeeting directory Entering an IP address 17

Entering a computer name NetMeeting Directory: If you followed the instructions linked to above, you should appear in AEP’s NetMeeting directory. The directory provides a list of names and locations of people who are available for you to call. Simply click the directory button to access the directory.

[3] IP Address: If the person you want to call does not appear in the directory, ask them to give you their IP address. Your IP address can be found by opening NetMeeting and choosing About Windows NetMeeting from the Help menu. Your IP address is displayed at the bottom of this window.

18

[4] To connect using this method simply enter the IP address of the person you are calling in the address box and press Enter on your keyboard.

[5] Computer Name: Another alternative for connecting with someone is to know their computer name. You can see what your computer name is by looking for the My Computer icon on your desktop. It should look something like this and display text in the format of User ID on Computer Name. To connect using this method simply enter the computer number (P3033244 in the example shown) of the person you are calling in the address box and press Enter on your keyboard. Helpful Hints: If you are also on a phone call with the person you call via NetMeeting you may need to mute your computer’s speakers to avoid audio feedback. For more details, the NetMeeting help menu is actually pretty helpful.

1. http://tspototw.wordpress.com/2007/02/02/the-art-of-the-screenshot/ 2.

http://dsapp7or/database/it/appdlvry/ss1/doclb00b.nsf/e51e99ca6c3b827a852567d90061786d/

e7884f9018f3743185256c7c005f0f0c?OpenDocument 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image20.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image17.jpg 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image18.jpg

19

#7 Linkification (1 of 2) (2007-02-16 11:52) Linkification Creating links in Lotus Notes. Do you ever need to point someone in the right direction to help them find information? Whether it’s in one of our seemingly infinite number of Lotus Notes databases or in a shared network folder sending them a link can make finding things very simple. This week we’ll briefly look at how to create links in Lotus Notes documents and emails. As you’ll see there are a couple of different ways to create links within Lotus Notes. Linking to a Lotus Notes Database:

1. Open the database you want to link to

2. From the Edit menu select Copy As Link > Database Link You can also choose Document Link if you want to link to a particular document in the dB or View Link to link to a specific view of the dB. 3. Place the cursor where you would like to insert the link and paste it via the menu Edit > Paste or by pressing Ctrl+V on your keyboard. 4. An icon appears that links back to the database when clicked on by the recipient of the email. Try it out:

[1] Database Link to F &H Training Resource Database > Link Document Link to ”Instructor Skills Training” document > Link View Link to Technical Training by Title view > Link

Drag & Drop Linking: If you don’t like all that maneuvering through menus, copying and pasting there is an even quicker way to get those links into a Lotus Notes document. You can do it by dragging and dropping the tab into the document where you would like the link to be. 20

[2]Click here to see how this works. Creating Links (aka Hotspots) in Lotus Notes: You can use a link hotspot to link to documents, views, folders, databases, or various types of URLs. To create a link hotspot you must be in a rich-text field (a field that allows text, objects, file attachments, and pictures)

1. With your document or email in edit mode, select any text that you want to act as a link; i.e. ”Click Here” 2. From the Create menu select Hotspot - Link Hotspot. 3. Click the Hotspot Info tab in the ”Hotspot Resource Link” properties box, as shown below.[3]

4. Enter the link in the Value field; for example [4]http://www.aep.com

I always think it’s a good idea to underline your link and make the text blue (as shown above) so that the link is easy to distinguish from other regular text in your document.

Next week we’ll take a look at how you can link to different types of URLs that can be included in Lotus Notes emails and documents such as: Internet/Intranet sites Shared network folders Email addresses NetMeeting [5]Continue on to part two... 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image15.jpg 2. http://wvstalbiw002/ShowMe/DragANDDrop.wmv 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image13.jpg 4. http://www.aep.com/ 5. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/02/23/8-linkification-2-of-2/

21

#8 Linkification (2 of 2) (2007-02-23 12:05)

Creating links to different types of items in Lotus Notes. Last week we saw [1]how to create hotspot links in Lotus Notes. different ways you can use these types of links.

This week we’ll dig into several

Linking to shared network folders/documents: The most common items you will probably want to link to are documents and folders stored on shared network drives. The format for this type of link is as follows: file://server/share/folder/filename Remember, that the recipient must have access to the linked item or they will see something like this:

[2] Also, the odds that your link will work are better if you use the full UNC path instead of a mapped drive letter such as H: If you use a drive letter, the recipient may not have an H: drive or has an H: drive different from yours. For example, here are two links to the same publicly accessible folder: [3]T:\TrngPublic\Instructor Resource Materials [4]\\Hqwhslfs002\tspo \TrngPublic\Instructor Resource Materials Go ahead and try it out. Which one works for you? (Sorry those will only work for AEP folks) Unless you have a T: drive exactly the way I do the first one didn’t work. However the second one should work for everyone. Now, this is great stuff - but here is where Microsoft makes things difficult. Windows does not allow us to copy the full UNC path of a file or a folder. So how in the world can we link to the full path if I don’t know what it is? Fortunately, there is a nice, simple utility that you can install to make this SUPER easy. [5]Path Copy adds an option to your right-click menu that copies the path of a file or directory by simply right-clicking it in the Windows Explorer, as shown below. 22

[6] To install Path Copy, download the file from [7]here. Then right-click the file you just downloaded and choose install. That’s all it takes, just a few seconds and you’re all set. After installing, Path Copy, all you need to do is locate the file or folder you want to link to in Windows Explorer. Right-click on the file or folder and choose Copy Path > Copy Long UNC Path. Then you can paste the correct link into an email or any other type of document. Email: Mailto – A mailto URL opens an e-mail application (such as Notes mail) and enables the user to send e-mail to the person specified in the link. mailto:[8]emailaddress mailto:tmtaylor Email with a subject: [9]mailto:tmtaylor?subject=Tip-Of-The-Week Email with cc:, bcc: and subject: [10]mailto:tmtaylor?cc=ksfiala &bcc=sipiazza &subject=These-tips-are-great!

23

These links can be included in emails, most documents and web pages. Link to NetMeeting: A callto: link opens NetMeeting and calls the specified computer. The important thing to remember is that the computer you are calling must have Net Meeting open in order to receive your call. The format looks like this: callto:address-to-be-called where address-to-be-called is the IP address or computer name of the PC to be called. Using a host PC Name ( callto:pcname+type=host ) [11]callto:P3033244+type=host Using an IP address: ( callto:IPaddress+type=ip ) [12]callto:10.95.64.18+type=ip

A previous edition’s NetMeeting tip tells you how to find out what your PC Name and IP address are. 1. http://tspototw.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/linkification-part-1/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image22.jpg 3. file://localhost/mnt/ext/blogbooker/tmp/6dvtpmf1/TrngPublicInstructorResourceMaterials 4. file://localhost/mnt/ext/blogbooker/tmp/6dvtpmf1/Hqwhslfs002tspoTrngPublicInstructorResourceMaterials 5. http://bit.ly/cIxpjH 6. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image21.jpg 7. http://home.worldonline.dk/ninotech/download.htm#pathcopy 8. mailto:emailaddress 9. mailto:tmtaylor?subject=Tip-Of-The-Wee 10. mailto:tmtaylor?cc=ksfiala&bcc=sipiazza&subject=These-tips-are-great! 11. file://localhost/mnt/ext/blogbooker/tmp/6dvtpmf1/P3033244+type=host 12. file://localhost/mnt/ext/blogbooker/tmp/6dvtpmf1/10.95.64.18+type=ip

1.3

March

#9 iNotes (2007-03-02 18:03) Access Notes e-mail and calendar via your web browser Have you ever been at someone else’s desk and wished that you could access something out of your own email? Or maybe you’re traveling without a laptop and need to check your calendar? This week’s tip will show you how you can do that from any computer on the AEP network. 24

iNotes is a web browser version of Lotus Notes that gives you access to your email, calendar and other Notes documents without requiring you to use the Lotus Notes software. Getting started using iNotes is as easy as setting a password from within your Lotus Notes client software and knowing where to point your web browser. Setting your iNotes password: iNotes, Notes browser and Sametime use the same password so if you’ve already got a password for one of those you can skip this step. 1. From anywhere inside your Lotus Notes mailbox, go to the Actions menu and selectChange Notes Browser Password. 2. Enter a new password. Click OK. 3. Enter the new password again. Click OK. 4. Click OK again. NOTE: It can take up to 2 hours to replicate across the notes servers for this to be ready for your use. You will not be notified when the Notes Browser password takes affect, so you will need to either wait 2 hours to log in, or try logging in at any time up to 2 hours until you are successful. Your Notes Browser password does not expire. Accessing iNotes: Once you’ve established your iNotes password you’re ready to start using iNotes: 1. Open Internet explorer. 2. Type aepmail into the address line. 3. Press the Enter key or click Go. 4. You should see a login page as shown below. Enter your user id and the iNotes password you set in the steps above then click the Loginbutton.

5. Upon login navigate using the tabs across the top of the page as shown.

Customizing your Welcome Page: When you first open your mailbox, via the browser, you can select a layout for your Welcome page. Don’t worry if you’re not sure what to choose you can always change it later via the ”Edit Layout ...” button. 1. To customize you’re welcome page select a page layout style and then tell Notes what to display in each panel. You have your choice of New mail, Today’s schedule, To Do list, Web Page, and Quick Links. 2. When you’re finished click the Save & Closebutton.

25

To learn more: There are a couple of items in the [1]Tech Notes & Tips database. And lots of helpful information under the help link located in the top right-hand corner of any page within iNotes. Search the web for [2]iNotes tips. 1.

http://dsapp7or/database/it/appdlvry/ss1/doclb00b.nsf/e51e99ca6c3b827a852567d90061786d/

e425da0e559dfc8685256af400640a4c?OpenDocument 2.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=inotes+tips+

-eyetext&btnG=Search

#11 Do you PDF? (2007-03-16 18:59) Working with PDF documents PDF, which stands for Portable Document Format, is a de facto standard for online documents. If you’ve spent much time online, you’ve probably encountered PDF documents numerous times. If you’ve never given it any more thought than that then this week’s tip is just for you. We’ll take a brief look at what pdfs are what they are good for and a couple of options for creating your own PDF documents. What good is it? Why would you ever want to create PDF documents? Their benefits include: Portability:PDF files can be viewed by others who may not have the same software or operating system as you. Consistency: PDF files look and print the same for everyone. File Size: PDF files are often much smaller in size than other formats such as Word, PowerPoint, etc. Where can I get a PDF viewer? If you don’t already have a PDF reader you can get the Adobe Acrobat reader [1]for free from Adobe. However, that’s not your only option. My favorite is the free [2]Foxit Reader for a couple of reasons. First it’s much smaller than the Adobe Acrobat reader (1.2MB vs 20MB) and it loads documentsMUCH faster. If you’ve noticed a delay when opening PDF documents you might want to give it a try. How can I create my own PDFs? The obvious way for creating PDF documents is to buy a copy of [3]Adobe Acrobat. be more than happy to sell you one of several different versions that can suit your needs.

They would

However, if you don’t want to spend several hundred dollars and just want to create some basic PDF documents there are a number of free options. 26

If you do a web search you can find many options for creating PDF documents. that have worked well for me.

Here are a few

Free Online PDF Creation: PDF Online:This site will convert many types of documents to PDF including: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, HTML and most image formats.

[4]http://www.pdfonline.com/index.htm Zamzar:This site is excellent at converting many file formats including PDF. If you ever get some weird file that you need converted this is a good place to go. [5]http://www.zamzar.com/ Free PDF Software: Primo PDF:I use this one all the time and it’s so simple to use! Installing this free program simply adds a new printer to your printer list named ”PrimoPDF”. All you need to do to create a PDF document is do aFile..Print and choose the PrimoPDF printer then choose where to save it. That’s it! It’s a piece of cake. [ [6]more details] [7]http://www.primopdf.com/

UPDATE:[8] Check out these more recent PDF related posts 1. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html 2. http://www.foxitsoftware.com/products/ 3. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/ 4. http://www.pdfonline.com/index.htm 5. http://www.zamzar.com/ 6. http://www.primopdf.com/free-pdf-userguide.asp#_Toc105836619 7. http://www.primopdf.com/ 8. https://miketips.wordpress.com/?s=pdf&submit=Search

#12 Scanning with your MFD (2007-03-23 19:01) Create electronic versions of printed documents Following up on last week’s tip about PDF documents we’ll show you another quick and easy way to create a PDF document. This time from printed or hard copy documents. ( A big thanks to Mark Rouk for suggesting this one!) Did you know that most MFDs (Multi-functional Devices aka the big new printer/copier things that have appeared all over the place) allow you to scan printed documents and save them in either PDF or TIFF format? 27

[1]Printable PDF step-by-step guide | [2]MFD Website How to scan on MFDs

1. Place document on the MFD or in the document feeder tray if it is multiple pages. 2. Press the Scanner button. 3. Select ”Store File” 4. Select ”Store Only” For details on the filename and password options see the [3]printable pdf version and for even further details visit the [4]MFD site. 5. Now you are ready to scan. Press the Start button. 6. Before you leave the printer record the IP address listed on the sticker attached to the MFD. 7. Back at your computer, open your web browser and enter the IP address we just recorded in step 6. This should take you to a page where you can find your scanned document. 8. Click the Document Server link which takes you to the page where you can see an image of the document you just scanned. 9. From this page you can download the scanned document in a PDF or TIFF format. Click the link, PDF or TIFF to view and/or save the document to your computer. Be aware that the scanned documents aren’t available from this page indefinitely. They are deleted after a short period of time. Next week we’ll take a look at how you can use the TIFF version and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to get the contents of your scanned document into and editable Microsoft Word document. Thanks again to Mike Rouk for suggesting this week’s topic! If you have something you’d like to see send it along I’d love to hear from you. 1. http://aepnow/docs/mfds041206.pdf 2. http://workplace/office/OfficeEquipment-MFD.htm 3. http://aepnow/docs/mfds041206.pdf 4. http://workplace/office/OfficeEquipment-MFD.htm

#13 Free OCR Software (2007-03-30 19:20) Editing scanned documents with Microsoft Word

Have you ever needed to create or edit a document using content from printed materials and would rather not have to retype the text you want to use? Did you know that you may already have software on your 28

computer that can transfer that text to Microsoft Word for editing? [1]Microsoft Office Document Imaging comes with Microsoft Office XP Standard or Professional. To look for it on your computer check the default location which is: Start

Programs

Microsoft Office Tools

Microsoft Office Document Imaging

What is OCR? Optical character recognition (OCR) translates images of text, such as scanned documents, into actual text characters. Also known as text recognition, OCR makes it possible to edit and reuse the text that is normally locked inside scanned images.Send text to WordHere’s how to get your text into Microsoft Word, after you’ve scanned your document. (Which we discussed last week.) 1. In Microsoft Office Document Imaging open the TIFF file that you created & saved after scanning the document.

2. In the main window, select the text to be captured by dragging a draw a box

around the text you wish to capture. The text will be highlighted in blue as you drag. on the Send Text to Word button in the toolbar.

3. Click

4. In some cases, a Document Imaging window

may appear. If it does, click OK to begin the process of transferring your text.

5. The Send Text

to Word window will appear next. From this window, click on appropriate option and click OK

6.

Office will open a new Word document and insert the text you captured. Notes: If you have a document from another source that’s not in TIFF format, most graphics programs will convert it to TIFF or try [2]Zamzar.com to convert it for you. The page layout structure will not be maintained but you will have the text and complex page layouts may cause text to be shuffled or out of sequence. If you need a more sophisticated option check out [3]Adobe Acrobat Capture. It’s nice but it’s not free. 1. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/CH010001181033.aspx 2. http://www.zamzar.com/ 3. http://www.adobe.com/products/acrcapture/

1.4

April

#14 Informal Learning (2007-04-05 14:05) Well, we’ve made it through the first 1/4 of the year and I hope you’ve found at least some of these weekly tips helpful. Now it’s your turn to help me out a little bit. This week I’d like to take this opportunity to pick your brain and learn from you. I’ve been reading lately that we do about 80 % of our learning informally; online via web searches, help files, discussion forums or off-line via conversations, books, videos or from any of a ton of the various options. So my question for you is this? 29

[1]

When you need to learn something new what do you do?

Take 2 minutes or less and think about....What was the last thing you learned? What was it? How did you learn it? Do you look for yourself first of start by calling someone else? [2]Click this link to send me your answer. Personally, my informal learning approach looks something like this:

1. Start with a Google search. 2. Look it up on Wikipedia 3. Check for relevant items I’ve bookmarked via [3]Del.icio.us. 4. Check any relevant blogs that I subscribe to 5. Call someone I think may be able to help. What does your’s look like? A Look Ahead: If you’re not familiar with some of the things I mentioned above I’ll be sharing more details about them and some other great resources like them in the upcoming weeks. In the meantime, do a little informal learning of your own and check these out: Wikipedia is a wiki that is collaboratively edited by people from all around the world. [4]Check out this great example and see how it compares to the sets of Encyclopedias we had as kids. A blog, short for ’web log’, is journal or newsletter type website that is frequently updated and is usually related to a particular topic. [5]Del.icio.us is a great site for accessing your web links from any computer. (Have you ever bookmarked something at work and wished you could get it at home or vice versa?). You can also share your links with others and discover new things here. [6]Learn more... Alright now...did you get all the way down here to the end of this email without sending an answer to my question? Shame on you! But I’ll give you a 2nd chance to redeem yourself...and you don’t even have to scroll all the way back up to the link. 30

[7]Click here to tell me where you go when you need to learn something new. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/image2.jpg 2. mailto:[email protected]?Subject=How+I+Like+to+Learn 3. http://Del.icio.us/ 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant 5. http://del.icio.us/ 6. http://del.icio.us/about/ 7. mailto:[email protected]?subject=How+I+like+to+learn+new+things

1.5

June

#25: &!#@% Passwords (2007-06-22 13:59) The clock is ticking. That big deadline is rapidly approaching. For the one last piece you need to wrap it all up you’ve got to log-in to ”the system”... and the crazy thing keeps asking you for a password. What do you do? A. Type in your pet hamster’s name and hope that it’s the same password you use for everything else? B. Type in every word-number combination you have ever used hoping you’ll eventually stumble onto the right one. C. Call the help desk and have them reset it – AGAIN! D. Confidently enter #jfm64PAS # turn in the project and head home to enjoy the rest of the day. If you chose answer D, congratulations you are free to go. You obviously have a PhD in Password Management and have all your passwords completely under control. (You get bonus points if you recently changed this password from it’s predecessor !wr &98zflg) For everyone else, keep reading. Creating Secure & Memorable passwords Does it seem like you’re in a continuous battle with system administrators and all of their password rules? How do they come up with those anyway? Here’s a simple way to create passwords that will meet all those rules AND be easy to remember. Remember 100 different passwords with 1 rule set Choose a base password and then apply a rule that mashes in some form of the system/service name it is used for. Option 1: Use your base password with the first two consonants and the first two vowels of the service name. Say your base password is ”asdf.” (See how easy that is to type?). Then your password for Yahoo would be ASDFYHAO, and your password for eBay would be ASDFBYEA. Option 2: Something simpler - but along the same lines - might involve the same letters to start (say, your initials and a favorite number) plus the first 3 letters of a service name. In that case, my password for Amazon would be TMT82AMA and for NOVA; TMT82NOV. 31

To make a password even more secure - or applicable for services that require special characters add them around it, like #GMLT10LIF #. Before you decide on your single password rule, keep these guidelines in mind for your AEP passwords. Make it at least 8 characters long. It can´t be the same as your userid. It should always start with a letter. It will need to include at least 1 upper case and 1 lower case letter and 1 number. The only two special characters accepted by all AEP systems are the $ and # symbols. Create a Single AEP Password Check out this AEPnow article on how to get all your AEP passwords set to the same thing. anyone already doing this? Is it really possible?

Is

[1]Simplify your life by making your password more complex [AEP only - sorry!] Keeping Track of Your Passwords So what do you do to keep track of your passwords? Sticky notes on your monitor? (I’ve seen lots of you guys!) Word document? Excel spreadsheet? Tattoos on the back of you hand? I use [2]KeePass password safe. [3] [4]Ten Free Ways to Track All Your Passwords How do you manage your passwords? Got a different system that works well for you? with the rest of us in the comments below.

Share it

1. http://aepnow/news/story.aspx?id=25800 2. http://keepass.info/ 3. http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/10-free-ways-to-track-all-your-passwords.html 4. http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/10-free-ways-to-track-all-your-passwords.html

1.6

October

#41: Shading Alternate Rows in Excel (2007-10-12 18:28) Have you ever had trouble reading across a large spreadsheet? One row blurs in with another when you’re trying to match what’s in Column A with something clear over in Column Q. Here’s a good trick that can help improve the readability of your spreadsheets. Shading every other row is a quick and easy way to help keep your eyes on track and not mix up data from different rows. Conditional formatting is your friend - Conditional formatting is one way to make your data more legible by automatically applying cell shading to every other row in a range of cells. 32

[1] Here’s how to do it:

1. Select the range of cells that you want to format 2. From the Format menu, select Conditional Formatting 3. In the Conditional Formatting dialog box, select Formula Is from the drop-down list, and enter this formula: =MOD(ROW(),2)=0 4. Click the Format button, select the Patterns tab, and pick a color for the shaded rows. 5. Click OK twice to return to your worksheet.

[2] The good thing about doing it this way is that this approach is dynamic. If you update, filter, or sort the data, the formula preserves the alternating format you chose for that range. [3]Learn more about Conditional Formatting 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/excel-alternaterowshading.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/excel-after-alternaterowshading.png 3. http://bit.ly/ax9TA4

1.7

November

A ”Delicious” Tip (2007-11-02 06:50) Since Halloween was this week and I can’t show up on your doorstep in my costume to collect my candy (aren’t you happy about that?!) I thought I’d come knocking on your email doorstep instead. Instead of candy I’m hoping to get a good tip from you – no not that kind of tip, you can put your wallet away. Just about everyone has at least one favorite shortcut or time saving trick that they ”couldn’t live without”. Since all of us collectively are smarter than any one of us individually I’m hoping you will help make the rest of us a little smarter by sharing your favorite tip or helpful hint. Something for your goodie bag Since you are being so generous, (you are aren’t you?) I don’t want to leave you with nothing in return. Here is a ”Del.icio.us” tidbit for you. [1] [2]Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site. OK, what the heck does that mean? [3]Take a look at this 33

short 3 minute video to see how it works. This is a great introduction.

[4] Things you can do with Del.icio.us Access all of your links from any computer. Synch your bookmarks between computers Use it for research, planning, collaboration and more. Interested? Here are some more resources to get you started [5] Read more about it here. [6]Sign-up here. [7]Check out my shared bookmarks. [8]Go here to find out more about how to be a power user

1. http://del.icio.us/ 2. http://del.icio.us/ 3. http://bit.ly/cATLXc 4. http://bit.ly/cATLXc 5. http://bit.ly/bXy2tU 6. http://bit.ly/alPOgs 7. http://bit.ly/bLYWYZ 8. http://bit.ly/9GqqWJ

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1.8

December

#50: Use Excel’s AutoFilter to Analyze Data (2007-12-14 12:18) Filtering is a quick and easy way to find and work with a subset of your spreadsheet data while hiding all the rest. Unlike sorting, filtering does not reorder your data; it just temporarily hides the rows you don’t want to see. Before turning on AutoFilter:

When you use the AutoFilter command, arrows appear to the right of the column labels in the filtered range. After turning on AutoFilter:

Selecting an item from this drop-down list will automatically filter your list so that only rows containing that value are displayed. You can further filter your data by using selections from more than one column’s drop-down list.

The row numbers for the ones that remain visible turn blue. that have been used as a filter will also be blue.

The drop-down arrow for column(s)

Learn more about AutoFilters

This is a VERY handy trick to have in your arsenal and can be a huge time saver if you work with large spreadsheets. The following links provide more details about working with AutoFilters.

• [1]Using AutoFIlter to analyze data • [2]AutoFIlter Basics 35

• [3]AutoFilter Advanced Topics 1. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA011127901033.aspx 2. http://www.contextures.com/xlautofilter01.html 3. http://www.contextures.com/xlautofilter02.html

36

Chapter 2

2008 2.1

January

#53: Rename a batch of photos (2008-01-01 17:58) Whether Santa just brought you a digital camera or you’ve had one for years, you’ve probably noticed that when you copy your photos to your computer they all have these nice and useless names like DSC0089.jpg, etc. Of course, this name tells you nothing about what the pictures are about or when they were taken. Here’s a nice shortcut that will let you rename a batch of photo files with more useful file names so you can tell the Christmas at grandma’s pictures from one’s of the bachelor party in Vegas. To rename your digital photos: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Open the folder where your photos are stored. From the Edit menu, choose Select All. (Or just select the ones you want to rename) Right-click on the first file in your highlighted list and select Rename. Type the name you want to use for these photos.

Note: Be sure to type the file extension after the file name – usually .jpg 5. Press enter on your keyboard. This renames all your photos with the name you entered above plus a sequential number added to the end. i.e. if you named these photos ”Summer Vacation 2007” your file names will be Summer Vacation 2007(1).jpg, Summer Vacation 2007(2).jpg, etc. etc. Photo Management Software If you take a lot of photos and are interested in something to help you manage them including tasks like lighting corrections, cropping, special effects, etc. you should check out Picasa. Picasa is free and makes ordering prints, email your pictures and posting them online SUPER EASY. I use it all the time and highly recommend it. [1]http://picasa.google.com/ 1. http://picasa.google.com/

37

#54 Shrink Your PowerPoint Files (2008-01-04 12:15) Have you ever been working on a presentation that is turning into the ”PowerPoint that Ate Pittsburgh” with your file size ballooning out of control and you have no idea why? Here is a quick, easy trick to slim down that PowerPoint file size. Think of it as Microsoft’s version of the [1]Biggest Loser. Just this morning I shrank a presentation from over 52MB down to less that 2.5MB using this method. The following steps apply for PowerPoint 2002 and later. If you have PowerPoint 2000 or earlier go the [2]http://aps and get Office XP (AEP folks only-the rest of you are probably already well beyond both of these versions.) How to Shrink Your PowerPoint File Size: 1. Right-click on any picture in your presentation, and then click Format Picture on the shortcut menu. 2. In the Format dialog box, click the Picture tab, and then click Compress. 3. Under Apply to, do one of the following: To compress all the pictures in your presentation, click All pictures in document. 4. Under Change resolution, do one of the following: If your presentation will be used for a screen show, click Web/Screen. If you plan to distribute your presentation as printed pages, click Print. 5. Under Options, select the Compress pictures check box and the Delete cropped areas of pictures check box. 6. Click OK. 7. If prompted, click Apply in the Compress Pictures dialog box. PowerPoint compresses the picture or pictures for you automatically. The Toolbar Way: You can also use the Compress Pictures button on the Picture compress your pictures.

[3]Here’s how you can do this if you have PowerPoint 2007 1. http://www.nbc.com/the-biggest-loser/ 2. http://aps/ 3. http://bit.ly/9EWzdR

38

#56 Excel Shared Workbooks (2008-01-25 12:43)

The past two weeks we’ve seen tips about Word and PowerPoint, so this week we’ll continue our trip around the Microsoft Office world with a great tip for Excel. I certainly don’t want to short change any of the spreadsheet monkeys out there. A shared workbook allows several people to edit simultaneously. For example, a project status list for your work group, a budget tracking sheet, time sheets, issue logs or anything else you can think of that multiple people may need to access. Try it out! No more waiting until everyone else is done; no more asking around to find out who left the spreadsheet open while they went to lunch so you can’t edit it. How it works: First of all, our compress images trick from last week also works in Word. To Save a Shared Workbook: 1. From the Tools menu, click Share Workbook, and then click the Editing tab. 2. Select the Allow changes by more than one user at the same time check box, and then click OK. 3. When prompted, save the workbook. 4. On the File menu, click Save As, and then save the workbook on a network location accessible to the intended users. ( Use a shared network folder, not a Web server.) FYI: If two people are working in the same spreadsheet at the same time saving it will update your copy with their changes. Heads Up: The following features can’t be changed after a workbook is shared so make sure they you set them up before you share the spreadsheet: merged cells, conditional formats, data validation, charts, pictures, objects including drawing objects, hyperlinks, scenarios, outlines, subtotals, data tables, PivotTable reports, workbook and worksheet protection, and macros. More details : Interested in more details? See them here: [1]Administration of shared workbooks [2]Sharing workbooks with different versions of Excel 1. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel/HA010130571033.aspx 2. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/269860

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2.2

May

#71: Use Tables for Document Layout (2008-05-09 10:40)

Use Tables for Document Layout Improve readability by adding scannable ”chunks”

I’d bet a lot of money (if I had any) that when you read this subject line you immediately thought of something like this....

...or maybe you were getting fancy and thinking more along the lines of this....

Either way tables are great for presenting this kind of tabular data that we’re all used to seeing. But did you know that you can use tables to create some ”advanced” layouts in Microsoft Word? Document Layout with Tables : By creating some very simple tables you can create a drastically improved, and more readable layout in Word. Take a look at the following example. Without using tables getting all of these elements in the exact places you wanted them to be would require either specialized (and expensive) desktop publishing software or some pretty advanced Word skills.

Looking Under the Covers:

Now take a look at this same document with the tables used to create it revealed. 40

This kind of formatting is great for status reports, newsletters and just about anything else you’d like to look professional and well done. This is just a basic example and you are welcome to [1]have a copy for yourself or experiment on your own and see what you can come up with. Your only limit is your creativity. Try it and let me know how it works. Remember to turn off the borders so no one will know your ”secrets” but us! If your interested in more of the details visit[2] this page on the Microsoft Word Team’s Blog.

1. http://www.box.net/shared/y5a9r6oej3 2. http://bit.ly/aJBT77

2.3

July

#82 Sorting Excel Left-to-Right (2008-07-25 12:50) An alternative way to sort your spreadsheet data.

Have you ever wanted to sort your spreadsheet data from left to right instead of top to bottom? What did you do? Manually cut & paste? Give up? Here’s the quick and easy way to sort data across columns instead of rows. A simple change to the sort options gives us exactly what we want, as shown in the before and after example below. 41

[1] To Sort Left to Right:

1. Select the table data you want to sort (just the data, not the headers –when you change sort orientation, you cannot set header rows) 2. Go to Data

Sort

3. Click on Options... 4. Set “Sort Orientation” to “left to right” instead of “top to bottom” as shown below:

[2]

5. Click OK. That’s all there is to it. No muss, no fuss! Try it out for yourself. Plan B: Changing Rows to Columns & Vice Versa If you have a lot of data and still prefer using the regular sort by rows approach, another option you might like is to transpose your columns into rows using Paste Special... To Transpose Your Data with Paste Special:

1. Select the cells that you want to rearrange. 42

2. Click the Copy button. 3. Select the top left cell of where you want to paste your rearranged data. The paste area must be outside the copy area.

4. Click the arrow next to the paste button and then select Transpose.[3] Check out this before and after shot:

[4] Paste Special... is a handy way to do many things including transposing rows into columns and vice-versa. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image3.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image5.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image1.jpg

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2009 3.1

April

#137 Excel’s Custom Fill Series (2009-04-14 14:09) Excel’s Custom Fill Series You probably already know that you can use Excel’s fill handle to quickly fill in several types of data series, such as days of the week and months, right?! But did you also know that you are not limited to just the ones Microsoft created for you? This week we’ll see how to create your very own custom lists that will work with the fill handle in Excel.

If you’re new to the fill handle, it is the small black square in the lower-right corner of the cell or selected range of cells. (If you’re still curious, you can see it in action in [1]this previous tip.) Fill data using a custom fill series: To make entering a particular sequence of data (such as a list of names or regions) easier, you can create a custom fill series. A custom fill series can be based on a list of existing items on a worksheet, or you can type the list from scratch.. From an existing list of items: 45

1. On the worksheet, select the list of items that you want to use in the fill series. 2. From the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Custom Lists tab. 3. Verify that the list of items that you selected is displayed in the Import list from cells box, and then click Import. The items in the list that you selected are added to the Custom lists box. 4. On the worksheet, click a cell, and then type the item in the custom fill series that you want to use to start the list. 5. Drag the fill handle across the cells that you want to fill. From scratch: 1. From the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Custom Lists tab. 2. In the Custom lists box, click New list, and then type the entries in the List entries box, beginning with the first entry. ( Press ENTER after each entry. ) 3. When the list is complete, click the Add button. 4. On the worksheet, click a cell, and then type the item in the custom fill series that you want to use to start the list. 5. Drag the fill handle across the cells that you want to fill. NOTE:You cannot edit or delete a built-in fill series (such as a fill series for months and days), but you can edit or delete a custom fill series. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Custom Lists tab. In the Custom lists box, select the list that you want to edit or delete. To edit the fill series, make the changes that you want in the List entries box, and then click Add. To delete the fill series, click Delete. What do you, or could you, use a custom list for? 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/130-excel-double-click-tricks/

3.2

May

#126: PowerPoint Presenter’s View (2009-05-29 12:46) If you’re not a PowerPoint ninja and don’t know all the handy keyboard presentation shortcuts or if you’d like to see your slide notes on your laptop while keeping them hidden from your audience you’ll probably like PowerPoint’s Presenter View. Presenter View In Presenter View, PowerPoint will give you a sort of mission control center for your presentation that only you will see and looks like this. (Your audience only sees your slides.) 46

In this view you will see: 1. Slide Thumbnails; click a thumbnail to jump directly to that slide 2. Current Slide; this is the slide currently being shown to the audience. 3. End Show button. 4. Black-out button; click this button to temporarily darken the audience screen, and then click it again to show the current slide. 5. Up Next; gives the title of the slide that will appear on screen with the next click. 6. Forward & Backward buttons to progress through your presentation. 7. Slide number (for example, Slide 7 of 12) and Elapsed time, in hours and minutes, since the start of the slide show presentation. 8. Speaker’s notes; displayed only on your laptop - these are not shown on the overhead projector Setting it all up Here’s how to set this up for your next presentation. 1. From the Slide Show menu, click Set Up Show. 2. Under Multiple monitors, select the Show Presenter View check box. 3. Select which display you want the slide show presentation to appear on.

NOTE: You won’t be able to do this unless you have two monitors or are connected to an over47

head projector. What the audience sees

3.3

June

#128 Excel: Text To Columns (2009-06-12 13:42) Excel’s Text to Column function allows you to break text contained in a single column into several columns. For example, if you have ”LastName, FirstName” in a column, you can break the text into two columns one containing LastName and the other containing FirstName. Excel’s Text to Columns feature allows you to separate text contained in a single cell and split it into multiple columns. For example, a full name appears in one cell (e.g., Taylor, Mike). You can use Text to Columns to put the last name in one column and the first name in the next column. This data must be separated by delimiters, such as commas or spaces. Excel allows you to separate cell data either by selecting predefined delimiters or using custom delimiters.

Another example would be something like this report generated by our new Learning Management System (KEY). One of the fields has a bunch of ”junk” that I really don’t want. By splitting this one column into two I can easily remove the unwanted parts.

In this case I specified the left parentheses character ”(” as the delimiter which split the contents of the cell at that point. Then I can simply delete the new Column D and go on my merry way.

[1] WARNING: 48

Separating data overwrites both the source cells and the cells directly to their right. To avoid deleting adjacent cell data, you can insert one or more blank columns to the right of the column you are separating. How It Works: 1. Select the data to be separated. 2. From the Data menu select Text to Columns... 3. In the resulting wizard select the Delimited option and click the Next button.

4. In the Delimiters section indicate what you’re using to split the data, then click the Next button.

5. Optional: The final step of the wizard lets you set the format of these new columns and/or indicate a different location for these columns.

6. Click OK to replace existing columns. Considerations: This might take a little practice to get it exactly the way you want but if you’re interested here are some of the [2]things you should consider along with some other relevant details: [3]http://www.uwec.edu/Help/Excel07/ws-separate.htm See It In Action: ...and leave me a comment while you’re there! 49

[4] [5]http://screencast.com/t/uBKTHVTIreF Special Note to Spreadsheet Monkeys: I realize you can also [6]do this with a variety of different Excel formulas or VB code but for us mere mortals this way might be a bit easier. 8-D What do you think? Useful? Have a better way? 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/after2.png 2. http://www.uwec.edu/Help/Excel07/ws-separate.htm#consider 3. http://www.uwec.edu/Help/Excel07/ws-separate.htm 4. http://screencast.com/t/uBKTHVTIreF 5. http://screencast.com/t/uBKTHVTIreF 6. http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1033367.html

#130 Excel: Double-click Tricks (2009-06-26 14:16) OK, lots of Excel stuff lately. If you’re ready for a different topic tell me about it. But I think these are pretty good ones this week even if you’re only a sometime Excel dabbler. Here are some double-click actions that will definitely save you some time. And just in case that’s not enough (geez you’re awfully demanding aren’t you?) I’ve also included an awesome Excel website at no extra charge. 8-) So get your mouse clicker finger warmed up and ready. Here we go.... Adjust column widths by double clicking on the separators You can automatically size your columns by double-clicking the right edge of the column heading separator. I *THINK* this one is pretty well known but it is SO useful I wanted to include it to be sure no one misses out.

Bonus: Select multiple columns before clicking the separator to size them all at once. 50

Jump to first or last cell of a row or column Double-click cell-border in the direction you want to go and you’ll be transported. equivalent of using the End + Arrow key on the keyboard.

This is the

Auto-fill a series of cells with data or formulas This one is super handy when have a table where in one column you have some data and in the next you have written a formula in the first row. You could copy/paste it down the entire rest of the column, or you could just, double click in the bottom right corner and watch the magic happen.

NOTE: This trick works for formulas and auto-fills (series of numbers, dates, etc.) adjacent column has data in it.

as long as the

Want more great Excel Stuff? If you use Excel and are interested in more great tips like these you should do yourself a big favor and subscribe to the Pointy Haired Dilbert. Don’t let the name fool you this is FANTASTIC stuff. You can subscribe via [1]RSS or email.

[2] http://chandoo.org/wp/category/excel/ Did you know these already? [3]Drop me a note and let me know.

1. http://feeds2.feedburner.com/PointyHairedDilbert 2. http://bit.ly/14YMvQ 3. mailto:[email protected]

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3.4

November

#151: Presentation Cheat Sheet (2009-11-13 10:59) If you’ve ever thought that it would be nice to put all your commonly used buttons from all the different toolbars in one place, this week’s tip is just for you. The Microsoft Office programs make it really easy to create your very own personalized toolbar and trick it out with whatever buttons you want. You can even add menu items and buttons aren’t normally on ANY toolbar.

