DISTORTING FOR APPEARANCE Version 4.x, 95 Ordinarily when we discuss resizing inserted pictures (such as Clip Art) we tell you how to do it without distorting the picture. There are times, though, when you might want to distort a picture to enhance its appearance. For example, suppose you're making up a document (Word or PowerPoint) for a weight-loss program. Perhaps you'd like to show a before-and-after cartoon. To do something like this, you could import one of the Clip Art images of a cartoon person. There are several available. You may want to do this in PowerPoint rather than in Word, because PowerPoint offers more options for working with Clip Art. If you need the pictures in Word, you can import them later.Insert one of the pictures. If there are extraneous objects in the picture you want to use (such as a briefcase) select the object and choose Draw, Ungroup. Now click away from the drawing and then click the extraneous object. Move it away from the main drawing and press Delete. Now that you have a clean drawing, press Ctrl-A to select everything and then choose Draw, Group to put the object back together again. Now select the picture and choose Edit, Copy. Next, choose Edit, Paste. Position the two copies as you want. Now click the picture on the left and use the mouse to stretch it horizontally. Now that you have a genuinely overweight person, you can either leave the original version alone, or use the mouse to make that person even thinner. Since you may want to import the pictures into a Word document, press Ctrl-A to select both and then choose Draw, Group. From now on they'll stay together. You can click the picture and choose Edit, Copy to copy it to the Clipboard. Then you can move to Word and choose Edit, Paste to paste the picture into your Word document. COOLER CALLOUTS Version 4.x, 95 Some subscribers have asked about using callouts in text. Is there a way to make the primary text wrap around callout text? Yes, there is--well, sort of. What you can do is insert a frame (Insert, Frame) then draw a callout inside the frame. Before you insert the callout, place the frame where you want it to appear when finished (at least as close as possible). Now, if you don't see the Drawing toolbar, choose View, Toolbars and select Drawing. Once the toolbar is visible, click the callout button (it looks like one of the speech bubbles you see in a comic strip) and draw the callout inside the frame. Now you can right-click the frame and choose Format Frame. In the Frame dialog box, choose to have text wrap around the frame. When you're finished here, click OK. Now you can enter your callout text. If you need to change the placement of your callout, move the frame and then move the callout back inside it. A SCATTERING OF LOGOS If you have special logos that you use frequently in your Word documents, you can use AutoText to make inserting them quick and easy. To store a logo in AutoText, open a Word document and choose Insert, Picture, From File. Choose the file you want to use as a logo. Once the picture is in the Word document, size it. Now right-click the logo and choose Format Picture. Click the Wrapping tab and then click Tight and Both Sides. Click OK.Next, choose Insert, AutoText, New. Type in MyLogo and click OK. Now your new logo (and its formatting) is stored in AutoText. To insert the logo, place the cursor where you want to insert the logo. Choose Insert, AutoText, Normal, MyLogo, and the logo will appear in the text. Use the mouse to drag it into the correct position. OFFICE SPILLS THE BEANS Want to know all about your system? Open one of the Office 97 applications and choose Help, About *program name*. When the About ... dialog box opens, click System Info. Now you can select any of the items listed in the left pane of the System Info window to find out more than you're likely to ever want to know about that topic. PICTURES, PICTURES, EVERYWHERE You can put pictures into your headers and into the body of a document, so why not put them on the envelopes as well? The way to do this isn't as obvious as inserting pictures into headers and documents is, but that doesn't mean you can't do it. Suppose you'd like to print a company logo on all your envelopes. Here's how. Create a new Word document and enter your return address. Now click where you want the picture to appear and choose Insert, Picture, From File. Locate the picture you want to use and select it. Once the picture is in place in the Word document, resize it if necessary and then click it once to select it. Choose Insert, AutoText, New. Type in EnvelopeExtra1 and click OK. Now the envelope will include the new picture. A WORKSHEET IN EXCEL, A TABLE IN WORD There are several ways to get Excel worksheet data into a Word document. In all cases, you begin by selecting the cells you want to put into