Wednesday, May 2nd, 2012
Each of the Office applications allows you to configure a look for a document, spreadsheet, publication or presentation and then save it as a template so that you can reuse it anytime.
Templates in PowerPoint 2010
In PowerPoint you’ll create your presentation and then save it using File > Save As and select from the Save As Type list choose PowerPoint Template (*.potx). Give your presentation template a name and click Save.
In future you can locate this presentation by choosing File > New > My Templates and click on the template to use it as the basis of a new document.
Templates in Word 2010
In Microsoft Word choose File > Save As and from the Save As Type dropdown list choose Word Template (*.dotx). In the top left of the dialog click the Templates option to make sure that the template will be stored in the correct location and give the template a name.
In future choose File > New > My Templates and select the template to use.
Templates in Excel 2010
In Microsoft Excel, you can save the look of your document so that it can be used as the basis of a new document by choosing File > Save as and choose Excel Template (*.xltx ) as the file type. Type a name and save the template file.
In future you can base a new worksheet on this template by choosing File > New > My Templates and select it from the Personal Templates list.
Templates in Publisher 2010
In Publisher you’ll choose File > Save As and then select Publisher Template (*.pub). Type a name for the template and click Save.
In future you can access this template by choosing File > New > My Templates, select the template and click Create. You may need to close and reopen your software before the new templates are available.
Labels: Excel, Excel 2010, Helen Bradley, how to, PowerPoint, PowerPoint 2010, publisher, Publisher 2010, save as a template, templates, tips, Word, Word 2010
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posted by Helen Bradley @ 8:00 amNo Comments links to this post
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012
In Word 2010 you can set keyboard shortcuts for ribbon buttons using the program options. Choose File > Options and click Customize Ribbon. Click the Customize button at the foot of the dialog – this is available in Word 2010 but not in Excel 2010 curiously.
Click the tab that you’re interested in and locate the button on the tab that you want to customize. For example, if you choose the Home tab and click Bold as the command you’ll see that there are already keyboard shortcuts associated with that command.
Many other commands do not have keyboard shortcuts associated with them and if you want to add them you can do so.
For example, there is no keyboard shortcut for the Font Color Picker. Select Home tab and then Font Color Picker and press a new shortcut key. For example the shortcut Alt + Ctrl + Shift + C is not currently assigned.
Click in the box and press that keyboard combination. If you want to use that for the Font Color Picker, you can do so by clicking Assign. This assigns this keystroke to the Font Color Picker tool.
To test this, click Close and then Ok. Now when you select a piece of text you can apply the currently selected font color to it by pressing Ctrl + Alt + Shift + C.
Labels: customise, customize, Excel 2010, Helen Bradley, key shortcuts, keyboard assignments, Keyboard Shortcuts, keystroke short cuts, short cut key, Word 2010
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posted by Helen Bradley @ 8:00 amNo Comments links to this post
Thursday, April 12th, 2012
The Quick Access Toolbar or QAT runs across the top left edge of the Word 2007 and 2010 window. It also appears in other ribbon compatible programs like Excel 2007 & 2010, PowerPoint 2007 & 2010.
The QAT is a handy place to put icons that you use all the time. It can be customized through this Quick Access Toolbar option.
Click this icon to show the QAT editing options. Click Show Below the Ribbon to place the Quick Access Toolbar below the ribbon – I think most people will find its current position acceptable but if you want to move it that’s how to place it elsewhere.
Choose More Commands to add more commands to the Ribbon. From the Choose Commands From list you can select commands to view. These include Popular Commands, Commands Not In The Ribbon, in other words commands that are available in Microsoft Word but for which you have no other easy way of accessing, All Commands or Macros. The remainder of the dialog gives you access to the individual tabs in Word so that you can get access to icons listed there.
Some options you may want to add to the Quick Access Toolbar include the Close/Close All Button, Quick Print and I like to add Switch Windows which is available from the All Commands list. Other tools that you use frequently can be added to the Quick Access Toolbar making them instantly accessible.
You should note that you can set the features for all documents or for just an individual document so that you can, for example, set a different toolbar for a specific document. When you choose this option the specific document will get all the tools on the standard quick access toolbar plus those that you’ve added to just its toolbar.