Action Shortcut

Start presentation from first slide F5

Run next animation or advance to next slide Enter or Spacebar (or click the mouse)

Return to the previous slide Backspace

Jump to a particular slide Type the slide number and press Enter

Jump to the first slide Home

Jump to the last slide End

Black out screen / Resume B (or period)

White out screen / Resume W (or comma)

End Slide Show Esc key (or hyphen) 52

Erase Annotations E

Display pen pointer CTRL + P

Display arrow pointer CTRL + A

Hide Pointer & Pop-up Menu CTRL + H

Display shortcut menu SHIFT + F10

Jump to next hyperlink on slide TAB

Jump to previous hyperlink on slide SHIFT + TAB

Launch selected hyperlink ENTER

If you work in PowerPoint much you might also be interested in these good [1]PowerPoint Resources. 1. http://bit.ly/HJNiv

#152: Free & Easy Online Meetings (2009-11-27 10:45)

Do you ever use Net Meeting for screensharing? Have you ever wished for a better option? Well we actually do have a pretty good (and free!) alternative in the form of Lotus Sametime Meetings. I’m not sure why it is kept such a secret but you can access Sametime Meetings here: [1]http://dslim1or.aepsc.com/STCENTER.nsf (Sorry AEP only link.) 53

[2] Once you login, you can schedule your meeting including options such as:

• whether the meeting is open to anyone or only available to those you specifically invite

• whether you’ll require a meeting password

• adding content slides [ [3]see the list of supported formats here ]

• allowing group chat within the meeting or not

• whether you would like to record the meeting

Meeting Details Once you’ve scheduled your meeting you’ll receive a nice, neat summary with all the details via email which you can add to a meeting invitation and/or forward to the attendees including the file attachments you’ve associated with the meeting. 54

[4] In-Session Features: Once your in session you’ll be able to use features such as:

• screen sharing among any/all participants

• use group chat

• share web sites

• use the polling tool to gather feedback

• use the whiteboard feature 55

[5] If you’re not at AEP or if you’re curious about other options check out these free alternatives: [6]Yugma, [7]DimDim, [8]Vyew.com, and others. Also many web meeting tools have a ”3 for free” option that allow you to do these types of online meetings for up to 3 people at no cost. Got any questions about how you can use these types of collaboration tools? 1. http://dslim1or.aepsc.com/STCENTER.nsf 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/image4.jpg 3. http://dslim1or.aepsc.com/stconf.nsf/frmConference?OpenForm 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/image3.jpg 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/image5.jpg 6. https://www.yugma.com/ 7. http://www.dimdim.com/ 8. http://vyew.com/

3.5

December

#153: Easy (But Deceptive) Excel Tricks (2009-12-04 10:31) I came across an article recently titled ”10 Things I Can Never Remember to Do in Excel” and it prompted me to think (Scary I know.) and I remembered being asked about these tricks a number of times but have always forgotten to share as a weekly tip. So without further ado here is my own version, ”Excel Things I Can Never Previously Couldn’t Remember to Share” 56

Show/Hide Cell Formulas If you ever work with formulas in Excel, I’m willing to bet that at some point you need to check under the hood and easily see what formulas you have in your spreadsheet. Instead of doing this the longer and more convoluted way via Excel options you can toggle the display on the fly just by pressing the following key combo: CTRL + If you select a specific cell whose formula you want to troubleshoot, Excel will also show you the dependent cells for the formula. (as indicated by the blue outlined cells on the right below)

Line Breaks Within a Cell Another fairly common question I’ve gotten that may seem beyond simplistic - until the day you can’t remember how to do it - is how to create a line break WITHIN a cell. To create a multiple-line entry in a cell, you can’t just press [Enter] to insert a line break, since that will take you into the next cell. Instead, you all you have to do is press ALT + Enter What would you like to see next week? [1]Click here to send me a note and let me know. 1. mailto:[email protected]

#154 Free & Easy Collaborative Writing (2009-12-11 15:55) I recently discovered [1]EtherPad, a web-based word processor that allows people to work together in realtime. When multiple people edit the same document simultaneously, any changes are instantly reflected on everyone’s screen. The result is a new and productive way to collaborate on text documents, useful for meeting notes, drafting sessions, education, team programming, and more. If you’ve seen or heard any of the hype about Google Wave this seems to be similar...but easier to use and MUCH more available. (No invitation required!) What it does Etherpad puts collaborative editing in your hands without requiring any registration and makes giving access as simple as sharing a link. [2]Go see my sample document and add a comment of your own. 57

[3] [4]Take the tour and check out their [5]FAQ page for more details. You’ve GOT to have questions about this one. If not, how could you use something like this? (Just think of the possibilities of this for meeting notes.) Drop a note in the comments and let us know. 1. http://etherpad.com/ 2. http://etherpad.com/totw 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/etherpad.png 4. http://etherpad.com/ep/about/product 5. http://etherpad.com/ep/about/faq

#155 Word Shrink to Fit (2009-12-18 06:00)

Have you ever had a Word document where the last couple of lines spill over and are ’orphaned’ on the last page all by themselves? Wouldn’t it be nice to shrink it just enough to fit neatly on the previous page with everything else? What would you do? You could spend time manually tweaking your document or you could simply click the Shrink to Fit button. Available only in Print Preview, the Shrink to Fit button will automatically tweak your document so it fits. Word tries to do this by intelligently reducing the font size across the Styles currently used in the document. So be sure to look through the formatting once again before printing the document. How to Shrink Your Printout This button is only available in Print Preview mode. 1. On the File menu, click Print Preview. 2. Click Shrink to Fit button (shown below)

[1] BEFORE: 58

[2] AFTER:

[3] Note: In order to shrink the document, Microsoft Word decreases the font size of each font used in the document. You can undo a Shrink to Fit operation by clicking Undo Shrink to Fit on the Edit menu. However, after you save the document and close it, there is no quick way to restore the original font size. And depending on your document it may not always get you where you want to be .

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/word2002-button.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/before.png 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/after.png

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2010 4.1

January

#157: Working With Non-contiguous Cells (2010-01-04 15:43) Did you know that you can use the CTRL key to select non-contiguous cells in Excel? Holding the CTRL key down while you select cells will let you select multiple cells even if they are not next to one another. This week we’ll see a couple of the reasons you might want to use this trick. Quick Calculations: One handy use for this trick is in conjunction with the status bar feature that allows you to see the Sum, Average, Min, Max, etc of the selected cells. (Right click on the status bar displaying the result to switch between which calculation you want.)

Quick Data Entry: Suppose you want to put the entry in two or more cells. Using the old-fashioned way, you’d probably make your entry into the first cell and then copy and paste that into all the others right? Here a relatively unknown tip that makes short work of placing the same entry in multiple cells. First, select all the cells you want to populate. Type the entry, but don’t press Enter. Instead, press CTRL + Enter. When you do, Excel will copy what you typed into all of the selected cells. See It In Action: 61

[1] What new technology gadgets did you get for Christmas? 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/excel-ctrl-enter-dataentry.gif

#158: Excel Conditional Formatting (2010-01-08 12:45)

Conditional formatting in Excel is a somewhat hidden, yet extremely useful gem that can transform your data from an unintelligible mess into something meaningful and good looking. Better still, you don’t even need to be a guru or excel pro to be successful with this trick. You can learn some cool conditional formatting tricks over a nice, warm cup of coffee (did I mention that it’s COLD here?) So go grab a cup of coffee and we’ll get started as soon as you get back? Oh, great you’re back. Let’s dig in....Most spreadsheets of any size present you with row after row of numbers that are not always easy to interpret. With conditional formatting, it only takes a glance to highlight and compare the data that is important to you. What conditional formatting does is allow you to format cells based on the contents of that or other cells based on the ’rules’ you create. To illustrate this, the example below shows conditional formatting that automatically highlights any sales values less than $5,000 (in red) and greater than $15,000 (in green). Before:

62

After:

How Its Done: 1. Select the cells to be formatted. 63

2. From the Format menu, select Conditional Formatting...

3. In the Conditional Formatting dialog box, leave the first drop-down box set to Cell Value Is

4. In the second drop-down box, choose one of the operators.

5. In the text box, type a number or a cell reference.

6. Click the Format button to set your font and cell formatting options.

7. Click OK, to close the Format Cells dialog box.

8. If you want to add another conditional format, click the Add button.

9. Repeat steps 3 to 8, using the values and colors that you want for the second conditional format.

11. Click OK, to return to the worksheet and see the results. 64

NOTE: There is a limit of 3 sets of formatting options. Unless you have the Excel 2007 How could you use conditional formatting on your data? [1]Click here to send me a note and let me know.

Have a great weekend! Mike 1. mailto:[email protected]

#159: Save Time Using Excel’s ”Big 3”String Functions (2010-01-13 19:59) I’ve seen several scenarios recently where someone has needed seperate the contents of a single cell into different columns, and since we are all member of the WSNH club ( Work Smarter Not Harder) we certainly don’t want to retype them from scratch do we?! Here’s how to use Excel’s LEFT, RIGHT and MID functions to extract what you need automatically - the smart way. If you’re a veteran spreadsheet monkey and already know this you are now officially free to return to your normally scheduled programming....otherwise keep reading for all the nitty gritty details. Basically what we’re going to do is extract some part of the cell contents and display it in a cell of it’s own. Here is a good before and after example to show you what is possible. Remember, these are all automatically calculated via formulas and no manual data entry is required. Before:

After:

Grabbing the characters from the front end: We can use the Left function to extract the characters of the front of the string. 65

=LEFT(text,number of characters)

Grabbing the characters from the back end: We can use the Right function to extract the characters of the front of the string. =RIGHT(text,number of characters)

[1]

Grabbing the characters from the middle: We can use the Mid function to extract the characters of the middle of the string. =MID(text,start number, number of characters)

How could you use these formulas on your data? Click here to send me a note and let me know.

Have a great weekend! Mike 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/right.png

#160: Excel String Functions: The Sequel (2010-01-22 12:03) OK, I have a confession to make. Last week when I showed the before and after examples, I ”baited the hook” and intentionally left part of it unexplained. The part I did [1]explain last week was how to extract a certain number of characters from a string from the left, right and middle. However, these only work if you always want the same number of characters. For example, when extracting the area code you always want the first three numbers. What do you do when the length of what you want to extract varies? Give up? Manually re-type them? I hope not! All you need is a couple simple functions and little basic math. Here’s the before and after so you can see where we’re headed 66

[2] How Its Done: Grabbing the first name Part 1:To grab the first name we first need to use the =FIND function to determine the location of the space. In our example, this tells us that the space is the 10th character in the cell.

=FIND(text to find,text to search,starting place)

Part 2: Once we know where the space is we simply use the =LEFT function to specify that we everything prior where the space is, or the first 9 characters. This gets a little bit more complex because we’re now nesting a function within a function =LEFT(A3,(FIND(” ”,A3)-1))

Grabbing the last name Part 1: Getting the last name is slightly different and requires us to calculate how many total characters are in the cell and then simply subtract all other characters up to where the space is. * Remember that in our example, we’ve already determined that the space is in the 10th spot using the =FIND() function Part 2: To determine the total number of characters we’ll use the =LEN() function and nest one more formula to get this one. =RIGHT(A3,(LEN(A3)-(FIND(” ”,A3))))

67

Helpful Hint: When learning these functions it is probably easier to do each step in it’s own cell. Keeping track of those nested formulas can be very mind bending at times. [3]Here’s a sample copy you can download and explore further if you like.

If your head hurts don’t worry. We’ll return to something MUCH more easy on the brain next week? Got anything you’re wrestling with? [4]Click here to send me a note and let me know. 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/using-excel-functions-to/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/b4.png 3. http://www.box.net/shared/ebykieovhn 4. mailto:[email protected]

Speed Up Your Email with Shortcuts (2010-01-28 12:35) I’m willing to bet that most of us send repeatedly send lots of email messages to the same few people sometimes to the same person several times a day! Repeatedly specifying the same address is inefficient, even with the AutoComplete feature. If you send a fair amount of email to the same people this week’s tip is just for you. This week we’ll see how to create a shortcut that opens a blank, pre-addressed e-mail message in whatever email software you use. (Notes, Outlook, etc.) How It’s Done: Create a desktop email shortcut

1. Right-click on your desktop, choose New, and then Shortcut.

2. In the Create Shortcut dialog, type mailto:emailaddress. ( No spaces between the mailto: part and the email address. ) 68

2. Click Next and enter a descriptive name for your email shortcut.

3. Click Finish and depending on what you use for email you’ll get icon similar to one of these:

Now double click your shortcut and voila! you’ve got a pre-addressed email that’s all ready to go. More options for this trick:

You can even specify multiple recipients, a subject line and more. You can find a [1]full list of mailto: options here. Be sure to click this link below to try it out! 8-) [2] Click this link to see it in action! . 1. http://bit.ly/dnL5d2 2.

mailto:[email protected][email protected][email protected]&subject=IlovetheseWeeklyTips&body=

ThatMikeTaylorguysisreallysmartandyoushouldgivehimaBIGraise!

4.2

February

PDFmyURL (2010-02-05 11:48) There are a number of ways to capture a web page as a PDF but none as simple as this. Instead of using online file converters, psuedo-printers or any of those other methods use this SUPER simple, no-software-required solution. PDFmyURL spits out PDF files when you plug in a web address. That’s all there is to it. 69

[1] And, yeah, there’s a bookmarklet so you can add this to your browser toolbar and use this service with a single click on any site you visit. How It’s Done:

1. Go to [2]pdfmyurl.com 2. Enter a URL (web address) and click the button. 3. Open or save your pdf file. How can you use this? I use this to share print and share web sites with others or even to take with me to read later. What about you? [3]Click here to send me a note and let me know. 1. http://pdfmyurl.com/ 2. http://pdfmyurl.com/ 3. mailto:[email protected]

#162: Videos To Go (2010-02-12 12:08) From time to time I get questions about how to download an online video for use in a PowerPoint or for a training session, etc. There are seemingly as many ways to do this as there are videos. One of the simplest and most versatile ways that I’ve found is [1]benderconverter.com

[2] Bender Converter is handy site for downloading and converting videos from such services as YouTube, Daily Motion, Vimeo, TwitVid.com, Wat.tv, Veoh, Vids.MySpace.com, Google Video and many others. You can download video and audio in MP3, AVI, FLV Flash, iPod / iPhone and other popular formats. The service is fast and doesn’t require you to register. All you need is a link to a page with a video. 70

NOTE: Despite [3]signs of intelligent life, some of these video sources such as Google Video and YouTube, are blocked here at AEP. So if you want something from there you’ll have to get it from home or somewhere else. [ Does anybody else find it ironic that AEP has a [4]channel on YouTube and a [5]Facebook page that are both blocked? ]

How It Works: 1. Choose the format of the audio/video you want to download. 2. Enter the complete address of the webpage with the video. AEP’s ”The Anatomy of an Electric System” is a good one to try out [6]http://www.vimeo.com/3573025 3. Press the Convert button 4. Click the Download button. Have you ever tried to do this some other way? How did it work? Is this something you can use? [7]Send me a note and let me know. 1. http://bit.ly/a3ZQ5J 2. http://bit.ly/a3ZQ5J 3. http://bit.ly/deBosJ 4. http://bit.ly/aFh4Wn 5. http://bit.ly/bStQFq 6. http://www.vimeo.com/3573025 7. mailto:[email protected]

#163: Become a Superhero with Excel Subtotals (2010-02-19 12:52)

Fasten your seat belts because this week we’re going to dish out an extra large and powerful dose of Excel ’magic’. I’m a HUGE fan of the [1]AutoFilter tool in Excel. If you’re not familiar with it, filtering gives you a quick, easy way of paring down your data to focus on only the stuff that matters. Go ahead and [2]take a look here....we’ll wait ’til you get back. (Really, go ahead!) OK. Welcome back. We now continue with our regularly scheduled programming.

AutoFilter by itself can be a big time-saver and by paring it with the SUBTOTAL function you can turn yourself into an Excel Superhero. The SUBTOTAL function lets you do dynamic calculations that change based on only what is displayed by your AutoFilter settings. That means if it’s not visible, it’s not included in the calculation. Here’s a sneak peak... 71

[3] Subtotal & Autofilter in action. The syntax for the SUBTOTAL function is as follows: SUBTOTAL(function, refs) In this syntax, the function is a value of 1 through 11, each representing a different way that SUBTOTAL can analyze your data. The settings have the following meanings: Function Meaning

1 AVERAGE 2 COUNT 3 COUNTA 4 MAX 5 MIN 6 PRODUCT 7 STDEV 8 STDEVP 9 SUM 72

10 VAR 11 VARP How It Works:

Using this sample data I can create one set of formulas to calculate stats on ANY combination or the data I want. [ [4]Download a copy of my spreadsheet to play with yourself ]

Here are the formulas I created:

..and the results of those formulas when the AutoFilter is displaying all the data.

Same formulas but different results with the AutoFilter displaying only the Asia Region:

1. http://bit.ly/baQChL 2. http://bit.ly/dd3PwR 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/totw-subtotal.gif 4. http://www.box.net/shared/5g0cdz3ae5

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#164 Excel Subtotals (2010-02-19 18:41) February 19, 2010 Fasten your seat belts because this week we’re going to dish out an extra large and powerful dose of Excel ’magic’. I’m a HUGE fan of the [1]AutoFilter tool in Excel. If you’re not familiar with it, filtering gives you a quick, easy way of paring down your data to focus on only the stuff that matters. Go ahead and take a look here....we’ll wait ’til you get back. (Really, go ahead!) OK. Welcome back. We now continue with our regularly scheduled programming. AutoFilter by itself can be a big time-saver and by paring it with the SUBTOTAL function you can turn yourself into an Excel Superhero. The SUBTOTAL function lets you do dynamic calculations that change based on only what is displayed by your AutoFilter settings. That means if it’s not visible, it’s not included in the calculation. Here’s a sneak peak...

[2] The syntax for the SUBTOTAL function is as follows: SUBTOTAL(function, refs) In this syntax, the function is a value of 1 through 11, each representing a different way that SUBTOTAL can analyze your data. The settings have the following meanings: Function Meaning 1 AVERAGE 2 COUNT 3 COUNTA 4 MAX 5 MIN 6 PRODUCT 74

7 STDEV 8 STDEVP 9 SUM 10 VAR 11 VARP How It Works: Using this sample data I can create one set of formulas to calculate stats on ANY combination or the data I want. [ [3]Download a copy of my spreadsheet to play with yourself ]

[4] Here are the formulas I created:

[5] ..and the results of those formulas when the AutoFilter is displaying all the data.

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[6] Same formulas but different results with the AutoFilter displaying only the Asia Region:

[7]

1. http://bit.ly/baQChL 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image8.jpg 3. http://www.box.net/shared/5g0cdz3ae5 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image6.jpg 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image5.jpg 6. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image9.jpg 7. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/image7.jpg

3 Office Annoyances & How to Fix Them (2010-02-26 11:30) I believe that most people are basically good and generally have good intentions. However, I also realize that we don’t always want or need the ”help” that is being offered. Microsoft Office is no different and it helps us all in many ways. This week we’ll see a few tricks for getting rid of the ”help” we don’t want. These steps are for Word, but PowerPoint and Excel are very similar to these. 76

Annoyance #1: Hyperlinks are automatically created when you type a Web page address

1. Go to Tools | AutoCorrect Options and select the AutoFormat As You Type tab. 2. Under Replace As You Type, deselect the Internet And Network Paths With Hyperlinks check box and click OK.

[1] Annoyance #2: Unexpected symbols, like trademark or copyright characters get inserted

1. Go to Tools | AutoCorrect Options and select the AutoCorrect tab. 2. Find the Replace Text As You Type check box. 3. Either deselect it to suppress all replacements or select and delete individual items in the list below it. It might make sense to keep the feature enabled and selectively remove items, since the list includes scores of common misspellings that are actually nice to have corrected for you. 77

[2] #3: Capitalization of your text changes as you type it

A host of settings can trigger this behavior.

1. Go to Tools | AutoCorrect Options and select the AutoCorrect tab. 2. Here, you can deselect whichever check boxes govern the unwanted actions including: • Correct Two Initial Capitals • Capitalize First Letter Of Sentences • Capitalize First Letter Of Table Cells • Capitalize Names Of Days • Correct Accidental Use Of Caps Lock Key The Quick & Dirty Solution: Undo

If you haven’t had a chance to disable an automatic feature (or you want to leave it enabled and override it only occasionally), remember that pressing Ctrl+Z or using your Undo button immediately after Word 78

makes a change will undo that action. So, for example, if Word inserts a smart apostrophe where you want to retain the straight character to denote measurement, just hit Undo to straighten it back out. If you’re interested, there are [3]even more fixes here. What are your annoyances?

Wrestling with any other annoyances of your own? [4]Click here to send me a note and let me know. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/totw1.gif 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/totw2.gif 3. http://bit.ly/97rSLt 4. mailto:[email protected]

4.3

March

#166: How Good Are Your Passwords? (2010-03-05 12:55)

We all know that having good passwords are important right? But what makes a password good? If you’re like me you probably have never stopped to give it much thought. Let me use this opportunity to ask you to take a few minutes now to do just that. Yes, really right now. And no, I’m not getting a commission from the security people. (Although, I do accept cash or money orders.) The only reason I even mention it is because one morning this week I logged into my email account to see about a dozen messages informing me that one of my accounts had been hacked and use to send....um...er....adult related SPAM. Not good! Fortunately, I was able to reset my password and regain control of the account. At least as far as I can tell so far. After furiously sending a bunch of messages apologizing to the people who received those messages, I spent a fair amount of time changing every password I could think of. Network passwords, email passwords, LOTS of passwords to websites, etc. Does that sound like fun to you? Trust me it’s not a good feeling. So I hope you’ll learn from my experience and at least take a few moments to give this some thought. Here are some good sites to help you with that thinking. Password Strength Checker: If you think you’re much smarter than me and already have strong passwords, at least go and check them out to make sure. [1]Password Strength Checker 79

[2] How did you do? If you passed, good for you. If not, go to this Microsoft site to find out how to make your passwords better. [3]Strong Passwords | Microsoft Security Benefit from my misfortunes I hope you’ve at least give this some thought. If not, you can’t say that you haven’t been warned. How do you handle your passwords? [4]Click here to send me a note and let me know. 1. http://bit.ly/cwXQp5 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/passwordchecker.png 3. http://bit.ly/cFZlJ6 4. mailto:[email protected]

#167: Managing Your Passwords (2010-03-12 11:43) [1]Last week’s tip on passwords seems to have been a good one. It was by far the most popular one I’ve ever shared and I got more comments and questions than ever before. Many of those comments were along the lines of ”Wow, my passwords weren’t nearly as secure as I thought!” The question I got the most was along the lines of ”How in the heck do you keep track of all the different passwords you use in all the different places you need them?” This is what we’ll look at this week managing your passwords. I’ve discussed this in a previous tip titled ”[2] &! #@ % passwords” that also included a good idea on how to remember 100 different passwords with 1 rule set. Since that’s been over 2 years ago many of you may have missed it and there are some new options that weren’t around back then. KeePass: I’m still using KeePass to keep track of all my passwords. KeePass is a desktop password manager which securely saves passwords to web sites, computers, networks, email accounts, etc. etc. on your computer. It will tell you how strong your passwords are and can even generate random passwords for you. 80

[3] Here’s how it works: you set one master password which opens your KeePass password database. Once you’re in, enter and retrieve usernames and passwords (with optional URL and notes) for various login services (ie, Amazon.com, PayPal, Ebay). KeePass can suggest hard-to-guess random passwords as you set up new login accounts, and it’s small enough to save on a thumb drive so you can take your passwords with you. Because no one has your KeePass master password, it’s very difficult for someone to open the database if your thumb drive or laptop is lost or stolen. (You do have a backup plan right?!?!) Before you dive in, here are a few things to keep in mind: 1. ONLY install KeePass on a computer you control and own. Don’t set it up on a shared computer. 2.In general, the best place to keep passwords is in your head. But, it’s a good idea to have a different password for each service you log into, so if Someone Bad knows one of your passwords, they can’t log in as you into everything else. So KeePass is a good way to keep track of the different passwords, HOWEVER, it’s not a great idea to rely on software (or monitor sticky notes) for super important high-security passwords. 3, Never, give away your KeePass master database password. Yes, if you’re suddenly struck with amnesia, you’re kind of hosed, but if you were trying to remember all your passwords instead of just the one master, you’d be hosed anyway. 4. The best passwords are easy to remember and hard to guess. See ”[4]How to remember 100 different passwords with 1 rule set” for some tips. Not convinced? Or looking for other options? Check out this [5]article on the Five Best Password Managers

NOTE: If you are one of the people who keep your passwords in an Excel file, those passwords are relatively easy to bypass.

1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/166-how-good-are-your-passwords/ 2. http://bit.ly/9IR8FH 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/keepass-shot.png 4. http://bit.ly/bNcoAd 5. http://bit.ly/az9EMk

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#168: Collaborative Authoring Update-TypeWith.me (2010-03-19 10:06) In a [1]previous tip, I shared a nifty real-time collaborative authoring tool, called Etherpad which generated some pretty good interest. At the time Etherpad had just been [2]acquired by Google to become part of Wave, and it’s status was sort of up in the air. Etherpad has now [3]been opensourced by Google.

Not that it’s been opensourced it has been ”frozen in time” and released as [4]TypeWith.Me Like Ethepad, TypeWith.Me is a solid, simple, as-you-type document collaboration webapp with no sign-up required.

[5] Getting started is as simple as clicking the New Document button on the site’s home page. You’re instantly dropped into an edit-ready page where you can start typing right away, or import an HTML, plain text, RTF, or Word document. Each online document has its own unique URL you can share with others for real-time co-editing, and there’s a small window for chatting on your edits. TypeWith.me helpfully assigns different colors to each author so you can easily track who’s typed what, and the app instantly synchronizes as you type so changes appear in real time. When you’re done, export your work to one of six file formats, including Word, PDF, and HTML. [6]Go to my document to try it out and add some comments. 1. http://bit.ly/dnrLOP 2. http://janeknight.typepad.com/pick/2009/12/etherpad-to-go-open-source.html 3. http://janeknight.typepad.com/pick/2009/12/etherpad-open-source-code-now-available.html 4. http://typewith.me/ 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/typewithme.png 6. http://bit.ly/8Zlaxp

#169: Editing in Word’s Print Preview Mode (2010-03-26 11:06) I’m guessing that you’ve probably seen Microsoft Word’s Print Preview mode that displays a document as it will appear when printed. It shows you the formatting, columns, pictures, shapes, and even header and footer text, giving you a complete look at your document without having to print it. You may have even noticed that in Print Preview, your cursor changes into a magnifying glass, which allows you to zoom in and out. Never noticed? Go ahead and give it a try. We’ll wait for you. 82

Zooming is nice. Of course, when I zoom I usually find the typos, etc that the spell checker didn’t catch. Wouldn’t it be handy if you could make those simple corrections right there in Print Preview mode? If you think so then you’re in luck - you can. It is very simple, just not quite so obvious.

[1] How to edit a document in Print Preview mode: 1. Click the Magnifier icon on the Print Preview toolbar. This turns off the magnifier and changes the cursor back to the regular insertion point marker (I-beam) you’re used to. Now you can edit your brains out! When you want to zoom, just click Magnifier again. Any edits you make in Print Preview will become part of your document; Word retains those edits when you return to Normal view. (Just be sure to save it before exiting Word.)

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/edit-in-print-preview-mode.gif

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4.4

April

#170: Finding Documents via Google (2010-04-01 17:58) Have you ever wished you could search Google but instead of websites you only want to find a certain type of document? If so, you’re in luck. Google search has an operator that allows you to limit your search results to a specific type of document or file type. The filetype: operator is what you’ll use for this type of search. Just specify the file extension of the type of document you’re looking for.

[1] The most common formats to search include:

• PPT - PowerPoint • DOC - Word • PDF - Adobe Acrobat • XLS - Excel See the complete list of file types this will work for and more relevant details in [2]Google Help. And find even more great search tricks like this from [3]Google Guide. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/google-logo.png 2. http://bit.ly/alCgtg 3. http://bit.ly/azC6Ra

#171: Using Snap Off Toolbars in Microsoft Office (2010-04-07 11:15) One of my favorite Office tricks and an easy way to boost your efficiency when working on documents is to snap-off the menus and float, or ”pin” them open. Many of the office toolbar options have drop-down menus which can be ”pinned” to your workspace and kept open until you choose to turn them off. This can be done in Excel, Word and PowerPoint. OK, so about now you’re probably thinking why would I ever want to do this? Snapping off a function from a toolbar will keep it turned on so you can continue to use the function without renegotiating it 84

every time you need it. This can be a big time saver. Here are some of the tools I like to snap off. WORD: When working with tables in Word I like to snap off the table borders function.

[1][2] POWERPOINT : When working in PowerPoint the most common ones that I snap off are the Basic Shapes and the Order functions. (Shown below.)

[3] What do you think? Which tools will you be snapping off?

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/snapoff-wprd.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/snapoff-word.png 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/snapoff-toolbars.gif

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#172: AutoFilter Formula (2010-04-15 17:26) If you use Excel much, especially with large amounts of data, and aren’t using the AutoFilter function, [1]stop right now and go learn about it. (You’ll be glad you did!) If you’re already using it, good for you - you know how useful it can be. This week we’ll see a cool formula that will clearly show you and/or the people looking at your spreadsheets, if the data has been filtered or not. And if it is, how many records are being shown. Warning this may register a bit high on the ’geek meter’. But don’t let that scare you. If you’re still with me take a look below to see what this looks like in action.

The formula to make this work uses an [2]IF statement in combination with the [3]COUNTA and [4]SUBTOTAL functions. ( If this is making your head hurt already, go ahead and skip down to the bottom, I won’t be offended. ) If you’re still with me, here is the formula: =IF(COUNTA(B4:B3000)>SUBTOTAL(3,B4:B3000), ”list filtered [” &SUBTOTAL(3,B4:B3000) &” items]”,”Not filtered”) Now that is a pretty ugly looking beast, but don’t let that intimidate you. Here is the logic translated for normal humans. 86

[5] Read this as...If the total number of rows is greater than the number of rows being displayed, show ”List Filtered” and the number of items displayed. Otherwise show ”Not Filtered” What do you use AutoFilter for in Excel?

1. http://bit.ly/caypPF 2. http://bit.ly/aVmHYR 3. http://bit.ly/dkcq39 4. http://bit.ly/bJUZnD 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/autofilter-formula.png

#173 Delicious: A Better Way To Bookmark (2010-04-22 18:21)

Quick question for you. What do you do if you want to access a bookmark saved on your work computer from home (or anywhere else for that matter)? Email it to yourself? Write it on a Post-It note and hope you don’t lose it? What happens if your PC fails? This week we’ll see a great option for solving these and other bookmark related challenges. Lots of people still store their bookmarks/favorites in their web browser, which are only available from the one computer they get saved on. Delicious is an online bookmarking tool, that keeps all your bookmarks online, so you can get to them from any computer, whether you’re at home, at work or on the road. Other advantages include a better way to organize, share and annotate your bookmarks. [1]Watch this short, ”plain English” video to see how it works. 87

[2] Sign-up

1. Go to [3]delicious.com 2. Click ”Join Now ” 3. Follow the instructions as prompted Get the buttons Adding the buttons to your browser toolbar is the most efficient way of using delicious. (trust me you’ll want to have these)[4] http://delicious.com/help/bookmarklets

[5] Start Bookmarking Whenever you find a site you want to bookmark simply click the ”Bookmark on Delicious” button in your browser. The URL and title are automatically captured so all you need to do is tag it and, if you want, add some notes to it. This will be saved to your Delicious account which you can access from anywhere you have 88

internet access, including your phone. See It In Action:

Bookmarks of Interest:

• Getting started with Delicious: [6]http://delicious.com/help/getStarted • All of my personal bookmarks: [7]http://delicious.com/tmiket/ • Popular Excel bookmarks: [8]http://delicious.com/popular/excel • Popular PowerPoint bookmarks: [9] http://delicious.com/popular/PowerPoint • Popular Word bookmarks: [10]http://delicious.com/popular/Word What do you think? Good idea or not? Bookmarks of Interest: Getting started with Delicious: http://delicious.com/help/getStarted 89

All of my personal bookmarks: http://delicious.com/tmiket/ Popular Excel bookmarks: http://delicious.com/popular/excel Popular PowerPoint bookmarks: http://delicious.com/popular/PowerPoint Popular Word bookmarks: http://delicious.com/popular/Word

1. http://bit.ly/cATLXc 2. http://bit.ly/cATLXc 3. http://bit.ly/cyua7R 4. http://bit.ly/aK26OF 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/deliciousbuttons.png 6. http://bit.ly/bXy2tU 7. http://delicious.com/tmiket/ 8. http://bit.ly/9prxZI 9. http://bit.ly/cKACh3 10. http://bit.ly/cAvtNF

#174: Excel - The Power of ’IF’ (2010-04-28 14:17)

[1] Among the first few Excel functions most of us learn are the SUM and COUNT functions. This week I’d like to take a look at a couple of simple and very useful variations of those – SUMIF and COUNTIF. Over on the right is a typical set of spreadsheet data which has been totalled using the SUM function. Piece of cake right? Now how would you get a total for each of the regions? You could manually create formulas pointing to the correct cells - but what if you have hundreds or even thousands of rows? Way too slow! This kind of scenario is when it pays to know about the SUMIF function can save the day. In this example, SUMIF can look for a specifi value in column A and then add only the corresponding values in column B. For example, let’s take a look at using SUMIF to find only the sum of the sales in the East region. Syntax: =SUMIF(range, criteria, sum range) 90

[2] Result = $16,257 Now, let’s see how COUNTIF can tell us how many entries there are for the East region. Syntax: =COUNTIF(range, criteria)

[3]

Result = 3

Now you know the ’Power of IF’. What do you think? 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/excel-if.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/excel-sumif.png 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/excel-countif.png

4.5

May

#175: Reroute Your Google Map (2010-05-04 12:37) I’m a big fan of [1]Google Maps and all the handy things you can do with it. If you ever use it for directions you’ll probably be interested in this weeks tip – how to tweak the directions that Google gives you. For example, if you want to make a side trip to grandma’s house, avoid a toll road, or just take your favorite shortcut; it’s easy to change your route in Google Maps. Just drag and drop. 91

To change your driving directions on the fly, hover your mouse over the point in your route you’d like to change. You’ll see a small square which represents a control point in the route. Click on or near the route and drag it to a new path. Your path is instantly updated, and your driving directions change to reflect the new route. This is a powerful tool, but it’s easy to accidentally overdo it. If you find that you’ve changed your route too much, you can use the back arrow on your browser to undo the damage. (Or use the ’Undo’ link above the map.) See It In Action:

Related links & resources:

• [2]Google Maps • [3]Google Maps Help Guide • [4]Search Nearby I really like the ’Search Nearby’ trick and LOVE that I can[5] use it on my smart phone (Blackberry, iPhone,etc.) What’s your favorite thing to do with Google Maps? 1. http://bit.ly/bcQGt5 2. http://bit.ly/bcQGt5

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3. http://bit.ly/cgBKva 4. http://bit.ly/dcF3dH 5. http://bit.ly/cUQ89h

#176: Evernote (2010-05-14 11:30) Recently we [1]saw how to synchronize your bookmarks with Delicious. This week’s tip about a service called [2]Evernote, gives a whole new meaning to the word “synchronized”. Evernote allows you to easily capture information from virtually anywhere and makes it all accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere else. You can use Evernote to capture your ideas, snapshots, voice memos, things you see online, and just about anything else that you want to remember. The best part: Evernote is always within arm’s reach. There are versions of Evernote for Windows, Mac, your Web browser, iPhone, Blackberry, and other mobile devices. Each of these versions of Evernote is always synchronized, so any information added in one place is instantly available everywhere else. [3]Watch this nicely done overview for more of the skinny....[4]or skip straight to the best part.

[5] Capture It: Chances are, if you can see it or think of it, Evernote can help you remember it. Type a text note. Clip a web page. Snap a photo. Grab a screenshot. Evernote will keep it all safe. Organize It: Everything you capture is automatically processed, indexed, and made searchable. If you like, you can add tags or organize notes into different notebooks. Find It Fast: Search for notes by keywords, titles, and tags. Evernote magically makes printed and handwritten text inside your images searchable, too. Evernote also has the ability to recognize printed and handwritten text within snapshots and images. Try it. Take a photo of a street sign, wine label, or business card. Add it to your Evernote account, give it a few minutes to process, then search for the text from the image. (I don’t care who you are...THAT is cool!) Things to do with Evernote: Notes and research Web pages clips Tasks and to-dos Photos of whiteboards and blackboards Take a picture of the business cards you get (Remember they’ll be searchable) Ink scribbles in a notepad Camera phone snapshots 93

How To Get Started

1. Create a [6]FREE Evernote account. It only takes a minute! 2. Choose which methods you want to use to access Evernote. You can access your Evernote account using the Evernote software, web interface and/ormobile-optimized web interface. Plus, the web clipper can be installed into most web browsers to clip web page content directly into Evernote. 3. Learn more on the [7]Getting Started and [8]Frequently Asked Questions pages. Do you have anything you could use this for? 1. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/04/22/a-better-way-to-bookmark/ 2. http://www.evernote.com/ 3.

file://localhost/mnt/ext/blogbooker/tmp/6dvtpmf1/Watchthisnicelydoneoverviewformoreoftheskinny...

.orskipstraighttothebestpart. 4. http://bit.ly/aZcwmL 5. http://bit.ly/aopsqM 6. http://bit.ly/cZMvHM 7. http://bit.ly/b8jg8n 8. http://bit.ly/aEiLvv

#177: PDF-apalooza (2010-05-20 14:57) One the most frequent questions I get are ones about is PDF documents. I’ve[1] covered this topic before but it’s been quite awhile ago and I thought it might be about time to revisit it again. PDF Viewers: [2]Adobe Reader is the ”official” software for viewing PDF files but it has become bloated and vulnerable to malware attacks over the years. It gave me quite a bit of trouble and was VERY SLOW when it did work. If you’re interested in exploring an alternative, here are some free options that are much faster and have worked well for me. [3]PDF-XChange Viewer This is what I’m currently using. It loads fast and also has some editing features in addition to reading PDF files. [4]Foxit PDF Reader This is a popular, lightweight, and fast PDF viewer for that I have used and really like. [5]CoolPDF Reader This one is freeware that claims to be the smallest PDF reader available, at only 650kb. It can also convert PDF files to many different formats such as TXT, GIF, JPG and more. Tools for Creating PDF Files There are many more options for creating PDFs these days including the newer versions of Office, Google Docs, etc. However, if you don’t have access to one of these or if you just need a free and useful standalone option you should consider one of the following alternatives. 94

[6]PDF Creator PDF Create my current favorite for creating PDF files. It also has some abilities for converting them to other usable formats as well. [7]PrimoPDF This is a popular option that I’ve used successfully. It is one that installs a ”printer” that you send your document to and instead of being sent to the printer the document is ”printed” to a pdf file on your computer. [8]CutePDF Writer Cute PDF Writer installs a PDF printer that you send documents to in order to create them as PDF files. This one is also an official ”AEP approved” option. PDF to Word Conversion: Of all the PDF questions I get, by far the most common one is ”How can I convert my PDF document to Word so that I can edit it?” The best option is always to get the original source document. After all, one of the main points of creating a PDF document in the first place is so that it won’t be edited. That being said, there are definitely occasions where it is helpful to be able to do this and here are some good options. [9]Nuance PDF Reader This tool will upload your PDF and then email you a converted Microsoft Word document. It works really well but be aware that you’re uploading your document to the internt which you may or may not want to do. I’ve had really good luck using Nuance with some fairly complex documents. [10]HelloPDF This one is a stand-alone option that will convert your PDF to Word Doc without requiring you to upload anything nor that you have Adobe Acrobat Reader or Microsoft Word installed! What do you use to work with PDF documents? solve?

What PDF challenges are you still trying to

1. http://bit.ly/aZTC0F 2. http://get.adobe.com/reader/ 3. http://bit.ly/aSkEGI 4. http://bit.ly/b90Zsu 5. http://bit.ly/aLZcR4 6. http://bit.ly/dpk1eA 7. http://bit.ly/cOAeik 8. http://bit.ly/bRAFZ8 9. http://bit.ly/cJDrwj 10. http://bit.ly/aL0jd2

#178: Make Your Own Application Shortcuts (2010-05-26 17:41) Most of us have a few programs we use much more frequently than most others. For me, it’s email (despite my best attempts to the contrary), PowerPoint, and my web browser. Wouldn’t it be handy to have a super quick way to launch those programs you’re into and out of all the time? Of course, you could drag its icon to your Quick Launch toolbar, but then you still have to reach for the mouse every time you want to run it. 95

If you’re a keyboard person like me there’s another great option: assign your favorite program(s) a keyboard shortcut. How to assign a keyboard shortcuts: 1. Right-click the desktop icon for the program in question and then choose Properties. 2. Click inside the Shortcut key field, then press whatever key combination you want to assign to that program. For iTunes, you might use Ctrl-Shift-I or Alt-Shift-A (as in Apple). The only requirement is that the shortcut start with Ctrl-Shift, Ctrl-Alt, or Alt-Shift. (You can’t, for example, just go with

Ctrl-I.) 3. Click OK and you’re done! Now just press that key combo and bing, bang, zoom...your software launches. No mouse, no muss, no fuss! You can set up as many of these shortcuts you want – as long as you can remember what all the shortcuts are! What are your ”go to” apps that you use most often?

4.6

June

#179: PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts (2010-06-04 15:01) Most people use the mouse and cursor to navigate the PowerPoint features. However, there’s a faster way. And that’s by using keyboard shortcuts. Common Keyboard Shortcuts In addition to the Cut, Copy & Paste keyboard shortcuts, here are the ones I use most often in PowerPoint: Duplicate Slides & Objects:

CTRL+D = duplicate slides or objects Create a new slide 96

[1] CTRL+M = create a new slide Learning New Shortcuts If you’re like to start using the keyboard for your most frequent actions but don’t know what they are, you can learn them by watching the menus you’re currently using. Most menu functions display the corresponding keyboard shortcut. [ This is true for all the Microsoft Office applications.] Accessing Menus Via Keyboard

When you look at the top of the toolbar, you’ll notice that some letters are underscored. For example, the file menu read as, File. When you press the ALT key, that will highlight the menu. Then select the underscored letter and it will active the menu item. From there, just keep pressing the underscored letter of the feature you want to use. For example, to access the Edit menu press ALT + E, then type to copy something press the ’C’ key. If you’re not a keyboard person, it might take a little getting used to, but once you get it, you’ll be PowerPoint much more efficiently. [2] [3]See the full list of keyboard shortcuts for PowerPoint What is your favorite PowerPoint shortcut? Leave a comment and let me know. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/ctrlm.png 2. http://bit.ly/aTQaVM 3. http://bit.ly/aTQaVM

#180 Live Web Pages in PowerPoint (2010-06-10 18:30) Have you ever given (or seen) a PowerPoint Presentation involving the use of a live site or application that runs in a web browser? Usually the process goes something like this:

1. Run the PowerPoint slides until it’s time to see the site. 2. Fumble around to stop the slide show 3. More fumbling to find the web browser and the correct site 4. Then reverse the fumbling process on your way back to hopefully pick up your slides where you left off. This week we have a solution for all that fumbling. 97

[1]LiveWeb is a add-in that allows you to insert web pages right into your PowerPoint slides and display them in real-time during the slide show without ever having to leave PowerPoint. It also works for Adobe Acrobat (PDF) documents. [2]LiveWeb is like embedding a full browser in your PowerPoint presentation because you can interact with web pages as if they were opened in a real browser – all the links on web pages are live. [3]Download a sample PowerPoint and see for yourself How It Works: 1. Click on Insert | Web Pages... 2. Enter the web page address(es) that you wish to create and click the Add button.

