Set the style of Publisher objects

When you repeatedly use a Publisher shape or text box and when you always need to make changes to its format to meet your needs, set the shape so it always looks how you want it to look.

To do this, insert the shape or the text box for which you want to configure the defaults and right click it and choose Format AutoShape or Format Text Box as desired and make your changes. Switch to the Colors and Lines tab and enable the "Apply settings to new AutoShapes" (or "Apply settings to new Text Boxes) checkbox and click Ok. New objects of this type will now take on the selected formatting options.

Making fixed sized selections in Photoshop

When you need a series of same sized images, you can create an image using a fixed size selection in Photoshop. To do this, choose the Rectangular Marquee tool and selecting the Fixed Size option from the Style dropdown list. Set the width and height in pixels and then click on the image. A marquee of this size appears and you can drag it with your mouse to position it in the correct place and then crop the image. If you simply want to select with the same overall aspect ratio but resize the image later on, select the Fixed Aspect Ratio option and set the ratio of height to width for the selection.

If your selection is not a regular one, for example if you want to cut a piece from a series of images in the shape of Australian, make the selection and save it to a channel in the document by choosing Select, Save Selection. With the document still open, open the images to crop the shape from and load the selection using Select, Load Selection and select the image in which you saved the selection from the dropdown list. Now you can move the selection into position and crop the shape from the image.

Smarter editing in Microsoft Publisher

When you're working with large pieces of text in Microsoft Publisher, you may find it easier to work in Word rather than Publisher. This way you can concentrate on your text without having to deal with layout issues.

Then, when you have finished settling your text, import it into a Publisher text box by clicking in the text box and choose Insert, Text file and browse to locate and import your file.

On the other hand, you can edit a piece of text in Word from inside Publisher if you right click a text frame in Publisher and choose Change Text, Edit Story in Microsoft Word to export it to Word. When you're done, choose File, Close & Return to return to Publisher.

GimpSHOP - all about layers, layer palettes and masks

GimpSHOP is Gimp with a great front end that makes it work much like Photoshop which you can find free for downloading here: GimpSHOP.

GimpSHOP, like any good photo editing program supports layers, and layer masks. These features aren't always simple to get your head around but when you do, you'll find they're invaluable tools to use for photo editing tasks. Here, step by step, is how to work with them:

Step 1
To display the Layers palette press Shift F7 or choose Window, Layers. To add a new layer choose Layer, Duplicate Layer. There are no adjustment layers available in Gimp or GimpSHOP so this process keeps your original photo layer safe in case you need to use it later on.

Step 2
To adjust the levels in the image to improve its tonal range, choose Image, Adjustments, Levels and drag the sliders on the Input area of the dialog to adjust the contrast. The sliders under the chart should be moved inwards so they appear under the ends of the chart. The middle slider adjusts the midtones. Click Ok to apply this to the layer.

Step 3
To see how you can apply an effect or adjustment to this layer and blend it with the layer below, first create a duplicate of the top layer by choosing Layer, Duplicate Layer. Apply the edge detect filter by choosing Filter, Edge Detect, Edge and choose the Sobel Algorithm with the default value. This gives a new layer which is predominantly black and which displays the coloured edges in the image.

Step 4
Now, in the Layers palette, select the Divide blend mode from the dropdown list. Blend modes control how the top layer interacts with the layers below. Drag the opacity slider to the left to reduce the opacity of this layer so that some of the layers below show through thus mitigating some of the effect created by blending the layers together.

Step 5
To edit the effect the top layer gives to the image, use a Layer mask. Choose Layer, Mask, Add Layer Mask and choose White (full opacity) and click Ok. You should see no change in the image. Now select black or grey as the paint colour and paint the image to show part of the layers below through the image, thus effectively removing the effect of the blended edge filter. Paint with white to reapply the layer effect.

Step 6
The Layers menu offers tools for viewing a layer mask, applying it permanently to the layer, deleting it and making a selection based on it, etc.. You can also use the menu to configure the size of the thumbnail images by clicking by choosing Preview Size and then choose a view size from the list.

Microsoft Word - Working with normal.dot

Whether you realise it or not, you use a template evert time you work in Word.

Normal .dot is a special Word template which is used as the basis of all new documents created when you click the New Blank Document button on the Word toolbar. Not only does Normal.dot contain the basic formatting for most of the documents, it also contains macros, toolbars, auto text, and styles. Macros which are stored in Normal.dot are accessible to all documents created using the Normal.dot template. Because so much information is stored in Normal.dot you should back it up regularly so that you do not lose the data in the file if it becomes corrupt.

For special documents which have settings that are peculiar to the document type and different to other documents, create your own custom templates. To do this, create a new blank document and place in it all the information and settings you typically use in this type of document. For example, for a memorandum insert the word memorandum, the To, From and Date lines, and perhaps even a signature. Set up the document with the printing setting for your printer (trays and paper etc), and set the font and font size for the Normal style, and page margins. Save the document as a template by choosing File, Save As and, from the Save As type list choose Word Template (*.dot), give the file a name and save it.

You can include styles in a template by clicking the Styles and Formatting button on the Formatting toolbar and create or alter the styles in the document to suit your needs. Resave the template so that the Styles are included in it. These styles will be available to all new documents based on that template.

When you have a template with Styles, Auto Text, Macros, or Toolbars that you want to use in another template, copy these from one template to the other. Choose Tools, Macro, Macros, Organize. Open one template in the left pane of the Organizer and the other template in the right hand pane and use the Copy button to copy elements from one template to the other. This is handy for sharing styles, macros, etc. amongst other users – you can copy the template to a disk and distribute it with the attached elements in it.

