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Below you will see some previous tips that we have sent out. Would you like to join our mailing list and receive these? Click on the link to the left to sign up today! Don't worry, we don't sell your email address, you will just receive emails periodically from us!
May 21, 2010
Editing a Cell in ExcelIf you just type when you're on that cell, you will replace the old contents with whatever you typed. That's usually what I do with numbers. But if you want to add onto something existing or fix a typo, then first click in the formula bar where you want to type. It puts you in "Edit Mode". Then you can add onto whatever is already there!
A couple of other ways to jump into Edit Mode, besides clicking in the formula bar are listed below.
- Double click on a cell. That puts you
into Edit Mode.
- Press the F2 key while you're on a cell. This also puts you into Edit Mode and your cursor will be at the end of the entry.
April 6, 2010
Create a Picture (JPG) from PowerPoint
Here's a tip I use all the time.
Do you have something in PowerPoint that you would like to treat as
a picture? What if you designed a logo or typed some text overtop of
a picture? Maybe you'd like to email it to someone as a picture or
insert it into a document or webpage or newsletter (!).
When you right click on something in PowerPoint, you will see an
option called Save as Picture. This allows you to save it in a
number of different formats and essentially separate it from the
PowerPoint presentation! That is what I did with the Recycling logo
in my last newsletter. It is incuded in Microsoft Office's clipart
gallery. I inserted it into PowerPoint, then saved it as a picture!
Now's it's a JPG and I can do what I want with it!
March 2010 - Create Something Fun with Microsoft Office!
Lately I have been showing my students some of the neat templates that come with the Microsoft Office programs. Many folks don't realize that there are so many templates available, all at no cost!If you have a moment, check them out. There might be something there that can save you a whack of time. They are very attractive and look professional.
- Go into Microsoft Word.
- Click on the File menu. If you have no File menu, you probably have Word 2007 so click on the Office button in the top left corner of your screen.
- Click on New.
- In Word 2007, there are categories to pick from. In older versions, choose either "On My Computer" or "Templates on Office Online".
- You will see some templates to choose from. Pick one and it will download it to your computer.
- You can then modify it to meet your needs.
- Awards Certificates
- Party Invitations
- Flyers
- Greeting Cards
- Calendars
- Business Cards
- Business Plans
- Fax Cover Sheets
- Letters
- Resumes
- Newsletters
- Reports
- Time Sheets
- Proposals
- Contracts
- Math Flash Cards
- Coloring Sheets
- Recipe Cards
- And Many More!
And when you're done with that, go into Microsoft Excel and do
it all over again! You will see other types of templates that
will help you create: - Invoices
- Budgets
- Receipts
- Purchase Orders
- Forms
- Schedules
- Inventory Lists
- Expense Reports
- Calendars (for ANY year)
- Loan/Mortgage Calculator
- Planners (Exercise, Meals, Events, etc)
- Logs (Mileage, Medication, Petty Cash, etc)
- And Many More!
February 15, 2010 - Ten Things you can do with the Internet!
What useful interesting information do you get from the Internet?
I found this website that actually updates a Top Ten list every
week of interesting websites. Check out
http://www.learnthenet.com/english/features/tenthings.htm
- Discover how sarcastic you are.
- Explore the night sky.
- Smile at funny animal photos.
- Learn to interact with maps.
- Watch an Olympic skater race a polar bear.
- Take flight with stunning images of birds.
- Master the basics of business management.
- Have some fun with a virtual fashion model.
- Get tips to save money during recessionary times.
- Subscribe to the Metropolitan Museum's Artwork of the Day.
Have fun with that! Do you have an interesting website you'd like to share? Email me and let me know and I'll share it in this newsletter!
January 4, 2010 - Projector troubles!
I had a question today from a friend who was perplexed because her old projector and laptop worked seamlessly together and now the projector won't work with her new laptop. Surely she shouldn't have to get a new projector as well?br />Laptops and projectors have typically had a pretty good relationship but there are some tricks to try if they are not playing well together!
A few things to try, from easiest to hardest:
- Check to make sure that the cover is not on the projector's
lens! Don't laugh, it happens to the best of us!
- Make sure everything is plugged in correctly and that the
connections are tight. Sometimes a cable can fit into more than
one place but it doesn't necessarily go there.