Labels: Excel 2007, Excel 2010, Helen Bradley, mini toolbar, OneNote 2010, Outlook 2010, PowerPoint 2007, PowerPoint 2010, Qat, quick access toolbar, Ribbon, Word 2007, Word 2010
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posted by Helen Bradley @ 8:00 amNo Comments links to this post
Thursday, November 17th, 2011
A reader just asked if they added 50 images to a Word file would that blow out the file size when they send it to their colleagues. Answer: Yep! big time.
Most specially if you use your your beaut iPhone to capture the images, or a good compact camera or if you just insert big pictures. You see, unless you do something those big pictures will be inserted in the file and included in it when you save it – you can end up with a monster Word file (think 5Mb x 50!)
The solution to the problem is to compress the images. To compress all the images in your Word 2010/2007 file so that they take less room, click on any image and choose Picture Tools > Format tab. Locate the Compress Pictures button and deselect Apply only to this Picture so all images will be compressed.
If there is an Options button click it to see the sizing options (this appears in Word 2007 but not in Word 2010). Then choose the Target output – typically Screen or Print are good options as they will view well and print just fine. Check the Delete Cropped Areas of Pictures checkbox so cropped data won’t be saved. Click Ok. Then save the document.
This compression feature will reduce your file to a better size for sharing without compromising the quality of the document. And the changes affect only the images in the document not the originals on your disk.
Labels: compress images, Picture, reduce file size, reduce size of files, shrink, squash, Word 2003, Word 2007, Word 2010
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posted by Helen Bradley @ 9:59 amNo Comments links to this post
Monday, October 17th, 2011
There is a healthy range of free clip art available from Microsoft and it includes some photos including content from iStockPhoto.com. However, the process of getting them into your document any other way than by choosing Insert > Clip Art is not always obvious.
Here’s how to add a clip art image to a circle shape:
Choose Insert > Shape and select the Oval. Hold Shift as you draw to create a circle on the screen. If you choose Drawing Tools > Format > Shape Fill you get the option of applying a picture to the shape but not clip art.
Instead, right click the shape and choose Format Shape to get access to the new to Word 2010 – Format Shape dialog. Choose Fill > Picture or Texture Fill and click the Clip Art button.
Browse or search for an image. You could also have placed a Clip Art image into your document using Insert > Clip Art and then selected it and cut it to the Clipboard. Here in this dialog you can choose Clipboard to add the image from the clipboard – in short you have more options here for using image than you have using the Shape Fill list.
If the image is skewed out of shape – and it will be if it is a portrait or landscape image inside a circle which is pretty much a square with the corners cut off – you can adjust it.
Select Crop and, for a landscape orientation image inside a circle, increase the Picture Position Width value. For a portrait orientation image inside a circle, increase the Picture Position: Height value.
Then adjust the Offset X or Offset Y values, if desired, to control which portion of the image shows up inside the circle.
Labels: clip art, images, Microsoft Word 2010, photos, pictures in shapes, shapes, Word 2010
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posted by Helen Bradley @ 11:39 amNo Comments links to this post
Thursday, October 6th, 2011
Hmmm … I am fussy, I want my cake and I want to eat it too!
I want to have a clean task bar so I don’t want to see lots of files lined up there so I love Windows 7 and its clean task bar. But I find the new panel that opens when I right click an icon on the task bar to be just a little bit too free with information. I really want it to show me a list of currently open files – not everything that I have open or have recently opened. Actually I could live with the information it gives me if I didn’t have to actually use it to switch windows.
So, problem is… how can I switch between open documents in Excel or Word, for example, without having to use the Windows task bar? Solution is to use the Switch Windows button. I add it to the QAT (Quick Access Toolbar) and it totally makes sense to me.
In Excel or Word, click the Customize Quick Access Toolbar button and choose More Commands. From the list which currently shows Popular Commands choose All Commands and scroll to find the Switch Windows button and click Add.
Now it is on the QAT and it will show you all your open files and you can use it to switch between them by just clicking on the one to go to. Repeat the process for both Excel and Word and you’ll be happy – at least until something else bugs you!
Labels: Excel 2007, Excel 2010, filenames on task bar, Switch between open documents, switch between open worksheets, Windows 7, Word 2007, Word 2010, workbooks
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posted by Helen Bradley @ 8:58 am1 Comment links to this post
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011
The new SmartArt feature in Word 2007 and 2010 helps you create timelines very easily:
Step 1
Choose Insert -> SmartArt -> Process and select one of the process options such as Basic Timeline and click Ok. Type the text into the textboxes in the SmartArt object. Alternately, click the arrows at the far left of the object and add text via the dialog.