3. Complete

the

remaining

steps

in

the

wizard.

4. LiveWeb will create slides with web browser controls embedded on the slides. While in the normal view

slides with this embedded content will look like this. [4] 5. When you run the slide show the live, real-time web page(s) will be displayed.

[5]

[6]LiveWeb supports all PowerPoint versions starting from PowerPoint 97 to the latest 2010. Downloading and installing the LiveWeb add-in is a quick affair. The add-in is just 51KB in size. Installation instructions 98

are on the download page. Give it a try. What would you like to see next? Leave a comment and let me know. 1. http://bit.ly/cXI2ew 2. http://bit.ly/cXI2ew 3. http://bit.ly/ahJ67M 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/lwnormal.png 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/lwslideshow.png 6. http://bit.ly/cXI2ew

#181 Introducing Bookmarklets (2010-06-15 18:14) Bookmark + Applet = Bookmarklet A bookmarklet is a small application (applet), stored as a web link the same as any other normal bookmark or favorite. The difference is that bookmarklets are like ’mini-programs’ that actually do some sort of action instead of just taking you to a website. For example, one of my favorite bookmarklets called [1]Readability makes reading many websites much easier by removing all the clutter from the page with a simple click. Here’s an example from the New York Times.

I hope that piques your interest enough to investigate how bookmarklets can help you. If so, here are some questions you might be asking yourself. Will bookmarklets work on my computer/smart phone/device?

Probably. Bookmarklets work with most browsers (even Internet Explorer (including iPhone and Blackberry.) How do I use bookmarklets?

) and operating systems

Bookmarklets are just like bookmarks. Add the bookmarklet to your favorites bar and click on them like you would a bookmark when you’re visiting a website you would like to use them. Are bookmarklets free? Yes, most if not all bookmarklets are free. Are bookmarklets safe? Bookmarklets are safer than traditional software. They can only affect the page you’re visiting and therefore are limited in what they can do. As a general rule of thumb, don’t run bookmarklets on websites that have 99

sensitive data such as your personal financial sites. How do I add a bookmarklet to my browser? Internet Explorer: 1. Make sure the Favorites Bar is visible. Right-click on any part of the menu bar and check ”Favorites Bar”. 2. Using your mouse, right click on a bookmarklet and select ”Add to Favorites” 3. Select ”Favorites Bar” folder in combo box and click the Add button. Firefox / Google Chrome / others: 1. Drag a bookmarklet to the Bookmarks Bar.

Some Suggestions for Getting Started: Here are some bookmarklets to try that I think most people would like. READABILITY is a simple tool that makes reading on the Web more enjoyable by removing the clutter around what you’re reading. [2]Grab it here Print What You Like: Tired of printing web pages only to find your printout is full of ads, empty space and other junk you don’t want? PrintWhatYouLike is a free online editor that lets you format any web page for printing in seconds! [3]Grab it here Useful Google Bookmarklets: Handy bookmarklets for Google maps, reader, search etc. [4]Get them here Delicious: An easy way to post and view your bookmarks on the Delicious [5]Grab them here

1. http://bit.ly/Dpnsv 2. http://bit.ly/bjGscY 3. http://bit.ly/bZ9meW 4. http://bit.ly/12sShe 5. http://delicious.com/help/bookmarklets

#182: Navigating Excel Tabs (2010-06-24 13:42) You probably know that you can navigate from tab to tab in an Excel spreadsheet by simply clicking the tab you want to jump to. And you might even know the keyboard shortcut to move up or down from tab to tab. [ Ctrl+PageUp / Ctrl +PageDown ] But did you also know that you can right-click the sheet tabs navigation bar? The sheet tabs navigation bar is the set of arrows in the bottom left-hand corner of the Excel window, in front of the tabs.

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Right-clicking in this sheet tab navigation area gives you a pop-up listing of every tab in your workbook. Just click the one you want and you are instantly teleported* to that tab. This is really handy for spreadsheets with lots of tabs. Particularly when you have so many tabs that they don’t all fit on your screen like the example below.

* Teleportation technology is a registered patent of the Flux Capacitor Corporation

Do you have any Excel tricks you’d like to share?

4.7

July

#183: Save or Close All Documents at Once (2010-07-02 10:38) When I’m working in Microsoft Office documents, it’s pretty rare when I’m only working with one document at a time. Usually I’m looking at one or two as the basis for another new one and maybe even pulling in elements from still others. That means that I frequently have 3 or 4 Word documents, PowerPoint files or Excel spreadsheets at a time. If that sounds familiar to you, don’t you think it would be nice if there was some quick way to close them all at once instead of doing the ”File-Close dance” for each one? If so, you’re in luck.

The secret trick for doing this is to hold down the SHIFT key while you click the File menu. When you do that, you’ll notice two new options on the File menu: Close All and Save All. To save all your open documents at once, click Save All. Or, to close all your open documents, click Close All; Word will prompt you to save your changes before closing any documents. 101

There you go! The more documents you work with, the more time you’ll save. It’s been pretty quiet around here lately. Let me know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions ...or just say hi and let me know if you’re still there. Have a great & safe holiday weekend!

#184: Urgent Care - PC Edition (2010-07-09 11:30)

Computers are sort of like cars in the sense that over time, without a little TLC and regular maintenance their performance starts to be somewhat less than it was originally (and 99.9 % of the time no matter what you do at some point they just get too old.) Since many of us are working on computers that are getting to be a little long in the tooth, you may be interested in some tips to try and wring out every last bit of juice you can from that ”old beater”. (Even if you have a new computer, these will help you keep it operating at top speed.) Until we can [1]bring our own computers to work here’s how to maintain the one you’ve got. 1. Keep Current with Windows Updates If you have a company issued PC this is probably already taken care of. For your home PC, it’s definitely a good idea to [2]set this up to happen automatically. 2. Prevent Viruses & Malware Again, if you have a company PC this is probably covered already, but for your home PC you are on the front-line of this battle. And it’s not enough to simply install them, you’ve got to keep them updated.....or it could get very ugly. Here are a few things I use at home: [3]Free AVG Anti-Virus , [4]Microsoft’s FREE W indows Defender and [5]FREE Zone Alarm Firewall 3. Remove Unnecessary Software Over time you probably accumulate at least a few programs that you either don’t need anymore or picked up somewhere and really never needed in the first place. You can remove the ones you don’t need via Control Panel Add/Remove Programs. The built in program from removing software in Windows isn’t always the greatest so you can try the [6]FREE Revo Uninstaller if you’re having trouble getting rid of anything. 4. Tidy Up Your Hard Drive Both Windows and the software it runs, tend to leave a big mess of temporary files scattered around on your hard drive, wasting valuable space. Surfing the web also causes your PC to accumulate a bunch of pesky ’temp’ files. With a nearly full hard drive your PC will probably act strange and slow considerably. Cleaning up unneeded files, scanning for disk errors and defragmenting the hard drive can help to restore some zip to your system. 102

[7]How to run Scan Disk to check for errors. [8]How to Defragment your hard drive and [9]How to schedule a weekly defrag

If You Do Nothing Else!

If all of this is too intimidating and you do nothing else, especially for your home PC, go get a little program called [10]CCleaner and run it once a week. [11]CCleaner will let you give your PC a good cleaning; nice and simple. [12]Schedule CCleaner to run automatically If you’ve done everything above you’re probably in pretty good shape. However, if you’re like me and that still has you at a crawl (did I mention my laptop is 6 yrs old?) here are some further options to help you out. * Duct tape and bubble gum not included.

Optimize for Performance

Turning of some Windows functions can help. I’ve recently had to tweak my Windows settings to ”Optimize Performance”, which means turning off a bunch of stuff that’s normally on. This one is super quick & easy. However, there are trade offs such as things not looking as nice on your screen, etc. You’ll have to decide for yourself if this one is worth it or not. 1. Right click on My Computer and select Properties 2. On the Advanced tab click the Performance Settings button.

3. Select the Adjust for best performance option and click OK. 103

Don’t Launch Programs if you don’t have to If launching programs take a long time, try not to open them. For example, choose to View email attachments instead of actually opening them. In Lotus Notes, you can right-click and choose view for many files.

Lifehacker Pack: A great website that I regularly read, called Lifehacker, has created the ”Lifehacker Pack” which contains all of their favorite, must-have Windows applications including CCleaner and Revo Uninstaller among others. (I’m running most of them at home myself.) You can jump over there and grab only what you want in a few easy clicks. Get the [13]full Lifehacker Pack description or [14]just go and get it . I hope that helps you give your computer at least a little speedier. Do you have any speed-up tricks that have worked for you? UPDATE: Another great site has their version of recommended software. Check out the Make Use Of pack here:http://ninite.com/makeuseof (they both have lots of apps in common) 1. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/sybase/the-year-of-bring-your-own-computer-to-work/113 2. http://bit.ly/aZsNIG 3. http://askbobrankin.com/avg_review.html 4. http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/ 5. http://bit.ly/9N8Dxw 6. http://bit.ly/aWxyQi 7. http://bit.ly/9egF22 8. http://bit.ly/buYss1 9. http://bit.ly/ddvZRp 10. http://bit.ly/bzjyOd 11. http://bit.ly/bzjyOd

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12. http://bit.ly/9kSchr 13. http://bit.ly/9iyaHI 14. http://bit.ly/ayvwJe

#185: Quick & Easy Word Tricks (2010-07-15 13:43) “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” - Albert Einstein. Concurring with Einstein and Occam’s Razor, I definitely believe the simplest thing that works is usually best. (and why everyone wants an iPhone!) This week I’d like to share a few great Word tricks that will help you simply a few things in your documents. Easy Table Tricks Not many people know that you can create tables in Word by simply typing out a series of plus (+) and minus (-) signs. Just start the row with a (+) and then type as many (-) as you need until you have the column width you want. Wherever you want a new column to start just type another (+). When you’re done be sure to put a finishing (+) at the end and press the ENTER key. Presto! There’s your table.

Adding More Rows: To add more rows to your table, just press the TAB key when you get to the last cell in the last row. Easy Horizontal Dividers Horizontal dividers are often helpful to separate different sections of your document and make it more readable. Fumbling through the menus to find the right option is a challenge. However if you know the right trick you can create them lickety split, without ever interrupting your work flow. The illustration below shows how you can create various types of dividers with a just a few quick keystrokes.

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Drop me a note and let me know if you liked this one...or if you’ve got an iPhone you’d like to give me!!!!

#186 Quick & Easy Excel Charts (2010-07-23 11:45) To continue our simplicity theme from last week, I’d like the share a really quick and easy way visually compare the data values in your Excel spreadsheets. Excel charts can do a lot of cool, powerful things but they can also be an exercise in frustration sometimes. This week we’ll see how to use the REPT function in Excel to create a simple ’chart’. This trick is great to visually illustrate how each value compares to others. So if a picture is worth a thousand words, a chart has got to be worth at least 500 right? What It Does The REPT function will repeat a character of your choosing and draw a quick ”chart” of your data. The syntax of this function looks like this: =REPT(”text to repeat”, # of times) For example, =REPT(”*”,5) will display ***** How It Works Take a look at this example. Then follow the steps below to see how it was done. Or[1] download a copy and explore it for yourself.

[2]

1. For this example, select cell C2. 106

2. Enter the following formula, =REPT(”I”,B2). 3. Copy the function in C2 to cells C3:C6 The characters are entered as text. So if you want to tweak the size, color or other formatting you can just change the font color, text size, etc just like the contents any other regular cell. 1. http://bit.ly/adNaHG 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/rept.gif

#187 Removing Hyperlinks (2010-07-29 10:36) In Microsoft Office, when you type a website address or email address it automatically gets turned into an active hyperlink. Many times that’s OK, but not always . For those times when you’d prefer that it remain as just regular text, here are several ways to fix it. There are several easy ways to get rid of hyperlinks. Pick your favorite and off you go! Undo If you want to correct it immediately after it happens, just do a quick ’Undo’ and the link will be removed leaving only the text as you typed it. Right-click Right-click the hyperlink and choose Remove Hyperlink

Removing multiple links at once In Word, you can remove even remove all the links from an entire document. All you need to do is simply select the entire document [ CONTROL + A ] and then pressing CONTROL + SHIFT +F9. This strips out the links leaving just the plain text. Turn Them Off Permanently If you find yourself removing these links a lot, you might want to just disable the function that automatically makes the hyperlinks. 107

1. From the Tools menu, choose AutoCorrect Options . 2. Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab. 3. Uncheck the Internet and Network Paths With Hyperlinks option in the Replace As You Type section Have you ever wrestled with hyperlinks in your Office documents?!

4.8

August

#188 Excel Auto-fill Options (2010-08-04 11:55) Most people have probably noticed that when you’re working on a spreadsheet and entering text, Excel attempts to be helpful and will try to guess what you are typing by showing a ”match” that you can accept simply by pressing the Enter key. These guesses that Excel makes simply come from the contents of the cells in the same column, above where you are making your entry. This is great to save you some typing and to help improve the consistency of your data. However, if you have a big list with lots of potential ”guesses” there are a couple of other options that you might find helpful.

Pick From List... Imagine you have a very long list with a column for ’Country’ and you can’t remember if you should use ’United Kingdom’, ’U.K.’, ’England.’ or some other variation. And of course you don’t want to scroll the entire list to find manually to find it right? If you simply right-click in the cell and choose ”Pick From List....” you’ll get a handy drop-down list of all the previous entries above in that same column as shown below. 108

Keyboard Option Of course we don’t want to leave out you ’keyboard people’. You can access the same drop-down list if you use the ALT + Down Arrow key combination. Don’t Like Auto-complete? If this auto-complete feature causes you more aggravation than it’s worth, you can also turn it off.

1. From the Tools menu, select Options. 2. Click on the Edit tab. 3. Remove the check-mark from the Enable AutoComplete for cell values option box. 4. Click OK. Do you like the auto-complete feature?!

#189: PowerPoint - Just a little nudge (2010-08-12 18:18) Have you ever wanted to place something ”just so” on a PowerPoint slide, but as you drag it with your mouse, it jumps to a spot as if it has a mind of its own? It’s close to where you wanted it, but not quite right. If you have, you know how frustrating that can be. An easy way to fix this is to use the arrow keys on the keyboard instead of dragging it with your mouse. The arrow keys will ”nudge” the object left, right, up or down, just a little bit at a time, so you can get it EXACTLY where you want it. Really Small Nudges If you need an even finer degree of control, holding down the Ctrl key while using an arrow key will give you smaller nudges and more precise placement of your objects. Keep reading only if that’s still not good enough... (geez, you are particular aren’t you?) The CTRL+ARROW trick nudges the object in a 1-pixel increment. What 1 screen pixel represents relative to the slide area depends on the zoom percentage. When zoomed in to 400 %, 1 screen pixel is a relatively small nudge distance on the slide. When zoomed out to 25 %, 1 screen pixel is a relatively larger nudge distance on the slide. Therefore, if you want to use smaller nudge distances to refine the placement of objects on a slide, zoom in and use the CTRL+ARROW keys. Is this helpful or do you just get it close and call it good enough?! 109

#190: View/Hide Excel Formulas (2010-08-19 14:35) If you’ve ever worked with an Excel spreadsheet, the odds are pretty good that you’ve had to do some troubleshooting of your formulas at some point. This week’s tip is a great help for those ”fun” occassions. You can toggle the display of your spreadsheet between the data and the underlying formulas by a simple keyboard combination. The hardest part to using this trick is finding the tilde key –it’s way up towards the top left of your keyboard next to the number 1 key.

Hit this key combination, and presto - all of your formulas will emerge from behind the scenes. You can even print your formulas while they’re displayed this way. When you’re done troubleshooting, hit Ctrl + again to toggle back to the normal view.

What’s your favorite trouble-shooting trick?

#191: Tame Your Word Tables (2010-08-26 17:53) When working with tables in Microsoft Word, simple grids are pretty simple. But what about those time when you need some ”custom” cells? Maybe you want larger and smaller cells, rows, having different numbers or sizes of columns, or various columns divided into varying configurations. (If you’re wondering why you would ever want do that, [1]go check out this tip about using tables for better document layouts.) You can use the Draw Table feature to sketch the exact dimensions of your table and get things perfect the first time without having to pull your hair out in the process. Plus, there’s even an eraser function that will let you remove cells just as easily as you can add them. Easy Control of Complex Tables Before you start, make sure to turn on the Tables and Borders tool bar.

To create a new table just click the Draw Table icon and drag diagonally on the screen. As you drag, a dotted line displays, to show you the size of the table. To add rows just drag across the table and drag down to add columns. If you need to remove anything just click the Eraser button and drag a line to erase it. 110

How easy is that? Go ahead and play with this and never have any trouble with tables ever again!!! 1. http://bit.ly/cV6tOW

4.9

September

#192: Pin Items to the Start Menu (2010-09-02 12:49) You’ve probably noticed the left side of the Start menu but do you know why it is divided in two? That left panel is a list of programs with ”pinned” items showing above the separtor and your most frequently used programs below the line. By default, Windows XP links to your Internet browser and your e-mail application in the pinned items list and can have as many as 30 shortcuts to the programs you most frequently use (The default for list is six.) 111

This week we’ll see how you can take advantage of the Start menu as a launching area for all the programs you use most often, you can configure the entire left panel as a pinned items list. Managing Your Start Menu Items:

1. Right-click the Start button and select the Properties command to display the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box. 2. Click the Customize button adjacent to the Start Menu radio button to display the Customize Start Menu dialog box. 3. In the Programs panel, you can set the Number Of Programs On The Start Menu setting to whatever you want it to be or even get rid of items if you click the Clear List button. 4. When you’re done, click OK twice once to close the Customize Start Menu dialog box and once to close the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog boxes. Pinning programs like NetMeeting to your Start menu can save you time and the aggravation of trying to navigate the 8 submenus necessary to launch it...if you can even find it at all! Pinning Programs to the Start Menu:

1. Locate and right-click on a program anywhere in the Start menu and select the Pin To Start Menu command.

You can even pin documents to the start menu. This is great if you have things like monthly reports or templates that you want quick and easy access to via the start menu. Pinning Documents to the Start Menu: 112

1. Locate and shift + right-click on a document and select the Pin To Start Menu command.

You can pin as many as 30 programs and/or documents to your Start menu, depending on your screen resolution setting. Now that you’re in total control of your Start menu.....you can really take advantage and make it work exactly the way you want it to.

#193: Quick Launch Bar (2010-09-10 10:57)

Last week we saw how you can take control of your start menu to access your programs and documents. This week I’d like to share another option - the Quick Launch toolbar. The Quick Launch toolbar is a section of your taskbar near the Start menu where you can add shortcuts that are always visible, even when you have a window open. By default, Windows XP links to your Internet browser and your e-mail application in the pinned items list and can have as many as 30 shortcuts to the programs you most frequently use (The default number is six.) This week we’ll see how you can take advantage of the Start menu as a launching area for all the programs you use most often, you can configure the entire left panel as a pinned items list. Displaying the Quick Launch toolbar: 1. To add the Quick Launch toolbar to the task bar, right-click the task bar, point to Toolbars , and then click Quick Launch . Changing Items on the Quick Launch toolbar: 1. To add a shortcut to the Quick Launch toolbar, drag an item to the Quick Launch toolbar. 2. To remove a shortcut from the Quick Launch toolbar, drag the shortcut from the toolbar to the 113

Recycle Bin. Resizing the Quick Launch toolbar: Depending on how many shortcuts you add you may want to make this toolbar bigger. 1. To resize it, move your mouse pointer over the vertical dotted pattern just to the right until it changes into a double arrow and then click & drag. 2. If you don’t see the dotted pattern, you need to unlock the taskbar first. Right click an empty space on the taskbar and uncheck ”Lock the taskbar” Quick Launch Tricks: Just like we saw with the Start menu, you can also add documents, websites and other items to your Quick Launch toolbar Adding Documents: 1. To add a document to your Quick Launch bar, just locate it in explorer and drag it into the Quick Launch bar.

Adding Websites: 1. To add a website to your Quick Launch bar, select the URL from your browser and drag it into the Quick Launch bar.

One-click Email: You can even use the trick to create a new email in a single click. Here’s how...

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1. Create a new shortcut on your desktop by right-clicking an empty space on your desktop and selecting New > Shortcut . 2. In the dialog enter mailto: then click Next

[1] 3. Enter a name for the shortcut, click Finish and then drag the new icon to its place in your Quick Launch bar. I use the Quick Launch bar instead of the start menu- which method do you prefer??

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/mailto.png

#194: Copy Excel Page Setup Settings Between Sheets (2010-09-15 11:24) Many print settings, like orientation, margins, headers, and so on, are specific to each worksheet. For instance, you Sheet1 could be in landscape with one-inch margins while Sheet2 is portrait with three-inch margins. When adding a new worksheet, Excel assigns the default page setup settings. If all of your sheets require the same settings, you can simply adjust the defaults. However, it’s not uncommon to need different settings on different tabs in a workbook. You could manually set all those options. But in keeping with our ”work smarter, not harder” theme, here’s how you can transfer the settings from one sheet to the another: Transfer Page Settings From One Tab to Other Tabs: 1. Select the source sheet, that contains the settings you want to transfer. 2. Select the target sheet(s) the sheets you want to update – by pressing the [Ctrl] key and clicking each sheet tab you want to pick up the source formatting. 3. Select Page Setup from the File menu and click OK. That’s all there is to it. The target sheet(s) now have the same print settings as the source sheet. Wasn’t that ”smarter” than resetting all those tabs individually? WARNING! Make sure you select the sheets in the right order to wrong settings to the wrong place!

source, then target(s). Otherwise, you’re copying

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Don’t forget to ungroup your sheets when you’re done. If you forget, Excel will execute any action you take on all the sheets in the group. Do you have any printing tricks that you find helpful?

#195: Import Outlines into PowerPoint (2010-09-22 18:09) When you start a presentation, it’s usually a good idea to start organizing it someplace other than in PowerPoint. (I love those graph paper notesbooks.) If you’re not the paper and pencil type, or if you really want to hit the ground running once you are ready to start creating slides, this week’s tip is just for you. You can import a text ’outline’ from Word or even Notepad to create a new presentation. Here’s how it works. Creating Your Outline: 1. Open a Word or Notepad document. 2. Type your outline following these guidelines:

Avoid blank lines, because those will come in as blank slides.

Before each line of bulleted text, insert a tab. (You’re not using these to inflict ”death by PowerPoint” right?!?!)

You can create 2nd-level bulleted text, by inserting two tabs in front of the text. However.....see my ”death by PowerPoint comment above. 8-) 3. Save the file as a .doc, .docx or .txt file Here’s what a sample outline might look like.

Importing Your Outline Into PowerPoint: 1. In PowerPoint, go to File

Open... then change the file type to ”All Outlines” and locate your text file.

Voila! Your outline is now a set of PowerPoint slides similar to what you see here. Now you’re ready to add your images, etc and dazzle your audience. Did I mention the bullet points? Just say no! 116

What do you think? Useful? Not so much? Does this prompt any other questions?

#196: PowerPoint Notes Pane (2010-09-30 18:45) One of my life’s missions is to rid the world of ’slideumentitis’ - a very serious disease that afflicts millions of people everywhere. Slideumentitis is the result of misusing PowerPoint by combining your slides with a document. The result is something that makes a poor document and even worse slides. It’s never pretty just don’t do it!

[1] [2]Click here to learn about why text filled bullet point slides are so bad. One of the ways you can help solve this problem is by moving your text off your slides and down into the Notes pane. Trust me - your audience will thank you! The notes pane is located below each slide in the Normal view.

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Use Your Notes in Presenter View: Another great use of the Notes pane is when you use the Presenter View you can see your notes but your audience only sees your slides! Printing Your Notes: If you want to print these notes for yourself as speaker notes and/or your audience as handouts, all you need to do is choose ”Notes Pages” from the Print dialog box.

Using the Notes pane instead of creating slideuments is one great step on your way to becoming a PowerPoint ninja! And remember to always follow the ’Golden Rule of Presenting’.... Never give a presentation you wouldn’t want to sit through yourself! 1. http://slidesha.re/awebCM 2. http://slidesha.re/awebCM

4.10

October

#197: Excel’s IF Function (2010-10-08 10:52) Probably one of the first Excel functions many people learn, beyond the basic math stuff is the IF function. It certainly is one that I use a lot and find very useful. If you already use the IF function you might be interested in [1]this cool spin on using it with AND, OR & NOT situations and you are now excused. If you’re still with me, the IF function is one of Excel’s most useful and most used functions. The IF function is simply a test to see whether a certain condition is true or false. Based on the result it will return one value if a condition you specify is TRUE and another if it is FALSE. How It Works: Here is what the syntax look: =IF(condition,true result,false result) For example, we could use an IF statement to automatically indicate if each category is under or 118

over budget.

So in cell D2 we would enter... =IF(B2>C2,”Under Budget”,”Over Budget”) ..which in plain English translates to ”If the budgeted amount is greater than the actual amount display ”Under Budget”. If not, display ”Over Budget”. By copying this down column D we get this result.

[2]Download a copy of this example to play with. Simple yet powerful. Do you use IF statements in your spreadsheets? me know, I’d love to hear from you.

What is your favorite?

Let

1. http://bit.ly/9d5C0w 2. http://bit.ly/aagES5

#198: Preventing PowerPoint Font Disasters (2010-10-13 13:02) It’s not uncommon for people to run their presentations on a different computer than the one they created their PowerPoint slides with. If you ever do this here, is a tip that will help you avoid opening your beautifully designed slides on another computer only to see an ugly mess of funky fonts that totally ruin your slides. The reason this happens is that you may have fonts on your computer that the other computers do not. There are three ways to avoid this ”font disaster” when presenting on different computers. Option #1: Stick to the basics The fastest and easiest way to make sure your slides display the way you intend them to is to use basic fonts that almost everybody uses. These ’safe’ fonts including Arial, Times New Roman, Symbol, and Courier New are so common that you can count on them almost every time. Advantage: fast and easy Disadvantage: dull and over-used 119

Option #2: Embed Your Fonts You can embed any True Type font right along with your presentation file. It is a True Type font if it has the (TT) icon beside it in the Font dialog box. Be aware that embedding fonts will increase the file size of your presentation, so be sure to consider that. Especially if you are sending your PPT via email, etc.

Advantage: saves fonts with your presentation Disadvantage: increases file size [1]See how to embed font for your version of PowerPoint Option #3: Package Your Presentation You can use the Pack and Go wizard to tie together all the files, including audio and video in addition to fonts and graphics, that support your presentation. [In later versions of PowerPoint it’s called ’Package for CD’] Advantage: saves all the files you need to support your PowerPoint presentation Disadvantage: adds an extra step to the end of your slide-creation process, prior to your presentation This option will also let you run packaged presentations on another computer even that computer does not have PowerPoint installed. [2]See how to package your presentations Have you ever had one of these ’font disasters’ ? love to hear your stories.

Or any other PowerPoint related mishaps?

I’d

1. http://bit.ly/dlgiWd 2. http://bit.ly/c3gGyi

#199 Excel: Automatic Column Sizing (2010-10-19 13:18) Many people probably already know that you can automatically size any column in Excel by double-clicking right edge of the desired column in the column header. But recently I’ve seen that not everyone knows how to use this trick for every column in your spreadsheet with a single action. How It Works: The trick for getting this to work is to select the entire worksheet by clicking Select All button and then double-clicking the boundary between any two column headings. 120

NOTE: The Select All button is the space in the worksheet headers above row one and to the left of column A. See It In Action: Here’s an example from one of my spreadsheets.

[1] I love this trick and use it all the time. How about you? What’s your favorite method for managing your column widths? 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/excel-autosize-columns.gif

#200: BicenWEEKial (2010-10-29 10:36) This is my 200th weekly tip and I’d just like to take a moment to say thanks to everyone who reads them every week. As I contemplated starting this almost 4 years ago someone said to me, ”That’s great but do you won’t you run out of ideas?” To which I answered ”I don’t know but I guess we’ll find out.” When it comes to learning new things I don’t think any of us can ever ’run out’. I’d like to encourage you to always look at things from a learning perspective. If you look close enough you can learn something from virtually every experience. And sometimes we learn more from failures than we do successes...so don’t 121

be afraid to fail. Many things are worth doing even if you don’t have all the answers when you start. Secondly, be generous in sharing what you learn with others. Odds are that you’re not the only one who can benefit. As the saying goes ’All of us know more than any one of us.’ And on the flip side, don’t be afraid to ask questions. I can tell you that I’ve learned alot of things from the questions that I’ve been asked. So go ahead and ask - that question just might help you both learn something new. So in a nutshell... Ask.Learn.Share. OK, that’s all for the editorial notes. (Who let that guy loose on the keyboard anyway?) I can’t let you get away without a tip - otherwise I’d still be stuck on #199. If you’re not one of the 8 people who were on the receving end of my very first tip on getting better search results from Google you this might be new to you. If you haven’t seen it or if you’d just like to visit the tips ’museum’ [1]here it is. ( You also might be intersted in [2]part 2 and [3]part 3.)

From the tips musuem: Issue #1 January 5, 2007 I’m looking forward to learning and sharing with you for another 200 weeks! And as always[4] I’d love to hear what you’ve learned or been able to make good use of since you’ve joined us! 1. http://bit.ly/9o6ObG 2. http://bit.ly/cEdGvv 3. http://bit.ly/9UuTVD 4. mailto:[email protected]?Subject=Bicenweekial

4.11

November

#201 PC Survival Guide - Part 1 (2010-11-04 18:00) I’ve been asked, several times now, if I could provide a collection of all the tips I’ve done. If you’re one of those people, I haven’t been ignoring you. Just trying to figure out the best way to do it. Over the next few weeks I’m going to create a few compilations of related tips starting with a few handy utilities I think everyone should know about. Next week we’ll move on to Microsoft Office and then wrap up with some web and other miscellaneous stuff at the end. Take a look and [1]let me know what you think of this idea? Searching Finding 122

Google Advanced Search: Probably the first place many of us start when we need something is Google. If you’re not familiar with this advanced search option, stop what you’re doing and go there now. You’ll be glad you did. With greater control over search options you’ll get much better search results. | [2]http://www.google.com/advanced search

[3] If you’d like a good overview of how Google searches work and the operators you can use, [4]check out this ”How to be a better Googl-er” presentation. Everything Search Sometimes it’s harder to find the stuff you already have on your own PC. This handy search tool searches file names crazy-fast, as you type. You’ll usually find your file with a few keystrokes. If you’ve ever gone for a cup of coffee while waiting on the built-in Windows search you’ll love this. | [5]http://bit.ly/aVXPac Screenshots: Sometimes you just need to capture what you see on your screen. Whether it’s sending an error message to the help desk or something for a training document., being able to take a good screenshot will probably help us all at some point. For super quick and dirty captures [6]these Print Screen tricks are probably good enough. If you do a lot of screenshots you’ll probably want a better option. If you find yourself taking a lot of screenshot you’ll definitely want something better than that. [7]SnagIt is about as good as it gets but costs about $50. 123

Their are about a zillion free ones that are also good. I like [8]FastStone Capture. [9]Cropper is another good free one. Office Compatibility Pack Beginning with Office 2007, Microsoft changed the file formats for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. If you haven’t encountered one of these new document types yet you probably will soon. This add-in allows older versions of Office to access the new formats. Note that you won’t have access to any of the new features and your documents may look slightly different than the original. [10]Grab yours here. That’s just a start – what are your ’must have’ items? [11]I’d love to hear what things you couldn’t do without. 1. mailto:[email protected]?subject=%22I+thinkthis+idea+for+a+compliation+of+tips+is.... 2. http://bit.ly/bZL0sI 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/image.jpg 4. http://bit.ly/cgVOPH 5. http://bit.ly/aVXPac 6. http://bit.ly/cktj4J 7. http://bit.ly/cJ5jR2 8. http://bit.ly/blnx6B 9. http://bit.ly/cJlr9E 10. http://bit.ly/ctNKuJ 11. mailto:[email protected]?Subject=%22I+couldn’t+live+without...%22

#202: Murphy’s Law & More Handy Utilities (2010-11-12 12:21) I’ve proven to myself once again that [1]good ol’ Murphy and his law are never far away. Last week I forgot a couple of the best things that should be included in this compilation of helpful applications and tools we’re working our way through now. Linking to Network Documents & Folders Amazingly Microsoft has never provided any good way for us to link to documents and folders on a shared network drive. We covered the [2]how’s and why’s of this way back in issue #8 including the not so obvious steps of installing Path Copy. [3]Ninotech Path Copy is what I and many other people have (Thanks for reminding me Ted!) [4]Path Copy Copy is a similar tool worth checking into. Password Manager In the past I’ve covered how to [5]create good passwords and [6]how to check to see how good they are. (Editor’s Note: this is my most popular tip ever) This is all great stuff but the challenge is how in the heck do you keep track of and remember the gazillion passwords we have. The answer, at least for me, is that I can’t - not without something like KeePass to remember them for me. Feel free to go [7]take a look at my post on Keepass and how it works or just go grab a copy for yourself at [8]Keepass.info Finally, if you’re interested in other options here are [9]Ten Free Ways to Track Your Passwords 124

OK, now let’s see how long it is before Murphy strikes again? What else have I forgotten? I’d love to hear what things you couldn’t live without. 1. http://bit.ly/9TlVfK 2. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/02/23/8-linkification-2-of-2/ 3. http://bit.ly/cIxpjH 4. http://bit.ly/bo1tC2 5. http://bit.ly/9IR8FH 6. http://bit.ly/cBJv68 7. http://bit.ly/9nyjZo 8. http://bit.ly/bGmxRK 9. http://bit.ly/csUiYm

#203 Introducing the blog (2010-11-19 11:41) Some of you may have already discovered that in addition to arriving in your email inbox, these weekly tips are also being published online at [1]http://miketips.wordpress.com I’ve been quietly doing this for awhile now for several reasons. Among them are providing an organized archive of all 200+ tips (they aren’t all there yet but they will be soon) and the ability for anyone to comment on them and encourage conversations. Every post has a comment area at the bottom and I hope you know that I always encourage your comments! Blog is short for web log and generally speaking they all tend to have a few things in common:

• A main content area with articles listed chronologically, newest on top. Often, the articles are organized into categories. • An archive of older articles. • A way for people to leave comments about the articles. • A list of links to other related sites, sometimes called a ”blogroll”. • One or more ”[2]feeds” like RSS, Atom or RDF files. (this is an entire post unto itself one of these days!) If you’re curious take a look at this short video explaining ”[3]Blogs in Plain English” and don” get caught up with the term ”news”; think of it as any information worth sharing.

[4] Blogs are very simple, easy to use websites that can be set up in a matter of minutes, often for free. We have a saying around here to ”publish and point” people to a common space where everyone can benefit from the information is infinitely better than dozens of hidden one-to-one email conversations. In my opinion, everyone should have a public space where they can ”work out loud” or just a place to share information that might be valuable to others. After all, we all know things that others can learn and benefit from! 125

If you’re curious enough to try it out my favorite blog service is [5]WordPress. It’s free, it’s easy and it can change the way you work for the better! Blogger is another one although for some unknown reason it is blocked here at AEP. (Anybody around here know why that is?) Take a minute to [6]head on over there and take a look around. Leave a comment. Ask a question. Join the conversation.

1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/ 2. http://codex.wordpress.org/Introduction_to_Blogging#Feeds 3. http://bit.ly/aKdmZh 4. http://bit.ly/aKdmZh 5. http://bit.ly/apQoAl 6. http://miketips.wordpress.com/

#204 Free & Easy Online Meeting Tools (2010-11-26 14:34) I realize that for many people meetings are the bane of our corporate existence. But having the option to attend them online instead of needing to drive or fly for hours to do so is definitely a huge plus. This week I’d like to share a couple free online meeting options that might save you a trip or two sometime...and the way people drive these days that’s a huge plus. If you Google “online meeting” you’ll find a ton of options that let you set up an online meeting that people can attend remotely from anywhere they have an internet connection. You’re probably familiar with a few of the big names; WebEx, GoToMeeting, etc but those can get pretty expensive. For a quick, impromptu meeting or if you only need to do an occasional online meeting, you might want to check out these two free options. One of the great things about both of these is that all you need is a web browser to attend a meeting * (* if you are sharing your screen as a host you’ll need a small download) Join.Me Join.me is a web browser-based tool that allows you to share your PC’s screen with anyone who has access to the web. The basic, free version provides screen sharing, chat, file transfer and the ability to remotely control the computer of any attendee. (if they will let you of course!) [1]https://join.me/ Vyew Vyew is another free, browser-based option with a few more features than Join.me including functions for uploading & presenting documents, asynchronous document reviews and more. Check out the full list of features here: [2]http://vyew.com/ 126

There you go. The next time you need to meet, present, review or train people in other locations give one of these a try. ...no need for planes, trains, automobiles or lumpy hotel pillows. If these simple, free ones don’t look sufficient let me know. I’ve used about all of them at some point, including other free and paid ones. It doesn’t take much for these to pay for themselves just in saved travel costs. 1. https://join.me/ 2. http://vyew.com/

4.12

December

#205 Right-Click Tricks (2010-12-03 10:07) In my experience there are three types of computer users; menu people, keyboard people and right-click people. Of course, here at TOTW headquarters we welcome diversity and love all of you no matter which type of person you are. (Personally I’m a keyboard shortcut kind of guy.)

[1] Source: U.S. Bureau of Made-up Statistics When something is new you’re most likely to learn the menu way of doing it. Once you’ve done it enough times you’ll probably pickup the keyboard shortcut for it. But this week I want to point out how handy the right-click method can be. Simply clicking your right mouse button where ever you want to do something will usually present you with a context sensitive menu. For you non-geeks that just means that the menu you’ll see depends on where you are and what you’re doing.when you right-click. 127

You’ve probably seen some of these menus, even if by accident, but maybe you paid much attention or haven’t realized how useful they can be. Right-clicking can be a faster, more efficient way to do many things without requiring you to memorize any keyboard shortcuts. Here are a few good ones to get you started. Microsoft Office All the Microsoft Office programs have so many right-click menus that you may never need to use the menu options again. For example, in a Microsoft Word table, right-click and you’ll be able to do all sorts of table formatting, directly from the shortcut menu. You can insert and delete rows, columns, and cells, add borders and shading, and adjust the width of the table.

[2] Files Right-clicking is also useful when working with files & folders. For example, you can right-click a file in a folder and then click Cut, Copy, Delete, or Rename. I can even click Send To to copy a file directly 128

to another location. Depending on the configuration of your computer the options available here will vary greatly from one person to the next.

[3] What type of computer person are you? trick?

Are you a right-clicker?

What’s your favorite right-click

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/image2.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/image1.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/image3.jpg

#206 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Google Maps (2010-12-10 12:13) There’s more to [1]Google Maps than just plugging in some addresses to get directions. If you’re new to Google Maps check out the [2]User Guide. If you’ve already got a good grasp on the basics, here are few useful tricks you may not have noticed. Starred Addresses Stars are a great way to access favorite places quickly. The best thing about them is when you’re on your smart phone (Blackberry, iPhone, etc) you can quickly jump to a starred location much easier than trying to thumb type the full address. 129

To ’star’ a place, click on the star outline next to its name in Maps search results, or in its info window on the Map. You can see all the places you’ve starred under ’Starred items’ on the ’My Maps’ tab. This is great for starring places you’ll visit on vacation. Find Places Near Any Point If you’re searching for a particular place a street name, a business, or other landmark you can click on a marker and hit the ”Search nearby” link to find coffee, gas, banks, or whatever else you need. What if you don’t have a place to pin down, but want to generally browse an area? Right click anywhere on a Google map, click ”What’s Nearby?” in the box that pops up, and Google will create a pin based on a rough street address estimate, or with precise GPS coordinates. From there, you can click on ”Search Nearby” in the box that appears in the left-hand pane, and search around without worrying about specifics. This is another one that’s great when you’re on your smart phone. Get Directions Via Text Message If you’re ever lost and out of mobile internet territory, or if you don’t have a phone with internet access you can get directions via text messaging. You can text GOOGLE (466453) with a message formatted as ”Directions A to B,” substituting a town, ZIP code, or street address for A and B. Google will text back the directions. [ Note that due to the text limit for messages the directions may be split across multiple texts. ] Get Walking Directions (or Bike, or Bus, etc) If you not driving you can also get walking, biking or public transportation directions. This is another great one for when you are traveling. For example, walking directions will ignore things like one way streets, etc to give you a more direct route. When you pull up the directions you’ll see different icons for each type of transportation mode.

Note: Use caution – These routes may be missing sidewalks or pedestrian paths,etc and you are responsible for your own safety. (aka don’t do something dumb because Google told you to.) Reroute Driving Directions 130

If you don’t like the way Google has routed you, or maybe you need to make a detour to Grandma’s house on the way to your destination. It’s handy to be able to adjust your route by simply dragging it as you see below.

