| Office | |
| Any Version | |
| DISTORTING FOR APPEARANCE Version 4.x, 95 | |
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.
DEALING WITH COMPUTER HANG-UPS97 SORTING FILES IN THE MICROSOFT OFFICE OPEN DIALOG BOX This question is from reader Cindy S.: "I now have quite a few files in almost all of my Word folders. I would like to be able to sort the files so the most recent one is at the top. Is there some way to get Word to sort its data files by date and time?" Yes, you can sort the files by date and time. To do this, choose File, Open. When the Open dialog box appears, click the Commands And Settings button (it looks like a window with a check mark in the foreground). When the menu opens, choose Sorting to open the Sort By dialog box. Now click the arrow at the right side of the Sort File By list box and select Modified from the list. Select the radio button labeled Descending and click OK to close the dialog box and sort your files. Now you should see the last modified file at the top of the list. The new setting remains in effect unless you elect to change it. This method works in all the Microsoft Office 97 programs. MEMORY PROBLEMS USING MICROSOFT OFFICE 97 Here is a tip from reader Jerry S.: "I recently ran into a problem I thought others might like to know about. I used Copy And Paste to insert a very large number of pictures into a slide. Then I needed to open Word for Windows. Instead of getting Word, I got a dialog box telling me that my system was low on memory. The dialog box suggested I shut down some programs and try again. So I closed PowerPoint--only to find that I still couldn't run Word. After I restated the computer, I could run Word again. "Have you ever experienced this problem?" Yes, we have. What apparently happens is that huge operations, such as the one you describe, take up the memory. When you stop the program, Windows 95/98 doesn't release all the memory, so you get the low-memory dialog box. When you restart the computer, the memory starts from scratch and all of it is available for your programs. Thanks for the tip, Jerry. MOVING BETWEEN WINDOWS IN MICROSOFT OFFICE PROGRAMS Reader Paul B. submitted this Microsoft Office tip: "You recently published a tip stating that you can press Ctrl-F6 to move to the next window in all Microsoft Office applications. There is another way to go between windows in Excel and other applications besides Word and Access. You can use Ctrl-Tab to step forward through loaded windows. Press Shift-Ctrl-Tab to move backward through the windows." Thanks for the tip, Paul. GO THERE NOW You can enter a hyperlink of any kind into a Microsoft Office 97 document. And it doesn't have to be a link to a Web site. Let's suppose that you'd like to use a hyperlink in a Word document to open a specific Excel file. Choose Insert, Hyperlink. When the Insert Hyperlink dialog box opens, enter the Excel file name. Or click Browse and locate the file. Now click OK to close the dialog box and save your addition. When you click the hyperlink, the Excel document will open. You can also use the hyperlink to open a specific sheet in the Excel workbook. To do this, right-click your new hyperlink and choose Hyperlink, Edit Hyperlink. Click the text box labeled "Named location in file (Optional)" and enter Page_2 Now click OK. At this point, you need to tell Excel what you're doing. So start Excel and open your test worksheet. Navigate to Sheet 2 and choose Insert, Name, Define. When the Define Name dialog box opens, type Page_2 into the Names in Workbook text entry box. Click Add to add the new name and then click OK to record the change and close the dialog box. Now exit Excel and go back to your Word document. Click the hyperlink, and Excel will open displaying Sheet 2. SIDEBARS AND PULL QUOTES When you produce a newsletter using Word, you might want to make it look more professional by making use of sidebars and pull quotes. A sidebar is a great way to expand on a particular topic in your main article. A pull quote is a good way to draw attention to an important point in your article and grab the reader's interest. The sidebar can appear anywhere in the article, but a pull quote is usually on the page where the quote appears and usually on the first page of an article. To produce either a sidebar or a pull quote, choose Insert, Text Box. Word will switch to Page Layout view. Now draw the box using the mouse. Don't worry about size and position right now; you can change both later. Now enter the desired text into the text box. Click the text box to select it and then choose Format, Text Box. When the Format Text Box dialog box opens, click the Wrapping tab. Select the type of wrapping you'd like to use and click OK. Now you can use the mouse to drag the box into position and to set the final size. SPECIAL EFFECTS In the last tip, we discussed using text boxes for sidebars and pull quotes (choose Insert, Text Box). This time, let's look at how to produce some special effects using the text box feature. Let's say you want to place a picture in your document. You'd like to create the effect of a portion of a pull quote over part of the picture. The only problem is that by default the text box will hide the picture. Go ahead and create a text box and move it over a portion of your picture. Now choose Format, Text Box and click the Colors and Lines tab. Select the check box labeled Semitransparent and then click OK. Now the picture will show through the text box, but that portion of the picture under the text box will appear lighter than the uncovered portion. MAKE IT FLOAT A number of Word users have found it difficult to place a picture or other graphic element exactly where they want it in relation to their text. If you make a floating object, you can place it anywhere--even over the text if you wish. To do this choose Insert, Picture, Clip Art. Size the picture and then right-click it and choose Format Picture. Now click the Wrapping tab and select None. Click OK and you'll find that you can move the picture anywhere--even over existing text. MAKING LABELS THE AVERY WAY Printing labels on a laser printer can be a real pain. Fortunately, Office 97 includes a wizard that makes it easy to line up printing on Avery labels--the largest and most popular brand. So if you need to make labels, the way to do it is to use templates that match standard Avery blank labels. Here's how: Put the Microsoft Office 97 installation disk into the CD-ROM drive. Open the disk using Windows Explorer, locate the Valupak folder and double-click it. Now look at the subfolders. You'll see one named Averywiz. Click it and in Explorer's right pane you'll see the files in the Averywiz folder. Double-click Setup to set up the Avery Wizard. After the setup is complete, you can test your new addition. Choose Tools, Avery Wizard. When the wizard opens, follow the directions and choose the label you want to print. Note that you can use the wizard to make all the labels on the page the same, or you can make them all different. SELECTIVE SELECTION Although we've covered this topic before, we receive a significant amount of e-mail on the subject, so perhaps it's time to do it again for the benefit of new subscribers. The question is: How do you select a block of text in a Word document? That is, select a block of text without regard to sentences, paragraphs, or page breaks. The answer is, you hold down the Alt key while using the mouse to select a portion of the document. E-MAIL AND MORE E-MAIL Do you have more than one e-mail address? If so, Microsoft Office 97 includes a great e-mail program called Outlook. If you thought Outlook was only a calendar, you need to look again. Let's look at how to set up some e-mail addresses in Outlook. Open Outlook and choose Tools, Services. When the Services dialog box opens, click Add. This will open the Add Service to Profile dialog box. Select Internet Mail and click OK. This opens the Mail Account Properties dialog box. Fill in your personal information under the General, Servers, and Connection tab. When finished. Click OK. To add another account, repeat the procedure just described. With multiple accounts, choose Tools, Check For New Mail On. When the dialog box opens, select each account that you want to use to check for mail. Click OK to check for the mail. If you choose Tools, Check For New Mail, Outlook will check for mail on all accounts. IT'S ALL SYMBOLIC We've covered how Word handles special symbols before, but we keep getting e-mail about the topic. Here's a quick run-through: If you type: -->, Word will produce a right arrow. Typing: ==> will produce a bold right arrow. Typing: :) makes a happy face. So does: :-) Of course, you can make unhappy faces as well. Type: :-( or :( And then there's the indifferent face (neither happy nor sad). Type: :-| or :| Typing: (C) gives you the copyright symbol. Need left arrows? Type: or Trademark? (TM) does it. Subscriber J.T. says he can't get the symbols to work right in Word 97. This is all part of AutoCorrect. Here's how to turn on the feature. Choose Tools, AutoCorrect. When the dialog box opens, click the AutoCorrect tab (if necessary) and select the check box labeled Replace Text As You Type. Click OK to save your changes and close the dialog box. HELP IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE Office Assistant, which comes with Microsoft Office 97, is always there for you. This is quite a help if you're new to Office. Using the default settings, the Assistant will appear when it thinks you might need some help. For example, say you're using Word and you type in a sentence followed by pressing Enter twice. This turns your sentence into a heading. When this happens, the Office Assistant opens to inform you of what happened. It will give you a choice of whether to change the sentence back to the standard style or retain the heading style. The Assistant will respond to numerous operations, offering you help on each of them. By the way, you might not like the Office Assistant because of the space it takes up on-screen, but if you start typing near the Assistant, it will move out of the way. DRAW OR INSERT We recently published a tip suggesting that you use Draw to create those more difficult tables. For example, if you want a table with two rows and