the Word document. So select the cells and then press Ctrl-C to copy your selection to the Clipboard. Now let's look at our first method. Switch to your Word document and choose Edit, Paste (or press Ctrl-V). This will paste the worksheet selection into Word as a table. Note that this method does not provide a link to the Excel document. Changes made in Excel will not appear in Word. To insert the worksheet selection as a linked file, copy the selection (Ctrl-C) and then switch to Word. Now choose Edit, Paste Special. When the Paste Special dialog box opens, select Formatted Text (RTF) and Paste as Link. Now click OK, and the worksheet selection will appear as a linked table in your Word document. You can also insert a linked table by copying the worksheet data (Ctrl-C) and then choosing Edit, Paste Special. This time select Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object and Paste as Link, and the data will appear as just numbers--no table. In both cases, the data is linked to the Excel worksheet, so any changes you make in Excel will also appear in the Word document. If you use Edit, Paste Special and choose Formatted Text (RTF) and Paste as Link, the data will appear in table form. You can select the table and then choose Table, AutoFormat to format the table to suit you. This is also the case when you simply copy the worksheet data and then switch to Word and press Ctrl-V. You can format the table as you wish. If you paste the data using Edit, Paste Special and choose Microsoft Excel Worksheet Object and Paste as Link, the data will not appear in table form. Therefore you can't apply table formatting. ONE AT A TIME You can change the background of all the slides in a slide show. Alternatively, you can change the background of just one slide (or as many as you like). Let's say you have a slide show that consists of 12 slides, and you'd like to change the background of two of them. Choose View, Slide Sorter. Now click the first slide you want to change. Hold down the Shift key and click the second slide. Choose Format, Custom Background. When the dialog box appears, click the arrow at the right side of the list box. When the list expands, select the background you want to use for the two slides. Now click Apply. Be careful with this feature. You can very easily change the background so drastically that the slide will give the audience a bit of a shock when it appears. If you decide to use different backgrounds during a slide show, make sure you make several practice presentations and ask for opinions on the background change. If you get even one negative comment, reconsider the background change. CREATING A SPECIAL DICTIONARY If you write a large number of documents that call for numerous technical terms, you'll find it handy to create a special dictionary for that purpose. To create a dictionary, open a new Word document and type the words you want to enter in a single column. Your entries should appear in a list like the one in this sample: RMS Voltage Ohm Ohm's Ampere Current RAM ROM EEPROM Disk Disc After you've added all the words you need at the moment (you can add more later), choose File, Save As and type in Special.dic. Now click the arrow at the right of the Save as Type list box to expand it. Select Text Only (*.txt) and then locate the folder c:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Proof and click Save. The location can vary, depending on the Windows version and the Office version you use, and on your own installation. You may find that you need to save to the folder named c:\windows\msapps\proof. When Word asks about saving a text file, tell it to go ahead. When you close the document (or close Word) you'll be asked about saving a nonstandard file again. Once again, tell Word to go ahead and save the text file. Now, back in Word, choose Tools, Options and click the Spelling tab. Click Custom Dictionaries. If your new dictionary appears in the list, select it and click OK. If it doesn't appear in the list, click Add. Your new dictionary should appear in this dialog box. Select it and click OK. Now locate it in the list and select it. Click OK to add the dictionary and close the dialog box. DOING IT THE GOVERNMENT WAY In a recent tip, we said that using all caps on a mailing label is a poor stylistic choice. This was our opinion, and one subscriber has pointed out that the U.S. Postal Service actually prefers addresses in all caps. They would also rather see you use a sans-serif font with no punctuation (you will need a dash in the Zip + 4 code). And, if you just bought a box of bright green envelopes that you expect to use with white ink, please refrain, the Postal Service much prefers black print on a white background. So, there you are--even if we don't like all caps, the Postal Service does. Since it's their ballpark, and we