[3]

Do you use Google Maps or another service? What’s your favorite mapping tip? Do you have any stories where maps like this have really saved you? 1. http://maps.google.com/ 2. http://bit.ly/iifGju 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/reroute.gif

#207 Excel Data from Elsewhere (2010-12-17 13:42) Excel Data From Elsewhere Do you ever have spreadsheets that reference data from different tabs or even from other workbooks entirely? For example, a tracking sheet that has a tab for each month of the year and a sheet up fron that aggregates all the data. Or maybe sales data from different regions that you’d like to summarize in an overview page. 131

From Another Sheet To pull data from each region’s sheet into a summary page you’ll need to know how to reference cells from another worksheet. The syntax looks like this: =SheetName!CellReference So in our example, if we wanted the number for the East Region Qtr 1 Totals we would use =EAST!B9 From Another File Similarly, you can pull data from another workbook by adding the file name in brackets to the front. They syntax looks like this: =[Filname.xls]SheetName!CellReference =[Summary.xls]EAST!B9 Make It Easy By Pointing To It The best part is that there is a super easy way to do this without having to remember any of that cryptic syntax or manually typing it all it. Simply enter = into the cell where you want the formula, then navigate to the cell in other sheet or file you want to reference and then hit the Enter key on your keyboard. Here’s an example of referencing another worksheet within the same file by pointing.

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[1]

[click image to see animation] ..and another one that references data from a different spreadsheet file.

[2]

[3] [4][click image to see animation] Bing.

Bang.

Boom!

You ’automagically’ have your formula.

And we love it when that whole 133

’automagic’ thing kicks in!!! 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/sheet-small1.gif 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/excel-link1.gif 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/excel-link1.gif 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/excel-link1.gif

#208 Great Software: Quick, Easy & Free (2010-12-24 06:00) All I Want for Xmas is... ...a new computer! Christmas is usually a popular time for people to get new computers and even if you’re not one of them, you might get called into action setting one up for a friend or family member. So to that end, I thought I’d share some great, free resources that can help you get almost everything you’ll need. Lifehacker Pack Lifehacker is a great site that reviews hundreds of different software programs. You can take advantage of their wisdom and grab the best stuff by heading over and grabbing their annual Lifehacker Pack. The[1] Lifehackber Pack 2010 is one download that installs the must-have Windows applications you choose in a few simple clicks. [2]Download the Lifehacker Pack The software available here is divided into two sections; ”Essential” and ”Extended”. Either way you can select only what you want and installation is quick and easy. All the options here are free and I can personally vouch that these are among the best options you’ll find for virus protection, firewalls, web browsers, media players, etc. Google Pack Google has a similar bundle of software that is also pretty good. There are two from this list that I wouldn’t want to do without. The Chrome web-browser and Picasa. [3]Download the Google Pack Chrome: If you haven’t tried it yet, go and grab a copy of the Google Chrome web browser. It’s lightening fast, even on older PCs and has lots of great add-ins to make your work on the web even more efficient. | [4]http://www.google.com/chrome/ Picasa: If you take a lot of pictures or are getting a new camera for Christmas, you should definitely check out Picasa. Picasa is a fantastic way to organize, backup and share your photos. Picasa makes emailing photos a snap by automatically resizing them and sending them directly to your email. You can also easily share your photos with family and friends online and even send them directly to Facebook, etc. if you like. | [5]http://picasa.google.com/ What are you hoping for this Christmas? 1. http://bit.ly/enE5xL 2. http://bit.ly/enE5xL

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3. http://pack.google.com/ 4. http://www.google.com/chrome/ 5. http://picasa.google.com/

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Chapter 5

2011

5.1

January

#209 Great Online ’to do list’ Manager (2011-01-02 12:50)

A New Year often means a fresh start on many things that we want to keep track of. So whether it’s a personal resolution or just the regular stuff you need to do, you should check out [1]todo.ly for organizing your ’to do’ lists. Personally, if I don’t write something down somewhere I’ll probably forget it - and if I write it on paper, I’ll probably loseit. So I’ve started using this site and it’s been working well for me. Of all the possibilities for tracking your to do list, this one strikes the right balance of simplicity, accessibility and functionality. 137

[2] Regardless of how long and complex your lists are you’ll probably find something to like about this free, easy to use option. In addition to providing access to your list from anywhere, todo.ly allows you to organize your tasks into groups and projects, filter based on the kinds of things you want to see. Plus it is easy and quick to edit your tasks or drag and drop them into new projects. Best of all, the service is intuitive, simple to use, and completely free. I hope your new year is of to a great start and that you have included learning in your goals for the new year!? What would you like to learn this year? 1. http://bit.ly/hr5Rx6 2. http://todo.ly/

Tip of the Week #210: Password Manager (2011-01-14 11:14) LastPass is great password manager that I’ve recently started using. In fact, according to [1]Steve Gibson of Security Now, it just may be ”the best solution possible” for passwords. You can visit the [2]LastPass site to see a list of features. Like other password managers, (including KeePass which [3]we’ve talked about before) LastPass puts all of your individual passwords behind one master password. By supplying your master password, LastPass can then automatically log you in to any web site you visit once you’ve saved your login credentials. In Sync & Accessible Anywhere: 138

LastPass synchs passwords over the internet, so all your saved passwords on your laptop computer, for example, will always be synched up on your home desktop computer or even that shiny new iPad you just got for Christmas. Secure LastPass only stores encrypted data, and the key to that data stays on your computer (or, In your head if you’re not logged in.) LastPass can even do things like auto-generate a strong, secure password for you when you’re creating a new site login (Don’t forget all you need to remember is your master LastPass login). With a premium account for $1/month you can also do things like use LastPass on your mobile phone. Here’s a [4]comparison of the free vs. premium features. It Just Works If you’re already using something else, LastPass even supports importing passwords from KeePass, and other password manager programs. I’ve only been using for a little while, but I can’t see any reason to change any time soon. How to you keep track of your passwords? Sticky notes, spreadsheet or something else? I’d bet a lot of money that this is a better system than what 99 % of us are currently doing. Have a great weekend! 1. http://bit.ly/dIi6rs 2. http://bit.ly/eMoRCJ 3. http://bit.ly/9nyjZo 4. http://bit.ly/dTJ0S0

#211 Move & Copy Excel Worksheet Tabs (2011-01-20 14:11) If you ever work with Excel data that is spread across multiple tabs or if you ever have to shuffle data between different spreadsheet files, you’ll probably appreciate this weeks tip on moving and/or copying an entire worksheet tab. If you don’t already work with multiple tabs, you might want to check out [1]how to use formulas that reference other tabs or files and [2]how to use 3-D formulas (no goofy glasses required). I’ve seen a number of people who could save a whole lot of copying and pasting by adding this to their bag of tricks. So without further ado, here’s how to copy and move worksheet tabs. How It Works: 1. Right-click the tab you want to move/copy 2. Select Move or Copy... 3. Then select which Excel file you want to send the sheet to by picking it from the To book: drop-down list [ NOTE: All open Excel files, will be listed here.] 139

4. By selecting an existing sheet in the Before sheet: box you can control the order of where it appears in it’s new home. (You can always move it later if you need to.) 5. If you just want to copy the Excel sheet instead of moving it, click the check box next to ”Create a copy”. Drag & Drop If you want to be even more efficient, (and who doesn’t?) you can use the drag & drop method to manage your worksheet tabs. Simply click and drag any tab to a new location or hold the CTRL key while you drag to make a copy instead of moving it. It even works between files. See it in action below.

Warning! 140

Beware that existing calculations or charts could get broken if you move a worksheet. Similarly, if a moved or copied worksheet is inserted between sheets that are referred to by a 3-D formula reference, data on that worksheet might be unexpectedly included in the calculation. 1. http://bit.ly/fDRysL 2. http://bit.ly/eeKoY3

#212 Word’s Powerful Find & Replace Options (2011-01-25 13:55) I think most people probably know about the basics of find and replace don’t they? However most people have no idea just how powerful it can be...nor how much time it can save you. Here is a basic primer on extending what you can to power up your Find & Replace skills. Basic Find & Replace You can automatically replace a word or phrase with another American Electric Power.

for example, replace AEP with

WARNING: The replacement text uses the same capitalization as the text that it replaces unless you select the Match case check box.

[1] Find & Replace Formatting: You can search for and replace or remove character formatting. For example, you can search for American Electric Power and change the font to bold and red. Or you can search for everything that is in bold and change it to a heading style. (Shown below) To access the formatting options, click the More button, then click the Format button to specify what you want.

Find & Replace Special Characters You can really benefit from Find & Replace when you are cleaning up a document by working with 141

document elements such as tabs and manual page breaks. For example, a quick way to remove all the empty paragraphs is to find all double paragraph breaks and replace them with single paragraph breaks. (The symbol for a paragraph break is ˆp)

Here is a listing of some common document elements you might want to work with:

NOTE: It’s VERY helpful to turn on these non-printing characters in Word when doing this. If you’ve read this far down without losing interest here are even [2]more details including a full listing of codes, wildcards, etc 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/matchcase2.png 2. http://bit.ly/dZ8Mjm

5.2

February

#213 Excel Custom Sorting (2011-02-03 14:58) Custom Sorting in Excel Sorting is one of the most useful things Excel can do for you and your data. At least in my very humble opinion. 8-) Most of the time the default sorting options work quite well. However there seem to be exceptions to every rule doesn’t there? For example, if you want to sort the months of the year, the default alphabetical results are probably not very useful. This may also be true for other things like days of the week, geographic regions (East, West, North, South) and ratings (High, Medium, Low; Hot, Warm,Cold; Small, Medium, Large), etc. 142

[1]

VS. [2]

Creating a Custom Sort: There are two ways to create a custom list. If your custom list is short, you can type the values directly in the dialog box. If your custom list is long, you can import it from a range of cells. To start, go to the Tools menu and select Options... 1. On the Custom Lists tab click NEW LIST 2. Enter your list entries. put.

Simply press the Enter key after each one until you have them all in-

3. Click the Add button.

[3]

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If you have a lot of items in your custom sort list you can import it from an existing range of cells using the Import button instead of manually typing them all one-by-one. Using a Custom Sort: When you’re ready to apply your custom sort go to the Data menu and select Sort. 1. Use the Sort by drop-down to select the column you want to apply the custom sort to. 2. Click the Options... button. 3. Use the drop-down list in the Sort Options dialog box to select the custom sort you want to use, then click OK.

[4] 4. If necessary, specify any other Sort settings then click OK to sort your data. If you’re working with a newer version of Office the steps are similar but located in a different place. You can [5]get those details here. Bonus Feature: Fill Handle Series If you act within the next ten minutes, you’ll also receive absolutely free this special offer - a free custom fill handle action. Yes, that’s right - a $19.99 value absolutely FREE!

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When you set up one of these custom series it will also work with the fill handle. What do you think? about it.

Do you have any use for custom sorting?

Let me know I’d love to hear

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image8.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image6.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image7.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image9.jpg 5. http://bit.ly/ik1dkb

#214 Six Million Dollar Presentation Tips (2011-02-11 11:50)

Just as Steve Austin ([1]The Six Million Dollar Man) had ”bionic” implants to enhance his strength, speed and vision far above human norms, this week’s tip will show you how you can do the same for your PowerPoint presentation skills. Here are a few keyboard shortcuts, that will allow you to stop sweating the mechanics of presenting and give more of your attention to your audience and your message. These will save you time and make you look like a pro, ninja, rockstar or whatever super human status you may aspire to. So let’s get started with some basics.... 145

[2] And a few more advanced, ’bionic’ ones...

[3] Don’t worry if you can’t remember them all... you can always access them by pressing your F1 key in slide show few to see this built-in ’cheat sheet’ 146

[4] What bionic skills do you with you had?? Let me know if these are helpful or if you have any others to share. 1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Six_Million_Dollar_Man 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image13.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image12.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image11.jpg

#215 Instapaper: A simple tool to save web pages for reading later (2011-02-18 11:37) Have you ever found something online that you really wanted to read but just didn’t have the time for at that moment? This week I’d like to share a pretty cool and useful way to handle those situations. Instapaper is a simple tool for keeping track of those things you want to read later. Getting Started: Getting started with Instapaper is very simple. 1. [1]Register for an account 2. From the [2]Extras page drag the bookmarklet up to your browser’s bookmark bar. Now you are ready to grab anything you want to save for reading later when you have the time by 147

simply clicking the ”Read Later” bookmarklet- sort of like Tivo for the web.

[3] Clicking that bookmarklet adds the page to your personalized list of things to read later stored on [4]instapaper.com. It’s sort of like creating your very own, personalized newspaper - and you don’t even have to retrieve it from the bushes when the paper boys aim is a bit less than accurate.

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[5] [6]Delicious is a great place to save it as a bookmark if you decide it’s worthy after reading it. So next time you find a great article at work that you’d like to read over a cup of coffee at home, reach for your Instapaper bookmark and it’ll be there patiently waiting for you whenever you’re ready. Extras Since my last special offer was so well received I thought I’d throw in a few additional tricks for you at no additional charge. But you must act fast - supplies are limited! 8-) Email: You can also email links or long emails such as newsletters, etc to the secret, unique email address that comes with your account. iPhone/iPad: Yes, there’s an app for that too. View your saved pages in the mobile-optimized Text view. Instapaper is great for commuters and iPod Touch owners because it stores your articles for reading even if you’re offline. There are over 130 iPhone and iPad apps that support sending pages directly to Instapaper. Is that a better option than what you’re using now? been handling this so far.

Let me know I’d love to hear how you’ve

1. http://bit.ly/eF1Pap 2. http://www.instapaper.com/extras 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image14.jpg 4. http://www.instapaper.com/

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5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image15.jpg 6. http://bit.ly/aGQ2mV

#216 Down with ugly charts (2011-02-25 11:24) How to give your charts a much needed make-over The default charts generated by Excel are UGLY. Yes! U-G-L-Y There I’ve said it; I hope you don’t take it personally but the first step in making things better is to admit you have a problem. And if you use these default charts, you do have a problem. Before we begin our make-overs, we need to back up a step to ensure you’re creating the right kind of chart in the first place. After all, the best looking chart in the world isn’t any good if nobody understands what you’re trying to illustrate or if you’ve put so much data on it that it’s more confusing than helpful. [1]Learn more about how to choose the right type of chart. Chart Chooser: [2]Chart Chooser is a nice tool that can help you determine what type of chart you need. Use the filters on the left to find the appropriate type of chart for your data. Once you’ve found the right one, you can even download a sample as an Excel or PowerPoint template and insert your own data.

[3]

Quick Fix: 150

The quickest and easiest way to fix your existing charts is use [4]Juice Analytics’ Excel add-in called Clean Charts. Using this handy tool is pretty simple. Once you’ve followed their instructions to get it setup, you’ll have a new option under the format menu to ”Clean this chart...” (if a chart is selected) or ”Clean all charts...” (if none are selected). The resulting wizard will help you fix a number of issues with the default charts including: Remove “chart-junk” (the contrast-reducing light grey background on most Excel charts, extraneous lines, etc.) Formats the axes with easy to read numeric formats (22000 becomes “22k”) Changes series colors to an optimally chosen set that are designed for maximum contrast and readability Removes 3D from the chart. 3D charts introduce distortions that make it hard for people to understand your numbers. Fixes axis scaling problems. Fixes font and marker sizes to make them readable if you have resized your chart

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[5] PowerPoint Charts If you’re ultimate destination for your chart is going to be PowerPoint and you like to have total control over the formatting of your chart, another great trick is to copy your chart from Excel and use the Paste Special... option to get it into PowerPoint. By pasting your chart into PowerPoint as a ”Picture (Enhanced Metafile }” you’ll be able to ungroup it and format all the components as individual shapes to get something along these lines.

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[6]

What do your charts look like? I hope you will join me in the crusade to rid the world of ugly charts? Let me know - I’d love to deputize you and add you to my posse.

1. http://bit.ly/g4WJx9 2. http://bit.ly/ecpmFS 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image17.jpg 4. http://bit.ly/gSAW0H 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image18.jpg 6. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/image16.jpg

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5.3

March

#217 Keeping It All Together (2011-03-04 11:27)

My guess is that you’ve probably never given any thought to how Microsoft Word handles automatically wrapping text at the right margin and at break pages. Am I right? The reason you never think about it is because 99.9 % of the time Word does a pretty good job of it. However, if you create very many documents, at some point you will want to do something different. Here are some simple tricks for ensuring that Word keeps your words and paragraphs together, exactly the way you want them be. Helpful Tip: When working with these tips it will be MUCH easier if you display the non-printing characters in your document by clicking the Show/Hide Formatting button. Non-breaking space At the end of a line Word will try to put the line break between two words. There are some things that should never be split between lines of a paragraph. For example, you may want to keep names all together or things like Ph.D following a name. When this happens, insert a non-breaking space instead of a regular space between the words. For instance, you probably wouldn’t want the Ph.D following a name to wrap to the next line. To keep Ph.D with the name, enter a non-breaking space between the last name and Ph.D. You might even want to enter non-breaking spaces between each name and even a middle initial, to keep the entire name together. Before:

[1] After:

[2] The symbols show below are the non-breaking spaces that will prevent these word from ever being split between two different lines of a paragraph. 154

To enter a non-breaking space, press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Spacebar]. Non-breaking hyphen A non-breaking hyphen works the same way as a non-breaking space does, but with hyphenated words. If you don’t want Word to wrap at a hyphen character, enter a non-breaking hyphen instead. When the hyphenated word reaches the right margin, Word will wrap the entire word to the next line if necessary, rather than breaking at the hyphen. To enter a - hyphen, press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[-] Non-breaking paragraphs and lines Sometimes you’ll want to prevent an entire paragraph from spanning across a page break between two pages. That is easily controlled by the paragraph options. From the Format menu go to the Paragraph option and click the Line and Page Breaks tab.

[3]

Widow/Orphan control: Prevents a single line from appearing by itself at the top or bottom or a page. Keep with next: Keeps this paragraph on the same page as the next one. Keep lines together: Prevents a paragraph from breaking across a page. Page break before: Forces this paragraph to start at the top of a page. 155

You can learn more about [4]controlling the pagination of your documents here. Have you ever encountered any of these situations? What other things in Word do you wrestle with? Drop me a note and let me know...or just be friendly and say hello. 8-D 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/image2.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/image4.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/image.jpg 4. http://bit.ly/f2G7dB

#218 You’re Officially Invited (2011-03-10 16:22) If you’re world is anything like mine, the majority of things you receive are directed AT you as opposed to being an invitation to a conversation. Personally, I’d choose the invitation approach every time. That way you at least have the option to decline it right? Over the past few months I’ve set up a few things to enable me to invite you into a conversation. So consider this your official invitation to ’talk back’. I occasionally hear from some of you, but in relation to the number of people who get this email it’s less than 1 % (assuming that 99 % of you don’t route this email directly to your trash folder!) You are all smart people and I don’t think anyone would argue that collectively you’re many times smarter than I am myself. 1. [1]Quick poll that will take 10 seconds or less I’ve had some great suggestions lately for future tips that I’d love to get your opinion on via this one question poll. Remember if you don’t vote you can’t complain about the results!

[2][3] 156

[4]Quick poll that will take 10 seconds or less 2. [5]Tips Blog In case you haven’t noticed, each week’s tip is posted and stored on a blog which is linked to at the top of every issue. So there is no need to fill your in-box with all those past emails because they are online. Plus the blog is a great place to ask questions and post comments that everyone can benefit from. Go ahead. [6]Jump over there to check it out and leave a comment while you’re there. 3. [7]Facebook Do you Facebook? If you’d like to get your weekly dose of tips over there, or if that is the place you’re already having conversations jump in and join us there.

[8][9]

I look forward to hearing from you sometime. if you choose to accept the invitation. that’s OK too and I won’t think any less of you for it. 8-)

But if not,

1. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/489171/What-topics-would-you-like-to-see-in-this-weekly-tip 2. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/489171/What-topics-would-you-like-to-see-in-this-weekly-tip 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/image5.jpg 4. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/489171/What-topics-would-you-like-to-see-in-this-weekly-tip 5. http://miketips.wordpress.com/ 6. http://miketips.wordpress.com/ 7. http://www.facebook.com/pages/AskLearnShare/175479125811929 8. http://www.facebook.com/pages/AskLearnShare/175479125811929 9. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/image6.jpg

#219 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... (2011-03-18 10:43) Excel has several different methods of counting depending on what it is you want to count. This week, with my sincerest apologies to [1]Elizabeth Barrett Browning, we’ll take a look at those options and show you how to get the results you want. 157

Understanding the various counting functions in Excel can be a little bit confusing at first. Have no fear, with a little guidance you’ll have it mastered in no time. So fasten your seat belt and enjoy the ride! Counting How Many Cells Contain Numbers =COUNT(range) Counting How Many Cells Are NOT Blank =COUNTA(range) Counting How Many Cells Meet A Specified Criteria =COUNTIF(range,”criteria”) Counting How Many Cells Are Blank =COUNTBLANK(range) Quick & Dirty, No Formula Required Method The animation below shows how you can use the status bar to get an automatic count with out any formulas at all. Just right click and select Count or Count Nums and the status bar will count the range that is selected in your worksheet. [2]Feel free to download a copy of this worksheet and play around with it yourself.

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Before you get away for the weekend, I just want to say a great big Thank You! to everyone who took the time to weigh-in on what type of tips you’d like to see here. You can [3]check on the results here if you’re curious and I’ll try to start mixing in some new things based on your feedback in the next few weeks. 1. http://bit.ly/dVSfvJ 2. http://www.box.net/shared/fid5uhlvmc 3. http://appv3.sgizmo.com/reportsview/?key=115830-574123-6c51b9b5adf46a255c95b8678590ae27

#220 Dropbox: Like ’Magic’ For Your Files (2011-03-24 14:02) Dropbox: Like ’Magic’ For Your Files

[1] 159

Dropbox is software that syncs your files online and across your devices. Put your files into your Dropbox folder on one computer, and they’ll automatically appear on any of your other computers that also have [2]Dropbox installed. There are even [3]Dropbox apps for your smartphone or mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android, and Blackberry). Even if you aren’t at your own computer and don’t have a smartphone you can still access your files from the [4]Dropbox website too! [5]Watch this 2 minute video tour

[6][7] [8]http://db.tt/5EogrFO File Sync: With Dropbox, your files are always in sync. Let’s say you’re editing a document in your Dropbox folder. As soon as you press Save, Dropbox will sync this file to all your other computers and mobile devices instantly and automatically. It’s as if you saved the document to all of your computers at the same time. This gives you the freedom to work anywhere and always have the files you need. File Sharing: Dropbox lets you share files easily. You can easily share entire folders or photo albums with Dropbox. Simply put the folders you want to share in your Dropbox, and invite people to them. You can also send people links to specific files within your Dropbox. This makes Dropbox perfect for things like group projects. Online Backup: With Dropbox, online backup is automatic. Any file you put into your Dropbox folder is automatically backed up to their servers. Even if your computer has a melt-down, your files are safe on Dropbox and can be restored at any time. The free 2GB account is perfect for backing up smaller files and documents, and you can pay for more if you need it. (up to 100GB)

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Undo & Delete: Dropbox lets you go back in time to undelete or undo changes to files. Every time you save a file in Dropbox, Dropbox syncs it to their secure servers. Dropbox keeps a history of every change you make so that you can undo any mistakes and even undelete files. By default, we keep 30 days of history for all your files. If you need it, you can upgrade to an unlimited undo option called ”Pack-rat”. What Does It Replace? If any of these things sound familiar, you might want to consider Dropbox: Emailing file attachments to yourself and other people Using USB drives to move files between computers Renaming files to keep a history of previous versions Complicated backup software and hardware Convinced? [9]Go ahead and get started here! Before you get away for the weekend, I just want to say a great big ’Thank You!’ to everyone who took the time to weigh-in on what type of tips you’d like to see here. You can [10]check on the results here if you’re curious and I’ll try to start mixing in some new things based on your feedback over the next few weeks. 1. http://db.tt/5EogrFO 2. https://www.dropbox.com/install 3. https://www.dropbox.com/anywhere 4. https://www.dropbox.com/ 5. http://db.tt/5EogrFO 6. http://db.tt/5EogrFO 7. http://db.tt/5EogrFO 8. http://db.tt/5EogrFO 9. http://db.tt/5EogrFO 10. http://appv3.sgizmo.com/reportsview/?key=115830-574123-6c51b9b5adf46a255c95b8678590ae27

#221 The Biggest Loser: PowerPoint Edition (2011-03-31 15:00) Have you ever worked on a presentation where your file size quickly ballooned out of control and you had no idea why? Usually this is due to the images or photos you’ve put on your slides. Your own photographs from your camera are frequently one of the a prime suspects for this problem. (But they certainly aren’t the only one.) This week we’ll see a super simple trick that will help you shave up to 90 % or more off the file size of your PowerPoint presentations. Think of it as Microsoft’s version of the Biggest Loser. Just the other day, I shrank a presentation from over 52MB down to less that 2.5MB using this method. Note: The following steps apply for PowerPoint 2002/XP and later. If you have PowerPoint 2000 or earlier go the [1]http://aps and get Office XP (AEP folks only-the rest of you are probably already beyond both of these versions.) 161

The Menu Way: 1. Right-click on any picture in your presentation, and then click Format Picture on the shortcut menu.

[2] 2. In the Format dialog box, click the Picture tab, and then click the Compress button.

[3] 3. Under Apply to, do one of the following: 162

Usually, you’ll want to compress all the pictures in your presentation, so select All pictures in document. 4. Under Change resolution, do one of the following: If your presentation will be used for a screen show, click Web/Screen. If you plan to distribute your presentation as printed pages, click Print. Personally, I’ve never been able to see a difference so I always go with Web/Screen which will give a smaller file size. 5. Under Options, select the Compress pictures check box and the Delete cropped areas of pictures check box. (Just be sure you won’t want them back later!) 6. Click OK. 7. If prompted, click Apply in the Compress Pictures dialog box. PowerPoint compresses the picture or pictures for you automatically. The Toolbar Way: You can also use the Compress Pictures button on the Picture compress your pictures.

[4] Here are the steps to do this if you have PowerPoint 2007/2010 Of course, when you create these presentations you are keeping the text off your slides right? Do we need to talk about that too? You and your audience will be MUCH better off if you do! If you’re curious, ask me about my campaign to rid the world of bullet points and text-laden slides.

1. http://aps/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/image12.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/image11.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/image10.jpg

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5.4

April

#222 Special Characters (2011-04-08 10:34)

Special Characters:

If you’ve ever been on the receiving end of very many emails from me, you’ve probably seen one of these at some point: 8-) ;-D 8>( B-p 8-O This is my way of injecting a degree of emotion into email, which is a notorious medium for misinterpreting the tone of a message. Words can sound harsh when delivered without a wink or a smile to let others know that you meant your point was friendly or humorous. If you’re curious you can read more about [1]How to Know When to Use Emoticons And if right now you’re wondering what all those ”eights” are all about, tilt your head to the left when you read them. 8-D With the increasing prevalence of text messaging via smart phones, Facebook, instant messaging, etc the probability that you’ll ever want to use some sort of ’special’ character is only going to go up from here. So let’s take a look at several options for how you can use them. Microsoft Office: Using special characters or symbols in your Microsoft Office documents is super easy. 1. Go to the Insert menu and select Symbol. 2. From there just pick the ones you want and click the Insert button. 164

[2] Note: Different fonts will give you different sets of symbols to choose from. Windows Character Map: Now what if you’re working in a text editor, e-mail client, Web form, etc. that doesn’t have an option for symbols like Microsoft does? Never fear the Character Map is here. The Character Map is a Windows System Tool that lets you copy and paste the characters you need from it into wherever you need it. 1. From the Start menu, go to All Programs

Accessories

System Tools

Character Map

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[3] Now just select the characters you want and use the Copy button to copy them to your clipboard. Then you can paste them virtually anywhere you want. Keyboard Method: ALT + Codes

Now I realize that’s a rather lengthy path to get to the Character Map. If you think you’ll use it very much you can put a shortcut to it on your desktop. Or, even better, it to learn the keyboard equivalents and skip the Character Map altogether. 1. Make sure Number Lock (Num Lock) on your keyboard is ON. 2. Hold down the ALT key (left alt key) while you type the number appropriate alt code. For example here are the first 20: Remember to keep holding the ALT key down until you type all the numbers.

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[4] You can find a [5]complete list of these ALT codes here. This is a great way to get special characters into your Excel worksheets and for anyone who needs to use any foreign language characters. And finally, if you are one of the few who actually read all the way to the bottom of these emails and are wondering about last week’s closing that said that was going to be my last tip ever, take a look at your calendar and notice the date: April 1st . 8-D

1. http://bit.ly/fcK6iO 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/image.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/image2.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/image3.jpg 5. http://bit.ly/hOQknx

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#223 PowerPoint Show Files (2011-04-15 10:46)

What’s the difference between a PowerPoint .ppt file and a .pps file? Well, duh! One ends with an ”S” and the other ends with a ”T”. Really! No kidding! That’s it. Otherwise, they’re identical files. A .pps is just a .ppt file with a different file extension that tells PowerPoint to open the presentation directly in slide show view, allowing the viewer to skip the Normal (editing) view. [1]Here’s an example you can try out for yourself. If you open a .ppt file you’ll see it in the Normal, editing view.

[2] If you open a .pps file you’ll skip directly to the slide show 168

[3] You might want to consider sending a .PPS file instead of a .PPT file when you just want people to view the slide show the way you intended it to be seen instead of having to fumble around in PowerPoint and maybe never seeing it as an actual slide show. To ”convert” from one type to the other all you have to do is rename the files and change the ”s” to a ”t” or vice versa. (You can also use the File Save As... menu in PowerPoint.) PowerPoint 2007/2010: The file types for PowerPoint 2007/2010 are .PPTX & .PPSX , but the trick of simply renaming the file with a different extension doesn’t work for them. Now you have to use PowerPoint’s File Save As... menu to save in the type of file you want. (Presentation or Show).

1. http://db.tt/GRvx9Oh 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/image5.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/image6.jpg

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#224: Decrapifying Web Pages (2011-04-20 15:51)

Due to all the sidebars, ads, images and other junk that lives on a lot of web pages, printing stuff from the web often results is a big ol’ mess. And that’s not even considering the waste of ink and paper all that extra crap causes. Some sites will provide a printer friendly version, but more often than not, that feature is no where to be found. So what can you do about it? Take matters into your own hands with these 3 handy bookmarklets that offer ways to print a ”clean” version of any web page. FYI - a bookmarklet is just a small bit of code stored as a bookmark in your web browser. You can see in this example that there is more junk than substance. In this case, you could make a very valid case that the article is junk too but that’s something for another day! 8-> 170

Printing this beast, ’as is’ unnecessarily wastes 2 sheets of paper and a LOT of ink.

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Readability My personal favorite, Readability, turns any web page into a comfortable reading view right in your web browser. And even gives you some options for controlling what it looks like for reading and/or printing. | [1]Get it here

JoliPrint Joliprint saves web pages as PDF for printing, sharing or reading later. 172

Turn full pages into sharp

looking PDF, including title, text, images, author, category, no ads, no navigation menu, etc with a single click. | [2]Get it here

PrintFriendly PrintFriendly also cleans and formats web pages removing ads, navigation and web page junk. [3]Get it here

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Let me know if you try any of these and how it works for you. appreciate it! Happy Earth Day!

The trees and your wallet will

1. http://bit.ly/f9r3xd 2. http://bit.ly/fZV5O1 3. http://bit.ly/fTAGHk

#225 One Number to Ring Them All (2011-04-29 10:59) How many phone numbers do you have? I see a lot of people carrying two cell phones in addition to their work and home phones. That’s four phone numbers to juggle and manage. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could give everyone just one number and then control which phone would ring? Well you can do exactly that and more with several free services that offer ’conditional call forwarding’. 174

Common Features: Call Routing: Which people ring which phones and when. Set a schedule for which phone to ring when. For example, anyone who calls on a weekday between 8am-5pm would be directed to your work number. After 5 and on weekends your cell phone would ring. And everyday after 9pm is directed straight to voicemail except for certain family members who will ring to your home phone. Voicemail Delivery Options: Get your voicemails sent to you via text, email & audio files.

Online Message Center: A personal web for managing your call lists and voice mails.

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Some Services To Consider: Google Voice: [1]Read more about what Google Voice can do including voice mail transcription, free SMS texting and free calling. Ribbit Mobile: Ribbit Mobile is offers a similar service to Google Voice. Users can keep their own phone number and link to as many other accounts as they would like including home phone and business phone.Two versions are currently available, a free Basic version and a Pro version. iPhone and BlackBerry apps for the service are under development. | [2]More details from Ribbit.com YouMail: Similar to Ribbit and Google Voice. A basic version of YouMail is completely free, and additional features start at $1.99 per month. | [3]More details from YouMail.com I’ve tried all three of these and they all work very well. It takes about 2 minutes to get started and it is very handy. Do you use anything similar to this? What are your favorite phone tricks? Let me know.

1. http://nyti.ms/g1Pq07 2. http://bit.ly/jlQfHs 3. http://bit.ly/iK836q

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5.5

May

#226 Excel Readability (2011-05-05 17:05) So you just finished that big Excel report, double-checked the data and you’re feeling pretty good about yourself. What do you do next? Kick back, put your feet up, and imagine all the praise that will follow? Umm..not so fast my friend. Have you given any thought to those poor souls who have to actually read it??? Trust me when I say that spending a few minutes making those endless rows of data easier to read and less likely to result in an industrial case of eye strain will win you much more appreciation. After all the best data in the world is useless if it’s not readable. For any big spreadsheet, shading alternate rows is very helpful and you can do it in less than 2 minutes. There are two options for this: automatic formatting and conditional formatting.s. Automatic Formatting: The simplest approach is to use one of the following pre-defined autoformat, which can be found from the Format menu under AutoFormat....

[1] List1 shades every other row by using the Gray-25 % fill color. List2 shades every other two rows by using the Light Green fill color. Note: Don’t apply this method until after you complete your worksheet. sort the data later, you will need to re-apply the autoformat.

If you update, filter, or

Conditional Formatting: Conditional formatting is a more flexible, dynamic way to achieve the same result. Unlike the Aut177

oFormat option, this method preserves the alternating format if you update, filter, or sort the data.

[2] How it works:

1. Select the range you want to format 2. From the Format menu, select Conditional Formatting... 3. Under Condition 1, select Formula Is. then in the data entry box, type =MOD(ROW(),2)=1 4. Click the Format button, then click the Patterns tab. 5. Select a light-blue color (or any other color you want), and then click OK. 6. In the Conditional Formatting dialog box, click OK.

[3] While we’re on the topic of spreadsheet readability, you should probably[4] freeze the top row and first column or so too so when readers scroll they can still see the labels, etc. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image2.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image1.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image.jpg 4. http://bit.ly/m1vtfj

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#227 Tracking Document Changes (2011-05-12 10:58) Do you ever need to have documents reviewed by others? Or maybe you are one of the reviewers? In either case, if you are not using Word’s Track Changes function for this you may be working a lot harder than you need to. By tracking changes in a document, anyone can make revisions to a document without losing the original text. Plus, when you track changes, Word shows changed text in a different color from the original text and uses revision marks, such as underlines, to distinguish the revised text from the original text. Track Changes, also known as redlining, lets you see exactly what additions and deletions have been made and who made which ones. Then after all the reviewers are finished you can accept or reject their revisions one at a time or all at once. This works best if you can store the document in a shared location such (i.e shared folder, SharePoint, etc.) where everyone can work on a single copy of the document. How It Works: There are three steps to using tracking changes:

1. Start tracking changes. 2. Choose how to display the Tracked Changes. 3. When the review is complete, accept or reject the changes. Turn Track Changes On/Off: When your document is ready to be reviewed, you can turn on Track Changes (that is, to tell Word to track anything that changes), by any of the following methods: From the Tools menu, select Track Changes CTRL + SHIFT + E is the keyboard shortcut that works in all versions of Word. You can tell that the changes are being tracked by looking for TRK in the status bar.

[1] 179

Viewing Tracked Changes: Just turning Track Changes on or off doesn’t necessarily mean you can see them. thing you should do is choose how you would like to view the changes.

So the next

On the Reviewing toolbar, choose either Final with Markup or Original with Markup. show you what changes have been made.

This will

Note the differences from this original text: ”The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Original Showing Markup displays insertions in balloons.

[2] Final Showing Markup displays deletions in balloons.

[3]

Accept/Reject Changes: When you’re ready to finalize your document, the last step is to accept and/or reject all the changes that have been made. The reviewing toolbar is great for working with many changes all at once and automates jumping to the next change and accepting or rejecting all changes at once if you don’t want to do them one-by-one.

[4] 180

For those of you with Word 2007/2010 the process is the same but the options are in a different place. [5]Check out this page for details. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image3.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image7.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image5.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image6.jpg 5. http://bit.ly/jRumc1

#228 Zip It! Compressing Your Files (2011-05-18 12:25)

Do you ever need to send someone a bunch of files? Instead of attaching them one-by-one, you should compress them all into one smaller, easier-to-manage .zip file. For example, by ’zipping’ your files this way, you could go from 50 Word documents with a combined size of 5MB down to a single file of less than 1MB. If you’re already using a utility like [1]WinZip or [2]7zip to compress and decompress files, there’s little point in changing. But did you know Windows has Zip capabilities built right in? Note: File types that are reduced the most as a result of zipping are text-oriented file types, such as .txt, .doc, .xls Some graphic files, such as .jpg and .gif files, already use compression; therefore, the file size is reduced very little by zipping. Creating Your Zip File:

1. Find and select the files you want to zip. (They all need to be in the same folder.)Remember you can hold the CTRL key to select multiple files. 181

2. Right-click any of the selected files, then choose Send to

Compressed (zipped) folder.[3]

3. Windows will quickly compress the files and create a new, zipped file. (You can rename it if you need to.) Adding to an Existing Zip File: If you have already created a compressed folder and you want to add a new file or folder to it, just drag the files you want to add and drop them right on top of the zip file. 1. http://www.winzip.com/ 2. http://bit.ly/ksNZu1 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image12.jpg

#229 Tabbed Web Browsing (2011-05-24 18:35) So you’re browsing the web and want to another page without closing the one you’re on. What do you do? Maybe you know how to open a new window ( File New Window ), but that can get out of hand pretty quickly before you know it you have 10 different windows strewn about your desktop. Luckily, there’s another solution you may not have known about: tabs Here at AEP, we’ve just recently updated to Internet Explorer 8 - the first ”officially blessed” browser that supports tabs. I’m guessing that many of you may have been enjoying tabbed web browsing for some time now but this is for anyone who still hasn’t made the switch.

[1] 182

Tabs allow you to open multiple sites/pages at once within the same window. This week we’ll take a quick look at how to use them. Opening a New Tab If you find yourself in need of a new tab to visit another site there are several way to open a new tab. 1. From the File menu select New Tab 2. Use the keyboard shortcut CTRL + T 3. Click the small blank tab to the right of any existing tabs.

[2]

You can open as many tabs as you want at one time, and switch between them easily, making web browsing much more convenient. Closing a Tab To close a tab, just hover over the small ”x” on the side of the tab (it’ll be either on the left-hand side or the right-hand side of the tab, depending on what browser you’re using).

[3] Opening a Link in a New Tab Once you’ve fallen in love with tabs, (and you will) you’ll want to know how to open links directly into a new tab. If you ever want to open a link without losing your place on the current page, you can easily open that link in a new tab with a simple right click. 183

Click on the link with your right mouse button and choose the ”Open Link in New Tab” option. A new tab will sweep open, just as before, but it won’t be blank it’ll be the page that link led to. That way, you can come back to that page later, when you’re finished with the page you’re on (or vice versa). All it took was two clicks, and you didn’t even have to lose your place! If you like tabs, there is even an [4]add-in that will give you this tab functionality in Microsoft Office. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image13.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image14.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image15.jpg 4. http://bit.ly/lBohpC

5.6

June

#230 Displaying Two or More Tabs of an Excel Worksheet (2011-06-02 12:20) Continuing our tab theme from last week, let’s take a look at how to view two tabs of the same Excel worksheet. This is much better than trying to continuously flip back and forth between them. Here is what it looks like.

[1] How It Works 184

1. First you’ll need to select New Window from the Window menu. 2. Next, switch to this new window, and click a sheet you want to view. ( You can do this for as many sheets as you want to view.) 2. From back in the Window menu, click Arrange 3. Then select the arrangement option you want. Selecting the Windows of active workbook is what gives you a view of tabs from the same file.

For you Office 2007/2010 folks it’s very similar except you can access it from the ribbon under View and you have a few additional options as well.

[2] 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image17.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/image18.jpg

#231 Navigating a Selected Range of Cells in Excel (2011-06-10 10:58) [nogallery] If you do much work at all in Excel, you probably already know a few handy keyboard shortcuts that take you to the very beginning and very end of your worksheet’s data. CTRL + Home takes you to cell A1 and CTRL + End takes you to the end of your worksheet’s data which is often helpful. But, what can you do if you select a large range of cells in the middle of your spreadsheet that you’d like to navigate? In this case, jumping to the very beginning or very end is of no use. Navigating a Selected Range Fortunately, you can navigate through a selected range by changing the active cell and move quickly around that range. To change the active cell, select a range of cells and then press 185

CTRL + .