four columns on top but with six columns on the bottom, you could use Draw to make the table. However, as subscriber, J.L. points out, you can also do it easily with Word's Insert Table command. Try this: Choose Table, Insert Table. When the dialog box opens, tell it to produce a table with two rows and six columns. Click OK to insert the table. Now select the top row and choose Table, Split Cells. When the dialog box opens, make sure the check box labeled Merge Cells Before Split is selected. Now enter four columns for the top row and click OK. This converts the top row from six cells to four. PULLING IT TOGETHER WITH CONCATENATION When you develop those truly cool worksheets, you don't want to miss anything. So, let's see what concatenation can do to help you make that cool worksheet even more cool. If you have information in several cells that you want to pull together in one cell, try this. Let's say that cell A1 contains the word Sally and cell A2 contains Sally's sales total for the month. You can go to cell C3 and type =CONCATENATE("Salesperson ",$A$1, " is this month's leader with $", $A$2, " in sales.") When you press Enter, Excel will display the line Salesperson Sally is this month's leader with $23456.96 in sales. DELETE IT NOW There are times when you choose File, Open in a Microsoft Office document and just happen to notice a file that needs deleting. You don't have to wait until you finish what you're doing and then use Windows Explorer to delete the file. All you have to do is select the file in the Open window and then press Delete. This will delete the file, and you can go ahead with your work. FUNCTIONAL DOLLARS Here's an Excel Dollar tip for you--you can have more than one Dollar format in an Excel worksheet. Try this: Type into cell A1 4,234.22 Now click cell A1 and choose Format, Cells. When the Format dialog box opens, click the Number tab (if necessary). Now click Currency and then click OK to accept the default and close the dialog box. The number will appear right-justified in the cell--just what you'd expect. Now type into cell A2 =DOLLAR(4234.22) and press Enter. This time, the number will be in Dollar format, but it will be left-justified in the cell. The reason for this apparent anomaly is that the DOLLAR Function converts the number to text format. This doesn't mean that the number formatted by the DOLLAR function won't work in calculations. To confirm its proper operation, click cell A3 and type =A1+A2 and press Enter. Cell A3 will display $8,468.44, which demonstrates that both numbers were included in the SUM. COMMA COMA When you enter commas into a cell's contents, make sure you get them in the right place. If you don't, you'll confuse Excel. Let's say that you've just entered 4567.89 You want to place a comma after the 4, to make the number read 4,567.98 If you should inadvertently enter the comma after the 5, you'll get 45,67.89 and Excel will assume you want it to be a text entry. If you enter a number with commas, and you don't see the number move over to the right side of the cell, check those commas. PUT IT ALL IN If you need to type a lot of text into a single cell, you can control the width of your text by typing Alt-Enter to insert a carriage return. When you need to use a Tab, press Ctrl-Alt-Tab. You'll get a cell similar to the one shown here. When you type into a cell, you can press Alt-Enter to add a Carriage Return. MAKING A BLANK When you choose to use bullets or numbering in a Word document, a new number or bullet appears when you press Enter. But what if you want to insert a blank line between one bulleted line and another? The first reaction is to simply press Enter to stop the numbering. This is unnecessary--all you have to do is press Shift + Enter. This inserts the blank. Now, to get to the next bulleted line, press Enter. This procedure produces the effect shown here: 1. A 2. B 3. C 4. D 5. E 6. F 7. G 8. H 9. I WAYS TO GET PASTED Word offers a number of ways to paste data from the clipboard to an open document. There's the usual way--choose Edit, Paste. Or use its keyboard shortcuts: Alt, E, P or Ctrl-V. Here's another method that you may not know about: You can press Shift-Ins to paste that clipboard data. SELECTIVE SELECTION Although we've covered this topic before, we have received a significant amount of e-mail on the subject, so perhaps it's time to do it again for the benefit of new subscribers. The question is, how do you select a block of text from a document? That is, select a block of text without regard to sentences, paragraphs, or page breaks. The answer is, you hold down the Alt key while using the mouse to select a portion of the document. ABSOLUTE POWER There are times when you don't want a number to display as negative, even if the calculation produces a negative. For example, let's suppose that you want to use Excel to calculate the number of days between two dates. You can enter into cell A1 1/1/98 Now, if you enter the current date into A2, you can calculate the number of days since January 1. So, you type into Cell A3 =A1-A2 This will produce a negative number. So, let's take the absolute value. Type into cell A3 =abs(A1-A2) and Excel will display a positive number. Note: Yes, we know that you can subtract A1 from A2 and get a positive number. It's only an example. MAKE A BOLD MOVE Making text bold (or underlining it, or turning it into italics) isn't a problem in Word for Windows. To make all following text appear in bold, press Ctrl-B and start typing. For underlined text, press Ctrl-U. And, to set the text to italics, press Ctrl-I. If you need to change existing text, select it and then choose the appropriate command to change its formatting. NEED A MUG SHOT? If you have pictures of some of the people among your Outlook Contacts, you can add them. It's a great feature, especially for those of you who have short-term memory problems. Here's how you do it: First, open the picture in Microsoft Photo Editor or Paintbrush. Select the portion of the picture that you'd like to place into Outlook and copy it. Next, run Outlook. Select Contacts and open the contact you want to modify. Then click the General tab and click in the Notes entry (near the bottom of the Outlook window). Choose Edit, Paste and, if you want, use the mouse to size the picture. PASSING NOTES The ability to add comments to Excel worksheets is especially useful when several people review a single worksheet. For example, if you create a worksheet and then need to send it to Sue, you can click your Total cell and choose Insert, Comment. When the Comment dialog box opens, type in your message to Sue and save the worksheet. You'll notice that a small red triangle will appear in the upper-right corner of the cell that contains the comment. When Sue opens the worksheet, she will see the comment indicator. She can read the comment by simply moving the mouse cursor over the marked cell. To enter a response to your comment, she can right-click the cell and select Edit Comment. When Sue passes the file along to Harvey, he'll see the marker and move the cursor over the cell. Now he can read both comments and add one of his own if he chooses. DON'T LIKE THAT NAME? If there's a menu item that you think could be better described by some word or words other than those chosen by Microsoft, don't complain--do something about it. Office tries hard to let you do whatever you want. Let's say you'd like to change Edit, Clear to Edit, Delete. Choose View, Toolbars, Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Commands tab. Now choose Edit, Clear and then click Modify Selection in the Customize dialog box. To change the selection, type into Name &Delete and press Enter to enter your change. Click Close to close the dialog box. The new command, Delete, will now appear in the Edit menu. The reason for the "&" sign before the D is to assign the letter D to a keyboardshortcut. This way, you can choose Edit, Delete or press Alt-E-D. When you make changes such as this, make sure that a key assignment doesn't already exist for the letter you have in mind. SHRINKING THE ASSISTANT If you use Office Assistant, you might like to make it just a bit smaller than the default size. All you have to do is click Help to activate the Assistant and then use the mouse to drag it to a smaller size. Even with the smaller size, you may not want the Office Assistant to open all the time. If you'd like to seek some help without the Assistant's input, choose Help, Contents and Index. Here's another way to make the Assistant less obtrusive. By default, the Assistant makes noises when it appears and disappears. At first, you might think this is cute. But, when you get sick of the noises, click the Assistant Options button. When the Office Assistant dialog box opens, click the Options tab. Now locate and deselect the check box labeled Make sounds. Now click OK to save your selection and close the dialog box. You can also move the Assistant up to the top of the screen in the toolbar area. If you close the Assistant in this position, it will appear there again the next time it opens. BETTING FAVORITES Want to get to that commonly used folder or file very quickly? Here's a trick that works in all Office 97 programs. Choose File, Open. Now navigate to a folder that you'd like to access quickly in the future. Click the Add to Favorites icon (it's the one with the plus sign in its upper-right corner). Note that you can add folders and individual files. To quickly open a folder that you've added, Choose File, Open and then click Look in Favorites (it's the button with a star in the center of the folder icon). Your favorite selections will appear in the dialog box. FAST OR SAFE When it comes to saving Word documents, you can choose between fast and safe. If you want to be safe, choose Tools, Options. Click the Save tab and then select the check box labeled Always Create Backup Copy. Click OK to save your choice and close the Options dialog box. If you'd like to use fast saves, choose Tools, Options, click Save and select the Allow Fast Saves check box. You'll notice that this automatically turns off Always Create Backup Copy. You have to choose between the two. After you make up your mind, click OK to get back to work. SETTING FORMAT THE RIGHT WAY If you want to