Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
Splitting data in Excel
Let’s set the scene. You have a column in an Excel worksheet which contains a list of names, first name and last name all together. You want to split these into two columns, one for First name and one for last. How do you do this? Well one way is to use the Excel Text to Columns option.
Start by inserting a couple of columns to the right of the column which contains the names. Select the column containing the names and, in Excel 2007, click the Data tab on the Ribbon and choose Text to Columns. Step through the Wizard. In the first step choose Delimited and in Step 2 choose Space. Click Finish and answer Yes to the prompt to overwrite data. You will now have the data in two columns. You’ll be able to remove the extra column you have there – it’s best to add too many blank columns and later remove those you don’t need because if you don’t, you’ll run the risk of losing the columns to the right of where you are working.
This is a simple and very fast solution for a name splitting problem.
Labels: Excel 2007, Parse data, parsing, Text to Columns
Tuesday, August 21st, 2007
Recycle your slide shows – PowerPoint 2007
I hate wasting time and doing things more than once, in my book, constitutes a major waste of time. In PowerPoint 2007, like earlier versions of PowerPoint you can reuse slides from another presentation. It’s just not so obvious how to do it in PowerPoint 2007. In case you really can’t find how to do it, here’s the low down:
On the Home tab click the down pointing arrow to the right of the New Slide option. At the foot of the dialog is a Reuse Slides option, click it and a Reuse Slides dialog appears on the right of the screen. Here you can choose a slide show to grab slides from, thumbnails of the slides in the file appear in the dialog and you can choose the ones to insert into this new presentation. You can also select if they should bring their formatting with them (not a good idea) or have the formatting of the present show applied to them (much better idea).
Labels: Insert slides, PowerPoint 2007
Friday, August 17th, 2007
Status bar functionality – Excel 2007
Right click the Status Bar in Excel 2007 and an entire grab bag of options open up for your choosing. You probably already knew that you could configure Excel in earlier versions to show you a single calculation on a selected range of cells – so you could select cells and then read the Sum of the values on the Status Bar (you did know that didn’t you?) but the functionality is even better in Excel 2007.
Here you can choose to view an entire range of calculations so, instead of being forced to choose between Sum and Average you can have both display and throw in Min, Max and Count for good measure too!
You can also add a Macro Record button to use to fire off the Macro recording tool without having to delve into the ribbon to do so.
It all adds to your very slim customization pickings in Excel 2007 – make the most of it, this and the Quick Access toolbar are about all you’ve got to play with.
Labels: calculations, Excel 2007, status bar
Wednesday, August 15th, 2007
View formulas in Excel
If you’ve ever wanted to view your formulas in an Excel worksheet, perhaps because you suspect one has been overwritten by data or you need to troubleshoot something press CONTROL + ~ to display formulas so you can troubleshoot or debug them. Press the same keystroke again to return to your regular view of your worksheet.
If you select a cell with a formula in it before you press CONTROL + ~ you will see not only the worksheet formulas but also all the precedents to the formula in the current cell.
Labels: cell formulas, Excel 2003, precedents
Thursday, August 9th, 2007
Shapes are different in Word 2007
I’ve been working with shapes a lot in Office 2007 cause I’ve just written a huge article about them. It didn’t start out to be huge but that’s the way it ended up. You see there’s just so much to learn about them and it’s not all intuitive. The problem as I see it is that part of Office 2007 was just cobbled together (love that word cobbled!). Things aren’t consistent, far from it. One of the most interesting inconsistencies is how Shapes are implemented in Word and in Excel and PowerPoint.
In Excel and PowerPoint shapes work the same pretty much and, if you add a shape and right click it you can choose Format Shape and you get this snazzy new dialog to work with. Do the same in Word and life is very different indeed – there’s no new dialog just the old stuff.
What this means in practical terms is that you can’t fill a Word shape with an image from the clipboard or a clip art image – you can in Excel and PowerPoint and you can’t create your own custom multicolor gradient for a Word shape. The issue is that there’s a new graphics engine in Office 2007 called Escher graphics (presumably named after one of my favourite artists, MC Escher) which is implemented fully in Excel and PowerPoint but only partially in Word. So, don’t expect Shapes in Word to behave the same as they do in PowerPoint or Excel, cause they won’t – it’s that simple.