[1] This jumps you to the next clockwise corner of your selected range. on to the next corner until you get where you want to be.

Simply repeat it to continue

Changing a Selected Range You can also use a SHIFT + any arrow key combination to expand or shrink the cells included in your selected range.

[2] See It In Action

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Like it? Hate it? Have any questions? Have a better idea? [3]Let me know! 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/image.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/image1.jpg 3. http://miketips.wordpress.com/

#232 Do you F5? (2011-06-16 14:52) There are several quick and easy ways to jump your way around an Office document or spreadsheet. One of my favorites is the F5 key. F5 takes you to the GoTo dialog box allowing you to jump to a specific place. NOTE: You can also get here via [CTRL] + G or the Edit > GoTo menu

Word In Microsoft Word, pressing F5 brings up the “Go To” dialog box. (It may look a bit different depending on which version of Microsoft Word you’re using.) Type in a page number, like 15, and press Enter and you quickly zoom right to the top of page 15. You can also use this to browse your document by sections, tables, graphics, comments and more. The longer your documents the more valuable this trick is. 187

[1] Excel In Excel, F5 also gives you the Go To dialog box, but it works differently. Just type in a cell and press Enter to jump directly to that cell. If you have any named ranges, they’ll show up here and you can jump to them too. Again, the bigger your spreadsheet to more helpful it can be.

[2] There are more advanced ways of using the Go To dialog box in both applications, so go explore them a little bit and let us know if you find anything you like.

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/goto_word.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/goto_excel.png

#233: Replacing Fonts in PowerPoint (2011-06-23 18:45) You’ll love this week’s tip if any of the following scenarios sound familiar: You combine slides from other people/other presentations You inherit presentations from someone else You often start with pre-defined templates In all of these scenarios, it’s possible and even likely that you’ll wind up with slides that use a font you did not choose. For example, you might have inherited some slides that have been infected with the dreaded Comic Sans font. [ NOTE: Please don’t ever use Comic Sans font unless your audience is under the age of 5. ] PowerPoint has an little known Replace Font feature that allows you to replace every occurrence of 188

a font in your presentation with another one. How To Use It You can access Replace Font via the Format menu. In 2007/2010 versions you’ll find this on the home tab under Replace

Replace Fonts.

To use it, start by selecting the font that you want to replace in the first list, and the new font that you want to use in the second list. Then click Replace and PowerPoint will make this change throughout your entire presentation.

[1] One word of caution...not all fonts are created equal. A size 24 in one font can be very different from a size 24 in a different font. You’ll probably want to do a quick scan through your presentation to make sure the new font didn’t cause any unwanted sizing problems.

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/image3.jpg

#234 Easy Excel Subtotals (2011-06-30 11:34)

The Excel Subtotals command provides you with a quick and easy way to summarize your data. Note: This is different from the =subtotal() function that we’ve seen before, [1]here & [2]here in conjunction with AutoFilter. How To Use It The first thing you’ll need to do is sort the column containing the data you want to group by. For example, if I want subtotal by vendor, I’ll need to sort the vendor column. 189

[3] 1. Once it’s sorted correctly you can turn on the subtotals by going to the Data menu and clicking on Subtotals.

[4] 2.. Indicate which column to group by using the ”At each change in:” drop down. 3. Choose which function to apply to the groupings. (Sum, Count, Average, Max, Min, etc) 4. Check the field that you want to be calculated in the ”Add to subtotal” section. gets calculated in the subtotals. In our example, this results in the following;

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This is what

[5] Notice the 1,2 & 3 buttons that appear on the left. These control how much detail is displayed. 1 only shows the overall grand total, 2 displays the subtotals and 3 displays everything as shown above. Usually what you want to see are the subtotals shown by the level 2 display.

[6] Turning Them Off If you want to remove the subtotals after your done, all you need to do is do the same thing you did to turn them on except when you get to that dialog box just click the Remove All button. Copy Just the Subtotals This is really cool, unless you know this next trick, you’ll probably have trouble when they try to 191

copy these subtotals to a new worksheet. It looks like there are just five rows of data, but when you copy and paste them, Excel will include the hidden rows as well. The trick that will let you just copy the subtotal data is the GoTo Special function. Here are the steps: 1. Click the #2 button in the left margin of your spreadsheet. This hides the detail rows.

[7] 2. Highlight the range you want to copy. 3. From the Edit menu, select Goto. 4. Click ”Special” to see the Go To Special dialog box.

[8] 5. Select the ”Visible Cells Only” option and click OK. This changes the selection from all 14 rows to just the five visible rows. 6. Now that you have just the 5 visible rows selected, you can copy only the subtotals and none of the detail rows. If you’d like to see how it works and maybe play around with it yourself, feel free to [9]download a copy of this spreadsheet. 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/164-excel-subtotals/ 2. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/172-autofilter-formula/ 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/image5.jpg

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4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/image7.jpg 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/image4.jpg 6. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/image8.jpg 7. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/image9.jpg 8. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/image6.jpg 9. http://www.box.net/shared/1x1relfo9ef6btd4jjyc

5.7

July

#235 Quickly Paint Formatting (2011-07-06 11:22) There are a seemingly infinite number of formatting options available for your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. At times, you can get pretty complex with these formatting options to create really good looking documents and that is great. But what do you do after you’ve just spent 15 minutes getting that one heading formatted just right and you still have 20 more to do?

[1] The Format Painter button just became your new best friend. It copies the formatting from your current selection and pastes it onto whatever you select next. You don’t have to recreate all of that formatting from scratch. Note: In Word, you can include the paragraph formatting such as line spacing, indentation, etc as well as the character formatting by including the paragraph mark at the end of the paragraph. Don’t want to copy the paragraph formatting? Don’t include that paragraph mark in your selection. If you need to use the Format Painter to ”paint” more than one item, you can save even more time. Even if you already knew about the format painter, you probably select the cell with the desired formatting, click the Format Painter button, select one data range for the new formatting, go back to the original cell ... rinse, wash, and repeat. Here’s an great tip: You don’t have to go through this repetitive, time-consuming, process. Just double-click the Format Painter button and it will stay on until you turn it off. Then every range that you select gets the new formatting until you click the Format Painter button again to deactivate it. When the format painter is active you’ll notice the paintbrush cursor sticks around even after you apply the formatting the first time. Copy Formatting 1. Select the text that has the formatting you want to copy. 2. On the Standard toolbar, click the Format Painter button. 193

3. Select the text you want to apply the formatting to. The text takes on the new formatting. If you want to apply the same formatting to more than one item, select the formatting you want, double-click the Format Painter button, and then select each word, phrase, or paragraph you want to apply formatting to. When you’re finished, press ESC.

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/image1.jpg

#236 Start Pages (2011-07-14 15:24)

This week I’d like to ask you about something that many people probably give very little, if any, thought to. What is your browser’s start page? Another, possibly better way to ask this question is ’What do you see in your web browser when you first open it?’ For the vast majority of people here at AEP it’s probably the AEPnow page. That’s the default and I’m betting not many people ever change it. Did you know that you can make this anything you want it to be? And that you can even open more than one site at a time when you start your browser? Here are two different approaches to consider: 1. Automatically open a certain site (or set of sites) 2. Display a sort of ’mission control’ page containing links to sites you commonly visit Option #1: Automatically Open Site(s) If your regular routine involves repeatedly visiting the sites this option is for you. For instance, the screenshot below shows a setup that opens the NY Times, Weather.com, Wall Street Journal & ESPN. Maybe you prefer AEPnow, a SharePoint or any other internal sites. You can mix & match internal, external and anything you can view in your browser. 194

[1]

The easiest way to set this up in Internet Explorer is to open all the sites you want to be displayed upon startup exactly the way you want them. Then go to the Tools menu and select Internet Options... on the General tab click the Use current button.

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[2] Option #2: The ’Mission Control’ Page This approach is better if you are not as regimented in the sites you visit and/or if you have a slow connection and don’t want sites loading to slow you down when you start your browser. Basically this option allows you to customize a set of links that you can visit at the click of your mouse. Think of this as a sort of speed dial for your computer. Here are two of the many options you can use for this approach. Symbaloo: Below, you can see my Internet Explorer start page. Again you can include any internal or external sites you want. This one even gives you an option for choosing the colors and icons of the buttons. You can check it out at [3]http://www.symbaloo.com/

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[4]

Speed Dial: At home where I use the [5]Google Chrome, I use the Speed Dial extension. Speed Dial is similar and let’s you specify how many buttons you want (from 3-81). You can [6]get the Speed Dial extension for Chrome at here

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[7]

Show & Tell OK, now you’ve seen my start pages. page and what you like about it.

Let me see yours.

[8]Send me a screenshot of your start

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/image3.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/image2.jpg 3. http://www.symbaloo.com/ 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/image5.jpg 5. http://www.google.com/chrome/ 6. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/dgpdioedihjhncjafcpgbbjdpbbkikmi 7. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/image4.jpg 8. mailto:[email protected]?Subject=%22My+startpage+is...%22

#237 Presentation Handouts (2011-07-22 11:07) One of the things I hope to see someday is the end of ’Death by PowerPoint’, which is easily identified by the serious case of ’slideument-itis’ that usually accompanies it. (Hey! A guy can dream can’t he?) Slideuments are what you get when you try to merge a document with a slide and the result is always BAD! So that you’ll never be guilty of inflicting this terrible disease upon others, you’ll want to know how to create appropriate handouts. Remember, if you want to do both well, your slides are NOT your handouts! Using the [1]PowerPoint Notes Pane is one great option that we’ve talked about before and the way that I like to handle my handouts. If you don’t like that option, nor any of the other PowerPoint printing 198

formats, you still don’t have any excuse for inflicting your audience with brain numbing, text-laden slides. Send Your Presentation to Word Did you know that you can use the Send to Word feature to make slide thumbnails, notes, or blank lines that you can modify as necessary to provide a customized handout for your audience? How It Works This is a very simple thing to do. Just look under the File menu for the Send to Word... option. This will give allow you to select which of the layouts you’d like to have in your new Word document. Just pick one and let Word generate your new handout for you. If you like you can format and/or edit this document to give it a few finishing touches. If you are concerned about last minute changes to your PowerPoint file not getting reflected in your handout document using the Paste link option will automatically update your Word handouts with any changes you make in PowerPoint. Pretty cool huh?!?!? Office 2007/2010: Look for Save & Send under the File menu, then select Create Handouts Here are some examples of the types of layouts you can use:

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[2] Remember. Friends don’t let friends harm others with bad PowerPoints! 1. http://bit.ly/qQaJuL 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/image6.jpg

#238 Google Mobile Apps (2011-07-29 10:04)

BIG HUGE DISCLAIMER: This week’s tip applies to [1]’smart phones’ with web access and/or texting capabilities. Using these services could result in additional phone charges for you. Please ensure you have a good understanding of what is and isn’t included in your current mobile phone plan before trying these services. 200

The Google Mobile app is a great way to access many of the most popular Google services when you are on the go and away from your computer. This app gives you access to maps, directions, search and more. If you have a phone capable of running apps this is definitely one that you should check out. NOTE: Different phones have different sets of features available. [2]You can see the checklist of features available on your phone here. Search Of course the Google app is going to do search. app on your mobile phone include:

A few of the nice features you can use with this

Voice search. Nice feature that allows you to skip the challenge of typing on your phone. Search results based on your location. See the video below for an example of how this works. [vimeo http://vimeo.com/9303423] Maps One of the most common things I use this app for is directions. My favorite feature in this department is that it will automatically detect your location, even if you don’t have GPS on your phone. Directions. Get driving, transit, biking, or walking directions in a list or on the map (where data is available). Current Location. Nice feature that detects your location so you can search for things near you or get directions from right where you are at the time you need them. The video below gives a very nice overview of how this works but note that it’s a YouTube which is blocked so you might have to watch if from home or your mobile phone. 8-) [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6gqipmbcok] Sync Contacts This one might interest you if you’ve ever lost your phone, dropped it in the sink or tried to manually transfer your old phones contacts to a new one. The only caveat is this requires a Gmail account. Personally, if all you use that account for is for a backup copy of your contact info which can automatically sync to your phone it’s still worth it. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt -qHczCMg] Text Messages Depending on which phone you have you can also use either Gmail or Google Voice to send free SMS text messages. [3]Learn more about Google SMS applications here. How To Get Google Maps for Your Phone 201

No matter which brand of smart phone you have, you can simply visit [4]m.google.com using your phone’s web browser and Google will send the right version of the Google app to you.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smartphone 2. http://www.google.com/mobile/maps/ 3. http://bit.ly/nstdVE 4. http://m.google.com/

5.8

August

#239 Excel Range Names (2011-08-03 16:15)

Using range names makes Excel formulas much easier for you to work with and for others to understand. To illustrate, which of the following would you rather deal with? Option A =SUM(E2:E10) Option B =SUM(Hours) I’m pretty sure that most of you chose option B, right? The range name tells you in plain English what the formula is doing. The bigger and more complex your spreadsheets, the more helpful range names can be. The process is pretty simple. Once you name a range of cells you can easily use them in any formula without having to jump all over the place looking for the starting and ending range cell references. Creating a Range Name 1. Select the cell or range of cells you’d like to name. 2. Click the Name box located at the left end of the formula bar, type the name that you want to use to refer to your selection then press the Enter key. (Range names can be up to 255 characters) 202

[1] Auto-Magically Naming Ranges If your data already has column and/or row headings, you can use those as your range names and automatically create all your ranges at once instead of one-by-one. Using the example below, let’s see how this works.

[2]

1. Select the range that you want to name, including the row or column labels. (A1:E10 in our example) 203

2. Use the CTRL + SHIFT + F3 shortcut on your keyboard. 3. Designate where the labels for the range names are. Right column) and then click OK

(Top row, Left column, Bottom row, or

NOTE: You won’t notice anything different at this point. display a list of all the ranges that you just created.

If you don’t trust me, pressing F5 will

Using Names in Formulas Now that you have your range names, formulas are super quick and easy.

[3] 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/image.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/image2.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/image1.jpg

#240 Keeping Your Audience Focused (2011-08-12 06:00) By now, you probably know that I’m not a fan of bullet points in presentations. However, I will grant you that there are times when you do need to display a list of some sort. For those occasions, I’d like to share a cool little trick that let’s you display each item one-by-one and highlight only the current one. This helps you keep your audience focused on what your talking about instead of having scanning your entire list, and 204

therefore, not listening to what you’re saying. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

How It Works This effect is very easy to achieve via the animation settings. Assuming you’re already specified an Entrance animation effect, here is how it’s done. 1. With your text box selected, in the Custom animation pane, click the drop-down for the animation/item your working with and select Effect Options... 205

[1] NOTE: You can access the Custom Animation pane via the Slideshow menu. In PPT 2007/2010 it’s under the Animation tab. 2. On the Effect tab use the After animation drop-down to specify what color you want your text to be dimmed to after it appears.

[2] 3. Click OK. Now go and view your slideshow to see how it looks. If you’re curious feel free to [3]grab a copy of my PowerPoint file and check it out for yourself. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/image4.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/image3.jpg 3. http://www.box.net/shared/skamqq28guizusfiiz33

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#241 Printing Spreadsheets (2011-08-19 06:41) So you’ve just spent a bazillion hours perfecting that spreadsheet for your big project. You’re very impressive use of formulas and formatting has it looking great and humming along like a finely tuned number crunching machine. Congratulations you’re all done right? Well....not so fast. You need to ask yourself one more question Will anyone need to print this out? Taking a few minutes to consider this will save you and your audience a lot time and paper. And I won’t even mention the inevitable swear words that follow if you don’t do this well. By following these tips to fine-tune your worksheets, you can avoid common printing problems and win the appreciation of everyone printing them. Use Print Preview If you do nothing else, take time to use Print Preview to see how your spreadsheet will print. If you notice the printout will be 1000 pages with data that is cut-off and orphaned, includes lots of blank pages etc then you need to do a little bit more work to correct this. Remember...do unto others and you’d have them do unto you. sure you are on the right side of it. 8-)

Spreadsheet karma does exist so be

Make It Easy To Read Here are a few general considerations for helping people decipher the information you have included. 1. Include additional information and page numbers in the headers or footers. 2. Print row and column headings on every page 3. Make sure your data is visible and easy to scan. 4. Adjust the margins. not.

Add extra space if you are using headers & footers or remove it you are

Make It Fit Width-wise Here are a few things to try if your spreadsheet it too wide to fit on one page. 1. Change to landscape orientation 2. Shrink it to fit on a single page. 3. Hide unnecessary columns. 4. Print only the relevant part of the sheet. Fix Weird Page Breaks With Page Break Preview View The automatic page breaks that Excel inserts can land in some pretty funky places. to take control of these is to use the Page Break Preview view.

The best way 207

From the View menu, select Page Break Preview and you’ll get something that looks like this.

[1]

Once you’re in this view, it’s super simple to just click-n-drag the page break lines around and get them exactly where you want the. NOTE: Manually inserted page breaks appear as solid lines. Dashed lines indicate where Excel will break pages automatically. Managing Page Breaks To move a page break, drag the page break to a new location. Moving an automatic page break changes it to a manual page break. To insert a vertical or horizontal page break, select a row or column below or to the right of where you want to insert the page break, right-click, and then click Insert Page Break. 208

To remove a page break, drag the page break outside of the page break preview area. To remove all manual page breaks, right-click any cell on the worksheet, and then click Reset All Page Breaks See a [2]full list of ideas for preparing your spreadsheets for printing and [3]get more details about working in Page Break Preview view. Love it? know.

Hate it?

Got any better ideas?

Have any printing horror stories to share?

[4]Let me

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/image6.jpg 2. http://bit.ly/nMYAi0 3. http://bit.ly/o6zNPo 4. mailto:[email protected]?subject=Weekly+Tip

#242 Super Fast Word Formatting (2011-08-26 11:24) No matter what kind of Word documents you work with, odds are they need at least some form of formatting. Here are five types of formatting that are faster than a speeding bullet-point. Applying Styles I realize that not everyone uses styles, but maybe you should. Your missing out on some pretty powerful stuff. For those of you who do use them, here are some super quick shortcuts for applying styles. {CTRL } + {SHIFT } + N Applies the Normal style {CTRL } + {SHIFT } + L Applies the List Bullet style {CTRL } + {ALT } + 1 Applies Heading 1 style {CTRL } + {ALT } + 2 Applies Heading 2 style {CTRL } + {ALT } + 3 Applies Heading 3 style {CTRL } + {SHIFT } + S Moves you to the Style box on the formatting toolbar.

In Word 2007/10: This will open the Apply Styles dialog box, where you can choose any style available to the document. Adjusting Font Size Everybody changes the font size at some point. very similar. Can you spot the difference?

These two tricks for changing the font size are

{CTRL } + ] - Increases selected text by 1 point 209

{CTRL } + [ - Decreases selected text by 1 point {CTRL } + {SHIFT } + > - Bumps up the selected text to the next largest installed point size {CTRL } + {SHIFT } + < - Bumps down selected text to the next smallest installed point size Line & Paragraph Spacing These are great for adding a white space to improve the readability of a document...and much better than adding a bunch of empty paragraphs. {CTRL } + 0 (zero) - This one is a toggle that creates/removes 12 pts of white space above the selected paragraph(s). This is better than adding empty paragraphs. {CTRL } + 5 - Applies 1.5 line spacing {CTRL } + 2 - Double-spaces the selected paragraph(s). Copy Only Formatting This is the keyboard shortcut for the [1]Format Painter function. . {CTRL } + {SHIFT } + C - Copies only the formatting from the current selection. {CTRL } + {SHIFT } + V - Pastes only the formatting to the new selection. Removing Manually Applied Formatting If you have ever had to do battle with your documents formatting, these are great for cleaning up the ones with ’less than optimal’ formatting. For example, if you’ve ever tried to apply a style and it didn’t work, this trick is for you. These will remove all the manual, direct formatting and allow the style settings to display appropriately. {CTRL } + {SPACEBAR } - Removes manual, character formatting, returning the formatting of the default character style. {CTRL } + Q - Removes the manual, paragraph formatting, leaving just the formatting of the paragraph style applied to the selected paragraph(s) 1. http://bit.ly/r9DvwE

5.9

September

#243 A Better Way to Switch Windows? (2011-09-02 06:38) As with most computer-related tasks, there are a variety of ways to switch between the windows you have open on your computer. Some people reach for the mouse, point to the Taskbar, and then click the button for the window they want.. While that works perfectly fine, it’s definitely one of the slower options. 210

If you’re keyboard person, like me , you are probably very familiar with the [Alt] + [Tab] trick. That’s better but sometimes hard to tell which window is the one you actually want and you wind up in the wrong place. If you’d like to learn a new, potentially better trick, try using [Alt] + [Esc] to instantly jump to the next open window. Just hold the [Alt] key and tap [Esc] once and bingo: the next window appears. Not the one you want? Tap again and off you go to the next window. Did you already know about [Alt]+[Esc]? What is your method of choice for switching between windows? UPDATE: Thanks to Fred Schell for sharing the [CTRL] + [TAB] trick which will cycle you through open windows/tabs of the same program. For example multiple web browser tabs or Word documents, etc. Give it a try!

#244 5 Things You Should Know About the Excel Fill Handle (2011-09-09 06:52) The fill handle is one of my all-time favorite and most used Excel functions.The fill handle is quite powerful, capable of filling thousands of rows in the blink of any eye - you just need to know a few secrets to maximize its value. For those of you asking ”What in the heck is a fill handle?”, it’s the little black square in the bottomright corner of the selected cell or range.

[1] Click & Drag If you know anything about the fill handle, it’s probably that by simply clicking and dragging it, you can copy the contents of that cell across the row or column for as far as you drag the mouse. There are two special cases when you are working with a series of data: numbers and special series like months, days of the week, etc. Numbers: For a repeating series of numbers you need to have at least two of the series values selected before you use the fill handle. If you only have one the fill handle will simply copy that value and not generate a series.....because it doesn’t know what the increment should be. For example, do you want 0, 1, 2, 3... or 0,10,20,20....etc 211

Special Series: Excel automatically recognizes a few ’special’ series like months and days of the week. These series will repeat when they reach the end of the series. (i.e. January will follow December, etc). You can even [2]create your very own custom fill series, which we’ve talked about before. These alone can save you a fair amount of time, but keep reading for even more fill handle tricks you may not know. Double-Click My personal favorite, double-clicking the fill handle can instantly copy your cell contents to thousands of rows. This only works when there is data in the row or column next to the one you are filling. Excel will fill the contents all the way to the end the adjacent data.

[3] Here’s how the double-click works:

Excel uses the values in the column to the left to determine how far to copy. Excel will stop when it encounters a blank cell.

If there are no values to the left, Excel will use the values in the column to the right. {CTRL } + Click & Drag If you don’t want a series hold the CTRL key while you click and drag to make a copy instead. 212

[4] {SHIFT } + Click & Drag If you’d prefer to insert blank cells, you can hold the {SHIFT } key while you drag.

213

[5] Right-Click & Drag Right-clicking and dragging will give you a nice context menu with several handy options. The options available depend on the data you are working with. One great option for this one is when working with dates you can choose how to fill the series; days, weekdays, months and years.

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[6] 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image2.jpg 2. http://bit.ly/nGv25d 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image1.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image.jpg 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image4.jpg 6. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image3.jpg

#245 Resizing & Cropping Images (2011-09-16 04:00) Resizing & Cropping Images There are two ways that you can change the size of an image

resizing and cropping.

Resizing changes the dimensions of the picture by stretching or shrinking it.

[1] Cropping reduces the size of the picture by removing the vertical or horizontal edges. Cropping is often used to hide or trim a part of a picture, either for emphasis or to remove unwanted portions. 215

[2] If you’re sure you won’t need to undo your changes after you crop the picture, use the Compress Pictures feature to delete the cropped parts of the picture from the file completely. [3]This helps shrink the file size of your documents. Cropping Images PowerPoint is probably where you’re most likely to crop images, but you can also do this in Word and Excel if you need to. 1. Select the picture you want to crop. 2. On the Picture toolbar, click the Crop button

.

NOTE If the Picture toolbar is missing, click Toolbars under the View menu, and then click Picture. 3. Position the cropping tool over a cropping handle and then do one of the following:

To crop one side, drag the center handle on that side inward.

To crop equally on two sides at once, hold down CTRL as you drag the center handle on either side inward.

To crop equally on all four sides at once, hold down CTRL as you drag a corner handle inward. 4. On the Picture toolbar, click the Crop button 216

again to turn cropping off.

[4] [5]Here’s how to crop an image in Office 2010 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image10.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image7.jpg 3. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/221-the-biggest-loser-powerpoint-edition/ 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image9.jpg 5. http://bit.ly/nlvsUE

#246 Cleaning Up Your (Excel) Act: Part 1 (2011-09-23 05:57) Cleaning Up Your (Excel) Act All those beautiful spreadsheets you see don’t always start out that way. What? You’ve never seen a beautiful spreadsheet? Well, beauty is definitely in the eye of the beholder and this week we’ll see a super quick and easy way to beautify your spreadsheet data. (Feel free to forward this to any ugly spreadsheet offenders you know–the spreadsheet is ugly not the person!) Often we don’t have any control of the data we get in Excel. This is the type of ’messy’ data you might encounter. Things like incorrect capitalization, unnecessary extra spaces and incorrect or missing formatting all contribute to the mess. 217

[1]

Probably, the most common problem are numbers with no delimiting characters to help you read them. Let’s take a look at those first two columns of numbers. Which would you rather try to read?

[2]

OR [3]

Fortunately for you and anybody reading your spreadsheets you can fix this by applying some simple custom formatting options. Custom formatting There are a few predefine custom formatting options already available in Excel. meet your needs, you can create a new one.

If none of them

NOTE: Custom number formats are stored in the active workbook and are not available to new workbooks that you open. If you want custom formats to be available in a new workbook, you can [4]create a template. How It Works 1. Select the cell or range of cells you’d like to format. 2. From the Format menu, click on Cells.. 3. Now on the Number tab, select the Custom category to scroll through the built-in custom options.

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[5] If you’re interested in learning more about custom formatting, you can [6]get a quick explanation or [7]all the gory details. Here are a few more examples of what you can do with custom formatting:

[8] Next week we’ll tackle cleaning up the rest of that data and show you how to deal with those messy text cells by converting the text to the proper capitalization, removing excess spaces and more.

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1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image12.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image15.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image13.jpg 4. http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/excel-help/redir/HP005199596.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HP005199500 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image11.jpg 6. http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/02/25/custom-cell-formatting-in-excel-few-tips-tricks/ 7. http://bit.ly/pgTqLd 8. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image14.jpg

#247 Cleaning Up Your (Excel) Act: Part 2 (2011-09-30 03:25) Last week in [1]Part 1 we saw how to clean up the display of ’messy’ numbers in your spreadsheet. This week we’ll continue the cleansing theme and take a look at how fix your ugly text data. If you ever inherit data with problems such as incorrect capitalization and unwanted extra spaces, you’ll definitely want to grab a fresh cup of coffee and pull up a nice comfy chair for this weeks tip. We’ll use this same ugly sample data from last week as out starting point..

[2] Capitalization If you want fix the capitalization without having to retype your anything you can use the =UPPER, =LOWER and =PROPER functions to have Excel do it for you.

[3] Unwanted Spaces It’s hard to see in the image above but a bunch of the text cells in our example have extra, unwanted spaces in them. Take a look at the address in row 2...nobody wants that kind of ugliness do they? Using Excel’s TRIM function makes quick work of this problem by removing all spaces from text except for single spaces between words. Using =TRIM(G2) will clean this right up as you can see here. =TRIM(G2) 220

[4] Combining Cells In the past[5] we’ve seen how to split data apart using the Text to Columns function. There are also times when you want to do just the opposite and combine two or more cells. The easiest way to do that is to use an &. From our sample data above, we could display the full name in a single cell by using this simple formula: =E2 &” ” &C2

[6] =E2 &” ” &C2 “ nancy hellung-larsen The & symbol is the glue that holds things all together. NOTE: You need to add the space inside quotes so the text doesn’t run together. i.e. nancyhellung-larsen Putting It All Together You can take this one step further and combine these as necessary to fix more than one problem at a time. For example, =PROPER(E2 &” ” &C2) gives us a nice, better looking version of what we started with.

[7] =PROPER(E2 &” ” &C2) “ Nancy Hellung-Larsen You can revisit a few more options for dealing with ’messy’ text from previous tips [8]here & [9]here. 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/246-cleaning-up-your-excel-act/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image17.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image20.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image18.jpg 5. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/128-excel-text-to-columns/ 6. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image19.jpg 7. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/image16.jpg 8. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/using-excel-functions-to/ 9. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/excel-string-functions-the-sequel/

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5.10

October

#248 Finders, Keepers. Losers, Weepers (2011-10-07 06:00) Most people spend a significant part of our online time searching. Probably the first thing and comes to mind when you think about searching is Google (or some similar search site.) Although there may be more to searching than you may think we’ve covered that pretty well before. This week I’d like to share a handy trick that I use almost everyday – CTRL + F Using the Find Command Have you ever clicked on one of the results from Google that looks like what you’re looking for only to arrive on a page with lots and lots of content making it hard to find what you’re after? Or what about opening a long document and trying to find the relevant text to answer your question? In most programs you can simply use CTRL +F to search whatever site, page or document you are viewing. Here’s what it looks like in Internet Explorer:

[1] How It Works 1. Press CTRL+F. 2. Simply type the word to look for and press ENTER. Piece of cake right? Well now that you know that little trick[2] you are smarter than 90 % of computer users. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/image.jpg 2. http://bit.ly/pk296K

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#249 Word: Cliffs Notes Version (2011-10-13 08:56) These days most of us are trying to squeeze more work into less time. Ironically, one of the first things that usually gets dropped is taking time for learning new things to help you become more efficient. I hope you’ll view opportunities for learning as a wise investment of your time instead. If you ever design or deliver these opportunities for learning I hope you’ll respect the investment your audience is making by keeping them focused and easily digestible. After all if you don’t make that investment pay off they won’t be coming back the next time. And with that I thank you for the investment you make each week by reading these emails – I hope you have realized a worthwhile return. Being busy is no excuse for making crappy documents. Here are a few shortcuts that can help. The Basics: CTRL + N ” Create a New document CTRL + O ” Open an existing document CTRL + S ” Save current document CTRL + P ” Print Formatting: CTRL + 1 ” Apply single line spacing CTRL + 2 ” Apply double line spacing CTRL + 5 ” Apply 1.5 line spacing. CTRL + L ” Left align. CTRL + R ” Right align. CTRL + E ” Center align. CTRL + M ” Indent paragraph CTRL + T ” Hanging indent CTRL + ] ” Increase font by 1 point CTRL + [ ” Decrease font by 1 point Styles: CTRL + ALT + 1 ” Applies Heading 1 style CTRL + ALT + 2 ” Applies Heading 2 style 223

CTRL + ALT + 3 ” Applies Heading 3 style Editing/Proofing: CTRL + F ” Find CTRL + H ” Find & Replace F7 ” Run Spell Check SHIFT + F7 ” Open the Thesaurus SHIFT + F3 ” Cycle through capitalization options If you are curious you can [1]check out the full list of Word shorcuts. What do you think? Do you like this ’cheat sheet’ format? Should I do one for Excel & PowerPoint too? 1. http://bit.ly/aat7DE

#250 Excel: Cliffs Notes Version (2011-10-20 10:36) As a follow-up to last week’s Word version, here is a Cliffs Notes version for Excel. I’ll bet you’ll never guess what’s coming next week! 8-) The Basics: CTRL + N ” Create a New workbook CTRL + O ” Open an existing workbook CTRL + S ” Save current workbook CTRL + P ” Print Selecting: CTRL + SPACE ” Select entire column SHIFT+ SPACE ” Select entire row CTRL + A ” Select entire worksheet SHIFT + HOME ” Select range from current cell to far left SHIFT + END + arrow ” Select range from start cell to end in direction of arrow CTRL + SHIFT + HOME ” Select all from current cell to A1 224

Navigating: CTRL + PageUp ” Jump to previous sheet/tab CTRL + PageDown ” Jump to next sheet/tab F5 ” Open the Go to... dialog CTRL + HOME ” Jump to top left (A1 or 1st cell of frozen sheet) CTRL + END ” Jump to last non-blank cell CTRL + TAB ” Cycle between workbooks (Excel files) Formulas: F4 ” Toggle between relative, mixed & absolute cell references ALT + = ” AutoSum CTRL + ’ ” Copy contents of cell above CTRL + ” Toggle between formula & cell value CTRL + : ” Enter current time CTRL + ; ” Enter current date Formatting: CTRL + 1 ” Open the formatting dialog CTRL + & ” Apply outline border to selected cells CTRL +

” Remove outline border to selected cells

CTRL + ” Apply general number format CTRL + $ ” Apply currency format (2 decimal places) CTRL + % ” Apply % format (0 decimal places) CTRL + # ” Apply date format (Day, Month, Year) CTRL + ) ” Unhide any hidden columns within the selection CTRL + 9 ” Hide Row CTRL + 0 ” Hide Column 225

CTRL + ( ” Unhide any hidden rows within the selection CTRL + ) ” Unhide any hidden columns within the selection CTRL + D ” Fill down from above CTRL + + ” Insert a row CTRL + - ” Delete a row ALT + Enter ” Force a line break while editing a cell (creates a 2nd row of text in the cell) If you are curious you can [1]check out the full list of Excel shortcuts. 1. http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/02/22/complete-list-of-excel-shortcuts/

#251 PowerPoint: Cliffs Notes Version (2011-10-27 06:30) This week wraps up our theme of squeezing a little learning into short windows of opportunity with the PowerPoint version of our Cliffs Notes. I hope you’ve learned something worthwhile and that you’ll make a habit of taking the time to learn something new! The Basics: CTRL + N ” Create a New presentation CTRL + O ” Open an existing presentation CTRL + S ” Save current presentation CTRL + P ” Print Presenting (Slide Show View): F5 ” Launch slideshow (from 1st slide) SHIFT + F5 ” Launch slideshow (from current slide) B ” Toggle to/from a black screen W ” Toggle to/from white screen Number + ENTER ” Jump to that slide # ( For example 5 + ENTER ” Jumps to slide #5 ) CTRL + P ” Change pointer to a pen CTRL + A ” Change pointer to an arrow E ” Erase annotations 226

HOME ” Go to 1st slide END ” Go to last slide ESC ” End the slide show Editing/Proofing: CTRL + D ” Duplicate selected item(s) CTRL + M ” Insert New slide CTRL + A ” Select All Arrow key ” Using any of the arrow keys will ’nudge’ the seleced slide object(s) in that direction ALT + F9 ” Show/hide alignment guides SHIFT + F9 ” Show/hide grid If you’d like to see more [1]check out the full list of PowerPoint shortcuts. P.S. In case you missed them you can see the [2]Word version here and the [3]Excel version here. 1. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/keyboard-shortcuts-for-powerpoint-2003-HP005195519.aspx 2. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/249-word-cliffs-notes-version/ 3. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/250-excel-cliffs-notes-version/

5.11

November

#252 Lightning Fast Links (2011-11-04 06:19) Do you know how to put links in your documents? If not, it’s about time you learn. In today’s interconnected world where virtually everything relates to something else, links are the pathways for getting where you need to go. If you don’t link people to the documents and information they need you are sending them crashing directly into a dead-end. I cringe every time I hear someone write out an overly long, totally unnecessary description of how to find something online. Maybe you’ve heard something along these lines?

”What you need to do is go to AEPnow and click on the A to Z index. Then click on ’S’ then find the Safety & Health link and click on that. Now look for the Policies & Procedures link on the right hand side and then scroll down until you can’t stand it anymore....yada yada yada” If you do this to people please promise me that you will never do this to anyone ever again!? Just send them a link that takes them directly to where they need to go and your audience will love you forever! (Or at least 227

until the next time you send them on a wild goose chase.) Which would you prefer? The nightmare scenario we just described or a [1]simple click here link to get what you want. Types of Links Links are also very versatile allowing you to link to a lot of different types of things including: Other documents Specific locations within a document Network folders Websites Pre-addressed emails How It Works The good thing about this trick is that it works the same way in Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Just select any text, and then press the CTRL + K keys at the same time. A dialogue box opens where you can enter your link.

[2]

How do you use links? Can you share any good ideas for how hyperlinks can make our documents 228

better?

1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/image.jpg

#253 Shrink PDF Files (2011-11-10 08:39)

We’ve discussed PDF documents around here before, including [1]some alternatives to the slow, bloated Acrobat Reader and some free, easy tools for ”printing” your own PDFs. This week I’d like to share a super simple way that you can reduce the file sizes of almost any PDF by up to 80 %. This trick is especially handy if the PDF is too big to email or over some other type of file size limit. Without getting into any of the boring details, the easiest way to shrink a PDF is to ”re-bake” it. NOTE: This trick assumes that you already have something along the lines of [2]CutePDF Writer installed as a printer on your computer. How It Works This works by reducing the resolution, and therefore, the file size of the PDF. This works best with PDFs that contain images. Usually text only PDFs can’t be compressed very much...but sometimes they can so it’s worth a try. 1. Open the Print dialog box via the File menu but select your PDF ”printer” instead of your usual printer. 2. Click the Properties... button. 3.. Then click the Advanced... button. 4. Find the Graphic - Print Quality option and reduce the DPI setting. The default is 600dpi but you can safely drop it as low as 72dpi without much trouble. experiment to see what works best for you.

You can

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[3]

Sceenshot for Cute PDF Writer (Yours may be a bit different.) Do you have any other PDF questions? Which PDF reader do you use? 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/05/20/pdf-apalooza/ 2. http://bit.ly/bRAFZ8 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/image1.jpg

#254 Do Word’s Revision Marks Have You Seeing Red? (2011-11-18 06:49) The track changes feature in Word has been flummoxing people around for the world for years now. Maybe you’ve even been one of them? Have you ever wondered where all the different colored comment and weird formatting in a document came from? And more importantly how to get rid of it? If so, you’ve come to the right place to get the answer. When someone turns on the Track Changes feature, Word records and denotes every change made to the document from that point forward. This is very helpful when collaborating on documents but it can also get activated accidentally and create some confusion when people see the results of a ’red lined’ document like this one. 230

[1]

With all those revision marks, you might have trouble making sense of what should stay versus what should go, right? Well Word actually makes it very easy to see a document in its original and final forms without having to save multiple versions or even leave the document. Change the display for review When you get one of these documents with the revision marks displayed it’s easy to see only what you want by choosing the correct display options. Your options are: 1. Final version showing the markups 2. Final version without the markups 3..Original version showing the markups 4. Original version without the markups Be careful! The document still contains those revisions Just because you changed the display and can’t see all the edits doesn’t mean they aren’t still there. It’s very important to know that changing the view does not get rid of track changes. If you send it out that way the recipients can redisplay all the comments, edits, etc and depending on what those are...that could be very BAD. To remove all those edits from the documents you should accept/reject all the changes. The commands to accept and reject document changes are right next to Track Changes; you can accept or reject each change or all of the changes in the document.. For more details about Display for Review and removing unwanted revision marks from your document, check out the blog post: [2]Turn Track Changes off or on, or hide or reveal tracked changes. Can I have it BOTH ways? If you want to preserve revision marks or comments in a document, and you want to share the document without others seeing the revisions and comments, the best solution is to keep separate copies of the document: one for distribution and one for yourself. In the public version of the document, accept or reject all revision marks and delete all comments, as described in this article. In the private version of the document, you can leave the revisions and comments in place. 231

Still Curious? If you’d like to learn more and make use of Word’s Document Reviewing capabilities [3]check out this good overview article. Do you use this feature in Word? Got any better ideas? Let me know.

Could it help with your document reviews?

Love it?

Hate it?

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/image2.jpg 2.

http:

//office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/remove-tracked-changes-and-comments-from-a-document-HA001098388.aspx 3. http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/sharing/howtrackchangesworks.html

#255 Apps To Be Thankful For (2011-11-25 05:07) This time of year we have many things to be thankful for. Among the things in the computer world that I’m thankful are these that have saved me innumerous hours and more than a few grey hairs. So without further ado, grab yourself a leftover turkey sandwich and piece of pumpkin pie to enjoy as you peruse the list. File Sharing & Backup DropBox Simple and easy to use option backup files as well as to synchronize files across computers and devices. You get 2 gigabytes for free with additional space available. [1]dropbox.com Box.net Another easy way to manage, share & collaborate on your files and documents. [2]box.net Contacts & Bookmarks Google Contacts Sync Great for backing up your smart phone contacts...or moving them to the new shiny one on your Christmas list. [3]Google Sync Diigo 232

Easy way to keep all your bookmarks online, publicly or privately. Great way to keep all your bookmarks when you get that next new computer. I used to recommended Delicious.com for bookmarking but their [4]recent acquisition and resulting debacle have sent me to Diigo. [5]diigo.com Passwords LastPass LastPass is an online password manager and form filler that makes web browsing easier and more secure. Just remember the LastPass password and it remembers all the rest. [6]lastpass.com KeePass KeePass a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you, like LastPass, you only have to remember one single master password. [7]keepass.info Screen Sharing / Online Meetings Join.me Free and ”ridiculously simple” screen sharing tool for meetings, training, tech support, or anything else that requires seeing somebody else’s screen. [8]join.me Vyew With a few more features, but still free, Vyew allows you to meet and share content by uploading images, files, documents and videos. [9]vyew.com Show Us Your Apps What are the things you couldn’t do with out on your computer? Share all that great stuff with the rest of us by leaving a comment. 1. http://db.tt/5EogrFO 2. http://db.tt/5EogrFO 3. http://www.google.com/mobile/sync/ 4. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/avos-delicious-disaster-lessons-from-a-complete-failure/705

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5. http://diigo.com/ 6. https://lastpass.com/ 7. http://keepass.info/ 8. https://join.me/ 9. http://vyew.com/

5.12

December

#256 Save Time With Excel Workspaces (2011-12-02 05:41) Are you one of those people who regularly work in the same set of Excel spreadsheets? Would you like to save some time and open them all at once with the same display settings, etc? If so, you might want to save them as an Excel workspace. A workspace is a file that saves display information about open workbooks, so that you can come back later and pick up just as you left off with the same window sizes, print areas, screen magnification, and display settings.