quickly set the format of a single cell in Excel, select the cell and then right-click it. When the pop-up menu opens, select Format Cells. This opens the Format Cells dialog box. Once in the dialog box, you can click the Number tab to set up the cell's format. While you're at it, you can also set Alignment, Font, Border, Patterns, or Protection. Make your selections and click OK to record your choices and close the dialog box. GOT TIME FOR TIME? If you want to insert the date and time into an Excel worksheet, you can click a cell and enter the date. To insert the current date into a cell, you can type =TODAY() and press Enter. If you're in too much of a hurry for all that typing, try pressing Ctrl-; (semicolon) to insert the time, and Ctrl-: (colon) to insert the date. The inserted information will display using the cell's current format. WHAT'S IN A NAME? We've said in the past that you can name those Excel sheets anything that suits you. Well, you can--but there is a caveat or two. Let's assume that you've named one of your sheets something along the lines of "My 1997 Sales Data." Will this work? You bet. The only thing is that you have to be careful when you make a reference to the newly named sheet. Suppose you have data in cell A1 on the worksheet named "My 1997 Sales Data." You'd like to place this data into cell A1 of Sheet1. You need to enclose the new sheet name in single quotes. For example, 'My 1997 Sales Data'!A1 will work. If you omit the single quotes, it won't work. JUST IN CASE Just in case you'd like to change the case of a sentence quickly, try this: Select the sentence and press Shift-F3. The first time you press Shift-F3, the sentence turns to all caps. The next time you press the combination, the sentence turns to all lowercase. When you press Shift-F3 once more, the sentence will display standard capitalization (begins with a cap--all others lowercase). I WANT IT HERE Several subscribers have asked basically the same question: Can I make Office recognize something other than My Documents as the default folder, or can I delete the default folder? The answer is yes. Let's look at changing the default and then deleting the folder. Although you can edit the Registry and get rid of all traces of My Documents--we don't recommend this approach. You'd have to modify quite a few keys. So let's not delete that folder. The easiest and safest way to change the default folder is to do it in each of the Office programs. In Word, choose Tools, Options and click the File Locations tab. Select Documents and click Modify. Now choose a new folder and click OK to record your change. Click OK again to close the Options dialog box. In Excel, choose Tools, Options and click the General tab. In the Default File Location entry box, type your new folder and its path. In PowerPoint, choose Tools, Options and click the Advanced tab. Type the new folder and path into the Default File Location box and click OK. In Access, choose Tools, Options and click the General tab. Type the new path and folder into the Default Database Folder box and click OK. SWITCHING THE DISPLAY We recently published a tip on how to get Excel worksheets to display formulas rather than data. We suggested that you choose Tools, Options, click the View tab, and then select the check box labeled Formulas. Click OK and there are the formulas displayed in place of the associated data. A number of subscribers pointed out that there is a much easier way to accomplish this. All you have to do is press Ctrl-Tilde (~), and Excel will toggle between data display and formula display. PASTING CHARTS Subscriber M.H. wants to know if there's a way to paste Excel charts into a PowerPoint slide without pasting the entire worksheet. What you do is right-click the chart and then choose Copy. Now move to the PowerPoint slide and press Ctrl-V (or choose Edit, Paste). This will get the chart into PowerPoint without dragging the whole worksheet along with it. MONDAY, MONDAY We mentioned in a recent tip that you can enter a date into an Excel cell and then drag that cell to enter sequential dates. Readers W.T.C. and P.M.K. point out that you can do the same for sequential weeks (or any time period). That is, if you'd like a list of Mondays in a month, you can enter the date for the first Monday in one cell, then the date of the second Monday in an adjacent cell. Then highlight both cells and drag. Excel will create a sequence of Mondays (or whatever day you want--use Friday if it will make you feel better). All the dates in the sequence will be seven days apart. Here's an example: Go to cell A1 and enter 4/6/98 Now go to cell A2 and enter 4/13/98 Highlight both cells, grab the little handle, and drag down three cells. Excel will now display 4/6/98 4/13/98 4/20/98 4/27/98 5/4/98 in row A. YOUR THEME SONG Small Business Edition If you use the Microsoft Plus! Pack, you'll find that the Themes Switcher and the new Office 97 JPEG filter aren't compatible. To update the Themes program, open Windows Explorer and locate c:\Program File\Plus!. If you used the default installation location, that's where you'll find Themes.exe. Click Themes.exe to select it and then press Delete. When the dialog box opens asking if you're sure, tell it yes. Now insert the Microsoft Office 97 CD into the CD-ROM drive and, using Windows Explorer, locate the \ValuPack\Patch folder. Copy Themes.exe from the Patch folder to c:\Program Files\Plus!. Note: The path c:\Program Files\Plus! assumes that Drive C: is the drive where Windows 95 and Office are installed. If you use a different drive, substitute that drive's letter for C:. FRAMED When you insert a WordArt object into a Word document, you don't automatically get a frame. So your text won't do the old wraparound trick until you insert a frame. Just right-click the WordArt and choose Frame Picture. Now right-click the framed WordArt and choose Format Frame. Make your wrapping choices and click OK. ODD COLUMNS When you decide to use columns in a Word document, you can choose the number of columns if you choose Format, Columns. When the Columns dialog box opens, you can select from one, two, or three columns. You'll notice that you can also choose a small column at the left or a small column at the right. If you like, you can set the column size yourself. All you have to do is deselect Equal Column Width and then set the size of each of your columns. After you finish setting up the columns, click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. THE KEY TO STYLES If you'd like to see what styles you have available in a Word document, you can choose Format, Style. When the Style dialog box opens, click the style you'd like to examine. The dialog box will now display data on the selected style. If you'd like some hard copy, choose File, Print. When the Print dialog box opens, click the arrow at the right of the Print What list box to expand the list. Select Styles from the list and then click OK. Word will print all the information on all the current styles. ABSOLUTELY You can quickly turn a normal Excel cell reference into an absolute reference. (An absolute reference forces Excel to always refer to the cells you specify. Let's say you have entered =SUM(A1:A5) into cell A7. Double-click cell A7 and then use the mouse to select the reference A1:A5. Now press F4 and then press Enter. The cell contents will change to the absolute reference form of =SUM($A$1:$A$5) TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER Do you sometimes need to use leaders? Leaders are those little dots leading up to some text. Like this. ...............Text Leaders. To set up 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 (they don't have to always be little dots) 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. GET THOSE FILE NAMES RIGHT If you need to copy file names into a Word document, the best way to make sure there are no errors is to use the copy and paste commands. To copy a file name, open Windows Explorer and locate the file. Click the file's name once and then wait a few seconds, and click it again (just as if you were going to rename it). Now press Ctrl-C and then press Enter. Now move to your Word document and click where you want the copied name to appear. Press Ctrl-V and there's your file name. Note: If you attempt to copy a name by simply selecting it, you'll end up copying the entire file. SCROLLING WITH A LOGITECH MOUSE We reported in a recent tip that you can use the IntelliMouse to scroll through Excel worksheets. Reader C.W.C. advises us that you can use the middle button of the Logitech (or Logitech-compatible) mouse to perform the scroll. To scroll, just middle-click anywhere in the document window and drag away from the special symbol that appears. The farther you move from the symbol, the faster the scrolling. C.W.C. says that this appears to work in all the Office programs. WHERE IS MY DOCUMENT? Subscriber R.Y. reports that after using Find and Replace, the entire document was turned to nothing but gibberish. We can't say exactly what happened to that particular document, but we can speculate on what might have happened. Try this on a document that you don't need. You could copy a document under a new name and use that. Open Find and Replace (Ctrl-H) and click the Find What entry box. Click More and then choose Format, Style. Now choose the predominant style of your document (perhaps Normal). Don't enter any text in the entry box. Click now the Replace With entry box and type a few spaces. Click Replace All and then click OK. Now click Close. You have just destroyed your document by replacing all the Normal style text with spaces. If something like this should happen to you, don't panic. Panic is what causes permanent data loss. In this case, all you have to do is press Ctrl-Z and, thanks to Word's terrific Undo command, your document will magically reappear. The moral is, be careful with Replace All and never forget the Undo command. MAKING THOSE CHARTS MOVE In the previous tip, we pointed out that you can copy an Excel chart by right-clicking the chart and choosing Copy. Then you can move to PowerPoint and press Ctrl-V to paste the chart onto a PowerPoint slide. Once the slide is in PowerPoint, you can animate those chart components if you wish. This is possible