- Make sure that the cable is good. In my friend's case, the
old laptop worked with the same cable, so that was not the case.
- Power everything down, but leave it all plugged in. Then,
turn the projector on first. Next turn the computer on. If you
see nothing on the screen, try the key combination on the laptop
that switches the display from your screen onto the projector.
This is different on every laptop, for example, my Toshiba
laptop is Fn F5 (function key and F5). Be patient, sometimes it
takes a few seconds to switch it.
- If the above step doesn't work, repeat step 4, but turn the
computer on first. Sometimes this equipment is very picky as to
which device is turned on first!
- Try changing the "source" of the input. It's like on your
home TV when you have to tell it to switch between being a TV
and displaying your DVD. This option is usually found on your
remote. Newer projectors will automatically detect it, but
sometimes you have to help it out a bit. Again, remember to be
patient, as it often takes a few seconds to find each source.
- If none of the above steps work, I would suggest
troubleshooting each component. For example, try the laptop with
a different projector. You've probably already tested the cable.
Try a different laptop with the projector .
- If it still doesn't work, there are some settings in the
control panel that you can try. Right click on your desktop and
choose either Properties or Personalize. Then click on Settings
or Display Settings. Here there are some settings that you can
experiment having to do with multiple monitors, etc. Hopefully
you won't have to get to this step as it's a bit confusing.
- Failing that, I would "google" the projector and laptop
together and see if anything comes up (ie. go to google.com and
type: sony projector and toshiba laptop). You probably already
are aware of how resourceful the internet can be!
GOOD LUCK!!
December 3, 2009 - Christmas Links
Elf Yourself! - http://www.elfyourself.com/
The North Pole - http://www.northpole.com/clubhouse/games/
Christmas Baking - http://www.joyofbaking.com/ChristmasBaking.html
Santa Website - http://www.santa.net/
Christmas Songs with Lyrics - http://xmasfun.com/lyrics.asp
Crafts - http://www.christmascrafts.com/
November 12, 2009 - A Little Browser Trick
Have you ever clicked on a web page only to discover that there is
no menu bar? What if you want to print the page or look at your
bookmarks?
Next time this happens, hit either the ALT key or F10 and your menu
should show up so you can function!
October 5, 2009 - Filling a Range Quickly in Excel
There are lots of ways that Excel has provided for us to fill in
cells quickly. Today we'll look at the CTRL ENTER feature.
Try selecting a bunch of cells, then type something into the first
cell (while you still have the others selected). Then hold CTRL down
and press ENTER. You will see all the cells that you had selected
now contain that same value!
September 2, 2009 - A Very Cool Website - Wolframa Alpha
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
I came across this amazing website this summer and have been
trying to make some time to go back and play with it! It is a
"computational knowledge engine". It's like "googling the net" to
get more information about something, but instead of listing a bunch
of websites, it organizes it's finds and presents it to you in an
interesting way!
If you go to the site, you may be able to figure out what kinds of
things to type in. But to fully understand the functionality, you
may want to watch the tutorial.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/screencast/introducingwolframalpha.html
It is really unbelievable how organizes knowledge! Try it out!
June 15, 2009 - The Power of Dragging
In Outlook, you can create new items by dragging them to a different folder. For example, let's say that I receive a detailed email from a client who has booked some training for a future date. Once I reply to the client confirming the date, I can simply drag the email from my Inbox to my calendar and it will come up with a "New Appointment" box. The only thing I have to do is enter the date and time and perhaps fix up the subject line if it isn't meaningful to me. Now the appointment will not only be on my calendar, but it will have all the details with it for easy reference later!
It is helpful to have the Folder List visible for this feature. You will find that in the Go menu.
Things you can create by dragging:
- Drag one or more contacts to your Inbox to create an email message addressed to all selected contacts.
- Drag an email to your Calendar, Task or Notes folder to create an appointment, task or note.
- Drag any item to the Deleted Items folder to delete it.
- Create a new folder and then drag any item to it to file it for future reference (ie. email message from your Inbox or Sent Items).
- Drag an item out of your Deleted Items folder to another folder to restore it and prevent it from being permanently deleted.
- Drag one or more contacts to your Calendar and it will create a Meeting Request to those contacts.
June 1, 2009 - Create an Autocorrect Entry in Word
Do you have some words or short phrases you use all the time? Maybe
a word you seem to always misspell? What about a symbol you
frequently insert?