Step 2
To format the timeline SmartArt, select the object and choose Format -> Design on the Ribbon and then select one of the SmartArt Styles. Click Change Colors to alter the colours used in your SmartArt object.
Step 3
From the Shape Effects list you can customise an effect such as reflection or shadow for the art. In addition, as the look of a SmartArt object is controlled by the document theme you can choose Page Layout -> Themes and select an alternate theme for your document.
Labels: how to, Microsoft Word, smart art, SmartArt, timeline, Tutorial, Word 2007, Word 2010
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posted by Helen Bradley @ 8:01 am2 Comments links to this post
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
Much of the illustration Clip Art in the Microsoft Clip Organizer can be edited by changing its colors. By doing this you can not only recolor the art to match the look of your document but, if you use Theme colors then the art will change color when the Theme or Color scheme changes.
Now you won’t need information technology degrees to learn this – but maybe you’ll be so good at it, you just might consider graphic design college.
So, let’s see how the recoloring is done. First select the Clip Art and from the Picture Tools -> Format tab click the Group > Ungroup button. Answer Yes if you are prompted to convert the image to a Microsoft Office Drawing Object. In some applications such as Publisher you’ll need to repeat the process and select Ungroup again.
Now click on individual parts of the object and either remove them or recolor them by selecting a Shape Fill Color from the Drawing Tools > Format tab. If you use Theme colors then the colors will change later on when the theme changes.
When you are done and you have recolored all the pieces you want to recolor, select all the pieces, right click and choose Group.
Change the document theme or Color Scheme to see the image change color to match the look of the theme.
Labels: clip art, color scheme, Excel 2010, Microsoft Office, Publisher 2010, recolor, theme, Word 2010
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posted by Helen Bradley @ 6:22 pmNo Comments links to this post
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
One of my readers – Joe – recently asked for some help regarding removing spaces in Word. He thought that the problem with the text was additional spaces, but when I looked into it, it appears that something else is causing the issue.
Here is a piece of sample text and you can see that it is a series of short lines which my reader wants to make into one continuous paragraph.
To see what is causing him issues click the Show/Hide¶ button on the Home tab of the Word Ribbon.
At the end of each line you will find either a Paragraph Marker or a Manual Line Break – each is different and you need to work out which you have at the end of each line. Also determine if there is a space before each of the markers. If there is not a space you will need to add it yourself. Here is a mix of both markers but no spaces:
To make the lines flow into each other, from the Home tab on the Ribbon click the Replace option. If you need to replace Paragraph Markers, enter ^p into the Find What box. If you need to replace a Manual Line Break then enter ^l (lower case L) into the Find What box.
If you need to add a space, click in the Replace With box and press the Spacebar once – if you don’t need to add a space, then leave the Replace With box empty.
Click Find Next and then click Replace. Check to make sure the replacement is working as expected. If it is, click Replace All and lines will be joined together into a single paragraph of text.
Typically you only have to replace one type of marker and not both, but if you have both, then you will need to find and replace each individually.
When you’re done click Show/Hide¶ again to hide the extra characters from view.
Labels: find and replace, remove spaces, Word 2003, Word 2007, Word 2010
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posted by Helen Bradley @ 7:45 pm4 Comments links to this post
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
I was at dinner the other night and talking computers with some friends. We were joking about Excel not being a word processor when the subject of images came up. And Lo! and behold someone suggested that Excel was a much better option to use than Word so far as images are concerned.
This has been a particular issue for me for years. You see Word inserts all images, by default as in line with text which is the option you’d probably never want to use.
I promised my friends to show them how to fix Word – permanently – so images get inserted as you’d want them to be – with a square wrap around. It’s a good starting point and my recommended default for Word. You can change the wrapping if you want but 99.9% of the time this is the setting you’ll want to use.
In Word 2003, choose Tools > Options > Edit tab and from the Insert/Paste Pictures as dropdown list choose Square and click Ok.
In Word 2007 choose File > Word Options > Advanced tab and locate the Cut, Copy and Paste group. From the Insert/Paste Pictures as dropdown list choose Square and click Ok.
In Word 2010 choose File > Options > Advanced tab and locate the Cut, Copy and Paste group. From the Insert/Paste Pictures as dropdown list choose Square and click Ok.
Now you know how to fix it … spread the love and tell a friend!
Labels: image, insert, square, Word 2003, Word 2007, Word 2010
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posted by Helen Bradley @ 11:40 am1 Comment links to this post