because you can Ungroup the chart. Try this: Select the chart and choose Draw, Ungroup. Next, press Ctrl-A to select all the components. Now hold down the Shift key while you deselect all the chart components that you want to animate. Once you've deselected all the necessary components, release the Shift key and choose Draw, Group. Now you can right-click the chart and choose Custom Animation. Click the Timing tab and select Animate. Select the components to animate and then click the Effects tab. Select the animation effect you want for each component. To see how your animation looks, click Preview. When you're finished, click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes. EXTENDING EXTEND In a recent tip, we said that you could use Word's Extend command to help you select text more efficiently. To use Extend, double-click the EXT button at the bottom of the Word window (it's grayed out but it will work). With Extend active, you can select text using the arrow keys--hands off (you don't have to hold down any other keys). When finished with Extend, turn it off by pressing Esc. J.A.S. points out that you can extend Extend even further. If you double-click EXT and then open Find (Ctrl-F) and type in a word you want to search for, EXT will select all the text between the current cursor position and the word located by Find. ANOTHER WAY TO GET PASTED You know that you can paste Clipboard contents into Word by choosing Edit, Paste. You can also press Ctrl-V. And, although it seems to have been largely forgotten, you can press Shift-Ins (or Insert). If you'd like, Word will even allow you to paste with only the Ins (or Insert) key. To see if you might like this arrangement, choose Tools, Options and click the Edit tab. Select the check box labeled Use the INS Key for Paste and then click OK to save your changes and get rid of the dialog box. Now copy some text and then click on a blank spot in your document. Press Ins (or Insert), and the copied text will appear. YOUR OWN SPECIAL GRAMMAR If you'd like to stop all those grammar errors that get tagged as your write, why not just change the rules? If you're getting grammar errors where you think there should be none, your grammar checker may well be set to follow more stringent rules than necessary. For example, if it tags contractions such as "we're," "they're," etc., you can make some simple setup changes to put a stop to those tags. Choose Tools, Options, and when the Options dialog box opens, click the Grammar tab. If the Writing Style box is set to Strictly or Business Writing, choose For Casual Writing instead. Now click Customize Settings and select those items that you want the grammar checker to tag. Click OK to save your changes, and when you get back to the Options dialog box, click OK to close it. SWITCHING THE DISPLAY We recently published a tip on how to get Excel worksheets to display formulas rather than data. We suggested you choose Tools, Options, click the View tab, and then select the check box labeled Formulas. Click OK, and the formulas display in place of the associated data. A number of subscribers pointed out that there is a much easier way--all you have to do is press Ctrl-Tilde (~) and Excel will toggle between data display and formula display. Thanks to all who sent e-mail on this topic. DROP THAT CELL Although everyone knows that you can select Word text and then use the mouse to drag the selected text to a new location, many users don't know that you can do the same thing in Excel. To see how drag and drop works in Excel, open a new worksheet and type First Cell into cell A1. Now type Second Cell into cell A2. Select the two cells and move the mouse near the edge of the cells. When the pointer changes from a plus sign to a pointer, press and hold the mouse button. Use the mouse to drag the cells to a new location and release the mouse button. The reason many people miss this Excel feature is that you need to make sure you don't grab the handle, or end up inside the cell. You have to grab just the edge and only after the cursor turns to a pointer. STARTING WITH NOTHING Subscribers Y.P. and R.K. both want to know if you can run Word without starting with a blank document. The answer is that you can do this quite easily. We've discussed this procedure before, but perhaps it's time for a quick revisit. Here's what to do: We can't be sure how you start Word on your computer, but this procedure will work no matter where the icon is located. Simply go to the Word icon wherever it is (in Start, on the desktop, etc.) and right-click it. Then choose Properties. Click the Shortcut tab and then click in the Target entry box. Move to the end of the existing command and type a space. Now add /n to the end of the line. Click OK to record the change and close the dialog box. The next time you start Word, it will open without any document at all. LOOK AT THE WHOLE THING Layout is important when you're designing a complex worksheet. But it's hard to see how the layout looks when you can view only a portion of the worksheet at once. To see how your entire worksheet looks, try this: Choose View, Full Screen. Next, press Ctrl-End to move to the last cell used by your worksheet. Now press Ctrl-Shift-Home to select the entire worksheet you've worked on, from the last cell to cell A1. Choose View, Zoom and select Fit Selection. Click OK, and there's the entire worksheet. You won't be able to read anything, but you can see how the layout looks. GRAMMAR YOUR WAY If you'd like to stop all those grammar errors that get tagged as you write, why not just change the rules? If you're getting grammar errors where you think there should be none, your Grammar checker may well be set to follow more stringent rules than necessary. For example, if your Grammar checker tags contractions such as "we're," "they're," etc., you can make some simple setup changes to put a stop to those tags. Choose Tools, Options, and when the Options dialog box opens, click the Spelling and Grammar tab. If the Writing Style box is set to Standard or Formal, click the arrow at the right side of the box to expand the list and choose Casual. Now click Settings and select those items that you want the Grammar checker to tag. Click OK to save your changes, and when you get back to the Options dialog box, click OK to close it. THE OUTLOOK ON MUG SHOTS If you'd like to have pictures of the contacts you have entered into Outlook, you can scan photographs and then paste them into Outlook. Open the photo that you want to use in Microsoft Photo Editor, or whatever graphics program you use, and copy it. Now run Outlook and open a new or existing Contacts form. Click in the message area at the bottom of the window and press Ctrl-V to paste in the copied photo. Note that the photo will appear full size, so you may need to do some sizing in the graphics program. If the picture is too large, choose Ctrl-Z to undo it and then go back to your graphics program and reduce the picture's size. Copy it and then re-paste it into Outlook. DROP THAT CELL In Word, you can select text and then use the mouse to drag the selected text to a new location; Excel users can do the same thing in Excel worksheets. To see how drag and drop works in Excel, open a new worksheet and type First Cell into cell A1. Now type Second Cell into cell A2. Select the two cells and move the mouse near the edge of the cells. When the pointer changes from a plus sign to a pointer, press and hold the mouse button. Use the mouse to drag the cells to a new location and release the mouse button. The reason many people miss this Excel feature is that you need to make sure you don't grab the handle or end up inside the cell. You have to grab just the edge and only after the cursor turns into a pointer. AUTOMATIC HEADER/FOOTER IN EXCEL P.V. sends this macro written to put headers and footers into an Excel worksheet. This macro will insert your choice of headers and footers into the Excel worksheet and then open Print Preview so you can check them. To enter the macro, run Excel and choose Window, Unhide. This will open a dialog box from which you should choose Personal.xls and click OK. Now, type in the macro shown below exactly as it appears. Sub PrintPreView() 'PrintPreView Macro ' Macro by P. V. Application.ScreenUpdating = False Application.Calculation = xlManual With ActiveSheet.PageSetup ' the header .CenterHeader = "My Header" & "&""Arial,Regular""&8" ' Left Footer .LeftFooter = "My Left Footer " & "&""Arial,Regular"" &8" ' Center Footer .CenterFooter = "My Center Footer" & "&""Arial,Regular""&8" ' Right Footer .RightFooter = "My Right Footer" & "&""Arial,Regular""&8" ' to center the print horizontally on the page .CenterHorizontally = True End With Application.Calculation = xlAutomatic ActiveSheet.PrintPreView End Sub For the items shown as My Header, My Left Footer, etc., enter your own values. After you've entered the macro, choose File, Save and then choose Windows, Hide. Now you need to assign the macro to a button. Choose View, Toolbars and click Customize in the Toolbars dialog box. In the Customize dialog box, choose Custom and then decide which button you want to assign to the new macro. Drag the button to the toolbar. When you drag the button to the toolbar, Excel will ask what macro you want to assign. Select your new macro and click OK. When you get back to the Customize dialog box, click OK. Now you can click on the newly assigned button to run the macro. RUN IT NOW When you're working on PowerPoint slide shows, you might find it handy to start those shows from your desktop. Run Windows Explorer and locate your slide show data file. Use the right-mouse button to drag the file's icon to the desktop. Release the mouse button and, when the menu opens, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. To run the slide show, right-click your new shortcut, and choose Show. PowerPoint will open, display your show, and then close. LOOK AT THE WHOLE THING Layout is important when you're designing a complex Excel worksheet. But it's hard to see how the layout looks when you can view only a portion of the worksheet at once. To see how your entire worksheet looks, try this: Choose View, Full Screen. Now press Ctrl-End to move to the last cell used by your worksheet. Now press