You can create an autocorrect entry to make it easier to type it in.
All you have to do is think of an abbreviation for it and create it.
Make sure the abbreviation is not a real word.
An example might be to type ea and you get Edmonton, Alberta or type
in h and get the heart symbol.
- Type your word or insert your symbol into your document.
- Select the word or symbol.
- Go into the Tools menu and choose Autocorrect Options (Word
2003).
If you use Word 2007, go into the Office button and choose Word Options. Then click on the Proofing Category, then Autocorrect Options.
- You will see your word or symbol on the right. Type the abbreviation into the left side of the screen and click on Add. Close out of that screen.
- To bring it up into your document, just type the abbreviation and press Enter or space bar. Your word or symbol will appear!
- ALT TAB - Switches between the programs you currently have running
- CTRL ESC - Brings up the Task Bar listing your current programs, including the START menu
- ALT F4 - Closes the Active Window. Will ask if you want to save first, if applicable
- ALT SPACEBAR - Brings up the Control menu (the menu on the top left
corner of a window). Handy if you've lost the blue title bar and can't do
much with it.
- PRTSCR (Print Screen) - Copies the entire screen to the clipboard so you can paste it into another program
- ALT PRTSCR - Same as above, but copies only the active window (great for screen prints in documentation)
- CTRL ALT DELETE - brings up a screen that allows you to go to the Task Manager to see the status of running applications. Great if your computer is acting up and you can see what's going on!
- Select the cells.
- Click in the name box and type a name for the range.
- You could use it to select the range quickly.
- Click on the arrow and you will see all the named ranges in the spreadsheet. Simply click on one of them and you will see that the range of cells that name refers to are automatically selected for you to perform a command on, such as copy, print, clear, format, etc.
- You could use it in a formula:
- When addressing an email:
- Type the first couple of characters of the recipient's name
- Press CTRL K, to look up the name in the contacts. This works for first names as well as last names.
- CTRL comma - goes to next message
- CTRL period - goes to previous message
- New email message - Ctrl + Shift + M
- New appointment item - Ctrl + Shift + A
- New meeting request - Ctrl + Shift+Q
- New contact - Ctrl + Shift + C
- New task - Ctrl + Shift + K
- New note - Ctrl + Shift + N
- Delete - CTRL D
- Forward - CTRL F
- Reply - CTRL R
- Reply to All - CTRL SHIFT R
- F9
May 25, 2009- A Few Odd Shortcut Keys in Microsoft Word
<Ctrl Enter> Hard Page Break (force a page to break where ever you want it to!)
<Shift Enter> New Line (very handy in a bulleted or numbered list if you want a new line but not one with a bullet or number!)
<Ctrl Shift Space> Hard Space (use this instead of hitting the regular space bar when you type dates, names or postal codes that you want to keep on one line and when you don't want them to split and wrap to the next line)
<Ctrl Shift Hyphen> Hard Hyphen (use instead of a regular hyphen - perfect for keeping hyphenated phrases such as names or phone numbers on the same line)
May 18, 2009 - A Few Fun Websites I've come across!
Just for fun this week, I thought I would list a few interesting websites. They
are free but some require sign up so always be aware that they could be
collecting your email address for spam purposes. You may want to create a
hotmail account for times like this, so you don't sabotage
your main email address!
http://www.letsimondecide.com
This one will help you make a decision about something. Sounds corny? If you're
curious, check out.
https://reserve.albertaparks.ca
The Alberta Government has come out with a new campground online reservation
system! You can even get pictures and a virtual tour of a specific campsite!
Then check out if there's a fire ban at
http://www.albertafirebans.ca.
I'm sure other provinces have them too, just google it!
http://www.evite.com
Having an event where you want to send invites and track RSVPs? This site
is full of advertising but deep down it is wonderful for tracking your guest
list! It even tells you if people have opened the email invitation so you know
if they are aware of the event!
http://www.creativestable.com/blog/facebook-smileys
If you use Facebook, enhance the already-amazing experience by adding
cute smilies!
These are just a few of dozens I have experienced. If you have any fun websites
you would like to share, please email me at
jswensrude@shaw.ca!