Labels: Escher graphics, Office 2007, shapes, Word 2007
Wednesday, August 8th, 2007
Office 2007 – DIY Keyboard shortcuts
I use Control + S to save an Office document on the fly and it’s something that is so automatic that I just do it, hundreds of times a day.
There are other things I’d like to do as quicky but which have no shortcut key assigned to them. In Office 2007 this is an easy situation to rectify.
To create your own keyboard shortcut, click the Office Button at the top left of the window and choose Word Options, Customize. You’ll see a Customize button next to a Keyboard Shortcuts option, click it and you can create a shortcut for any Word command of your choice as well as for symbols, fonts and the like.
What is particularly useful is that there’s a list of items which aren’t included on the Ribbon that you can still access if you ycreate your own custom shortcut to do so.
Labels: Blog in Word 2007, Keyboard Shortcuts
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
Smart Art in Office 2007
Today I’m indulging in shameless self promotion. This is an article I wrote recently which discusses a how to work with SmartArt in Office 2007.
Exploring Office 2007: Using SmartArt Graphics
Anything that helps your audience connect with your message will help you in your communications with them. You probably already know how useful charts are for presenting numbers in an easy to read format and how helpful tables are for organizing data.
Microsoft Office 2007 offers a handy new feature called SmartArt that makes it easy to create business diagrams that display textual information in an easy to read and understand format. The SmartArt graphics tool is great for creating everything from simple diagrams to cutting-edge business graphics… more
Labels: Uncategorized
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007
Where is it? Office 2007 stole your fave command
I get a lot of emails from folk who have spent time agonizing about things missing from the new Office 2007. True, a few of your old favourite commands have probably bitten the dust but some are still there, just not visible.
To see what you can’t see (if that isn’t a totally confusing statement) click the Office button, choose Word Options (or Excel Options if you’re using Excel etc) and then click Customize. This is where you can manage your toolbar. From the Choose Commands From list choose Commands not in the Ribbon. The list below shows all the commands that still function but which you just can’t see. Click any you can’t live without and click Add to add them to the Quick Access toolbar and they’ll be there for you to use.
This is also the first place to look when you are wondering if a certain command is on the ribbon. If you can’t see it, check here, this is a definative list of what still works but isn’t where it is easily accessed.
Labels: customize, Office 2007, Ribbon
Thursday, August 2nd, 2007
Print in Reverse – Word
Are you one of those people who print long documents in Word and then spend a few mintues reversing the page order because they come out printed back to front? Or do you print multiple copies of a document and then have to collate them by hand?
If you are, it’s probably cause you haven’t read this blog post! You see, life doesn’t have to be this difficult. Word will collate for you and it will print in the order you want and if it’s not doing it right you can change it.
First things first, if you need to reverse your print order, choose Tools, Options, Print and change the setting in the Reverse Print Order checkbox – if it is checked, uncheck it and if it is clear then check it. This setting remains for all documents so now you don’t have to shuffle paper any more.
The collating options are in the printing dialog. Choose File, Print and you can click to set one of two collating options for multiple prints.
In Word 2007, find the print options by clicking the Office button, choose Word Options, Advanced and scroll down to locate the Print options.
Labels: Collate, Reverse Printing, Word 2003, Word 2007
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
How old are you?
I know.. it’s none of my business, but sometimes you wonder, don’t you, just how old you are in days? If this question consumes your waking hours, put the calculator away and crank up Excel.
Excel’s Datedif function, while not documented, calculates the difference between two dates in a number of formats; days, months or years. The syntax of the function is: =datedif(start date,end date,units to return). The units must be provided by a quoted string in the format: “y” – full years, “m” – full months, “d” – full days, “md” – full days in excess of the last full month, “ym” – full months in excess of the last full year and “yd” – full days in excess of the last full year.