Ctrl-Shift-Home to select the worksheet from the last cell to cell A1. Choose View, Zoom and select Fit Selection. Click OK, and there's the entire worksheet. You won't be able to read anything, but you can see how the layout looks. A FAST GOODBYE TO FIND FAST Although in theory Find Fast is a great feature, in practice it hasn't proved all that great. What Find Fast does is periodically scan your hard disk to keep an index of all the files. Then you can find a file or folder faster because you're using that index. The problem with Find Fast is that it periodically takes over your hard disk to perform its scan. While this is going on, whatever you're doing can become painfully slow. If you'd like to try your system without Find Fast, you don't have to make any drastic moves; all you have to do is move the file out of the Startup folder. Right-click Start and choose Open. When the Start Menu window opens, double-click Programs. Now locate StartUp and double-click its icon. Grab the Find Fast icon with the mouse and drag it into the Programs folder for safekeeping. Restart Windows now and see what you think about your search speeds for a while. If the searches seem sluggish (and you don't mind the occasional slowdown when Find Fast is running), you can move Find Fast back into the StartUp folder. HYPER ABOUT HYPERLINKS In Word, PowerPoint, or Excel, you can very easily add a Hyperlink to an AutoShape. The only real requirement is that the shape be something other than a line, connector, or freeform figure. Draw your AutoShape and then, while it's still selected, choose Insert, Hyperlink. When the Insert Hyperlink dialog box opens, type the URL (or bookmark or file) into the Link To File or URL entry box. You must type in the complete URL. For example, type http://www.pcworld.com and then click OK. The entire shape is now the Hyperlink, so clicking anywhere in the shape will send you to the URL. If you wish to add text to the AutoShape, right-click it and choose Add Text. FIND IT AGAIN, SAM Subscriber C.C. reminds us that you don't have to keep opening Find (Ctrl-F) to repeat a search. All you have to do is press Shift-F4 and Word will perform a search for the word (or phrase) most recently entered in Find. To check this out, press Ctrl-F to open Find. Enter a common word or phrase (the, and, lottery winner, etc.). Click Find Next to find the first occurrence and then click Close. Now press Shift-F4 and Word will locate the next occurrence of your word or phrase. EDITING IN PRINT PREVIEW There's a widely circulated rumor that says you can't edit a Word document while it's in Print Preview mode. We're not sure about the origin of the rumor, but check out Print Preview mode for yourself. Open a document that you can afford to mess around with, and then choose Print Preview (click the toolbar button, or choose File, Print Preview). Use the magnifying glass cursor to zoom in on the page. Now, click the Magnifier on the toolbar (it looks like a small magnifying glass). At this point, you can add, delete, copy, and paste text. We're not suggesting that you should use Print Preview mode for editing; we're only suggesting that you should be careful what you press when you're in Print Preview. You could lose something. WHERE IS MY DOCUMENT? Reader R.Y. reports that after using Find and Replace, the entire document was turned to nothing but gibberish. We can't say exactly what happened to that particular document, but we can speculate on what might have happened. Try this on a document that you don't need. You could copy a document under a new name and use that. Open Find and Replace (Ctrl-H) and click the Find What entry box. Choose Format, Style. Now choose the predominate style of your document (perhaps Normal). Don't enter any text in the entry box. Click now on the Replace With entry box and type a few spaces. Click Replace All and then click OK. Now click Close. You have just destroyed your document by replacing all the Normal style text with spaces. If something like this should happen to you, don't panic. Panic is what causes permanent data loss. In this case, all you have to do is press Ctrl-Z and, thanks to Word's terrific Undo command, your document will magically reappear. The moral is, be careful with Replace All. Always check to make sure you don't have spaces in Replace With unless you're sure this is what you want. And never forget that wonderful Undo command. STARTING WITH NOTHING Readers Y.P. and R.K. both want to know if you can run Word without getting the blank document. The answer is that you can do this quite easily. We've discussed this procedure before, but here's a quick revisit: We can't be sure how you start Word on your computer, so we'll have to work with the assumption that you click Start, Programs, Microsoft Word. Right-click Start and choose Open. Now double-click the Programs folder to open it. Next, right-click the Microsoft Word icon and choose Properties. Click the Shortcut tab and then click in the Target entry box. Move to the end of the existing command and type a space. Now add /n to the end of the line. Click OK to record the change and close the dialog box. The next time you start Word, it will open without any document at all. Note that we assumed a location for the icon you use to run Word. The procedure we described will work no matter where the icon is located. All you have to do is find your icon and right-click it. Then choose Properties and proceed as we described. EXTENDING EXTEND In a recent tip, we said that you could use the Extend command to help you select text more efficiently. To use Extend, double-click the EXT button at the bottom of the Word window--it's grayed out, but it will work. With Extend active, you can select text using the arrow keys--hands off (you don't have to hold down any keys). When you're finished with Extend, turn it off by pressing Esc. Subscriber J.A.S. points out that you can extend Extend even further.If you double-click EXT and then open Find (Ctrl-F) and type in a word you want to search for, EXT will select all the text between the current cursor position and the word located by Find. ABSOLUTELY Subscriber G.T. asks if we can explain Excel's relative and absolute references. We can try. The standard form of reference is relative. By that we mean that when you enter a formula such as =sum (a1:a20) the references are relative. If you copy the formula to another column, the references will change. To see this, put some numbers in cells A1 through A5 and then enter =sum(a1:a5) in cell A7. Now put some number in cells C1 through C5. Click cell A7 (the formula) to select it. Now press Ctrl-C to copy the cell contents. Click cell C7 and press Ctrl-V to paste the formula. Look at the formula, and you'll see that it has changed to =sum(c1:c5) for its new location. An absolute reference takes the form =sum($a$1:$a$5) Enter this formula into cell A7 and press Enter. The calculation will proceed as you'd expect. Now select cell A7 and press Ctrl-C to copy the contents. Move to cell C7 and press Ctrl-V to paste. If you look at the formula now, you'll see that it's exactly the same as the one in cell A7. That's absolute for you--it will only calculate the named cells. AN ANIMATION IDEA Most people like to use animation in PowerPoint presentations, so here's an idea for jazzing up those slides. Since you can choose what gets animated in a PowerPoint slide, how about having an arrow move in from the left side of the slide to strike a target at the right side? To draw a target (if you can't find one you like in ClipArt) draw a series of ovals, each one bigger than the other. You don't have to draw them concentrically, you can take care of that later. In fact, it will probably be easier to draw them side by side. For each oval, select a fill color (the Fill Color button is the one that resembles a bucket of paint being poured out). Now press Ctrl-A to select all the ovals. Next, choose Draw, Align or Distribute, Align Center and then choose Draw, Align or Distribute, Align Middle. This should make something resembling a target. You'll need to click the largest oval and choose Draw, Order, Send to Back. You'll have to click each oval and choose an order for it to make the target look right. This procedure may be a bit tedious, but don't give up--it can be done. When you're finished with this, choose Draw, Group to turn the group of ovals into a single drawing. Now all you have to do is draw the arrow. Click the AutoShapes button and choose an arrow. Draw the arrow and place it at the bull's-eye. Right-click the arrow and choose Custom Animation. When the dialog box opens, click the arrow at the right side of the Entry Animation list box and choose Fly from Left from the list. Click OK, and now you can choose Slide Show, View Show to see how your animation looks. HOW WILL IT LOOK? Suppose you have a document all written, and you want this one to look its very best, but you still haven't decided how to format it. Choose Format, Style Gallery and let Word show you the options. Word will apply each style you select and show you how it will look if you should apply that style. When you find a style that looks good to you, click OK to accept the style and close the dialog box. PRINTING BOOKS Several readers have asked about how to print booklets in Word--that is, printing on both sides of the page. Doing this is easy; it's just that doing it exactly right is sometimes difficult. To print both sides of each page, format your document and then choose File, Print. When the Print dialog box opens, click the arrow at the right side of the Print list box (in the lower-right corner of the Print dialog box). If your first page is to be Page 1, then select Odd Pages from the list and click OK. Word will now print all the odd pages only (1, 3, 5, 7, etc.). Next, you place all the pages back into the printer and choose File, Print again. This time, choose Even Pages and click OK. The trick here is to put the pages back into the printer so that Page 2 prints on the back of Page 1, and so on. But this isn't the only trick. Because almost all printers cause the paper to curl, you need to wait a while before you print the opposite sides. Place the paper on a flat surface and leave it until it's cool (laser printers heat the