May 11, 2009 - Get a quick list of alternative words
Ever been composing a document or email and you just can't find the right word
to use to get your point across? Next time that happens, type a similar word
into Microsoft Word and then right click on it and choose Synonyms. This will
bring up some choices for you! It's picky though, and may not list any
suggestions if you are using a form of the word (ie. use "quick" instead of
"quickly".
You may notice an option for Thesaurus as well, and that screen will also help
you out. It has plenty more options, check it out!
May 4, 2009 - Make a vertical text selection in Microsoft Word
Here's a trick I use often, especially if I need to clean up a document with
excessive tabs or spaces. Most of the time, we select text horizontally-a word,
a series of words, a paragraph--from left to right or vice versa. But
occasionally, the selection has to be vertical. For instance, suppose you wanted
to delete the leading characters.
To make a vertical selection, hold down [Alt] as you drag down through the text
you want to highlight. The screen print below shows the column of unwanted
characters selected using this technique. Hit [Delete] and they're gone!
Although we selected text at the beginning of the lines in this example, you can
make vertical selections anywhere on the page.
April 24, 2009 - Adding buttons to your Quick Access Toolbar
Have you noticed commands have been completed reorganized in the new version of
Microsoft Office? Well you might have found your favorites by now, but here's
something you can do to make all your commonly used buttons more accessible.
Your quick access toolbar is located at the top left corner of your Microsoft
Office 2007 program window. It appears the entire time you are in the program,
never being hidden which makes it a great container for your favorite buttons.
If you click on the pointer arrow to the right of the bar, you will see some
popular buttons. Simply click on one to add it to your toolbar.
Click on More Commands to see even more to pick from. As well you can choose to
show the toolbar below the ribbon.
April 17, 2009 - Saving all your open documents with one command in Word 2003 or earlier
Say you've got three documents open and you've made changes to them all. To save
them all, just press the [Shift] key and click on the File menu. Word will add
the Save All command to the menu, above the Save As command. Choose Save All and
Word will prompt you to save each document that has any unsaved changes. This is
more efficient than having to navigate to each document individually and click
Save.
Notice something else? By holding the SHIFT key while you click on the File
Menu, you also get the Close All option, which is quite useful as well.
April 10, 2009 - Windows Keyboard Shortcuts
April 3, 2009 - Excel Naming Ranges
There is a handy feature in Excel if you frequently refer to the same range of cells. By naming the range of cells, you never have to type the addresses of the cells (ie. A2:A434) ever again, just the name (ie. income.
That's all there is to naming it! Now how can I use it?
While you are typing a formula or function, type the name of the range instead of the names of the cells. If you don't remember what you named it, just hit the F3 key and it will bring up all the names in the workbook so you can pick it!
March 15, 2009 - In Word, try these paragraph formatting keys out:
Handy Keys for Aligning Text:
CTRL E - centers the paragraph
CTRL R - right aligns
CTRL L - left aligns
CTRL J - full justifies Indenting Keys:
CTRL M - Indents the paragraph
CTRL SHIFT M - decreases the indent
CTRL T - increases hanging indent
CTRL SHIFT T - decreases hanging indent
CTRL Q - Resets paragraph formatting
March 5 - In Outlook: The Check Names Feature
March 1, 2009 - Try these keystrokes out in PowerPoint!
To Run the slide show:
F5 - Runs the slide show from the first slide
SHIFT F5 - Runs the slide show from the current slide you're editing
To go forwards and backwards between slides:
up and down arrow keys
left and right arrow keys
page up and page down
N and P
enter
SPACE and BACKSPACE
left mouse click
Once you're in the slide show:
a number and ENTER - takes you to that slide
(ie 5 ENTER takes you to slide 5)
CTRL P - turns your arrow into a pen so you can draw on your slide
E - removes the above drawings.
Note, this not necessary to do before moving on
B or W - makes the screen completely black or white
ESC - cancels the slide show and returns you to the editing screen
F1 - displays a list of all keyboard shortcuts
Watch the hilarious comedy act on How Not to Use PowerPoint on my website
http://knowitsooner.com/training/training.htm
February 23, 2009 - Internet (Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox)
Hit the BACKSPACE key instead of hitting the BACK button on your browser to go to the previous web page. It's a little bit faster!
CTRL T brings up a new tab window within your browser so you can keep the current window.
ALT D jumps you up to the address bar.
F5 refreshes the current web page.
CTRL D adds the current page as a bookmark/favorite.