So, for example, this formula determines the number of days between the dates in cells B6 and C6: =DATEDIF(B6,C6,”d”). Type your birthday and today’s day in the cells and you’ll know immediately how old you are in days..
Labels: Datedif, Excel 2003
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007
Lorem Ipsum
You’ve seen it typed, you’ve read it and wondered what it is. The answer is: old Latin, very old Latin dating back to BC. Nowadays it’s plain old filler text that designers use to fill in places in sample documents to show what it will look like when it is complete. To avoid having to make words up and to ensure that the reader looks at the design and doesn’t focus on the words (on the assumption that most of us don’t understand Latin), designers use these made up pieces of text that are to their audience at least, total nonsense. Enter Lorem Ipsum – it’s one of those slabs of usable text which only Latin scholars can recognize.
If you need to get your hands on some Lorem Ipsum then visit the Lipsum site where you can grab yourself some paragraphs of the stuff so you too can fill your pages with dummy text.
Labels: dummy text, Latin text, Lorem Ipsum
Monday, July 30th, 2007
Don’t spell check this!
You know how it happens. You type something that is HTML or Javascript into a document or you type the famous “Lorem ipsum … ” text or a French phrase or two and suddenly your document is littered with red underlines. The Spell check can’t handle it all. Now I like my documents to be pristine and neat so I tell Word to bypass spell checking these words since I’m happy they are spelled just fine.
To do this, select the text you DON’T WANT to be spell checked. Choose Tools, Language, Set Language and click the Do not check spelling or grammar option and click Ok. Now Word spell checks all your document and just skips the stuff you don’t want checked.
Labels: Blog in Word 2007, Spell checking, Word 2003
Friday, July 27th, 2007
Outlook on a Go Slow route to nowhere
You gotta love and hate Outlook. It’s like the little girl with the curl – when it’s good its very good and when it’s bad it’s awful.
Of course, one of the biggest problems with Outlook is it’s “go slow” behaviour. Part of the problem is that it stores everything in a single .PST file – and I mean everything that really matters like your emails, attachments, contacts and appointments. If that’s not bad enough (read all your eggs are in one burgeoning basket), there’s an upper limit to the size this file can grow to before Outlook turns up its little toes and stops working. The upper file size limit is 2GB and while this sounds big, it’s not.
So, if Outlook is running slow, check your file size. Right click the Personal Folders link at the top of your Folders list, choose Properties for “Personal Folders” and click the Folder Size button. Wait as Outlook calculates the folder size. The closer it is to the magical 2GB limit, the more trouble you’re in.
The solution is to delete old and unwanted emails and to archive others to get it down to size.
Of course all this stupidity makes you hanker after a program that doesn’t store all the data in one place. Not unsurprisingly, most programs behave this way – Outlook is the exception to the rule.
Labels: file size limits, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, PST file
Thursday, July 26th, 2007
Outlook 2003 Backup
No clue why this is the case but Microsoft didn’t include a backup routine in Outlook 2002 or 2003. What do you think they expect us to do if our computers crash? Do they think that email has no value to anyone? Well, it has value to me so I need to back my PST file regularly. Luckily there’s a free add-in you can use to do it. Since Microsoft created the add-in you have to wonder why they didn’t include the feature in Outlook!
Find it here Outlook PST file backup – download it, install it and then backup by selecting the new option which appears on your File menu.
So simple – just makes it all the more strange that Microsoft doesn’t do it all for you without making you jump through hoops to do it yourself.
Labels: Outlook 2002, Outlook 2003, personal folders backup, PST
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
What style is that? Word
I use styles all the time to format my documents as it just makes such good sense to do so. When I get documents from others, however, often they haven’t used styles or haven’t been consistent (read: anally retentive) in their use. If I need to clean up the mess, I need to see what the problem is. Enter Normal view (choose View, Normal) and you see a Styles list down the left of the page. If not, choose Tools, Options, View tab and set the Style area width to around 1.5 inches (3.5cm). Now you can see the style names, identify which are misused and then fix them.
Instant order to sad, mixed up documents.
Labels: styles, Styles area, Word 2003