When using a workspace you only need to open the one workspace file instead of each spreadsheet separately then repeatedly configuring each one to your liking. How It Works Excel 2003

1. Open the workbooks you want to save in a workspace. 234

2. Size and arrange the workbook windows as you want them to appear when you open the workspace. 3. On the File menu, click Save Workspace. 4. In the File name box, type a name for the workspace file. Excel 2010

1. Open all the workbooks you want to save as a group. 2. Click the View tab. 3. Click Save Workspace in the Window group. 4. Enter a name for the group, and click Save. To open the workspace (and all the workbooks in the group), open the group as you would any other file. Your workbooks are still separate files. You can open and close them individually, as you normally would. However, Excel also saves a reference to the workbooks as a group now, using the .xlw extension. It’s a simple way to work a little more efficiently everyday.

#257 Extend Your Laptop Battery Life (2011-12-09 05:30) If you are one of the increasing number of people who spend time at your ”[1]third place” you may find yourself working without a plug. There seems to be some kind of Murphy’s Law for the presence of electrical outlets. The number of available outlets is inversely proportionate to your need for one. So here are a few things you can do to make your battery last longer...or hopefully, at least long enough until you can plug back in again. 1. Reduce Brightness to Minimum: The brighter your laptop display is set, the more battery it will use. ting you can handle and your battery will thank you.

So dim it to the lowest set-

2. Switch WiFi Off: WiFi eats a lot of battery power, so if you don’t need to be online, try switching it off. When you need the Internet, just switch it back on again. 3. Adjust Sleep Settings: It makes sense to change how soon your inactive laptop ”sleeps” when you’re trying to reduce your energy consumption and making your laptop’s battery last. Often this is handled by adjusting your power scheme (See item #5 below.) 4. Uninstall or Disable Flash: If you don’t need to use any Flash-based sites, you can save up to 30 % of power by blocking, or if possible, even uninstalling Flash altogether. Fortunately there are some handy browser add-ins that can 235

help you deal with this: [2]ClicktoFlash and [3]Flashblock Apparently, there is [4]a hidden way to do this in Internet Explorer that I haven’t tried it yet so if anyone has, let me know how that works and if it’s worth the effort. 5. Adjust your Power Settings: Depending on what kind of laptop you there is probably a set of options you can select to maximize your battery life. For example, in Windows XP you can find an option of ”Max Battery” under Power Options in the Control Panel.

[5] If you’re interested in even more ways to squeeze out some extra battery life check out this article ”[6]20 Ways To Increase Laptop’s Battery Life” and let me know if any of these work for you.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Place 2. http://clicktoflash.com/ 3. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/flashblock/ 4. http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/disable-flash-all-but-whitelist-sites-ie8/ 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/image.jpg 6. http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/20-ways-to-increase-the-life-of-your-laptops-battery/

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#258 Zoom! Zoom! (2011-12-19 06:57) As computer screens get bigger and bigger with higher and higher resolutions, trying to read small text and even seeing images online have become an increasing challenge. This week we’ll see a few tricks to enlarge the text you’re reading online and save yourself some eye strain in the meantime. Taking CTRL Most popular web browsers will let you increase/decrease the text on a web page by using the handy keyboard shortcut: CTRL and + or -

[1] If you prefer, you can also use the wheel on your mouse while holding the CTRL key on your keyboard to do the same thing. And CTRL + 0 (zero) will reset your text size back to the default. This trick works most of the time but it isn’t a perfect solution since not all web pages automatically adapt the layout to the larger text size, potentially making some parts of the page unreadable. Browser Settings Most browsers will also let you permanently set your preferred text size via a browser setting. For Internet Explorer you’ll find this under the View menu. From there, go to Text Size and select the size you like.

[2] Computer Resolution Settings If you’d like to make this type of change to everything on your computer and not just the online stuff, you can change your resolution. 1. Right-click on your desktop and choose Settings 237

2. Click on the Settings tab and find the slider for Screen Resolution. 3. Sliding the control to the left will make the text on your computer bigger.

[3] NOTE: If you have two screens click on the one you want to change (1 or 2) before moving the slider control for the resolution. Each screen is controlled separately. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/image1.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/image3.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/image2.jpg

#259 Selecting Overlapping PowerPoint Objects (2011-12-22 09:39)

Occasionally, when you work with slide objects that overlap each other, it can get a little tricky to select the objects that are behind the others. The most common example of this is when a text box is on top of a shape or image that you want to work with. But when you try to click on the shape, you can’t because it is covered by the text box. 238

[1] Of course you could drag the text box somewhere else, but then you’ve got to put it back right? Pressing your tab key will cycle through all your slide objects so you can get that shape selected without moving anything. After it’s selected you can make your changes and be done without having to worry about moving everything back. Just keep pressing that Tab key until you get what you want! I know at least one other way to solve this problem without moving anything on the slide? Do you? 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/image4.jpg

#260 2011 Top Ten Tips (2011-12-30 05:26) It’s hard to believe another year has come and gone and that we’ll be starting the sixth year of these weekly tips. The upcoming year promises to bring many new things to all of us and I look forward to all that’s ahead. Thank you for joining me every week and I always love to hear from you, so if you ever have any thoughts or suggestions [1]please send them my way. To wrap up the year, here are the ten most popular tips from 2011. that had the most traffic on the[2] web site.

At least these are the ones

1. [3]PowerPoint Notes Pane How to avoid slideumentitis’ – the #1 PowerPoint crime – by moving your text off your slides and down into the Notes pane. Trust me – your audience will thank you! 2. [4]The Biggest Loser: PowerPoint Edition How to shrink your PowerPoint files when they get overly bloated and out of control. 3. [5]Dropbox: Like ’Magic’ For Your Files 239

How to sync your files and/or back them up across computer and devices so they’ll be available anywhere you need them. [6]Get yours here. 4. [7]Six Million Dollar Presentation Tips A collection of shortcuts to use during PowerPoint presentation such as how to jump to a specific slide, blacking out your screen, and more good stuff. 5. [8]Apps To Be Thankful For A collection of useful applications and software that I’ve personally found helpful. 6. [9]Move & Copy Excel Worksheet Tabs How to work with Excel data that is spread across multiple tabs or between different spreadsheet files. 7. [10]Word: Cliffs Notes Version The Word edition of the Clif Note series, a short & simple guide to mastering your documents. You can also check out the [11]Excel & [12]PowerPoint versions. 8. [13]5 Things You Should Know About the Excel Fill Handle The fill handle is one of my all-time favorite and most used Excel functions.The fill handle is quite powerful, capable of filling thousands of rows in the blink of any eye – you just need to know these tricks. 9. [14]Password Manager LastPass just may be “[15]the best solution possible” for managing your passwords. 10. [16]Replacing Fonts in PowerPoint How to replace one font with another across your entire presentation. Do you have a favorite? Was it one of these or another one? 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/12/23/259-selecting-overlapping-powerpoint-objects/#comments 2. http://miketips.wordpress.com/ 3. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/196-powerpoint-notes-pane/ 4. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/221-the-biggest-loser-powerpoint-edition/ 5. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/03/24/220-dropbox-like-magic-for-your-files/ 6. http://db.tt/5EogrFO 7. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/214-six-million-dollar-presentation-tips/ 8. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/255-apps-to-be-thankful-for/ 9. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/211-move-copy-excel-worksheet-tabs/ 10. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/249-word-cliffs-notes-version/ 11. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/250-excel-cliffs-notes-version/ 12. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/252-powerpoint-cliffs-notes-version/ 13. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/5-things-excel-fill-handle/

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14. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/tip-of-the-week-210-password-manager/ 15. http://bit.ly/dIi6rs 16. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/233-replacing-fonts-in-powerpoint/

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Chapter 6

2012 6.1

January

#261 Highlighting Documents (2012-01-06 05:26) Do you ever highlight documents as you read them? I am a big highlighter when I’m really trying to focus on learning and retaining information from documents that I’m reading. It makes reviewing easier for me and calls out the important parts for others. Did you know you that Word and a number of other programs have a highlighter built right in? Microsoft Word In Word 2007/2010 you can simply select the text you want to highlight then press [CTRL] + [ALT] + H This is a toggle, so simply repeat the same steps to remove the highlight. In older versions of Word you can find the highlighter button on the Formatting toolbar your own highlighting shortcut.

...or [1]make

PDF Viewers: Most PDF viewers also have this highlighting ability. In Adobe Reader X just look for the highlighter on the toolbar PowerPoint & more For applying this to your PowerPoint presentations, [2]here are seven ideas for emphasizing text in PowerPoint...and it even works in email too! 1. http://tek.io/wFn74o 2.

http://community.articulate.com/blogs/jeanette/archive/2011/12/21/

7-easy-ways-to-emphasize-important-text-or-key-words-in-articulate-presenter.aspx

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#262 Hiding PowerPoint Background Graphics (2012-01-13 05:08)

Every once in awhile I run into a situation where I want a slide or set of slides in my presentation NOT to have the template styling. For example, when the template takes up too much space for the content on the slide. Fortunately, it’s very easy to turn them off for a particular slide or set of slides. You might also want to turn the background objects off for printing....but you aren’t inflicting ”[1]Slideuments” on anyone are you!?!? How It Works On the Format menu, click Background. Select the Omit background graphics from master check box.

[2] If you want to omit the background graphics from only the selected slides, click Apply. If you want to omit the background graphics from all slides, click Apply to All. 2010 Version It works pretty much the same in PowerPoint 2010 except you have a few more options as you see below. You directly work with the check box that hides the background graphics on the Design tab. Or right-click on the slide and select ”Format background...” 244

[3] Love it? Hate it? Got a better idea? Let me know. 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/237-presentation-handouts/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/image3.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/image2.jpg

#263 Word Ruler Shortcuts (2012-01-20 04:35)

If you ever feel like you’re spending more time on formatting your documents than you should, you should check out these shortcuts you can access by double-clicking in Word’s ruler. Obviously these won’t work if you don’t have the ruler displayed. If you don’t see it you can turn it on by selecting Ruler from the View menu. Page Setup Double-click in the grey area of either ruler (horizontal or vertical) to a open the Page Setup dialog. 245

[1] Paragraph Settings Paragraph settings are accessible by double-clicking any of the indent markers located to the left of the horizontal ruler.

Table Properties Double-click the Move Table Columns marker (the small squares you see when you’re in a table) on the horizontal ruler to display the Tables Properties dialog.

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/image6.jpg

#264 Word Formatting Detective (2012-01-27 07:03)

If you’ve ever struggled with formatting a Word document, you might be interested in learning how to figure out exactly what formatting has been applied to any/all parts of your document. The details available in the Reveal Formatting pane, located under the Formatting menu, can help figure out just why in the heck your text doesn’t look like you want it to.

SHORTCUT: SHIFT + F1 is the quickest way to access this. In older versions you’ll have to click on the text you’re analyzing. In newer, versions it will analyze the selected text. This handy little trick will give you lots of details about your text, such as the font, paragraph and line spacing, styles, and language. You can expand or collapse these details as needed to focus on the specific details you’re interested in. 246

[1] Some of the things you can do while you’re poking around in there include: Change Existing Formatting Simply click any of the hyperlinked text (the stuff with a blue underline) to open the appropriate dialog box and change any settings you want. Learn How It Got That Way: To determine whether the formatting was manually applied or if it comes from a style, select the Distinguish style source check box. Compare It To Another Selection: 247

If you check the Compare to another selection check box and then select another block of text Word will automatically tell you the differences between two. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/image7.jpg

6.2

February

#265 If I only knew how to... (2012-02-03 07:21) Although I always welcome your questions it’s been awhile since I’ve asked you directly. So here’s your chance to share the biggest challenge you’ve been facing lately by completing this sentence... If only I knew how to

I’d be happy.

For example:

Leave your answer as a comment below (go head it will only take a few seconds and it’s amazing what you can learn simply by asking.) While you’re there, how about taking a quick look at what others are wrestling with to see if you can ’pay it forward’ by helping them out with a solution. (It’ll give you lot’s of good karma!) Be sure to check the ”Notify me of follow-up comments via e-mail” box if you’d like to get other comments in your in-box instead of having to repeatedly check the site to see if anyone has answered your question.

#266 Copy/Paste vs Inserting Images (2012-02-10 05:00) I’m guessing that a pretty big percentage of images used in PowerPoint come from the web. And I’m also guessing that most people may realize that most images on the web have been compressed in some way to provide a balance of quality & small file size. What I don’t think many people realize is that when you copy & paste images directly from the web into PowerPoint that you lose much of that compression and wind up with a bigger file size than you need to have. The reason is that whenever a picture is copied to the computer’s clipboard and then pasted into PowerPoint (or Word, etc) the picture is pasted as a bitmap regardless of the file format of the original picture. Bitmap file sizes are much larger and have less detail which leaves you with a much larger Word or PowerPoint file than necessary, particularly if you have used multiple images this way. So instead of copying & pasting directly from the web into your document, you should save them first and then [1]Insert them via the Insert menu instead. I did a quick test with the following results: 248

Method

File Size (kb)

Copy & Paste

2,027

Copy & Paste (Compressed)

440

Insert

300

Notice that even after using PowerPoint’s [2]option for compressing the pasted images, the file size was still larger than the file using inserted images. 1. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/insert-a-picture-or-clip-art-HA010355852.aspx?CTT=1 2. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/245-resizing-cropping-images-2/

#267 Display Multiple Excel Worksheets Side-by-Side (2012-02-17 04:56) Several people have asked about how to see multiple Excel worksheets side-by-side at the same time. Depending what you want to do, here a few tricks you can try to save yourself some toggling back and forth. 2 or More Worksheets of Different Workbooks 1. Open the workbooks you want to view. 2. On the Window menu, click Arrange. 249

3. Under Arrange, click the option you want. 2 or More Worksheets of the Same Workbook 1. From the Window menu, click New Window. 2. Switch to this new window and click on the sheet/tab you want to view. 3. From the Window menu, select Arrange and check the Windows of active workbook check box. 3. Then just, click the option you want and hit the OK button.

[1] Voila! Two windows displaying different tabs of the same workbook.

250

[2]

Make Use of That Second Monitor If you’re fortunate enough to have a second monitor, one trick you can try to see a different worksheet on each screen is a bit counter-intuitive. The steps are the same as above but before you do that UN-maximize your Excel application window and size it so it spans across both monitors. You just need to use the Restore button from the top right corner of the Excel window (shown below) and then resize so it fills BOTH screens.

251

[3] 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/image6.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/image3.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/image4.jpg

#268 Comparing Word Documents (2012-02-24 07:02) Have you ever needed to compare two different versions of a Word document and then merge the differences into a single one? For example, if you ask someone else to help you write or edit a document, and now you need to compare his edited document to your original to see what changes they made. By the way, it should be noted that A MUCH BETTER APPROACH is to put the document in a location where everyone can edit the same copy and skip this whole process altogether – but that’s a story for another day! How It Works 1. Start by opening the first document to be compared in Word. 2. From the Tools menu, click Compare and Merge Documents. 3. Locate and select the file that you want to compare. Use the Merge down arrow, control where to save the merged changes. document” to keep original copies of both 252

Choose ”Merge into new

[1]

4. Any changes made to the original document are indicated and you can use the Reviewing Toolbar to accept/reject the differences. ([2]We’ve seen those reviewing marks before. ) How It Works: Word 2010 1. Open the documents you want to compare side by side. 2. On the Window menu, click Compare Side by Side with. 3. On the Compare Side by Side toolbar, do any of the following: If you want to scroll through the documents at the same time, click the Synchronous Scrolling Button If you want to reset the document windows to the positions they were in when you first started comparing documents, click Reset Window Position Button image. 4. Click Close Side by Side to stop comparing documents.

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/image7.jpg 2. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/254-do-words-revision-marks-have-you-seeing-red/

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6.3

March

#269 Word AutoText (2012-03-02 06:32) Do you have any phrases or blocks of text that you use over and over? For example, the same lengthy disclaimer for a report or maybe a closing signature block for letters. If so, you may be interested in using Word’s AutoText feature. Think of this as the electronic equivalent of a rubber stamp. Word comes with a set of built-in entries for you to use and of course you can create your own. Insert Existing AutoText 1. Click in the document where you want to insert the AutoText entry. 2. On the Insert menu, go to AutoText, and then point to the type of entry you want to insert. 3. Click the name of the AutoText entry you want and Word ”stamps” that text into your document.

[1] Create New AutoText Entries The pre-defined ones are OK but you can really save even more time is by setting up your own customized ”stamps”. You can even include formatting and graphics in these AutoText entries. 254

1. Select the text or graphic you want to store as an AutoText entry. To store paragraph formatting with the entry, include the paragraph mark (Paragraph mark ) in the selection. 2. On the Insert menu, point to AutoText, and then click New. When Microsoft Word proposes a name for the AutoText entry, accept the name or type a new one.

[2]

NOTE: If you plan to insert the entry by using AutoComplete, make sure the name contains at least four characters because Word inserts an entry only after four characters have been typed. This lets you simply type the name of the AutoText entry and Word will automatically insert your ”stamp” and you never need to touch the menus. Using the example shown above, I could now just type the word ”signatory” in any document and Word would ”stamp” my entire, formatting signature block.

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image1.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image.jpg

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#270 Demystifying Excel Pivot Tables (2012-03-09 05:08)

For as long as pivot tables have been around, they’re probably one of Excel’s least understood, and therefore least-used features. I think most people are simply unclear how they work and often a bit intimidated by pivot tables. If you can think of your data in terms of groups, values, and filters you can master pivot tables and harness their power to work much more efficiently. Let’s work through one simple example to illustrate. Looking at our data, let’s consider three things: logical groupings, values, and filters.

[1] 1. Columns to group on: Do you see any columns you may want to use for grouping? By product, By Region or By month are some logical groupings. 2. Values to be used in calculations: Now what values would you want to do calculations on? No. of customers, Net Sales or Profit/Loss are likely candidates right? 3. Columns to filter by: Finally, how would you like filter the data? By salesperson? By product? etc Once you know the questions you want to ask of your data, it’s really quick to get the answers using a pivot table. Scenario Let’s say we want to use this data, to look at ours sales grouped by product and region with the ability to filter on each salesperson. How would you do all of this with basic formulas? Or would you give us and phone a friend for help? A pivot table can give you this result below in about 30 seconds. 256

[2] Getting Started 1. Start by launching the Pivot Table & Pivot Chart Wizard from within the workbook containing your data. 2. Indicate that your data is in a ”Microsoft Excel list or database” and that you want a ”Pivot Table” 3. Specify the range of data you want to work with. 4. Finally tell the wizard where you want to put your new pivot table; on a new or existing worksheet. Now you should see something similar to this:

[3] Making the ’Magic’ Happen I think most people get stuck at this point. From here the trick is to drag a grouping to the row area, another grouping to the Column area, the values to the data area and, if you want, something to the page field area at the top.

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[4]

Hopefully with this insight and some practice you’ll soon be impressing your boss with your pivot table wizardry! Diving Deeper Pivot Tables 101 from Microsoft [5]http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/pivottable-repor ts-101-HA001034632.aspx Great tutorial with practice files [6]http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/08/19/excel-pivot-tables-tutorial/ More complete, printable article on pivot tables: [7]http://oreilly.com/lpt/a/6082

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image2.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image5.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image4.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image3.jpg 5. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/pivottable-reports-101-HA001034632.aspx 6. http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/08/19/excel-pivot-tables-tutorial/ 7. http://oreilly.com/lpt/a/6082

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#271 Add a Watermark to an Excel Worksheet (2012-03-14 05:40)

If you ever need to share a spreadsheet with others before it is ”officially” done, it’s useful to add a DRAFT watermark to a worksheet. Or sometimes a sensitive document needs to be marked by adding a CONFIDENTIAL watermark. Unfortunately, unlike Word, Excel doesn’t come with a built in way to add a watermark. But never fear, there is a pretty easy way to do it: just place a pre-built .PNG graphic file in the header of your Excel worksheet, and it displays as a watermark. To help you on your way I’ve included a couple images for you to use below: (Follow the link then just do a right-click Save as... to save it.) Grab this ”DRAFT” image to use as a watermark. [1] http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/files/003/316/AF101880439.PNG ...and/or this ”CONFIDENTIAL” image. [2]http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/files/165/003/AF10188044 0.png How to Add an Excel Watermark in Header 1. Start by opening the View menu then click Header and Footer. 2. In the Page Setup dialog box, click Custom Header or Custom Footer. Note: This example inserts the watermark image in the Left section. 3. In the row of buttons in the Header or Footer dialog box, click Insert Picture Button image and then find the graphic you want to insert. 4. Now you should see &[Picture] in the header/footer area you chose. 259

[3]

When you’re done, take a look at your Print Preview and you should see your watermark.

260

[4] Excel 2010 It’s a little bit different in Excel 2010 but just as easy. [5]Check out the details here. 1. http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/files/003/316/AF101880439.PNG 2. http://officeimg.vo.msecnd.net/en-us/files/165/003/AF101880440.png 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image6.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image7.jpg 5. http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-excel/archive/2012/03/08/add-watermarks-in-excel-.aspx

#272 Automatic Separator Lines in Excel (2012-03-23 05:00) This weeks tip will show you how you can automatically add a border line between groups of data. For example, using the data shown below you can automatically add a line between each date change by using 261

Excel’s Conditional Formatting feature.

[1] How It Works 1. With the range of cells you want to format selected, go to the Format menu and select Conditional Formatting... 2. In the Condition 1 box, set the drop-down to Formula Is then enter = $A2 $A3

[2]

3. Click the Format... button to specify the type and color of border you want.

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[3] 4. When you’re all done you should get something like this.

[4] Excel 2010 It’s a bit different in Excel 2010 but just as useful. [5]Check out the details here. This is similar to one of my favorite tricks,[6] which we’ve seen before, that uses conditional formatting to shade every other row.

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image8.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image11.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image9.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image10.jpg 5. http://blog.contextures.com/archives/2012/03/08/separate-excel-list-with-automatic-lines/ 6. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/41-shading-alternate-rows-in-excel/

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#273 Adding Information Fields in Word (2012-03-30 05:00)

Fields are an nice, efficient way to include frequently updated information about your documents automatically. There are a ton of things you can include such as your document file name, the last date your document was saved, the total number of pages, or the initials of the user who created the document, etc. Check out this [1]nice summary for a more complete list of what you can include. Regardless of what type of info you choose to include, Word will automatically update your fields as changes occur. Many times you may want to put these fields into a header or footer, but you can also put them anywhere else in your document too. How It Works 1. From the Insert menu, select the Field... option. 2. In the resulting dialog box, simply select the field you want to use, apply any options for the field properties (if applicable).

[2] 3. When you click the OK button, Word will insert the field wherever your cursor is located. See It In Action 264

[3] Word 2010 In Word 2010 field are on the Insert tab under Quick Parts

Field Names. [4]See the details here.

1. http://www.uwec.edu/help/word07/fieldsum.htm 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image13.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/image12.jpg 4.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/insert-and-format-field-codes-in-word-2010-HA101830917.aspx#

BM2

6.4

April

#274 Using Format Painter to Copy PowerPoint Designs (2012-04-05 05:00) Microsoft Office’s [1]format painter can help you in many ways. Basically, what it does is it transfers the exact formatting of one object to another.

1. Click an object with the desired format 2. Click the ”format painter” button. 3. Click the 2nd object and you’re done You can use the format painter to copy text formatting in Word, cell formatting in Excel, shape formatting in PowerPoint and about a bazillion other things. If you aren’t familiar with the format painter you can[2] learn more about it here. The thing I wanted to share with you this week is how you can easily copy the design formatting from one presentation to another. How It Works Before you apply these steps, open both presentations in PowerPoint and arrange them so you can see them both side-by-side. The target presentation can be a blank new one. 265

Before

[3]

1. In the presentation with the formatting you want to copy from click on the thumbnail view of any slide. (You may have to click twice; the 1st one to activate the window) 2. Click the Format Painter button. 3. In the presentation you want to apply the formatting to click on the thumbnail view of any slide. (You may have to click twice; the 1st one to activate the window) This is easiest to do when you are just starting a new presentation. After

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[4]

Notice that if you want to apply the formatting to an existing presentation you’ll need to use that same format painting trick to apply the formatting from that single updated slide to all the rest.

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[5] image Are you a format painting artist? What type of ’master pieces’ do you create with this trick? 1. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/quickly-copy-formatting-with-the-format-painter-HA001054892.aspx 2. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/quickly-copy-formatting-with-the-format-painter-HA001054892.aspx 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/image2.jpg 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/image1.jpg 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/image.jpg

#275 Quick & Dirty Excel Data Comparison (2012-04-13 07:03) You can compare your Excel data a bunch of different ways. For example, conditional formatting is one great way automate that comparison. This week I’d like to share something that works really well for quick, one-time comparisons. How It Works

1. Select the columns of data you want to compare. 2. Press the F5 key to open the Go To box. 3. Select the Row differences option, then click OK 268

Excel should have highlighted all the values in the other column(s) that don’t match the corresponding data in the first column.

[1] NOTE: This will work with multiple columns and it does matter HOW you select your range. For example, in the 1st example below I selected the cells by starting in A1. Now compare that to the 2nd example where I started in C8. The comparison is from the first column selected to all the other columns.

[2]

vs. [3]

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/image5.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/image4.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/image6.jpg

#276 Five Shortcuts Everyone Should Know (2012-04-20 05:00) [1]Awhile back we saw how the CTRL + F shortcut can help us find things in documents, etc. Now that you are hip to that one, I thought we should add a few more things to your shortcut repertoire. Finding Stuff : CTRL + F CTRL + F is the shortcut for the Find command. In a web browser pressing CTRL+F will bring up a search box. Type what you’re looking for in that search box it’ll find it for you on that page. This trick will also work in other places like Microsoft Word, etc. Start Something New : CTRL + N Pressing CTRL+N, is for creating something new. In a web browser, you’ll get a new window. In a word processor, image editor or similar document-based programs you’ll get a new document. 269

Save Your Work : CTRL + S After you’ve created a document, at some point you’ll need to save it. That’s where CTRL+S comes in. If this is the first time you’ve saved the document you’ll be asked to name it and where you want to save it. If it’s already been saved before, this will simply save your changes. Print It Out : CTRL + P If you want to print the document you just made, Control+P will take you to the print dialog where you can change any settings, choose a printer, etc. From there you can send it to the printer with the Print button. This shortcut works in virtually all programs that allow you to print, including your web browser. Close It Down : ALT + F4 ALT + F4 will let you quickly exit the current application. (Just be sure you saved your work first!) 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/248-finders-keepers-losers-weepers/

#277 Google Cloud Print (2012-04-27 05:00) ...we interrupt this broadcast to bring you a breaking news update... For better or for worse, next week will be the final edition of these weekly tips. May 4th will be my last day at AEP. I’d like to thank everyone who’s been along for the journey. I’ve learned a lot from all of you and appreciate your questions, comments and participation over the past six years. For anyone who may be interested in following me or my activities, you’ll still be able to find me in all the usual places: [1]LinkedIn | [2]Twitter | [3]My Personal Blog | [4]My Shared Bookmarks The archive all the previous tips will live on at [5]miketips.wordpress.com ...now back to your regularly scheduled program. Google Cloud Print In this week’s tip you’ll learn how you can print wirelessly from virtually anywhere. My wife totally loves being able to print things from anywhere in the house...and it’s always good for me to stay in good graces with her! (She likes to say I’m the domestic CIO, but I think I’m actually closer to the help desk than the executive suite.) Print Anywhere Google Cloud Print is a new technology that connects your printers to the web. Using Google Cloud Print, you can make your home and work printers available to you and anyone you choose, from the applications you use every day. Google Cloud Print works on your phone, tablet, PC, and any other web-connected device you want to print from. 270

Setting It Up Although there are ’cloud ready’ printers now available, they are not required. work with any printer connected to a computer that has internet access.

You can make this

This works via [6]Google Chrome, so you’ll need to have that installed on the computer. (If you are using Windows XP you’ll also need the the [7]Microsoft XML paper specification pack.) Once you’ve got Chrome installed, follow the steps below to enable the Google Cloud Print connector in Google Chrome.

1. Open Google Chrome. 2. Click the wrench icon wrench icon

on the browser toolbar.

3. Select Options 4. Click the Under the Hood tab. 5. Scroll down to the “Google Cloud Print” section.

Click Sign in to Google Cloud Print.

6. In the window that appears, sign in with your Google Account to enable the Google Cloud Print connector. 7. A printer confirmation message appears and click Finish printer registration. 8. You’ll see a confirmation that Google Cloud Print has been enabled. The printer is now associated with your Google Account and connected to Google Cloud Print. You can print to this printer whenever you’re signed in with the same Google Account. Thanks, Mike 1. http://www.linkedin.com/in/miketaylor 2. https://twitter.com/tmiket 3. http://tmiket.wordpress.com/ 4. http://delicious.com/tmiket 5. http://miketips.wordpress.com/ 6. https://www.google.com/chrome?brand=GGRN&installdataindex=cloudprint 7.

http:

//www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=b8dcffdd-e3a5-44cc-8021-7649fd37ffee&displaylang=en

6.5

May

#278 The Tips Will Live On & Why You Should Blog (2012-05-04 09:19) Update: The Tips Will Live On 271

In today’s environment, connecting & collaborating are more import than ever before. As I mentioned last week, I’ve learned as much from as you have from me and ”going cold turkey” just doesn’t make any sense. So I’ve decided to continue theses tips with a few minor adjustments. First, they may not come at such a regular pace. Sometimes they may me less than weekly and sometimes maybe more. Secondly, the topics may broaden a bit to newer versions of Office, mobile apps and whatever other cool, useful stuff arises. Obviously they won’t be coming from this email address anymore so if you’d like to continue receiving them you’ll need to [1]subscribe by dropping your email in the subscription box.

[2] So I’d like to officially invite you to come along with me to continue to ask questions, learn new things together and share your knowledge with others.

[3] Why You Should Blog (Yes you!) 1. A blog can make your emails better and easier to manage. As a sender of emails using a blog eliminates the need to manually maintain any email distribution lists. As a recipient you’ll automatically get an un-subscribe button allowing you to stop unwanted emails. You can still send and revive info via email if you prefer. The blog just greatly simplifies the management of who gets the email and even allow the sender to write things in advance and schedule them to be sent automatically in the future. 272

2. Avoid broadcast emails that don’t concern you. How many emails do you get that are totally irrelevant? Bake sale in the lobby anyone? I can’t tell you how irritating it is getting dozens of these each week with no way of making them stop...EVER! By using a blog everyone automatically has a way to un-subscribe and the sender doesn’t have to worry about maintaining any email lists. This should be our next constitutional amendment ”Thou shalt not spam!” (Yes, internal emails can be spam too.) 3. Using blog posts instead of emails allows these communications to be stored in a central repository, instead of lost in silos. Enough said. 4. Each post has a link you can point people to and you can use comments to discuss (otherwise people may email reply to select people, leaving others to miss out on the discussion). 5. Allows your audience to browse by author, date, month, category, tag,etc. Metadata liks categories, tags, etc provide context when browsing, and the post title is similar to an email subject line. 7. Besides publishing, organizing, subscription, notifying, and storing searchable communications in a single place, a blog can also act as a portal by displaying other relevant information and links on the sidebar. 8. A new staff member can easily catch the gist of what’s going on by reading the blog, and checking out the links on the sidebar. How many times is your organizational knowledge locked in email which is totally unavailable to the new guys who have joined after the email was sent? 9. Anyone can author the blog, anyone can view the blog. 10 Since this information is centralized for people to view, it may avoid re-inventing the wheel, or a related business unit may borrow concepts from another business unit, leading to innovations. I’m convinced we’ll all be involved in blogging sooner or later. It just makes too much sense. So why not get ahead of the game and start now? If you have a school group, sports teams, etc you can use a free blog from [4]Wordpress or [5]Blogger to get started.

1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/image1.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/image.jpg 4. http://wordpress.com/ 5. http://www.blogger.com/

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#279 Are You (and Your Passwords) as Smart as You Think? (2012-05-11 06:03) For those of you who have followed me over to ”the other side”, I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’ve made the journey. Since my new role has brought me into the cyber security world, I thought it would be a good idea to[1] revisit a previous tip on passwords. One of our human foibles is often over confidence and the fact that we are often unable to recognize their mistakes. After all, you don’t know what you don’t know, right? So in an attempt to increase your awareness of what makes a good password I’d like to[2] invite you to take 2 minutes and check the strength of your passwords. As someone who has had an account hacked I promise you that you’ll be glad. [3]Go Take the Password Test

[4] How did you do? If you passed, good for you. If not, check out how to make your passwords better. [5]Strong Passwords | Microsoft Security Leave me a comment and let me know how you well you did. Next time we’ll revisit some options for keeping track of all those dang passwords and how you can implement a more secure password strategy AND save time doing it. 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/166-how-good-are-your-passwords/ 2. http://bit.ly/cwXQp5 3. http://bit.ly/cwXQp5 4. http://bit.ly/cwXQp5 5. http://bit.ly/cFZlJ6

#280 Deciphering Shortened URLs (2012-05-22 07:31) Driven by the increasing prevalence of social media you probably encounter many shortened URLs every day – whether you realize it or not. Originally intended to make sharing websites easier, these shortened URLS also disguise the true identity of where the links will take you. Obviously not knowing where a link is taking you until you click on it can be potentially dangerous. There are two things that can keep you out of danger. The first is to simply be aware of how these 274

URL shorteners obscure the destination of a link and second is knowing how to check where they are directing you BEFORE you click them. Ways to Translate the ’short link’ into a real URL Most URL shortening services provide kind of ”preview” feature that lets you see where a link will take you before actually going there. If you’re curious, [1]you can learn how to preview shortened links from the most popular services here. However, with so many different services this quickly becomes way too burdensome to deal with. A couple more efficient approaches include: 1. [2]Longurl.com is a website that can ”exapnd” those shortened URLs and show you were it is pointed, along with a few other details.

[3] 2.[4] Long URL Please is a browser plug-in that simplifies the process of ’translating’ shortened URLs by automatically converting the short urls to their originals so that you don’t have to. Have you ever been taken somewhere you didn’t expect by a shortened URL? Have you ever considered any ways of dealing with them other than either of these two options? 1. http://security.thejoshmeister.com/2009/04/how-to-preview-shortened-urls-tinyurl.html 2. http://Longurl.com/ 3. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/longurldobcom.png 4. http://www.longurlplease.com/

#281 Keeping PowerPoint Images in Place When Resizing (2012-05-25 07:45) Have you ever noticed that after resizing an image in PowerPoint you usually also have to move it back to it’s original spot where you wanted it? This handy tip will show you an easy way to resize your images while keeping them in place, centered in the exact same location. How It Works:

1. Select the image by clicking on it. 2. Hold the CTRL key while you drag the CORNER resize handle. 275

Original

[1] After ’Normal’ Resizing:

[2] After ’In-Place’ Resizing using the CTRL key:

[3] Note - CTRL + dragging one of the side handles is also great for simultaneously resizing shapes in two directions while leaving the center in place. 1. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/original.png 2. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/normal.png 3. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/inplace.png

6.6

June

#282 Using Word To Fill Scanned Forms (2012-06-01 05:00) As much as we may hope for them to go away, paper forms are far from disappearing. This quick & easy tip for using Word to fill in forms, is especially handy for forms that you use over and over like insurance claim forms, etc. How It Works: The first step is to scan the form and save it as an image (.gif, .jpg or .png). If you already have an electronic version of the form you can take a screenshot of the form to get it as an image. Getting the form into the background of the document

1. Once you’ve got the form as an image file, open a new, blank Word document. 2. Open the header section by double-clicking in the top margin area 3. From the Insert tab click Picture from File and find the scanned form image. 4. With the picture file selected, go to the the Text Wrap dropdown and choose Behind Text.[1] 276

[2] Now you can close the header section to start filling in the blanks. Don’t worry if the graphic dims a bit. Using Text Boxes to Fill-in the Blanks

1. With your form displayed in the background, go to the Insert tab and find Draw Text Box under the

Text Box drop-down.[3] 2. Click and drag a text box over each blank in the form you want to complete. 3. From the format tab, set the Shape Fill color of the text box to “No Fill” and the Shape Outline to “No Outline”

[4] [5]DOWNLOAD A COPY: Here’s a copy of the document I created if you’d like to play around with it at all. The good thing about this is once you get it set up, all you have to do is change the text each time you need the form again and there is probably a lot of the data that will never change. Think of all the repetitive form filling you’ll save! Plus once you have this electronic copy, it’s [6]easy to print as a PDF and send as an email attachment. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/image.png 2. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/sendformimagebehind.png 3. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/inserttextbox1.png 4. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/final.png 5. https://www.box.com/s/7ae6d93054c37f5aba03 6. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/03/16/11-do-you-pdf/

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#283 Better Than A Default Bullet (2012-06-08 07:00) If you are like me, there are times when you like to get beyond the default settings. One easy way to add a little something extra to your documents is to dump Word’s default, generic bullets in favor of something better. Creating a bulleted list in Word is easy enough, but if you’d like something a bit ”snazzier”, you can simply use custom characters instead. How It Works Once you’ve got your list with the default bullets, you’re ready to change the bullet character, as follows:

1. Right-click anywhere inside the list. 2. Then highlight Bullets, and select Define New Bullets. In Word 2003, choose Bullets and Numbering. 3. Next, you can choose one of the three options for customizing the bullet character: Symbol, Picture, and Font. 4. To insert a symbol, click Symbol. 5. In the resulting dialog, choose an appropriate font and symbol character. Different fonts will give you different options to use as bullets. For example, the Webdings font will give you the following symbols to choose from.[1]

. 6. Just pick one you like and click OK twice and you’ll never have to use a boring, default bullet again...unless you want to. 8-) 278

Here’s a simple example of some custom bullets:

[2] That broadens your options a great deal. But if you’re still not happy (geez you are difficult aren’t you?) you can try the Picture option and use images like a company logo, etc as your bullets. Go ahead and give it a try. It’s easy to do and will definitely give you a more polished, professional document. 1. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/webdings-bullets.png 2. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/customlist1.png

#284 Roll Your Own Templates (2012-06-14 05:00) Whether its a document, form or any other sort of document you’d like to standardize it’s a quick and easy job to turn them into time saving templates.

Note we’ll show how to do this in Word but it also works the same way in PowerPoint and Excel How To Create A Template:

1. Once you’ve got a document exactly the way you want it go to the File menu and choose Save As... 2. In the Save As... dialog box, scroll to the top of the folder list and click Templates under Microsoft Word. 3. Name the file and change from the “Save as type” list, choose Word Template.

[1]

4. Click the Save button and close the file. And that’s all there is to it. It’s just that simple. Creating a New Document from a Template: 279

Once you’ve created your template and want to use it for a new document just look in the the File... menu under New... New from existing

[2] If you’d like to learn more, Microsoft has more on creating templates from Word 2010 documents [3]here as well as a [4]Word template-training course. [5]Office.com has a [6]huge archive of ready-made, customizable templates that can save you even more time.

1. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/saveas-template.png 2. https://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/createnew-fromtemplate.png 3. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/save-a-word-document-as-a-template-HA101868862.aspx 4. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/training/save-time-with-templates-RZ010223218.aspx 5. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/ 6. http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/templates/

#285 Word Defaults You Can ”Set & Forget” (2012-06-22 06:00) If you ever find yourself changing the same settings in your Word documents over and over this week’s tip just might be the thing you need. Let’s take a look at some of Microsoft Word’s default settings that you might want to change. Every new blank document is based on the normal template. ( normal.dotx ) Changes to the settings in this document template will always be incorporated to new blank documents. 1. Line spacing Starting with Word 2007 the default line spacing changed from 1 to 1.15. If you prefer the old setting, or any other setting of your choice. 2. Spacing between Paragraphs It’s much more efficient and flexible to use spacing between your paragraphs instead of an extra empty paragraph. Just set it and forget it. 3. Paste Special... If you ever find yourself pasting content into word and then needing to reformat it you may want to change the default action of Paste Special. This one can save you a lot of time if you copy many things from websites and other online sources. To see all the details for each of these and a few others check out Tech Republic’s ”[1]10 Word defaults you can customize to work the way YOU want” 1. 3281

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http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-word-defaults-you-can-customize-to-work-the-way-you-want/

#286 Hiding Zeros in Excel (2012-06-29 06:00) There are numerous reasons why you may not want to display zeros in your Excel spreadsheets. Here are three good ways you can hide them from view. Hide Zeros for the entire worksheet: If you do not want to display any zeros anywhere on entire sheet use this method. Note that you’ll need to do this for each sheet individually.