paper). If you use an ink-jet printer, don't stack the pages until you're sure they are thoroughly dry. After you stack them, allow an hour or so to flatten out before you put them back into the printer. When you put previously printed pages back into the printer, make sure they're aligned perfectly. Otherwise, the print on the second side will be skewed. We can't tell you how to put the paper into the printer because there's so much variation among the way printers handle paper. You'll have to determine the correct way for your printer. One other point: You'll have to go through the entire document to make sure that all the text is where you want it. For example, if you don't want a header to start at the bottom of a page, you'll have to take care of that before you print the document. RUN IT NOW When you're working on PowerPoint slide shows, you might find it handy to start those shows from your desktop. Run Windows Explorer and locate your slide show data file. Use the right-mouse button to drag the file's icon to the desktop. Release the mouse button and, when the menu opens, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here. To run the slide show, click your new shortcut and choose Show. PowerPoint will open, display your show, and then click to close. FUN WITH AUTOTEXT In the last tip, we described a method for storing pictures in AutoText. This time, let's take a closer look at dealing with words and pictures in AutoText. AutoText will allow you to store formatted text or pictures. For example, if you'd like to have a framed company logo that you can move anywhere in your document stored in AutoText, try this. Assuming you've already created a logo, insert the logo into a document. Select the graphic and choose Insert, Frame. Now, select the logo (frame and all) and choose Edit, AutoText. The logo should appear in the Preview pane. If it doesn't, you probably haven't selected the entire logo with frame. Once the logo appears in the Preview pane, name it and click Add. Now you can insert your logo anywhere and move it anywhere. WANT GRIDLINES? If you want to turn off the gridlines in Excel, you choose Tools, Options, click the View tab and then deselect the Gridlines check box and click OK. To turn the gridlines back on, you repeat the process and select the Gridlines check box. If this is something you need to do very often, why not write some simple macros to do the job for you? We'll show you two macros--one to turn off the gridlines and one to turn them on. First, here's a brief macro that turns them off: Sub GridLinesOff () ActiveWindowDisplayGridLines = False End Sub Now to turn them on: Sub (GridLinesOn () ActiveWindowDisplayGridLines = False End Sub To create the two macros, choose Window, UnHide, select Personal.xls, and click OK. When Personal.xls opens, there may already be a macro in the window. If so, click the Insert Module button (it's the top-left button in the Visual Basic floating toolbar). Now type in your macro. When you're finished, press Ctrl-S to save the new macro and then click the Insert Module button. Now enter the other macro and press Ctrl-S when finished. Answer "Yes" to any questions about saving your macros. Let's assign some toolbar buttons to the new macros now. Choose View, Toolbars and click Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, select Custom. Now drag the icon of your choice to the Excel toolbar. When prompted for a macro name, click the GridLinesOn macro. Repeat the procedure for the GridLinesOff macro. All you have to do now is click the Off button to turn off the gridlines and click the On button to turn them on again. IT'S IFFY There are times when you can make good use of Excel's IF function in your worksheets. Let's say you have a sales sheet that you use to determine who might qualify for a bonus. You'd have a list of names in the first column (say column B) and the monthly sales amounts for each one in column C. Let's look at how to use IF. The basic form of the IF function is: IF (condition, true response, false response) So, in our proposed example, you can use the IF function in column D to indicate qualification. Let's assume that the minimum for bonus qualification is $10,000. If your names are in B2, B3, B4, and B5, and your sales totals in C2, C3, C4, and C5, type into cell D2 the following formula: =IF(C2>10000,"Qualified","Not Qualified") You should get your result for cell C2 now. Select cell D2 and then grab the little handle and drag down to D5. This copies the formula to the remaining cells. ADD IT ON, IF . . . In the last tip, we showed you how you can use Excel's IF function to determine the application of a bonus. This time, let's look at how to use SUMIF to directly apply the bonus. Let's say that you have a column of names, total sales, and standard commissions. If the sales for the month exceed $10,000, you want to add a 1 percent bonus to the standard commission. For this example, names are in B2 to B5, Sales are in C2 to C5, Commissions are in D2 to D5, and we'll put the bonus values in E2 to E5. Here's a formula for cell E2 that will add the bonus to the standard commission provided the minimum sales condition is met: =PRODUCT(SUMIF(C2,">=10000"),0.01) As usual, you can select E2 and drag it through E5 to copy the formula to the remaining cells. INSERT YOUR PICTURE HERE Subscriber T.C. wants to know if you can use AutoText to insert pictures and other graphics. Yes, you can. Let's look at an example. Run Word and choose Insert, Object. When the Object dialog box opens, select Microsoft ClipArt (or Clip Gallery) from the list and click OK. Select a picture and click OK. Now that the picture is in place in Word, size it the way you want and then select it. Choose Edit, AutoText. The picture should appear in the Preview pane. Assign a name and click Add. To insert the picture, type in the name and then choose Edit, AutoText. Select the name and click Insert. TICK TOC For that super-fancy document, what you need is a table of contents. Here's how to create one in Word. Your document will need to have some identifiable headings. For this example, let's assume that all the headings use the standard Heading 1 style. If you want to include subheadings in your TOC, then you'll need identifiable styles for those too. We suggest (for this example) that you use another of the standard headings--perhaps Heading 3. Now click where you want the TOC to appear (at the beginning or end of the document) and choose Insert, Index and Tables. When the Index and Tables dialog box opens, click the Table of Contents tab. Now you can select the type of TOC you want to use from the Formats: list. After you make your selection, click OK to create the TOC. Choose a nice font style and title your table of contents. If you placed the insertion point at the beginning of the document, you can put the TOC on a separate page quite easily. Just click the line below the TOC and choose Insert, Break and select Page Break. Now click OK, and the TOC will appear on a separate page at the beginning of the document. The TOC is only as good as the information available to it. If you're adding a TOC to a long document, we strongly suggest you use as many subheadings as you need to provide topic information. This not only creates a more through TOC, it also helps the reader follow the train of thought in the document. GOING IN CIRCLES If you need to draw a number of perfect circles in a PowerPoint slide, try this: Double-click the Oval button (it looks like an oval) and then hold down the Shift key while you draw as many circles as you want. All will be perfect circles as long as you hold down the Shift key. If you need some ovals, release the Shift key and continue using the mouse to draw ovals. To stop drawing, click the Oval button. LAST NAME FIRST--PART 1 OF 2 Let's pretend that you have an Excel Worksheet that contains a list of employees. They're all entered in the form first name, last name. The problem is that you need to extract the last names only. Let's take a two-day look at the elements needed to do this. Before you can extract the last name, you need to know how long the string is and where the space is located. So, let's go to cell A1 and type a name, such as Jean Shepherd Now go to cell D1 and enter =len(a1) Cell D1 should now display 13 Now what about that space between the names? In cell E1, enter =find(" ",a1) Cell E1 will display 5 because Jean contains four letters and the space is the fifth character. Now that we know how to get the string length and locate the space, tomorrow, we'll take a look at how to put it all together. LAST NAME FIRST--PART 2 OF 2 In the last tip, we looked at how to find the length of a text string in an Excel cell. We also determined where the space was located. This time, let's look at a complete formula that will extract the last name. Go to cell A1 and start a list of names, with the first name in cell A1, second name in cell A2, like this: Jean Shepherd Mark Twain Gracie Allen George Burns We know from the last tip that the total length of the name Jean Shepherd is 13 characters and that the space is character 5. This means that the length of the last name is eight characters (13-5). So we could use Excel's Right string command to return the last name. Go to cell D1 and enter =right(a1,8) When you do this, cell D1 will display Shepherd But, we don't want to calculate each one by hand, so let's get Excel to do the entire job for us. Go to cell D1 and enter =right(a1,len(a1)-find(" ",a1)) Now grab the little tag at the lower-right corner of cell D1 and drag down through D4. Click somewhere away from column D. Cells D1 through D4 should now read Shepherd Twain Allen Burns SAVE IT NOW When you start a new document in Word, it's a good idea to name and save it as soon as you begin working. Since you're going to have to choose File, Save As and give the file a name anyway, why not let Word prompt you for a name? You can use a macro to ask for the name whenever you open a new document. To enter the macro, choose Tools, Macro and type in AutoNew Now click the arrow at the right side of the Macros Available In list box and select Normal.dot (Global template). Click Create and type in the macro exactly as shown here (your best bet is to copy and paste directly from