all want our mail to get delivered, we recommend playing the game their way. I CHANGED MY MIND--WHADDAYA GONNA DO, SUE ME? Should you wear the red dress, or the blue pantsuit? Should you stop at the donut shop on the way to work, or start a diet today? Should you remind that cop who pulled you over that you pay his salary, or spare him this and other kernels of wisdom you picked up in your high-school civics class? Yes, life is full of tough decisions, over which we tend to flip like a cheese omelet until the very last minute. Luckily for you, Word 97's designers understand this--and have provided a way to back out of any menu or button command at the last possible instant. To cancel--or not perform--a menu or button command even after you've pointed at it with the mouse, simply slide the pointer off the menu command or button. To cancel a menu or button command, even after you've pointed at it AND pressed the button: 1. KEEP HOLDING DOWN THE MOUSE BUTTON (if you release the mouse button, that constitutes a click, and the command is activated). 2. Slide the pointer off the menu command or button. YOUR KIND OF FILE VIEW When you choose File, Open, Word displays the files that you can open using Word. You have quite a bit to say about how those files appear. For example, if you'd like to see all the dates of creation and file sizes, you can click the Details button in the toolbar (it looks like a small page of text). You can also tell Word that you'd like to see a preview of the text in the selected file. To do this, click the Preview button (it looks like a bulleted list on white paper). With this selection in effect, any selected file will be displayed in the preview pane. If you'd like to see the properties of selected files, click the Properties button (just to the right of the Details button). SORTING IT OUT In the last tip, we showed you how to change the way the Open dialog box displays files. But what do you do if you want to change the way the dialog box sorts the files? Look at the bar above the file list (in Details view). You'll see Name, Size, Type, and Modified. To sort by name (the default), click Name. If you would rather sort by size, click Size. When you click an object, Word will sort in ascending order by the selected property. If you'd like to sort by the date, click Modified. Now your files will appear in order of the last date they were modified. TABLE IT Although PowerPoint doesn't offer a way to create tables, there's nothing keeping you from importing a table from Word or Excel. Look in the PowerPoint toolbar and you'll find a button with the Word W in its icon. Usually right next to the Word button, you'll see a button with the Excel X in its icon. These buttons are Insert Microsoft Word Table, and Insert Microsoft Excel Worksheet. Click the Insert Microsoft Word Table button. A menu of 20 squares (a five-by-four table) will open. Select from this menu to tell PowerPoint what kind of table you want to insert. Once the table is in place, you can deal with it just as you would in Word. To see how Excel works in PowerPoint, click the Insert Microsoft Excel Worksheet and then choose from the menu just as described for the Word table. JUST IN CASE If you want to select and then delete some text, Word will let you do the job easily. All you have to do is press the Delete key after you select the text you no longer need. If you'd like to play it safe, select the text and then hold down the Shift key while you press Delete. This sends the text to the Windows Clipboard. If you change your mind about the text, all you have to do is press Ctrl + V to paste the text back to its original position. Yes, we know you can press Ctrl + Z to get your text back. We're offering this as an additional method. There's usually more than one way to do almost anything in all the Microsoft Office programs. TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADERS Do you sometimes need to use leaders? You know, those little dots leading up to some text, like this: ......Text Leaders. Choose Format, Tabs. When the dialog box opens, enter the tab position you want to use (in inches). Now look under Leader. Select the radio button associated with the type of leader you want and then click Set. Now click OK to record your selection and close the dialog box. Now when you use the Tab key, the tab location you entered will display the leader. CUSTOMIZE NOW To select toolbars on the fly, locate a blank spot on any toolbar and right-click it. A pop-up menu will, well, pop up. From the menu, you can choose which toolbar you'd like to view, or which toolbar you'd like to stop viewing. You can also get to the Customize Toolbars command using the same technique. Right-click a blank spot on a toolbar and choose Customize. Note: This works in any Microsoft Office 4.x (or 95) program.