1. From the File menu choose Options 2. Go to the Advanced section listed at the left. 3. Under the Display Options For This Worksheet section, uncheck the Show A Zero In Cells That Have Zero Value. 4. Click OK.

[1] Cell Formatting If you only want to hide zero values in specific cells you can use a numeric format instead:

1. After selecting the cells to format, from the Home tab click the Number group’s dialog launcher (the small arrow in the bottom-right corner.) 2. Click the Number tab (if necessary). 3. Choose Custom from the Category list. 4. Enter 0;-0;;@ in the Type field. 5. Click OK. 281

[2] Conditional Formatting There are a few exceptions for which the number formatting above may not work. In those cases you can hide zeros using conditional formatting.

1. After selecting the cells you want to format, from the Home tab click the Conditional Formatting option in the Styles group. 2. Choose New Rule. [3] 3. For the Rule Type select Format Only Cells That Contain 4. For the operator drop-down, choose Equal To 5. Enter a 0 (zero) for the value 6. Then to hide the zero use the Formatbutton to make the font color white. (Note it’s still there the white just makes it invisible against the white background of the cells.)[4]

7. Click OK twice.

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/file-options.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/cellformatting.png 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/conditional-formatting1.png 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/conditional-formatting21.png

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6.7

July

#287 Custom Formatting of Bulleted/Numbered Lists (2012-07-06 06:50) As a follow-up to the [1]recent post about using custom characters for your bullets, I thought it would be a good idea share how you can uniquely format any of the items in your bulleted/numbered lists. This trick is probably one that nobody would ever just get intuitively and is related to how Word stores the formatting information for each paragraph. Bullets & numbering settings are a paragraph format setting and stored in the paragraph marks ( ¶ ) located at the end of each paragraph. For this to work you’ll need to display these paragraph marks if they aren’t already on. To do that simply, click the show/hide button on the Home tab.

[2] Uniquely Format Individual Bullets/Numbers If you’ve ever tried to format automatic bullets or numbering before you probably know that you can not select them like you can regular characters in your document. The totally obscure way to an individual bulleted/numbered list item is to select the paragraph mark at the end. Once you’ve done this, any formatting changes you make will be uniquely applied to that bullet/number of your list.

[3] As you can see in the example above, I’ve changed the color, size & weight of item #2 with those changes reflected in both the number and the paragraph mark.

• To format more than one number, but not all of them, hold down the [Ctrl] key while you select markers.

[4] • To format all of the numbers in the list, without changing the format of the actual text, click any number in the list to highlight all of the numbers and then format as you normally would. Word will

extend the format to new items. [5] 283

You should note that formats applied to the entire list will take precedence over formats applied via the end-of-paragraph marker. So do any unique formatting AFTER any whole list formatting. Otherwise you’ll lose the unique settings and get to do them all over again. 8-( 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/283-better-than-a-default-bullet/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/display-paragraph-marks.png 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/select-paragraph-marker.png 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/select-multiple-paragraph-markers.png 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/format-numbers-not-text.png

#288 Four Ways to Customize Excel for the Way YOU Work (2012-07-20 06:00) Similar to other office applications, all of Excel’s default settings may not be what you would like. This week we’ll see a few of the ways you can change Excel default settings to make them work better for you. File Saving Location: If you don’t like to use the default file location (My Documents), it’s easy to change this to save your spreadsheets anywhere you like.

1. From the File tab, choose Options (under Help). 2. In the left pane, choose Save. 3. In the Save Documents section, change the path in the Default File Location field or click Browse to locate it. 4. Click OK.

[1]

Number of Worksheets By default, new workbooks include three sheets. If that doesn’t work best for you, you can add or remove sheets manually, but a better option might be to change the number of default sheets.

1. From the File tab, click Options (under Help). 284

2. Click General in the left pane. 3. In the When Creating New Workbooks section, enter the number of sheets in the Include This Many Sheets field,. 4. Click OK.

[2]

Font For a variety of reasons, some people might want to change the default font style and size (as shown above.).

1. From the File tab, click Options (under Help). 2. Choose General (if necessary) from the left pane. 3. In the When Creating New Workbooks section, change the Use This Font and Font Size options. 4. Click OK. File Format If you have been upgraded to a newer version of Excel but have to share your worksheets with others who are still on old versions you have to ’downgrade’ your spreadsheets to the old (.xls) format or they won’t be able to open them. If you don’t want to do it manually, or if you’re like me and forget sometimes, you might consider making that the default which all versions of Excel can open.

1. From the File tab, choose Options (under Help). 2. Choose Save in the left pane. 3. In the Save Workbooks section, choose Excel 97-2003 Workbook (*.xls) from the Save Files In This Format drop-down. 4. Click OK. 285

[3] For these and more check out [4]10 Excel defaults you can customize to work the way YOU want | TechRepublic. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/defaul-excel-savelocation.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/excel-default-worksheets1.png 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/excel-default-filetype.png 4.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-excel-defaults-you-can-customize-to-work-the-way-you-want/

3338

#289 How to Create a Table of Contents in a SNAP! (2012-07-27 07:00) At some point most of us have probably worked on a document that could have benefited from a table of contents. Even in relatively short documents a good table of contents can help you audience find the information they need quickly and easily. I know I appreciate not having to scan an entire document when I only need one small part of it. Of course, you can always [1]use the CTRL + F trick that we shared awhile back but that assumes you know the right terms to search for. I think many people are intimidated by table of contents but I want to show you just how easy it can be. Really it’s just a simple two-stop process that anyone can do. The first step is to assign a ’style’ to the heading that you want to include in the table of contents. Word even has predefined styles named ’Heading 1’, ’Heading 2’ and ’Heading 3’. There are even handy shortcuts for assigning each of these styles: CTRL + ALT + 1 , CTRL + ALT + 2 and CTRL + ALT + 3 ([2]Go here for more on the basics of using styles in Word.) Once you’ve assigned your styles all you need to do is place your cursor where you want the table of contents to be and then tell Word to do it’s thing. Here is what a document with headings applied might look like.

[3] Inserting a Table of Contents 286

1. With the cursor in the location you want your TOC, click on the References tab. 2. Then click the Table of Contents button. 3. Choose Built-In Automatic Table 1 or Automatic Table 2. (The only difference is the name for Automatic Table 1 is Contents, and the name for Automatic Table 2 is Table of Contents.)

[4] And that’s all there is to it...easy peezy! You should now have a nice table of contents that looks something like this.

[5] Next week we’ll see how this is like a gift that keeps on giving. With this trick you can continue editing your document, adding and removing headings and then AUTOMATICALLY update your table of contents to reflect those changes!!! Stay tuned!!! 1. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/04/20/five-shortcuts-everyone-should-know/ 2. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/style-basics-in-word-HA102647012.aspx 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/word-toc-styles.png 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/word-insert-toc.png 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/word-toc.png

6.8

August

#290 Updating Your Automatic Table of Contents (2012-08-03 06:00) Last week we saw how easy it is to create an automatic table of contents (TOC). One of the best ways to take advantage of the automatic-ness of it comes in when you add and/or remove content to/from your document. If you create it manually, changes to your document could totally obliterate your table of contents –and there are ALWAYS changes! Since you know how to work smarter and create the automatic version, all you have to do is remember to use those built-in styles we talked about last week and simply tell word to update it for you. Personally, I think the right-click method is the easiest. 287

Simply right-click in the Table of Contents area. (It will likely have a gray background. ) Then select the Update Field.. option.

[1] Update the table of contents (Menu Option) If you added or removed headings or other table of contents entries in your document, you can quickly update the table of contents.

1. On the References tab, in the Table of Contents group, click Update Table.

1. Click Update page numbers only or Update entire table. Delete a table of contents Of course if things get totally messed up you can always just delete the whole thing and start over.

1. On the References tab, in the Table of Contents group, click Table of Contents.

1. Click Remove Table of Contents. If you’d like to see this in action or give it a try yourself here’s a copy of my sample document: [2]WordTableOfContents 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/update-toc.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/word-tableofcontents.docx

288

#291 Browser Shortcuts (2012-08-10 06:00) These days many of us spend a lot of time in our web browsers. Assuming you are using one of the ’Big 3’ browsers (Chrome, Firefox, and Internet Explorer) here are a few keyboard shortcuts that you can start using. 1. Open a New Tab Want to open a new site without losing the one you’re on now? Just tap [Ctrl] + T and open a new tab. Similarly, ff you’d like to open a link in a new tab try a right-click on it and choose ”Open link in new tab”. 2. Move to the Next Tab or Last Tab Once you get used to tabs, if you’re like me, you’ll usually have more than one open at a time. A quick, easy way to jump between your tabs is to tap [Ctrl] + Tab to jump to the next tab (to the right of the current one), and [Ctrl] + [Shift] + Tab for the previous tab (the one to the left). 3. Jump to the Top or Bottom of a Web Page This one is probably the one I use more than any other. For longer pages, use the Home and End keys to jump to the very top and bottom of a Web page. Do you have any favorite shortcuts? Let us know!

#292 Many Ways To Navigate Word Documents (2012-08-17 06:00) Do you know how many ways there are to navigate lengthy Word documents, beyond using the Page Up/Down buttons and scrolling with your mouse? The short answer is a lot. Using the F5 key to access the Go To feature will allow you to cruise through your documents using any number of different elements. With this trick you can jump to any specific element including:

• Page • Section • Line • Bookmark • Comment • Footnote • Endnote • Field • Graphic 289

• Equation • Object • Heading Just press [F5], identify the element, and enter a number-super simple! You can also use this same feature to browse through the document.For example, you can use this feature to jump from one graphic to the next in a document, one by one. This browsing starts from wherever your cursor is in the document so if you want to start from the beginning make sure that’s where your cursor is first. [1]Click here to see it in action. In this example below, I first browsed the document by jumping from table to table and then by jumping from graphic to graphic.

[2]

Click to view

Give it a try and remember that the Go To feature can be a better way to navigate documents, particularly the longer ones. 1. http://www.screencast.com/t/YE32lx2gqT 2. http://www.screencast.com/t/YE32lx2gqT

#293 Show Only A Few Rows & Columns of Your Spreadsheet (2012-08-24 06:00) Although it’s handy to have 1,048,576 rows and 16,384 columns of space available for analysis in Excel, too much data can be totally overwhelming. So you might want to consider only highlighting only the results of your analysis or some easily digestible summary. One way to make your conclusions easier for your audience is by turning off all those empty, unused cells. So instead of this with a bunch of empty cells cluttering the screen....

[1] 290

...you can simply hide all the unused rows & columns to get something like this.

[2] How It Works: 1. Start by selecting the first column you want to hide. 2. Press CTRL+Shift+Right Arrow to select all the columns to the end of the sheet (ColumnXFD) 3. Right click in the column header area and select Hide. 4.Select the first row you want to hide. 5. Press CTRL+Shift+Down Arrow to select all rows to the bottom of the sheet. (Row 1,048,576) 6. Right-click in the row header area and Hide them too. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/excel-clean-display-before.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/excel-clean-display-after.png

#294 How to Super Charge Word’s Find & Replace (2012-08-31 06:00) If you’re like most people, you’ve probably used Find & Replace to locate a certain word in your document and replace it for another but that’s about it. This week I’d like to show you how you can make Find & Replace do things you probably never thought possible. Personally, this is one of my very favorite Word tips. There are about a bazillion ways you can use this and I’d bet that everyone could benefit from these in one way or another.

[1] You’ll find the replace button on the far end of the Home ribbon or you can use the keyboard shortcut [CTRL] + H to access it from anywhere. Basics You Probably Didn’t Know Finding & highlighting text Sometimes you just need to scan a document for every occurrence of a word or phrase and highlight them on the screen.

1. Press [CTRL] + H 291

2. In the Find what box, type the text that you want to search for. 3. Click Reading Highlight, and then click Highlight All. Note To turn off highlighting on the screen, click Reading Highlight, and then click Clear Highlighting. Search by using wildcards to find specific letters Most people don’t know that you can use wildcards to search for text. For example, you can use the asterisk (*) wildcard to search for a string of characters (for example, ”s*d” finds ”sad” and ”started”).

1. Press [CTRL] + H 2. Select the Use wildcards check box. If you don’t see the Use wildcards check box, click More.Do one of the following: 3. To choose a wildcard character from a list, click Special, click a wildcard character, and then type any additional text in the Find whatbox.For more information, see the table [2]Wildcards for items you want to find and replace. 4. Type a wildcard character directly in the Find what box. 5. If you want to replace the item, click the Replace tab, and then type what you want to use as a replacement in the Replace with box. 6. Click Find Next, Find All, Replace, or Replace All.

[3]

”Fixing” Your Document Find and replace can save you a LOT of time when you are trying to clean up a document you’ve inherited from someone too. You know...those people who put in 127 spaces instead of using the center align button? 8-) Replacing page breaks, paragraph breaks and other special document items

1. Press [CTRL] + H 2. If you don’t see the Special button, click More. 292

3. Click Special, and then click the item that you want. 4. If you want to replace the item, click the Replace tab, and then type what you want to use as a replacement in the Replace with box. 5. Click Find Next, Find All, Replace, or Replace All.

[4] Replacing Specific Formatting You can search for and replace or remove character formatting. For example, you can search for a specific word or phrase and change the font color, or you can search for specific formatting, such as bold, and change it.

1. Press [CTRL] + H 2. If you don’t see the Format button, click More. 3. To search for text with specific formatting, type the text in the Find what box. To find formatting only, leave the box blank. 4. Click Format, and then select the formats that you want to find and replace. 5. Click the Replace with box, click Format, and then select the replacement formats. Note If you also want to replace the text, type the replacement text in the Replace with box.

[5] Replace multiple spaces with a tab. 293

One of the biggest mistakes novice Word users make is to enter multiple spaces instead of using a tab to position text on the page and those spaces can wreck a document! Fortunately, you can replace them with a tab mark by using the { } code, as follows:

1. Press [Ctrl]+H. 2. In the Find What control, enter a single space, followed by {2, }. 3. In the Replace With control, enter ˆt, which represents a single tab mark. 4. Click the More button and check the Use Wildcards option, as shown in Figure A. 5. Click Replace All. The {2, } code tells Word to find two or more literal characters; the space character you entered is the literal character. Figure A

Read more about these and others at [6]10 cool ways to get more from Word’s Find and Replace feature | TechRepublic and [7]get a full-blown list of codes that will work with Find & Replace and really power up your Find & Replace skills. 294

Leave a comment and let me know if you find anything you can use! Or ask about something you’d like to do but can’t find. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/replace-ribbon.png 2. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/find-and-replace-text-or-other-items-HA001230392.aspx#BM8 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/wildcards.png 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/special-characters.png 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/replace-formatting1.png 6.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-cool-ways-to-get-more-from-words-find-and-replace-feature/

3368 7. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/find-and-replace-text-or-other-items-HA001230392.aspx

6.9

September

#295 Delete entire words quickly (2012-09-06 06:00) Wouldn’t it be cool if you could delete entire words with a single action instead of repeatedly hitting the delete key for each and ever character of the word? Well it is cool and you CAN do it two different ways! [Ctrl]+[Backspace] If you need to delete the word BEHIND, or to the left of your cursor simply hit [CTRL] + [Backspace] on your keyboard. [Ctrl]+[Delete] If your cursor is in FRONT of the word you want to delete just hit [CTRL] + [Delete] on your keyboard. This trick works in most places...so give it a try and let me know what you think!

#296 DaFont, Da Whole Font & Nothing But Da Font (2012-09-14 06:00) Fonts, or type faces, are an easy way to give your documents or presentations a personality. Choosing a great font can really give your message a boost. Choose the wrong one and you can be fighting an uphill battle before anyone even reads it. If you’ve ever find yourself pondering what font you should use, here are 5 things to consider: 1. Just like picking out the clothes you wear, there’s a distinction between typefaces. Some are are expressive and stylish while others are more generic and appropriate to a wider number of situations. 2. At a minimum, you should be aware of the difference between serif and sans serif fonts 3. Most of the time, one typeface will do. Too many different fonts creates a mess. If you want to add a second one, it’s always good to observe this simple rule: keep it exactly the same, or change it a lot avoid wimpy, incremental variations. 4. A little can go a long way. When you go for an out-of-the-ordinary font be sure you don’t over 295

do it. Many of the ’funky’ fonts work well for headlines but are painful if you have to read long passages of text. 5. Rules are made to be broken. For all the gory details and more see [1]What Font Should I Use?”: Five Principles for Choosing and Using Typefaces For the rest of you who have never even given any thought to the font you use you can still find some new, fresh ones that are also free from my favorite place for fonts [2]Dafont.com Here are few examples: [3]Sketch Nothing

[4] [5]Rough Typewriter [6] [7]Christopher Hand

[8]

1.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/12/14/

what-font-should-i-use-five-principles-for-choosing-and-using-typefaces/ 2. http://www.dafont.com/ 3. http://www.dafont.com/sketch-nothing.font 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/sketch.png 5. http://www.dafont.com/rough-typewriter.font 6. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/typewritier.png 7. http://www.dafont.com/christopherhand.font?fpp=50 8. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/hand.png

#297 Hyperlinking in Excel (2012-09-21 06:00) This week I’d like to share a handy trick for helping your users find their way around those ’monster’ spreadsheets. When you have a lot of data spread over multiple tabs it is super simple to add a linked table of contents that will take them right where they need to go and keep them from wasting time looking for it themselves. You can use hyperlinks in Excel to link to specific locations within your spreadsheet, websites, email addresses and more. Here’s how it works: 296

1. Insert a sheet and select a cell.

2. Press [CTRL]+Kto display the Insert Hyperlink dialog.[1] 3. In the left pane, click Place In This Document. 4. Find the sheet you want to link to under Cell Reference. 5. Select the worksheet you want to link to. NOTE: By default it will link to cell A1, but you can change that to any cell you like if necessary 6. In the Text To Display control, you can enter any text you want to be displayed. (i.e. ”Click here”, etc) 7. Click OK. I always like to put a link on each tab that will return them back to the menu so they don’t get ”stranded” or ”lost”. For example, < Return to Menu would link them back to the page with the table of contents. [2]Download my example to see how it works. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/excel-toc.png 2. https://www.box.com/s/q0lu7wuecvyahqp3rqqj

#298 Excel Zebra Stripes (2012-09-28 06:00) iI’ve been a longtime fan of[1] shading alternate rows of your spreadsheet to make it easier to read. I’ve also share how you can do something [2]similar and a bit more dynamic with dividing lines. In the original tip on shading rows we just saw how to shade every other row. This week I’d like to show you how you can tweak that to suit your needs or preferences. The table functionality of Excel 2010 makes this kind of thing a snap. Formatting as a Table Excel 2010 has some built-in table formatting that let’s you do this shading without needing any formulas, etc. Just go to the Format as Table button and select a format you like. 297

[3] Customizing Existing Table Formats Pretty cool huh? Now here’s how you can customize these and make them even better. 1. In the Table Design area, right-click the style you want to modify and make a Duplicate. ( You can just modify the current one if you prefer, but then that formatting will be lost. )

[4] 2. Excel will make a copy of that table style and opens a dialogue box where that allows you to adjust the formatting.

[5] 3. To change the number of alternating shaded rows click on First Row Stripe and select how many stripes you’d like to repeat before they change. 4. Also do this for the Second Row Stripe too. ber.

Note that they don’t have to be the same num-

5. When you have it the way you like, click OK & save it. styles gallery anytime you need it. 298

Now it’s available from your Table

1. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/41-shading-alternate-rows-in-excel/ 2. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/272-automatic-separator-lines-in-excel/ 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/excel-tableformatting1.png 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/excel-duplicatetablestyle.png 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/excel-modify-tableformatting1.png

6.10

October

#299 Wi-fi Security Tips (2012-10-05 06:00) You know times have changed when you can get free wireless internet access at McDonald’s. But now that these wi-fi networks have popped up virtually everywhere, do you know the basics for keeping yourself and your information safe when you use them? These public hot spots all have one thing in common they are open networks that are vulnerable to security breaches. Because they do not encrypt data, your passwords, email messages, and other information can be visible to hackers. That means it’s up to you to be aware of wireless hot spot security and to protect yourself and your data. Let’s take a look at a fewe things you can do to make working on wireless networks in public locations more secure. 1. Disable your Wi-Fi adapter When you’re not at home or at work, it’s a good idea to turn off your laptop or notebook’s Wi-Fi capability when you’re not using it. Otherwise it’s possible for your computer to connect to a malicious hot spot without your realizing it. Many newer laptops now have a Wi-Fi button you can use to easily turn your Wi-Fi adapter on and off. If yours doesn’t, you can disable your Wi-Fi adapter using your operating system. 2. Try to choose more secure connections Use a virtual private network (VPN) - It’s not always possible to choose your connection type, but Internet security is critical. When you can, opt for wireless networks that require a network security key or have some other form of security, such as a certificate. The information sent over these networks is encrypted, and encryption can help protect your computer from unauthorized access. For example, instead of using a public hot spot with no encryption, use a virtual private network (VPN). If your business does not have its own VPN, you can [1]download and install free VPN software. The security features of the different available networks appear along with the network name as your PC discovers them. Protect your email with https - One way to protect your email messages in public is to select the https or other secure connection option in your email account settings (if your email provider supplies one). This option may be called always use https, more secure connection, or something similar. Even if the email provider you use has a secure network, after you log on to your account on a public network, your information is no longer encrypted unless you use a more secure connection. An https connection, for example, which includes encryption, is more secure than an http connection 3. Make sure your firewall is activated A [2]firewall helps protect your PC by preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to your com299

puter through the Internet or a network. It acts as a barrier that checks all incoming information and then either blocks the information or allows it to come through.

Note: Some antivirus software includes its own firewall. If your antivirus has a firewall and it is turned on, you do not need to turn on another one. Having two firewalls turned on is not recommended.

4. Keep all your software updated

You probably know that you should keep your anti-virus software up-to-date, but you should also keep all your other software updated as well. Updating your operating system, applications, and browser plug-ins is essential to maintaining your privacy and security. Bugs or weaknesses in your software that cyber attackers can exploit are being discovered constantly. Software vendors, such as Microsoft and Apple, issue updates (or patches) regularly to correct these vulnerabilities. As a result, updating your software is a key step to protecting yourself. So you’ll definitely want to stop ignoring those prompts you keep getting to update your software.

For more wi-fi security tips [3]check out this article from Microsoft

Or you can [4]sign-up here for a security awareness monthly newsletter. 1. http://www.bing.com/search?q=best+safe+free+vpn&go=&form=QBRE&qs=n&sk= 2. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/windows-firewall 3. http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/remotely/hotspots.aspx 4. http://www.securingthehuman.org/resources/newsletters/ouch

#300 I’m Back! (2012-10-12 06:00) ...well actually I should say the ”Tip of the Week” email is back. After a brief detour, I’m back at AEP and reviving the weekly Friday morning email just in time for the 300th edition! I’ve missed the conversations, questions and comments from your end and I look forward to hearing from you again. If my absence did not make your heart grow fonder simply unsubscribe using the link at the bottom of the email.

ADMIN NOTE: If you’ve been getting the email from WordPress all along, you might be getting two versions now. Just unsubscribe from the one you don’t want.

[1]Please take 10 seconds and let me know what version of Office you are using, so that our elves can make the tips that you would most like to get. 300

[2] Here are the posts that you’ve missed over the summer: (unless you were one of the few who manages to stay plugged-in) [3] #281 Keeping PowerPoint Images in Place When Resizing [4] #280 Deciphering Shortened URLs [5] #279 Are You (and Your Passwords) as Smart as You Think? [6] #282 Using Word To Fill Scanned Forms [7] #283 Better Than A Default Bullet [8] #284 Roll Your Own Templates [9] #285 Word Defaults You Can “Set & Forget” [10] #286 Hiding Zeros in Excel [11] #287 Custom Formatting of Bulleted/Numbered Lists [12] #288 Four Ways to Customize Excel for the Way YOU Work [13] #289 How to Create a Table of Contents in a SNAP! [14] #290 Updating Your Automatic Table of Contents [15] #291 Browser Shortcuts [16] #292 Many Ways To Navigate Word Documents [17] #293 Show Only A Few Rows & Columns of Your Spreadsheet [18] #294 How to Super Charge Word’s Find & Replace [19] #295 Delete entire words quickly [20] #296 DaFont, Da Whole Font & Nothing But DaFont 301

[21] #297 Hyperlinking in Excel [22] #298 Excel Zebra Stripes [23] #299 Wi-Fi Security Tips Well that should keep you busy for awhile...but when you’re done let me know what you’d like to see or just drop me a note to say hi! I hope you are all doing well and I look forward to continuing our adventure together! 1. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1054177/Office-Version?Source=Blog 2. http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1054177/Office-Version?Source=Blog 3. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/keeping-things-in-place-when-resizing-powerpoint-images/ 4. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/shortened-urls/ 5. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/are-you-and-your-passwords-as-smart-as-you-think/ 6. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/using-word-to-fill-scanned-forms/ 7. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/283-better-than-a-default-bullet/ 8. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/284-roll-your-own-templates/ 9. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/285-word-defaults-you-can-set-forget/ 10. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/286-hiding-zeros-in-excel/ 11. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/287-custom-formatting-of-bulletednumbered-lists/ 12. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/4-ways-to-customize-excel-for-the-way-you-work/ 13. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/how-to-create-a-table-of-contents-in-a-snap/ 14. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/290-update-toc/ 15. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/08/10/291-browser-shortcuts/ 16. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/292-many-ways-to-navigate-word-documents/ 17. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/293-show-only-a-few-rows-columns-of-your-spreadsheet/ 18. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/294-how-to-super-charge-words-find-replace/ 19. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/295-delete-entire-words-quickly/ 20. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/296-dafont-da-whole-font-nothing-but-da-font/ 21. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/hyperlinking-in-excel/ 22. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/298-excel-zebra-stripes/ 23. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/10/05/299-wi-fi-security-tips/

#301 Defaulting to Your Favorite Font (2012-10-19 06:00) If you have the new version of Office 2010 you have probably noticed that Microsoft changed the default font from Times New Roman to Calabri. Personally, I like the new one much better but if you prefer the old one (or any other one for that matter) you can very easily change it. (This is also good if you are stuck on an old version but like the new font.) Changing the default font setting keeps you from having to change it every time you create a new document or presentation. Word 2010 1. In the Font area of the Ribbon, click the small gray arrow in the right corner to open the Font box. 302

[1] 2. Select the typeface you want to be your default. Word of Warning! If someone else open’s your document on another computer that doesn’t have you font. Your document will not look like you want it too. So if you use a unique font that most people don’t have you should consider saving it as a PDF before sending it. 3. Click the Set as Default button. Select the option for “All documents based on the Normal.dotm template?” and click O.K.

[2] [3]Microsoft has the steps for doing this in previous versions here. This trick also works much the same way in PowerPoint and Excel. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/font-more.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/font-more-normaldot.png 3. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/291291

#302 Memorable AND Secure Passwords (2012-10-26 06:00) Since [1]October is Security Awareness month, I thought I’d try to do my part by giving you a pop quiz. (Don’t worry there is no punishment for not passing.) Which of the following two passwords is stronger, more secure, and more difficult to crack? D0g.....................PrXyc.N(n4k77#L!eVdAfp9 Go ahead. Pick one. And no cheating&I’m waiting! 8-) Despite the fact that the first password is infinitely easier to use AND remember, it is also the stronger of the two. You might have suspected this was a trick question so let me explain. First, both do well by incorporating at least one of each of the four types of characters. (lowercase letter, uppercase letter, number, special character) This makes a much larger number of possible combinations that a hacker needs to try to guess. (And by the way they can guess them really fast. There are automated 303

password cracking tools that can guess thousands of passwords PER SECOND!) The difference is that the first password is one character longer which would take 95 TIMES LONGER to crack by guessing. Assuming you use all of the four types of characters in your password THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR IS PASSWORD LENGTH! Make Your Own Password System’ One simple way to create your own unique, easy to remember passwords is to ”pad” your passwords by simply adding some characters to the beginning, middle or end. When used along with a simple password formula we can easily come up with long and memorable passwords that are super-strong AND easy to use! For example, if I insert the name of the site into a formula like this: I would get passwords that look like these: Facebook Gmail Outlook So you see, it’s actually pretty easy to make your own custom password system that is memorable and secure. And lest you think hackers don’t care about little old you...you’re probably right. But you have access to a lot of things they do care about like your bank and your company’s corporate network. [2]Steve Gibson’s Password Haystack page. [3]Security Now podcast.

has the best explanation of this, including a fantastic

Check Your Passwords & Password Managers

Since October is Security Awareness month, you should [4]check to see if your passwords are as good as you think and and check out this [5]review of three top password managers. (Personally, I’m a fan of LastPass.) What about you? How do you handle creating and managing your passwords? and share what works for you.

Leave a comment

1. http://www.dhs.gov/national-cyber-security-awareness-month 2. https://www.grc.com/haystack.htm 3. https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm 4. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/are-you-and-your-passwords-as-smart-as-you-think/ 5. http://allthingsd.com/20121018/unlocking-the-power-of-password-managers/

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November

#303 Evernote: Info Everywhere (2012-11-02 06:00) [1]Evernote is a note taking tool that you simply must check out. For me it’s one the first apps I put on any new smart phone, computer, etc. Why you ask? Evernote has become my outboard brain and helps me keep track of all those details such as my family’s library card numbers, account information and just about anything else I might need. And the best part is that it just works. [2]Evernote is many things to many people and I don’t think any two people use [3]Evernote the same way. For a free app it’s amazing what you can do. CAPTURE: Notes, websites, text clippings, screen captures, audio notes, URLs, photos&and more! ORGANIZE & FIND: Each item is stored as a note’ while each note is organized. Everything you save is searchable. Even text from the photographs you save can be searched. (Evernote will even ’read’ the words in your photos so you can search for them. How cool is THAT?!?!?) Once you’ve [4]signed up you can store and access your information from nearly every computer, web browser, smart phone or tablet. Here’s a short introductory video:

[5] [6]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjn6YkCY2yA &wmode=transparent USES: Not sure how you could use Evernote? [7]Check out this shared notebook that has a ton of ideas including:

1. Automating the creation of meeting notes 2. Going paperless with kids 3. Paperless Meetings 4. Conferences & Conventions 5. How to remember everything. 305

SHARING: I love the ability to share your notes and notebooks with others. Here’s an example I created that lists my [8]All-time Top 5 Tips of the Week

[9] LEARN MORE: If you’re interested in learning more about Evernote, [10]check out this guide that will help you get started. Are you already using Evernote or something similar like [11]OneNote, [12]Simple Note, etc? How do you use it? What questions do you have? Related articles • [13]How to Use Evernote for Everything [Video] (lifehack.org) • [14]Stay Productive With Evernote’s To-Do List Feature (rocketlawyer.com) • [15]A Free Complete Guide to Evernote (freetech4teachers.com) 1. http://evernote.com/ 2. http://evernote.com/ 3. http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/the-secret-weapon-a-no-bs-approach-to-productivity.html 4. https://www.evernote.com/Registration.action 5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjn6YkCY2yA&wmode=transparent 6. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pjn6YkCY2yA&wmode=transparent 7. https://www.evernote.com/pub/jamietr/goingpaperless 8. http://bit.ly/tmt-top5tips 9. http://www.evernote.com/shard/s2/sh/44602bbd-a815-4917-ab8c-510c8b3e5e17/a9a79f707cd624af17d37d6066712ed7 10. http://readwrite.com/2012/08/21/evernote-a-0-to-60-mph-guide 11. https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/ 12. http://simplenoteapp.com/ 13. http://www.lifehack.org/articles/technology/how-to-use-evernote-for-everything-video.html 14. http://blog.rocketlawyer.com/stay-productive-with-evernotes-to-do-list-feature-910314 15. http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2012/09/a-free-complete-guide-to-evernote.html

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#304 Round & Round We Go (2012-11-09 06:00) If I round everything up, does that make me an optimist? No matter which way you need to round your numbers, I’m positive that Excel has an option for you. 8-) This week I’d like to share some common Excel number rounding functions that might come in handy for you.

Formula What it does?

ROUND Rounds a number to specified decimal points (or multiples of 10)

ROUNDUP Rounds up a number

ROUNDDOWN Rounds down a number

MROUND Rounds to nearest multiple of specified number

INT Rounds down to nearest integer

CEILING Rounds up a number to nearest multiple of 1,10,100&

FLOOR Rounds down a number to nearest multiple of 1,10,100&

EVEN Gives next even number

ODD Gives next odd number

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FIXED Rounds and converts to text format (with commas if you want)

Let’s take a quick look at some examples:

[1] [2]Download a sample spreadsheet to learn more. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/excel-rounding.png 2. http://img.chandoo.org/d/roundup-on-round-formulas.xlsx

#305 Linking to Network Locations (2012-11-16 06:00) Most of the time creating links to other things and places is pretty simple. The one exception is when you want to link to something on a network. Linking to Network Locations The biggest thing to remember when you are linking to network locations is NOT to use the drive letters. Why? Because the location of your H:\ drive is often not the same as my H:\ drive. Mapping network locations with drive letters is helpful for getting ourselves to the right place but not for getting others there too. If you want to link to a network location you should use the full Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path. The UNC path will give you an exact location of a folder or file and takes the following format: \\server\volumelashdirectory\file For example, \\abc0123\elearningackslashACCOUNTING\BUDGET\2015-Sales -Budget.xls These UNC addresses are not case-sensitive and don’t forget they need to have permissions to access the place you’re linking them to or all of this is irrelevant. PathCopyCopy Amazingly, Microsoft has never given us a good way to get the full UNC path information we need. Enter [1]PathCopyCopy - an add-on for Windows Explorer that will. With PathCopyCopy, right-clicking will give you a number of new choices including two that are relevant for us here today. 308

[2] First, the ”Copy Long UNC Path” option automatically includes all the details you need including the server name, etc. which works just fine if the person receiving it knows to manually copy and paste it into Windows Explorer...and that’s a significantly big ”IF”! The best option is to use the ”Copy Internet Path” option which will allow you to provide a click-able link and looks something like this: file://abc0123/elearning/ACCOUNTING/BUDGET/2015-Sales-Budget.xls Notice the slashes are leaning the opposite direction and the text ”file:” has been automatically added to the front. These changes are what makes this link work in a web browser, as well as most other places too. Have you ever run into this problem? Give this a try and I’d love to hear how it goes. Here are a few previous link-related tips you might also be interested in:

• [3]Creating links in Lotus Notes including how to link to a Lotus Notes database • [4]How to link to a network folder or email address • [5]Lightening fast hyperlink creation in Microsoft Office documents • [6]Using hyperlinks to make a table of contents in Excel • [7]Removing hyperlinks from Office documents 1. https://pathcopycopy.codeplex.com/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/pathcopycopy-menu.png 3. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/02/16/7-linkification-1-of-2/ 4. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/02/23/8-linkification-2-of-2/ 5. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/252-lightning-fast-links/ 6. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/hyperlinking-in-excel/ 7. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/187-removing-hyperlinks/

#307 All Things Word (2012-11-23 06:00) About this time last year I did a series of ’Cliff Notes’ posts that were pretty well received. [1] #249 Word: Cliffs Notes Version 309

[2] #250 Excel: Cliffs Notes Version [3] #251 PowerPoint: Cliffs Notes Version Since it’s Thanksgiving time I thought this might be a good time to give you a full smorgasboard of tips for each of the main Office applications. We’ll start with Word, so grab some leftovers and dig in. I hope that you will find something you like. ( If you do[4] leave a comment and let me know. ) Setup [5]3 Office Annoyances & How to Fix Them on February 26, 2010 [6] #285 Word Defaults You Can “Set & Forget” on June 22, 2012 [7] #301 Defaulting to Your Favorite Font on October 19, 2012

Working in Documents [8] #185: Quick & Easy Word Tricks on July 15, 2010 [9] #232 Do you F5? on June 16, 2011 [10] #292 Many Ways To Navigate Word Documents on August 17, 2012 [11] #212 Word’s Powerful Find & Replace Options on January 25, 2011 [12] #294 How to Super Charge Word’s Find & Replace on August 31, 2012 [13] #295 Delete entire words quickly on September 6, 2012 [14] #217 Keeping It All Together on March 4, 2011 [15] #183: Save or Close All Documents at Once on July 2, 2010 [16] #169: Editing in Word’s Print Preview Mode on March 26, 2010 [17] #227 Tracking Document Changes on May 12, 2011 [18] #254 Do Word’s Revision Marks Have You Seeing Red? on November 18, 2011 [19] #268 Comparing Word Documents on February 24, 2012

Formatting 310

[20] #242 Super Fast Word Formatting on August 26, 2011 [21] #264 Word Formatting Detective on January 27, 2012 [22] #235 Quickly Paint Formatting on July 6, 2011 [23] #287 Custom Formatting of Bulleted/Numbered Lists on July 6, 2012 [24] #283 Better Than A Default Bullet on June 8, 2012 [25] #261 Highlighting Documents on January 6, 2012

Table Of Contents [26] #289 How to Create a Table of Contents in a SNAP! on July 27, 2012 [27] #290 Updating Your Automatic Table of Contents on August 3, 2012

Working with Tables [28] #191: Tame Your Word Tables on August 26, 2010 [29] #71: Use Tables for Document Layout on May 9, 2008

Graphics & Images [30] #266 Copy/Paste vs Inserting Images on February 10, 2012 [31] #245 Resizing & Cropping Images on September 16, 2011

Other Good Stuff [32] #252 Lightning Fast Links on November 4, 2011 [33] #305 Linking to Network Locations on November 16, 2012 [34] #187 Removing Hyperlinks on July 29, 2010 [35] #282 Using Word To Fill Scanned Forms on June 1, 2012 [36] #273 Adding Information Fields in Word on March 30, 2012 311

[37] #284 Roll Your Own Templates on June 14, 2012 [38] #237 Presentation Handouts on July 22, 2011 [39] #171: Using Snap Off Toolbars in Microsoft Office on April 7, 2010 [40] #195: Import Outlines into PowerPoint on September 22, 2010

1. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/249-word-cliffs-notes-version/ 2. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/250-excel-cliffs-notes-version/ 3. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/252-powerpoint-cliffs-notes-version/ 4. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/11/23/307-all-things-word/#comments 5. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/3-office-annoyances-how-to-fix-them/ 6. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/285-word-defaults-you-can-set-forget/ 7. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/301-defaulting-to-your-favorite-font/ 8. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/185-quick-easy-word-tricks/ 9. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/232-do-you-f5/ 10. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/08/17/292-many-ways-to-navigate-word-documents/ 11. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/01/25/212-words-powerful-find-replace-options/ 12. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/294-how-to-super-charge-words-find-replace/ 13. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/295-delete-entire-words-quickly/ 14. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/217-keeping-it-all-together/ 15. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/183-save-or-close-all-documents-at-once/ 16. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/03/26/169-editing-in-words-print-preview-mode/ 17. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/227-tracking-document-changes/ 18. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/254-do-words-revision-marks-have-you-seeing-red/ 19. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/268-comparing-word-documents/ 20. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/242-super-fast-word-formatting/ 21. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/264-word-formatting-detective/ 22. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/235-format-painter/ 23. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/07/06/287-custom-formatting-of-bulletednumbered-lists/ 24. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/08/283-better-than-a-default-bullet/ 25. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/261-highlighting-documents/ 26. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/how-to-create-a-table-of-contents-in-a-snap/ 27. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/290-update-toc/ 28. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/191-tame-your-word-tables/ 29. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/71-use-tables-for-document-layout/ 30. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/266-copypaste-vs-inserting-images/ 31. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/245-resizing-cropping-images-2/ 32. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/252-lightning-fast-links/ 33. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/305-network-links/ 34. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/187-removing-hyperlinks/ 35. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/01/using-word-to-fill-scanned-forms/ 36. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/273-adding-information-fields-in-word/ 37. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/284-roll-your-own-templates/ 38. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/237-presentation-handouts/ 39. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/171-using-snap-off-toolbars-in-microsoft-office/

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40. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/195-import-outlines-into-powerpoint/

#308 All Things Excel (2012-11-30 06:00) This week we’ll continue our compilation series with a full set of Excel tips. If you are pressed for time you can also just jump to the [1]Clif Notes version. Setup [2] #301 Defaulting to Your Favorite Font on October 19, 2012 [3] #288 Four Ways to Customize Excel for the Way YOU Work on July 20, 2012 [4] #284 Roll Your Own Templates on June 14, 2012 [5] #267 Display Multiple Excel Worksheets Side-by-Side on February 17, 2012 [6] #230 Displaying Two or More Tabs of an Excel Worksheet on June 2, 2011 [7] #226 Excel Readability on May 5, 2011 [8] #199 Excel: Automatic Column Sizing on October 19, 2010 [9]3 Office Annoyances & How to Fix Them on February 26, 2010 [10] #171: Using Snap Off Toolbars in Microsoft Office on April 7, 2010