this tip): Sub MAIN FName$ = InputBox$("What do You Want to Name This File?", "New File") FileSaveAs .Name = FName$, .Format = 0 End Sub Now, when you open a new document, Word will prompt you for a name. Enter a name without the extension. Word will append the extension .DOC to your file name. CORRECTION EXCEL GRIDLINE MACROS On May 4, we published a couple of macros for turning on and off Excel's gridlines. Unfortunately, due to a copy and paste error, those macros contained some mistakes. We apologize for those errors. Here are the correct macros: Sub GridLinesOff() ActiveWindow.DisplayGridlines = False End Sub Sub GridLinesOn() ActiveWindow.DisplayGridlines = True End Sub Note that there must be a period between ActiveWindow and DisplayGridlines. Moreover, subscriber E. L. suggests a different approach to turning gridlines on and off--this time with a single macro. Here's his macro: Sub ToggleGridLines() ActiveWindow.DisplayGridlines = Not ActiveWindow.DisplayGridlines End Sub Give this one a try--it's simpler to use because it's a true toggle program. Run it the first time, and it turns off the gridlines. Run it again and it turns them back on. To enter the macro, choose Window, Unhide and select Personal.xls. Then enter the macro exactly as shown. TABLE THAT TEXT Version 4.x, 95 When you select text in your Word document and then insert a table, Word will convert the selected text to a table without displaying the Insert Table dialog box. To check this out, select a section of text in any document. Now choose Table, Insert Table. The table will appear, and in the table, you'll find the text you selected. If this happens to you because you inadvertently left some text selected, just press Ctrl-Z (Undo) to remove the table. TICK TOC TWO In the last tip, we discussed how to make a table of contents for a Word document. This time, let's suppose that you've already created a TOC and then decide that you need to add to your document. The TOC won't automatically update, but it isn't much of a problem to do the job manually. All you have to do is click in the TOC to select it and then press F9. When the Update Table of Contents dialog box opens, select the Update entire table radio button. Click OK, and your additions will appear. TRIM IT Version 4.x, 95 If you ever import text from some other program into Excel, you may need the Trim function. Trim gets rid of all the extraneous spaces in a text string. Let's say you import a string such as "This is data from another source" into an Excel worksheet. Chances are, you don't want all those spaces. Let's say the imported text is in cell A1. Go to cell F1 and enter =trim(a1) and the text in F1 will now be: This is data from another source. Just what you wanted in the first place. PRINT THIS ONE FIRST Version 4.x, 95 If you use preprinted stationery, you probably want to use that paper for only the first page of a multipage document. Word makes it easy to use a different sheet for the first page. Choose File, Page Setup and click the Paper Source tab. You'll notice that you can choose the feed source for the first page and the other pages separately. This is so you can use that preprinted letterhead paper. If you select Manual Feed for the first page and the default tray for the other pages, Word will pause for you to insert that specially printed paper to print the first page. After that page finishes, the document will continue to print on the standard paper in the default bin. VIEW WORD 97 FILES f you're not quite ready to switch to Word 97, but would like to be able to read those Word 97 files that keep popping up, you need a Word 97 Viewer from Microsoft. Go to http://www.microsoft.com/office/office/viewers.asp#word and download the 32-bit version if you run Windows 95 or the 16-bit version if you run Windows 3.1. You can view and copy files using the viewer, but you can't do any editing. IN GREAT SHAPE Small Business Edition Adding shapes to a Publisher document is no problem. All you have to do is click one of the Shape buttons (Oval, Box, or Custom Shapes) and make your drawing. By default, a newly added shape has no color. When you draw a shape over existing text, there is no wrapping because the shape is invisible (except for the lines that make up the shape). To add color to a shape, click the shape to select it and then click the Object Color button. When the color list opens, select a color. You'll notice that the text now automatically wraps around the shape. FINDING ONLY THE FILES YOU WANT When you choose File, Open, Word opens a list of files in the current directory. By default, you see all the files that have the .DOC extension. If you have a long list of files in your default folder, one way to make a given file easier to find is to use wildcards. For example, if you want to see only files that contain the month May, click the File name entry box, enter *may* and press Enter. Now the file list will consist of only those files that contain the word "May." ABSOLUTELY RELATIVE Version 95 When you enter a formula in an Excel worksheet, you usually use the relative reference form. The formula =sum (a1:a10) is a relative reference formula. If you copy this formula and move it to a new location, the formula will change to reflect its location. However, there are times when you might need a formula that uses absolute referencing. One way to handle this is to convert an existing formula to absolute. You don't even have to remember how to enter an absolute formula. All you have to do is double-click the cell that contains the formula and then use the mouse to highlight the formula. Now press F4 and then press Enter. Now you have a formula with absolute referencing. While a formula is selected, you can use F4 to switch among all the referencing forms. If you'd like to give this a try, type in a formula, select it as we described, and then press F4 and watch the changes. STOP WITH THE FORMATTING ALREADY Version 95 If you don't want Word to automatically replace straight quotes with curly quotes, or stick symbols into your documents, you'll need to tell AutoFormat what you want and don't want. To modify AutoFormat, choose Tools, Options and click the AutoFormat tab. This is where Word 95 is a little tricky. Before you make your new selections, make sure the radio button labeled AutoFormat As You Type is selected. Now make your choices by selecting and deselecting the appropriate check boxes. When you're finished, click OK. REMOTE CONTROL If you frequently need to work at a remote location--just you and your trusty notebook computer--you'll probably find it worthwhile to install dial-up Networking. Let's assume that you already have the networking in place. We'll discuss how to use the Windows 95 Briefcase to keep your files up to date on both computers. Before you leave town, call your system using the telephone to make sure everything is working as you expect. The two computers will have to be connected by a network or a cable when you copy files from your main computer to the notebook. First, you'll copy the files you want to keep updated into a briefcase. To do this, drag the briefcase to the system drive (the drive on the computer you're calling). Now drag your data files to the remote briefcase. This is important--the briefcase is on the remote computer, not on your notebook. When you're on your trip, call the system and locate the briefcase. Double-click its icon to open it. Now select the file (or files) you want to update and choose Briefcase, Update Selection. Now you can disconnect from the remote computer and work on the files to your heart's content. When you're finished, call again and connect the two computers. Now you will repeat the update instructions above, by double-clicking the Briefcase icon and choosing either Update Selection if you've worked on only certain files, or selecting Update All.DELETE IT NOW Office 97 macros are a bit different from those you may be accustomed to using in previous versions of Microsoft Office. Let's take a look at how to enter a macro in Word 97. There are times when you need to delete an open Word document. Here's how you would ordinarily do it without a macro: Let's say that you open a file in your folder and determine that you don't need it; the only way to delete it (in Word) is to close the file (File, Close), choose File, Open, and then delete the file and open the next one in the folder. This macro (DelIt) will delete the current open file. But use it with care, because it can delete files you might need just as well as it deletes files you don't need. And these files don't go into the Recycle Bin--they are gone forever. To enter the macro, run Word and press Alt-F11 to open the VBA editor. When the editor opens, look at the Project list box on the left side of the VBA window. Locate Normal and click the plus (+) sign to its left to expand it. Now double-click Module 1. This will open the editing window. Next, enter the code exactly as shown here: Sub DelIt() Dim FileToDel As String FileToDel = ActiveDocument.FullName ActiveDocument.Close Kill FileToDel End Sub Now choose File, Save Normal to save the new macro into your Normal.dot template. This makes it available to all documents. To close the VBA editor, press Alt-Q. To run the macro, make sure you really want to delete the current document and choose Tools, Macro, Macros. Select DelIt from the list and click Run. Goodbye document! A KINDER, GENTLER DELETE MACRO In the last tip we showed you a macro that will delete a currently open Word document. As we said in the first tip, this is a potentially dangerous macro. Once you run it, the current document is no more. This time, let's look at a variation of the DelIt macro that's a bit safer to use. For this version, we add a dialog box to ask if you're really, really, absolutely sure that you want to delete the current file. Open Word and press Alt-F11 to open the VBA editor. Locate Normal and expand it by clicking the plus (+) sign to its left. Double-click Module 1. If you've already entered the DelIt macro, it will appear. If you haven't entered any macros, a blank window will appear. In either case, enter the following exactly as shown: Sub DelIt() Dim FileToDel As String FileToDel = ActiveDocument.FullName Msg$ = "Are you sure you want to delete " + FileToDel + "?" Response = MsgBox(Msg$, vbYesNo + vbQuestion) If Response = 7 Then End ActiveDocument.Close Kill FileToDel End Sub When you run DelIt (choose Tools, Macro, Macros, select DelIt, and click OK), a dialog box will open asking if you really want to delete the file. Click Yes if you do or No if you don't. TRACER OF LOST EXCEL CELLS Well, the cells aren't lost, but some cells can be difficult to locate in a busy worksheet. Let's say you have a formula in cell F5 that sums two values somewhere in the worksheet. Want to see exactly where those cells are? Click the cell with the formula and choose Tools, Auditing, Trace Precedents. Arrows will appear, tracing the formula to the two cells that make up the sum. To get rid of the arrows after you've finished tracing your formula, choose Tools, Auditing, Remove all Arrows. MENUS WHERE YOU WANT THEM In previous versions of Microsoft Office, you could move the toolbars to whatever location you wished. But you couldn't move the Menu bar. With Office 97, this has changed. Now you can move the Menu bar wherever you need it. Give this a try. Grab the Menu bar with the mouse and drag it to the left side of the window. Release the mouse button, and it will anchor there. Drag it out into the document window, release the mouse button, and you have a floating Menu bar. Would you like the Menu bar below the toolbars? No problem--just drag it to the new location and release the mouse button. This applies to all the applications in Microsoft Office 97. NAME THAT RANGE Here's a way to make those large worksheets easier to work with: Give important ranges a name. For example, if you have a worksheet that lists a number of costs, and you want to get all the costs for the month of May, you can give the range that includes all the numbers for May a name. Let's say that there are costs for May 1995 through 1998 in cells A5, B5, C5, and D5. Use the mouse to highlight cells A5 through D5. Choose Insert, Name, Define. Type May and click OK. Now move to a blank cell, say cell F7 and enter =sum(May) to see the total of all the May figures. GIVE IT A NAME Here's an Excel feature that you can use for those long formulas you sometimes have to use. You can assign a name to a formula and then enter only the name when you need to use the formula in a new location. Try this: Run Excel and open a new worksheet. Our illustration uses a simple formula, but the procedure works for any formula. Type the following into cells A1 through A5: 1 2 3 4 5 Now go to cell A7 and type =sum(a1:a5) and press Enter. Now, select the cell with the formula (A7) and choose Insert, Name, Define. Type in a name for the formula. In this case, SumItAll will do the job. Next, in Refers to:, type in the formula =sum(a1:a5) and click OK. Now, go to cell B1 and type in cells B1 through B5 12 11 10 9 8 Click cell B7 and type =SumItAll and you'll get the sum of B1 through B5. As we said, this is only an example. The real beauty of formula naming is that you can use it for those monster formulas that nobody wants to enter over and over. READY-MADE MACROS Microsoft Office 95 Professional Version contains some Word macros that you may want to use. The only problem is that they aren't available unless you make them available. To locate the macros, choose Tools, Macro and click Organizer. When Organizer opens, you'll have two views of Normal.dot. Click the Close button on the left side of the dialog box to close Normal.dot. Now click Open and then go to the Office folder. In the Office folder, locate the Winword folder. Double-click Winword to open it. Now you should now see a folder named Macros. Double-click it. In the Macros folder, you should see a list of macros: Convert7.dot, Layout7.dot, Macros7.dot, Present7.dot, and Tables7.dot. To work with these macros, click one to select it and click OK. Now click the macros inside the DOT files and click Copy to copy them to the Normal.dot (on the right side of the Organizer dialog box). Repeat this process for each of the macro-containing DOT files in Winword\Macros. After you copy all the macros to Normal.dot, click Close in the Organizer dialog box. Now you can choose Tools, Macro, Macros to view the newly loaded macro RELOCATING BUTTONS Version 4.x, 95 Subscriber R.K. wants to know if there's an easy way to relocate the toolbar buttons. There sure is. All you have to do is hold down the Alt key and use the mouse to drag a button to a new location. You can also use this method to get rid of those buttons that you never use. Hold down the Alt key and drag the unwanted button onto the document window. This method works in Word and PowerPoint but not in Excel or Access. In Excel and Access, choose View, Toolbars, Customize. While the Customize dialog box is open, you can use the Alt key plus the mouse to drag buttons to new locations. To delete buttons, drag them to the document window--Alt key not needed. IT'S MARGINAL Here's the first thing to remember about printing: Don't set the document margins smaller than what the printer can handle. Check your printer's documentation for the minimum margins allowed and don't exceed those in your programs. In Word, choose File, Page Setup and click the Margins tab. Most printers will handle margins of 0.25 inch. If your margins are set to less, you'll have problems. In most cases, the Word margins are set to one inch or greater. This should pose no problem for any printer. Many Office users have a problem when they try to squeeze every last millimeter of page space out of Excel. Just keep that printer spec in mind when you set margins. If the printer calls for 0.25 inch, set your margins a bit larger just to be safe. We've used 0.30 successfully on a LaserJet. A SAVING FEATURE TipWorld reader T.R. asks if Excel has an AutoSave feature like Word's. The answer is: yes and no. The feature exists, but you may have to do a bit of work to get to it. Excel's AutoSave is part of the Add-Ins--goodies that come along with Office but that aren't necessarily installed. To see if it's available, choose Tools, Add-Ins. If you see AutoSave in the list, select it by clicking the check box and then click OK. If AutoSave isn't in the Add-Ins list, put the Office 95 CD into the CD-ROM drive and click Start, Settings, Control Panel. In Control Panel, double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon to open the utility. Locate Microsoft Office (this line will vary depending on your version) and select it. Now click Add/Remove. When Office Setup opens, select Excel and click Change Options. Now select Add-Ins and click OK. Follow through with the Setup wizard to install the Add-Ins. The next time you run Excel, AutoSave will be available. DRIVING ON THE MEDIAN The problem with Excel's Median function is that many users confuse it with Average. Although Median and Average can often produce the same result--they are not the same thing. The median value is the number in the middle of a group of numbers. That is, half the numbers have a value higher than the median, and half the numbers have a lower value. You'll often see a group of salaries reported as a median. For example, you may read that the median income in the great state of Confusion is $45,000. If you open a blank Excel worksheet and type into cells A1 through A10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 and then go to cell A12 and type =average(a1:a10) you'll get a value of 5.5. Now move to cell A14 and enter =median(a1:a10) and you'll also get a value of 5.5. This is what confuses people--Average and Median often produce the same result. But if you type 10 2 7 8 3 9 12 14 4 1 in cells A1 through A10, cell A12 (Average) will display 7 and cell A14 (Median) will display 7.5 ALL THE FACTS Version 95 In the last tip, we showed you how to locate macros that ship with Microsoft Office 95 Professional Version. This time, let's focus on one of the supplied macros. This one is called SuperDocStatistics. You'll find it in Macros7.dot. When run, SuperDocStatistics will tell you everything you could want to know about the currently open document. You'll get a report on the file name and folder, the time spent editing the document, and the number of words, characters, and paragraphs. SuperDocStatistics will also allow you to run a grammar check and look for any objects, tables, and links that your document is using. And you can even print a report. This is a macro that you'll probably find very useful, so let's create a toolbar button for it. Choose View, Toolbars, and click Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, locate Macros in the Categories list and select it. You'll see SuperDocStatistics in the Macros list. Drag SuperDocStatistics to the toolbar and release the mouse button over the location where you want the button to appear. Now you can assign the name, or choose an icon--whichever you prefer. Click Close to close the dialog box and save your changes. With the SuperDocStatistics button in the toolbar, open a document and click the new button to see a report on the open document. CREATING A NEW FOLDER FOR YOUR MICROSOFT OFFICE DOCUMENTS Here is a Microsoft Office 97 tip from reader Margaret C.: "Many users may not be aware of the fact that you can create a new folder inside the current folder for one of your Office 97 documents without leaving the program. For example, if you decide to save a Word document, but would prefer to place it in a new folder, you can choose File, Save As. When the Save As dialog box opens, click the Create New Folder button in the Save As toolbar (it is the fifth button from the right). "Name your new folder and click OK. Now you can name your file and click Save to save it in the new folder." 95 A BIG ROW Version 4.x, 95 You often need larger row sizes in Excel. This is especially true when you want to put titles in a worksheet. There are two ways to handle row size--to make an empty row larger, select the row and choose Format, Row, Height. Type in the new height and click OK. When you use titles, you don't have to bother setting the row size. All you have to do is click the location for your title and then choose a font size (click the arrow at the right side of the Font Size list box and make a selection). Excel will automatically resize the row to fit the font.4.3 | |