Formatting [11] #298 Excel Zebra Stripes on September 28, 2012 [12] #293 Show Only A Few Rows & Columns of Your Spreadsheet on August 24, 2012 [13] #272 Automatic Separator Lines in Excel on March 23, 2012 [14] #271 Add a Watermark to an Excel Worksheet on March 14, 2012 [15] #247 Cleaning Up Your (Excel) Act: Part 2 on September 30, 2011 [16] #246 Cleaning Up Your (Excel) Act: Part 1 on September 23, 2011 [17] #235 Quickly Paint Formatting on July 6, 2011 313

[18] #194: Copy Excel Page Setup Settings Between Sheets on September 15, 2010 [19] #190: View/Hide Excel Formulas on August 19, 2010 [20] #158: Excel Conditional Formatting on January 8, 2010 [21] #41: Shading Alternate Rows in Excel on October 12, 2007

Working With Data [22] #275 Quick & Dirty Excel Data Comparison on April 13, 2012 [23] #304 Round & Round We Go on November 9, 2012 [24] #244 5 Things You Should Know About the Excel Fill Handle on September 9, 2011 [25] #239 Excel Range Names on August 3, 2011

[26] #234 Easy Excel Subtotals on June 30, 2011 [27] #232 Do you F5? on June 16, 2011 [28] #231 Navigating a Selected Range of Cells in Excel on June 10, 2011 [29] #219 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways& on March 18, 2011 [30] #213 Excel Custom Sorting on February 3, 2011 [31] #211 Move & Copy Excel Worksheet Tabs on January 20, 2011 [32] #207 Excel Data from Elsewhere on December 17, 2010 [33] #197: Excel’s IF Function on October 8, 2010 [34] #172: AutoFilter Formula on April 15, 2010 [35] #174: Excel – The Power of IF’ on April 28, 2010 [36] #182: Navigating Excel Tabs on June 24, 2010 [37] #188 Excel Auto-fill Options on August 4, 2010 314

[38] #183: Save or Close All Documents at Once on July 2, 2010 [39] #164 Excel Subtotals on February 19, 2010 [40] #163: Become a Superhero with Excel Subtotals on February 19, 2010 [41] #160: Excel String Functions: The Sequel on January 22, 2010 [42] #159: Save Time Using Excel’s “Big 33String Functions on January 13, 2010

[43] #157: Working With Non-contiguous Cells on January 4, 2010 [44] #153: Easy (But Deceptive) Excel Tricks on December 4, 2009 [45] #130 Excel: Double-click Tricks on June 26, 2009 [46] #128 Excel: Text To Columns on June 12, 2009 [47] #137 Excel’s Custom Fill Series on April 14, 2009 [48] #82 Sorting Excel Left-to-Right on July 25, 2008 [49] #50: Use Excel’s AutoFilter to Analyze Data on December 14, 2007

Images & Charts [50] #266 Copy/Paste vs Inserting Images on February 10, 2012 [51] #245 Resizing & Cropping Images on September 16, 2011 [52] #186 Quick & Easy Excel Charts on July 23, 2010

More Good Stuff [53] #297 Hyperlinking in Excel on September 21, 2012 [54] #305 Linking to Network Locations on November 16, 2012 [55] #256 Save Time With Excel Workspaces on December 2, 2011 [56] #252 Lightning Fast Links on November 4, 2011 315

[57] #241 Printing Spreadsheets on August 19, 2011

[58] #216 Down with ugly charts on February 25, 2011 [59] #187 Removing Hyperlinks on July 29, 2010 [60] #56 Excel Shared Workbooks on January 25, 2008

1. file://localhost/mnt/ext/blogbooker/tmp/6dvtpmf1/CliffsNotesVersiononOctober20,2011 2. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/301-defaulting-to-your-favorite-font/ 3. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/4-ways-to-customize-excel-for-the-way-you-work/ 4. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/284-roll-your-own-templates/ 5. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/02/17/267-display-multiple-excel-worksheets-side-by-side/ 6. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/06/02/230-displaying-two-or-more-tabs-of-an-excel-worksheet/ 7. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/05/05/226-excel-readability/ 8. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/199-excel-automatic-column-sizing/ 9. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/3-office-annoyances-how-to-fix-them/ 10. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/171-using-snap-off-toolbars-in-microsoft-office/ 11. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/09/28/298-excel-zebra-stripes/ 12. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/08/24/293-show-only-a-few-rows-columns-of-your-spreadsheet/ 13. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/272-automatic-separator-lines-in-excel/ 14. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/270-add-a-watermark-to-an-excel-worksheet/ 15. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/247-cleaning-up-your-excel-act-part-2-2/ 16. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/09/23/246-cleaning-up-your-excel-act/ 17. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/235-format-painter/ 18. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/194-copy-excel-page-setup-settings-between-sheets/ 19. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/190-viewhide-excel-formulas/ 20. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/excel-conditional-formatting/ 21. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/41-shading-alternate-rows-in-excel/ 22. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/04/13/275-quick-dirty-excel-data-comparison/ 23. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/304-round-round-we-go/ 24. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/09/09/5-things-excel-fill-handle/ 25. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/239-excel-range-names/ 26. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/06/30/234-easy-excel-subtotals/ 27. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/06/16/232-do-you-f5/ 28. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/06/10/231-navigating-a-selected-range-of-cells-in-excel/ 29. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/03/18/219-how-do-i-love-thee-let-me-count-the-ways/ 30. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/213-excel-custom-sorting/ 31. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/211-move-copy-excel-worksheet-tabs/ 32. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/207-excel-data-from-elsewhere/ 33. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/10/08/197-excels-if-function/ 34. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/04/15/172-autofilter-formula/ 35. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/174-excel-the-power-of-if/ 36. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/182-navigating-excel-tabs/ 37. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/188-excel-auto-fill-options/ 38. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/183-save-or-close-all-documents-at-once/ 39. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/164-excel-subtotals/

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40. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/163-become-a-superhero-with-excel-subtotals/ 41. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/excel-string-functions-the-sequel/ 42. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/using-excel-functions-to/ 43. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/01/04/157-working-with-non-contiguous-cells/ 44. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2009/12/04/153-easy-but-deceptive-excel-tricks/ 45. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/130-excel-double-click-tricks/ 46. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/128-excel-text-to-columns/ 47. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2009/04/14/137-excels-custom-fill-series/ 48. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2008/07/25/82-sorting-excel-left-to-right/ 49. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/12/14/50-use-excel%e2%80%99s-autofilter-to-analyze-data/ 50. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/266-copypaste-vs-inserting-images/ 51. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/245-resizing-cropping-images-2/ 52. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/186-quick-easy-excel-charts/ 53. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/hyperlinking-in-excel/ 54. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/305-network-links/ 55. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/256-save-time-with-excel-workspaces/ 56. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/252-lightning-fast-links/ 57. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/266-copypaste-vs-inserting-images/ 58. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/216-down-with-ugly-charts/ 59. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/187-removing-hyperlinks/ 60. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/56-excelshared-workbooks/

6.12

December

#309 All Things PowerPoint (2012-12-07 06:00) This week’s compilation of PowerPoint tips, wraps up our trilogy that began with [1]Word and [2]Excel. Before you dig in to this collection of tips you might like to start with this [3]handout from my ”[4]Art & Science of Presentations” talk that I’ve given a number of times.

[5] Setup [6] #301 Defaulting to Your Favorite Font on October 19, 2012 [7] #284 Roll Your Own Templates on June 14, 2012 [8]3 Office Annoyances & How to Fix Them on February 26, 2010 [9] #171: Using Snap Off Toolbars in Microsoft Office on April 7, 2010

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Presentation [10] #240 Keeping Your Audience Focused on August 12, 2011 [11] #237 Presentation Handouts on July 22, 2011 [12] #223 PowerPoint Show Files on April 15, 2011 [13] #214 Six Million Dollar Presentation Tips on February 11, 2011 [14] #198: Preventing PowerPoint Font Disasters on October 13, 2010 [15] #195: Import Outlines into PowerPoint on September 22, 2010

Working With Slides [16] #274 Using Format Painter to Copy PowerPoint Designs on April 5, 2012 [17] #259 Selecting Overlapping PowerPoint Objects on December 22, 2011 [18] #235 Quickly Paint Formatting on July 6, 2011 [19] #233: Replacing Fonts in PowerPoint on June 23, 2011 [20] #180 Live Web Pages in PowerPoint on June 10, 2010 [21] #183: Save or Close All Documents at Once on July 2, 2010 [22] #189: PowerPoint – Just a little nudge on August 12, 2010 [23] #196: PowerPoint Notes Pane on September 30, 2010

Presentations Delivery [24] #179: PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts on June 4, 2010 [25] #126: PowerPoint Presenter’s View on May 29, 2009 [26] #151: Presentation Delivery Cheat Sheet on November 13, 2009

Graphics & Images 318

[27] #281 Keeping PowerPoint Images in Place When Resizing on May 25, 2012 [28] #266 Copy/Paste vs Inserting Images on February 10, 2012 [29] #245 Resizing & Cropping Images on September 16, 2011 [30] #221 The Biggest Loser: PowerPoint Edition on March 31, 2011 [31] #54 Shrink Your PowerPoint Files on January 4, 2008

More Good Stuff [32] #305 Linking to Network Locations on November 16, 2012 [33] #252 Lightning Fast Links on November 4, 2011 [34] #187 Removing Hyperlinks on July 29, 2010 1. http://wp.me/pE0nU-nO 2. http://wp.me/pE0nU-nV 3. https://www.box.com/s/picug543hgr6zusaiuai 4. http://portal.sliderocket.com/AESMA/Art_Science_Of_Presentations 5. http://portal.sliderocket.com/AESMA/Art_Science_Of_Presentations 6. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/301-defaulting-to-your-favorite-font/ 7. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/06/14/284-roll-your-own-templates/ 8. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/02/26/3-office-annoyances-how-to-fix-them/ 9. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/171-using-snap-off-toolbars-in-microsoft-office/ 10. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/08/12/240-keeping-your-audience-focused/ 11. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/237-presentation-handouts/ 12. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/223-powerpoint-show-files/ 13. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/214-six-million-dollar-presentation-tips/ 14. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/198-preventing-powerpoint-font-disasters/ 15. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/195-import-outlines-into-powerpoint/ 16. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/274-using-format-painter-to-copy-powerpoint-designs/ 17. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/12/22/259-selecting-overlapping-powerpoint-objects/ 18. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/07/06/235-format-painter/ 19. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/233-replacing-fonts-in-powerpoint/ 20. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/180-live-web-pages-in-powerpoint/ 21. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/07/02/183-save-or-close-all-documents-at-once/ 22. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/189-powerpoint-just-a-little-nudge/ 23. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/09/30/196-powerpoint-notes-pane/ 24. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/179-powerpoint-keyboard-shortcuts/ 25. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/126-powerpoint-presenters-view/ 26. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/151-presentation-cheat-sheet/ 27. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/05/25/keeping-things-in-place-when-resizing-powerpoint-images/ 28. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/02/10/266-copypaste-vs-inserting-images/

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29. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/09/16/245-resizing-cropping-images-2/ 30. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/221-the-biggest-loser-powerpoint-edition/ 31. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2008/01/04/54-shrink-your-powerpoint-files/ 32. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/305-network-links/ 33. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/252-lightning-fast-links/ 34. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/187-removing-hyperlinks/

#310 Automatically Repeat Table Headers in Word (2012-12-14 06:00) Tables are a great option for managing the alignment of rows and columns of information. If you’ve used them much you may have encountered a time when your table ran across two different pages. What most people do when they run into this situation is to duplicate the header row on that 2nd page so people can still see the headings, which is nice. However, the challenge comes when the table grows or shrinks by a couple rows and now that duplicated header is out of place. Next time you run into that situation, the smarter way to handle it is to let word automatically repeat the header row at the top of each new page. This way, no matter how many rows, or even pages, you add to your table the headers will always be sitting right at the top where they belong. How it Works: 1. Select top row of your table. 2. Right-click and choose Table Properties... 3. On the Row tab check the Repeat as header row at the top of each page box

.[1] Before: [2]Click to zoom

After: 320

[3]Click to Zoom

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/repeatsetting.png 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/before.png 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/after1.png

#311 Speedy Excel Charts (2012-12-21 06:00) Assuming you already have your data, what’s the quickest way to create an Excel chart? With your data selected, you can use the ALT+N selection drop-down.

C keyboard shortcut to jump directly to the chart

If that’s still not fast enough for you simply hit your F11 key and Excel will ’auto-magically’ create your chart on a new tab. Don’t want the chart on a separate tab? No worries...try ALT+F1 instead. 321

. SIDE NOTE: If you have been not been seeing the images via your AEP Lotus Notes you might need to [1]check your Notes proxy settings. Of course, you can always[2] visit the website to see them as well. Wishing you a Merry Everything and a Happy Always! 1. http://aepsp/sites/itcss/Lists/Processes%20%20Procedures/DispForm.aspx?ID=1710 2. http://miketips.wordpress.com/

#312 Recovering a ’Lost’ Window (2012-12-28 06:00) While [1]two screens are better than one, you might have run into a problem if you’ve ever disconnected your laptop from a secondary monitor without first moving the windows back to your laptop screen. Here is what happens: The application is running. You can see it in the taskbar, but you can’t see it on the screen, because it still thinks it’s running on the secondary monitor. What do you do? Reboot and pray that it fixes itself? A much quicker option is to move it. Right-click the application in the taskbar and select Move. This doesn’t appear to do anything, but it does-you are now in ’move mode’ and the cursor should look like this . From here, the trick is to use your arrow keys on the keyboard to move the window back onto your laptop screen. If you’re also without your mouse, or if you’re a keyboard person, you can just ALT+TAB to the window, hit ALT+SPACEBAR then M, and user your arrow key from there move your mouse. (Look around the edge of your laptop screen for the cursor to determine which arrow key you need to use.) This handy trick is still in Windows 7 it just works a bit differently. Instead of right-clicking the application in the taskbar you need to do a SHIFT+RIGHT-CLICK. The keyboard method still works the same way.

1. https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/news/features/vibe.aspx

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Chapter 7

2013 7.1

January

#313 1000 Words Worth of Pictures (2013-01-04 06:00) Sometimes showing someone exactly what you see on your screen is the quickest, easiest and best way to communicate what you need them to know. It seems like I take screenshots virtually everyday for a wide variety of reasons. Whether you need them as often as I do, or just every once in awhile, it’s always nice to have a good way to capture and share what you see. Here are a few good ideas about how you can use screenshots:

• Capture error messages • Document procedures • Enhance training documents • Take a snapshot of a website • Include any of the above in a PowerPoint presentation • The possibilities are virtually endless [1]It’s been quite awhile since we’ve talked about screenshots around here so I thought we would take a quick look at how you can take screenshots with stuff you already have. Old School Method I *THINK* most of us know that you can take a picture of your screen using the Print Screen button on your keyboard right? While it’s super quick it isn’t perfect by any stretch. For example if you have more than one monitor, that will include all of them in the image you capture. What many folks may not know if that if you use the ALT key with Print Screen you will capture only the active window. 323

[2]You can read more on Print Screen from Microsoft here. Two Newer Options Windows 7 has a built-in option for this called the Snipping Tool. This method gives you a few more options such as being able to capture only certain parts of the screen/window and some basic annotation options. [3]Read more about the Snipping Tool here. PowerPoint 2010 has a new feature that lets you quickly grab a shot of any open window or do a screen clip of anything on your desktop.

[4]Learn more about the PowerPoint option here. Top of the Line: SnagIt If you do a lot with screenshots and/or need additional features such as annotation, editing, cropping, resizing, etc. etc. you owe it to yourself to buy a copy of[5] SnagIt. I’ve been a big fan of SnagIt for years and it is well worth the $49.95. You can grab a 30 day trial if you’d like to take it for a test drive. There are too many features to mention so I’ll just[6] point you to their feature list and invite you to leave a comment with any questions, etc. What about you? Do you take many screenshots? What do you use? Do you have any questions? Leave a comment and let us know. 324

1. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/02/09/5-screenshots/ 2. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/take-a-screen-capture-print-screen 3. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/features/snipping-tool 4. http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-powerpoint/archive/2010/04/27/powerpoint-2010-insert-screenshot.aspx 5. http://www.techsmith.com/snagit.html 6. http://www.techsmith.com/snagit-features.html

#314 Mail Merge (2013-01-11 06:00) A pretty fair number of times over the years I’ve been asked several different variations on the topic of how to do a Mail Merge in Microsoft Word. I also recently realized that I’ve never shared that information as one of my weekly tips. Knowing how to do this can save you a ton of time and has a pretty wide variety of uses. Uses of mail merge:

• Mailing labels • Form Letters • Envelopes • Personalized letters • Course Completion certificates • Name tags • Many more...

HOW IT WORKS:

1. Set up the ’Main Document’: The main document contains the text and graphics that are the same for each version of the merged document for example, the return address in a form letter and is where you indicate what type of document you want. (i.e. mailing labels, envelopes, a letter, etc). 2. Connect to a source of data A data source is a file that contains the information to be merged into a document. For example, the names and addresses of the recipients of a letter. You can use existing 325

data or create a new one.[1]

3. Add, arrange & format ’place holders’ (mail merge fields) When you do the merge, these fields are filled with information from your data file. Depending on what type of document you are merging, this will be things like Name, Address, City, Course Name, etc. 326

4. Preview the results and complete the merge. You can merge directly to a printer or into a new file so that you can save a copy of your results.[2] 327

GET THE DETAILS FOR YOUR VERSION OF OFFICE:

• [3]Walk through of how it works (Word 2002/2003/XP) • [4]Use Mail Merge to create labels, letters and other items. (2010) • [5]How to use addresses from Excel Have you ever attempted to do a mail merge like this? How did it work? Do you have any questions? [6]Let me know! 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/source-data.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/merged-results.jpg 3. https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/word-mail-merge-a-walk-through-the-process-HA001034920.aspx 4.

https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/

use-mail-merge-to-create-and-print-letters-and-other-documents-HA101857701.aspx 5. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318117?wa=wsignin1.0 6. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/314-mail-merge/#comments

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#315 UN-merging Cells in Excel (2013-01-18 06:00)

Have you ever encountered problems with merged cells in a spreadsheet? Merging cells seems like a good idea, but they can interfere with sorting and filtering, and other things you might need to do.

[1] Here are two alternatives that will help get you past this annoying warning message and on with the work at hand. CENTER ACROSS SELECTION: The alignment option to ”Center Across Selection” is usually a better alternative to merging cells. It has the same visual effect but without causing any problems with sorting, filtering, etc. You can find this option along with all others on the Alignment tab of the Format Cells dialog box. ( CTRL +1 is a handy shortcut for getting there quickly. ) 329

[2] UNMERGING: Did you know that you can UN-merge a cell back into separate cells? In the newer versions of Excel (2007/2010) there is a super simple drop-down on the home tab that handles this job.

[3] In the older versions, you can select the merged cell and simply click the Merge & Center button a 2nd time to unmerge it. TEXT TO COLUMNS: For splitting single (non-merged) cells into multiple ones you should check out the Text to Columns function [4]which we’ve covered before. [5]Check out a brief video of the Text to Column function in action here.

330

Text to Columns function: Before & After Interested in more details? Check out these ’How To’ articles from Microsoft:

• [6]Merging & Unmerging Cells (Excel 2003) • [7]Merging & Unmerging Cells (Excel 2010) Do you use merged cells? Ever had any trouble with them? Leave a comment and let us know! 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/merged-cell-warning-msg.gif 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/center-across-selection.gif 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/unmerge-20101.gif 4. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2009/06/12/128-excel-text-to-columns/ 5. http://screencast.com/t/uBKTHVTIreF 6. https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/merge-and-unmerge-cells-HP005251021.aspx#BMsplitmergedcells 7. https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/merge-and-unmerge-cells-HP010342686.aspx?CTT=1

#316 Cutting & Pasting Without Screwy Things Happening (2013-01-25 06:00) Have you ever tried to do a simple cut and paste when suddenly all your formatting goes wonky? For no apparent reason? It’s probably happened to all of us at some point or another. This week I’ll show you how you can take control of the situation and get exactly the result you want. For starters, you should know that there are multiple ways of pasting stuff into your documents, presentations and spreadsheets. Most people just never get past the default, which is where the challenges begin. To help you master this, I’d like to introduce you to a new friend - the Paste Options button. You may or may not have noticed this before. It’s only there briefly after you paste something. It’s easy to master, IF you know to look for it and how it works. [1] How It Works By clicking this button, you’ll see a set of paste options that will let you control what you want to happen with your pasted text. Simply hover your mouse over each icon to see what it does.

[2] The options available to you will vary based on what you are pasting and where you are copying from/to. The four most common options are:

• Keep Source Formatting: Keeps the formatting of the text you copied 331

• Use Destination Styles: Matches the formatting where you pasted your text • Kept Text Only: Discards both the text formatting AND the non-text elements you copied, such as pictures or table, and then matches the formatting where you pasted the text (Good for copying/pasting stuff from web pages) • Merge Formatting: Keeps the formatting of the text you copied without changing the formatting of the destination document, e.g., if you cut and paste a sentence from another document that had a different font type or size In Office 2010, you can also control what happens by default when you paste in several different scenarios by clicking the Set Default Paste... option. (To access these setting directly go to the File tab, click Options and then look under the Advanced tab.)

[3] These settings also allow you to control how to handle bulleted/numbered lists and pictures as well. And Don’t Forget Paste Special.... [4]Paste Special... is another good way to control what and how things get pasted. It’s great for when you are copying between different applications (i.e spreadsheet data into a PowerPoint or Word document). In Office 2010 you’ll find Paste Special.. under the Paste drop-down in the Clipboard area of the Home tab. For older versions it’s an item listed under the Edit menu.

[5] The keyboard shortcut is the same for all versions. ALT + E

S

[6]Read more from Microsoft about controlling the formatting when you paste text. 332

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/paste-options-button-collapsed.gif 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/paste-options-button.gif 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/default-cut-copy-paste-settings.gif 4. https://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/paste-special-HP010117115.aspx 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/2010-paste-special.gif 6.

https:

//office.microsoft.com/en-us/word-help/control-the-formatting-when-you-paste-text-HA010215708.aspxhttp://

7.2

February

#317 Make Vertical Selections in Word (2013-02-01 06:00)

If you use Microsoft Word much at all, I’ll bet you’ve probably had an occasion when you wanted to delete the beginning of each line in a list. I use this a lot when copying & pasting lists from somewhere else. For example, copying from websites sometimes result in ’funky’ characters appearing at the beginning list items like the boxes in the list below.

[1] How would you remove the boxes at the beginning of each of these items? Did you know you can make quick work of this job by selecting text vertically? All you have to do is hold down the ALT key while you click and drag your mouse. See it in action below and how it differs from the normal way to select text. 333

[2] Can you think of a time this would have been useful? 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/before.gif 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/word-vertical-selection.gif

#318 Make Simultaneous Changes to Multiple Worksheets (2013-02-08 06:00)

Many of use have spreadsheets with similar information and data across multiple spreadsheets. For example, each month of data has its own tab. What do you do when you need to make the same change to all twelve sheets? This week I’d like to show you how you can work much smarter by grouping the sheets before you make your changes.

1. Before you do anything, select all the different sheets you want to change (select the first one, then hold CTRL key and click on other sheet names). You should notice that they are all now selected.

2. Now any formatting, etc you do will be applied to all the tabs that you selected so you only need to make one change instead of twelve.

See an example of it in action below: 334

[1] This grouping trick is great for:

• Making formatting changes to multiple worksheets • Applying the same header / footer / print settings to multiple worksheets • Creating similar formulas in multiple worksheets How can you use this trick? Let me know! I’d love to hear from you. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/group-sheets-and-format.gif

#319 Smartphone Home Screen Shortcuts (2013-02-15 06:00) Do you have a few ’go to’ websites that you frequently visit on your smart phone? Did you know you can put them right up front on your home screen? Not only can you do just that, you can do it in a matter of seconds. If not just locate the nearest 10 year old they’ll fix you up! Seriously though, here is how you can bookmarking those sites for quick access from your home screen. This is similar to bookmarks or favorites on your computer and much faster than fiddling with your mobile browser bookmarks.

Apple 1. Go to the website in the Safari browser 2. Tap the Share button at the bottom of the Safari screen for the website you’re on. 3.Tap the icon labeled “Add to Home Screen.” 4.Tap the Add button in the upper right corner. 5.Launch the website from your Home screen by tapping its icon. . 335

[1] Click image for larger version

Android 1. Open the built-in browser app, 2. Press the menu button and choose Bookmarks. 3. Find the bookmark that you’d like to add to your home screen and press down on it until a new menu appears. 4. Tap the “Add shortcut to Home” option to place an icon for the bookmarked page on the home screen. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/ios.jpg

#320 Word: How to Replace Tabbed Columns With a Table (2013-02-22 06:00) There are tons of reasons you might want to align things in your Word documents. And I’ve seen people do some crazy things trying to make that happen-including using the space bar 122 times for each line. (Yes, I counted!) When compared to wrangling tab settings and risking carpal tunnel syndrome beating on the space bar, tables are a much easier way to work with columns of data. Here is one way you can work a little table magic and convert any existing tabbed lists into a nice neat table. (If you inherit the one with 122 spaces in every line, let me know I’ve got a quick fix for that one too!) Converting Tabs to a Table As I mentioned, I’m not a fan of using tabs to align data in my documents. Whenever I inherit a document with tabbed data like this list below, I simply convert it into a table. 336

[1] How It Works: 1. Select the tabbed text that you want to convert. 2. Under the the Insert tab click the Table

Convert Text to Table...

3. Click the OK button.

Word of Warning: You might need to do some clean-up if you don’t have the same number of tabs between each column. Otherwise you’re columns will be all [2]caddywhompus and they won’t line up the way you want. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/convert-text-to-table.gif 2. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=caddywhompus

7.3

March

#321 New SUMIFS Excel Function (2013-03-01 06:00) We’ve[1] seen how easy it is to sum and/or count values based on some specific criteria using the SUMIF and COUNTIF functions. For example, summing the sales for the West region or counting the number of orders 337

for a particular salesperson is easily handled that way.

[2] Easily getting Phil’s total amount =SUMIF(B2:B22,”Phil”,C2:C22) and a count of the West region =COUNTIF(A2:A22,”West”) is a great trick to have up your sleeve, but it only works for a single condition. What if you want to easily find out how much Phil sold in the West region?? This is where the (relatively) new SUMIFS and COUNTIFs functions come to our rescue.

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[3] Pretty cool huh? Here is what the syntax looks like for the SUMIFS function:

[4] Interested in learning more? [5]Grab a file to practice with or check out these step-by-step tutorials on [6]SUMIFS, [7]COUNTIFS and [8]AVERAGEIFS Note that there is one very minor catch. These functions only work in Excel 2007 or later. So just be aware of that if you send your files to anyone still using an older version of Excel. 1. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/174-excel-the-power-of-if/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/data.gif 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/ifs2.gif 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/syntax.png 5. https://www.box.com/s/30k6j77sldsrn5m8glnz 6.

http://spreadsheets.about.com/od/somethingiffunctions/ss/

2011-05-16-Excel-2010-Sumifs-Function-Step-By-Step-Tutorial.htm 7.

http://spreadsheets.about.com/od/somethingiffunctions/ss/

2011-06-04-Excel-2010-Countifs-Function-Step-By-Step-Tutorial.htm

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8.

http://spreadsheets.about.com/od/somethingiffunctions/ss/

2011-04-05-Excel-2010-averageifs-function-sbs-tutorial.htm

#322 Are You In Control? (of Your Web Browser Tabs) (2013-03-08 06:00)

Does your browser do what you want it to? Besides maybe fetch you a cup of coffee and your favorite slippers. Even if you’ve never given it any thought a few quick tweaks could save you thousands of clicks over time. If you haven’t yet, one thing you might want to do is [1]change your browser’s start page. Set it to anything you like to start your day with. The weather, stocks, news, or even your own customized version of a [2]mission control launch page.

[3] One of the nicest features of new browsers is the ability to use tabs for opening multiple websites at the same time. If you’re not familiar with them yet, there are several ways to open a new browser tab and test them out. Opening a New Tab To open a new tab, you can click the small blank tab or if you’re a keyboard kind of person do a CTRL + T . (This works in all modern web browsers. Firefox, Chrome, etc. ) 340

[4] Opening Links in a New Tab Another great use for tabs is to open links from one page into a new tab. Just right-click the link and pick the option to Open in New Tab. Navigating Tabs Now once you’ve got a bunch of different tabs open, how are you going to navigate between them? I think the best way is to use your keyboard. One way is using the CTRL key plus the number of the tab you want to jump to. CTRL + 3 will take me to my third tab.

For example,

If you just want to cycle through tab-by-tab you can do CTRL + TAB Controlling Tab Behavior

If you’re still with me and want to see even more about what you can do with your browser tabs, you might want to peek into the tab settings for your browser. Here’s where to look in Internet Explorer. tings.

[5]Firefox, [6]Chrome and others all have similar set-

1. Click the Tools menu and then click Internet Options.

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[7] 2. On the General tab, find the Tabs section, then click the Settings button within that section.

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[8] From here you’ll see a collection of choices for managing your browser tabs. I don’t like having a bunch of different windows open so one of my favorites is to ”Always open pop-ups in a new tab” and ”Open links from other programs in: A new tab in the current window” What about you? Are you a fan of browser tabs? Why or why not? Leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you. 1. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/07/14/236-start-pages/ 2. http://symbaloo.com/ 3. http://symbaloo.com/ 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/newtab.jpg 5. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tab-preferences-and-settings 6. https://support.google.com/chrome/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95451 7. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ie-tabsettings.gif 8. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/ie-tabsettings2.gif

#323 Be a Better Googler: Using Advanced Search Options (2013-03-15 06:00) Often, we are so busy chasing the latest shiny things that we forget to stop and learn the basic things we use everyday better. One great example, is Google search. Most people never get beyond just typing a few words into the basic search box. I’ve covered these before. In fact, this whole weekly tip thing started with a series on getting better Google search results. ( Seek And Ye Shall Find” [1]Part 1, [2]Part 2 and [3]Part 3 ) Since there are about a thousand of you on this list who weren’t around back then I thought this topic would be a 343

good one to revisit. If you’ve ever been frustrated by the results you can easily improve your search results by using the [4]Advanced search form instead of the single default box. To get even better results, take a few minutes to learn about some of the search operators that will allow you to:

• [5]Find exact phrases • [6]Exclude terms you DON’T want • [7]Search only a particular website • [8]Include synonyms in your results • [9]Search for pictures and images • [10]Search for particulate types of documents like PDF, Word, PowerPoint, etc If you don’t want to learn any of the operators you can get many of the same benefits by using [11]Soople.com. They have built a much more complete and user-friendly way to search Google for specific things including music, videos and books, as well as providing other tools like a phone book, calculator, dictionary and more.

[12] 344

If you’re interested in learning even more? You can check out a [13]good cheat sheet or take the free ”[14]Power Searching With Google” course.

1. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/05/1-tips-for-better-online-search-results/ 2. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/12/2-seek-and-ye-shall-find-part-2/ 3. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/19/3-seek-ye-shall-find-part-3-of-3/ 4. http://www.google.com/advanced_search 5. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/05/1-tips-for-better-online-search-results/ 6. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/05/1-tips-for-better-online-search-results/ 7. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/05/1-tips-for-better-online-search-results/ 8. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/12/2-seek-and-ye-shall-find-part-2/ 9. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/12/2-seek-and-ye-shall-find-part-2/ 10. https://miketips.wordpress.com/2007/01/12/2-seek-and-ye-shall-find-part-2/ 11. http://www.soople.com/ 12. http://soople.com/ 13. https://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=136861 14. http://www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com/

#324 Closing iOS Apps (2013-03-22 06:00)

One of the great things about iPads and iPhones is how intuitive they are to use. Most things are easy enough for a two-year old to master. However, not everything is obvious. One thing I’ve noticed is that a surprising number of people don’t know how to close apps. I’ve encountered more than one family member (who shall remain nameless for my own protection) who never seem to close any apps, ever! Depending on how many apps we’re talking about, closing the unused ones can speed up your phone and extend the life of your battery. It’s super simple, yet it’s one of those things that nobody ever tells you. Here’s how to close your apps on your iPad or iPhone. 1. Double-tap the Home button. 345

[1] 2. Tap and hold you finger down on the app’s icon until it starts to jiggle.

[2] 3. Tap the

sign.

4. Repeat until you’ve closed all the apps you want to close. Still having trouble? [3]Here’s a video from one of those two-year olds. Note, that you can’t close the app that you are currently in. If you go to your home screen first, then you can close any open apps. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/home.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/close.jpg 3. http://www.neatorama.com/2012/05/08/how-to-close-apps-on-an-iphoneipad/

#325 Hiding Zeros in Excel (2013-03-29 06:00) There are a variety of reasons you may not want to show zeros in your spreadsheets. If you ever want to hide cells with zero values, here are three alternatives for you to consider. 346

Option #1: Sheet setting The easiest way to hide all zero values in a worksheet is to change the setting for the sheet, as follows:

1. Click the File menu and then choose Options (under Help). ( In Excel 2003, choose Options from the Tools menu.) 2. Choose Advanced in the left pane. (In Excel 2003, click the View tab.) 3. In the Display Options For This Worksheet section, uncheck the Show A Zero In Cells That Have Zero Value. 4. Click the OK button.

[1] Option #2: Numeric format If you don’t want to hide all the zero values in the sheet, you can use a numeric format to hide specific cells with zero values:

1. Select the cells that contain the zero values that you want to hide. 2. Click the Home tab and click the Number group’s dialog launcher (the small arrow in the bottom-right corner. In Excel 2003, choose Cells from the Format menu.[2]

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3. From the Number tab choose Custom from the Category list. 4. Enter 0;-0;;@ in the Type field. 5. Click OK.

[3] NOTE: Hidden 0s will still be visible in the [4]Formula bar, or in the cell, if you edit in the cell. To undo this format, simply choose an alternate numeric format for the cells. Option #3: Conditional formatting The numeric format above will hide literal zeroes and most of the zero results of a formula. For the exceptions, you can use conditional formatting as follows:

1. Select the cells that contain the zeros you want to hide. 2. From the Home tab click the Conditional Formatting option in the Styles group and then choose New Rule... (In Excel 2003, choose Conditional Formatting from the Format menu, and skip to step 4.) 3. In the top pane, select the Format Only Cells That Contain option. 4. From the second dropdown, choose Equal To. 5. Enter 0 in the third control. 6. Click Format. 348

7. From the Color dropdown, choose White (or the color that matches the sheet’s background). 8. Click OK twice.

[5] WARNING! This format is easy to forget [6]and can cause trouble down the road, so be very careful if you go this route. Do you ever need to hide zero values? Let us know how you handle them.

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/worksheet-setting.jpg 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/number-dialogbox.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/formatting.jpg 4. http://spreadsheets.about.com/od/f/g/Formula_bar_def.htm 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/conditionalformattingbox.jpg 6.

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/

10-excel-formatting-decisions-that-can-have-unfortunate-repercussions/2770

7.4

April

#326 Precise Placement of Images in PowerPoint (2013-04-05 06:00) Have you ever had trouble getting an image placed in exactly the spot you wanted? Maybe you wondered if your mouse was going bad? Or maybe that you have an unsteady hand? Well it’s not you nor your mouse. PowerPoint (and all the Office products) are built to move images in small incremental steps - which is fine most of the time. However, there are scenarios when this could drive you crazy, so let’s see how you can maintain your sanity AND get that image to go exactly where you want it. 349

Hold down the ALT key on your keyboard while you drag the image into place and you will be able to place it anywhere you want...not just on the incremental points that PowerPoint defaults to.

[1] [2]Watch this short example of how it works. ( Thanks to [3]Tracy Parish for the video! ) Have you ever dealt with this scenario? Do you have any other PowerPoint annoyances? Let me know. 1. http://www.screenr.com/7Hh 2. http://www.screenr.com/7Hh 3. http://www.tracyparish.ca/

#327 Office Web Viewer (2013-04-12 06:00) Office Web Viewer creates links that open Word, PowerPoint or Excel files in a web browser instead of requiring them to be downloaded. It’s easy to turn a download link into an Office Web Viewer link to use online. Some benefits of the Office Web Viewer include:

• You don’t need to convert Office files for the web (e.g., PDF, HTML). • Anyone can view Office files, even if they don’t have Office. • One link will work for computers, tablets, and mobile phones. How to try it out To use Office Web Viewer, click this link: [1]http://officewebviewer.com Then copy and paste the document’s URL in the text box. It looks like this: 350

To make the URL yourself, you can use the link below, where is a URL to the document. http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src= Note: the document must be publicly accessible on the internet. Here are a few examples of documents in the Office Web Viewer:

• [2]PowerPoint presentation

• [3]Excel spreadsheet

• [4]Word document

If your document is an Office document and is publicly accessible on the internet, then you are good to go. Office Web Viewer links are a great alternative to download links because you don’t need a special program to view your documents. 1. http://officewebviewer.com/ 2.

http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3a%2f%2fvideo.ch9.ms%2fbuild%2f2011%2fslides%

2fTOOL-532T_Sutter.pptx 3.

http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=http%3A%2F%2Flearn.bankofamerica.com%2Fcontent%2Fexcel%

2FWedding_Budget_Planner_Spreadsheet.xlsx 4. http://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view.aspx?src=newteach.pbworks.com%2Ff%2Fele%2Bnewsletter.docx

#328 Use Conditional Formatting to Find Duplicate Values (2013-04-19 06:00)

[1]Excel 2010’s conditional formatting feature is a super quick and easy way to find duplicate data in your spreadsheets. 351

[2] How It Works

1. Select a range of cells, table, or PivotTable report. 2. From the Home tab, in the Styles group, click the arrow next to Conditional Formatting, and then go toHighlight Cells Rules Duplicate Values...

[3]

1. Choose the formatting you’d like to apply to the duplicate values and click OK. 352

[4] 1. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/before-after.jpg 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/conditionalformatting.gif 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/dialogbox.gif

#329 Set PowerPoint Shape Defaults (2013-04-26 06:00) If you work on presentations for any amount of time, you’ve probably progressed beyond using many of the default settings in PowerPoint. If not, now is a good time to start thinking about it. After all, you’re slides will never stand out from the crowd if you’re using all the defaults like everyone else! For example, let’s say you like your shapes be formatted in a particular way with certain colors, alignment and even font settings. Since you are member of the Work Smarter Network of Getting Stuff Done, you know there’s a better way than to manually make these same formatting changes over and over right?!? All you need to do is create your text box or shape and format it the way you like. Then just rightclick your shape and choose ”Set as Default Shape”.

[1] Note: If you don’t see the Set as Default Shape option, make sure that you first selected the shape and then 353

right-clicked the shape border, not inside the shape. Bonus Tip: If you always want these new defaults available when you create a new presentation, [2]change the default theme that is used for new presentations. 1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/setasdefaultshape.gif 2. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint-help/redir/HA010204550.aspx?CTT=5&origin=HA010244963

7.5

May

#330 Web Browser Tricks Everyone Should Know (2013-05-03 06:00) Just by following along with this list and knowing about the [1]CTRL + F trick to find things, you are already ahead of 90 % of all computer users in the world. And since it seems like the ”one-percenters” have all the fun, here are a couple more that will put you ahead of 99 % of everyone else. 8-) I am very much a keyboard person and use these all the time. I think you’ll find them handy too. Scrolling Web Pages with your space bar Try this next time you’re r need to scroll down a webpage. Pressing the spacebar with jump you down one page at a time.

[2] Spacebar to page down Need to page back up? Just add in the Shift key.

[3] Shift+Spacebar to page up Adjust Web Page Text Size to Your Liking Have you ever wished you could make the text on web easier to read? You can! Just press CTRL + + (plus sign)to make things larger.

[4] If you want them smaller use CTRL + - (minus sign) 354

[5] [6]Come on over and visit the site to try it out. 1. http://miketips.wordpress.com/2011/10/07/248-finders-keepers-losers-weepers/ 2. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/spacebar-pagedown.png 3. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/shift-spacebar-pageup.png 4. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/biggertext-ctrlplus.png 5. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/smallertext-ctrlminus.png 6. http://miketips.wordpress.com/

#331 Insert or Delete Cells with AutoFill (2013-05-10 06:00) I’m a big fan of Excel’s AutoFill tool for quick and easy copying. This week I’d like to show you how AutoFill can also be used for quickly inserting cells. You can press the SHIFT key and drag the AutoFill handle to insert cells. You can drag up, down, left or right, to insert cells in any direction. It’s super quick and I like it better than using the ribbon. You can also use this trick to delete cells too. Just drag the AutoFill handle UP while holding down the SHIFT key. See It In Action

[1] 355

1. http://miketips.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/excel-fill-handle-insert-delete.gif

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BlogBook v0.4, EX 2ε & GNU/Linux. http://www.blogbooker.com LAT

Edited: May 16, 2013