To attach a template with its styles and so on, to an existing document choose Tools, Templates and Add-ins, Templates tab and click Attach. Select the template to add, enable the Automatically update document styles checkbox if you wish to apply the styles in this template to the document in preference to the styles currently applied and click Ok.

Excel - trapping invalid data

There's a term that I love called GIGO - garbage in garbage out. When you're designing an Excle worksheet to solve a business problem you need to make sure that your data is correct or your worksheets won't give valid results.

Luckily, Excel's Data Validation tool helps you prevent incorrect data being added into your worksheet.

To set up a validation rule and to configure what will happen if incorrect data is entered, start by selecting the cells to which the rule should apply. Choose Data, Validation, Settings tab. Now, for example, to limit the data being entered to a whole number less than 200, select whole number from the Allow drop down list. When the Data area appears, choose Less Than and then in the Maximum area type 200.

To configure a user message to tell the user what is required, click the Input Message tab and type a title and a piece of explanatory text telling the user the limits to the type of Data you're expecting them to enter. This appears as a tooltip entry when any of the cells configured with the data validation rule is selected.

You can also specify what should happen if a user enters an incorrect value. To do this, click the Error Alert tab and select the type of indicator from the Style list. If the user enters incorrect data and if you have chosen the Stop style they will have two choices - Retry and Cancel and the invalid data cannot be entered into the cell. The Warning and Information styles both warn about the incorrect data but still allow it to be entered.

Once you've chosen the style, enter the Title and the Error Message which the user will see if the data in not correct. Click Ok and you can now test the rule.

Music your way with Pandora

As a kid, when I visited the library, I’d tell the librarian the authors I liked and they’d suggest others who wrote similar books. Sometimes I didn’t like what they recommended, most of the time I’d find a new author and a swag of new books to consume. When it comes to music, these days my music librarian is Pandora the face of the Music Genome Project.

The concept of Pandora is simple, you tell it a musician or piece of music that is typical of the music you want to listen to and it creates an entire online radio station for you, based on information it knows about the music you’ve chosen. It finds, in its collection, songs that have similar characteristics to the music you like and it sereves them uup to you one at a time. Within minutes you’er sure to find new artists and bands you never knew existed. Pandora has a great feedback system too, you get to tell it if the choice it has made for you is music you like or that you don’t like – smply click the thumbs up or thumbs down button and it takes note of your opinion. If it’s thumbs up it continues to play the song, if you don’t like it, Pandora moves forward to the next song.

You’re not limited to one station either. If Monday mornings are Leonhard Cohen and Fridays party time, you can create different channels to match your mood by seeding the channel with a single type of music., In fact that’s an important feature of Pandora, it works best when you keep different moods separate in different ‘stations’.

While the music is playing you can get on with your day or, if you have the Pandora site still visible, you’ll see the album art for the current track and ask Pandora why that track was played. You can use the Menu option to move the track to another station or to buy the track from Amazon or iTunes. You can also select Backstage to learn more about the artist that you’re listening to.

Pandora is free and fun to use. You can create up to 100 stations so that should keep you entertained for some time. The music library there is not exhaustive but it is expanding and you don’t need anything special to listen to the music apart from a web browser and the flash player add-in which you probably have already. To enjoy the service you will need a broadband connection as it doesn’t support dial-up connections.

Find Pandora here and, if you like, listen to my stations here.

Excel - finding duplicates

Excel's conditional formatting option has lots of handy uses including highlighting cells that contain duplicate data.

To do this, highlight the range to investigate, for example, a series of entries in column C starting with cell C1. Now choose Format, Conditional Formatting, select Formula Is and enter this in the formula area:

=COUNTIF($C:$C,$C1)>1

Click Format and then select a pattern and color to use and click Ok.

Now duplicate entries in the column will be indicated with the shading you've provided. You can copy and paste this formatting down to other cells in column C to include them.

Getting into PowerPoint Actions

When you create PowerPoint presentations that will be used or viewed by one person at a time, rather than by a group, you can customise movement using Action buttons.

Using an action button you can take a user to another place in the presentation or offer Yes and No as a choice to progress to the next slide and take the user to different places depending on their answer.

To add an action button, click on the slide to contain the action and chose Slide Show, Action Buttons and choose Action Button: Information and drag to place the button on the slide. When the Action Settings dialog appears, choose Hyperlink to and select the slide to link to. When a user clicks the button they will be taken to that slide.

If you want them to be able to return to where they came from you can add an Action: Return button to the slide you're sending them to and they can click it to return to where they came from. This is handy for providing a slide with more information on the topic, for example.

You can use Actions without the buttons that PowerPoint provides. So, for example, you can use custom icons or AutoShapes and place them on the slide. Then right click the image and choose Action Settings from the menu. From here you can configure the same action options for the shape as you do for a PowerPoint Action button.

Action buttons can also be used to display an Excel worksheet or chart, a Word document, or even a web page, for example. When you're creating an action button that should appear on all the slides in a presentation, you should create it on the Slide master by choosing View, Masters, Slide Master. Then the action button will be accessible to all slides in the presentation. If you need to block it from one slide, place an object over the top of it – action buttons under other objects are disabled and cannot be clicked.

Outlook 2003 - out of office reply

If you're not around to read your email you can configure Outlook to automatically reply to incoming messages to tell senders that you're out of the office and when you'll return.

There are two possible scenarios, either you're using Microsoft Exchange Server at work or you're using a standalone version - most likely at home.

If you're using Outlook 2003 with Microsoft Exchange Server service you'll find in your profile that you have an Out of Office Assistant you can use to manage replies to your emails when you're out of the office. To do this, choose Tools, Out of Office Assistant and click the I am currently Out of the Office option. In the AutoReply only once to each sender with the following text area type the message. It is usual to indicate that you are out of the office and the time you anticipate returning.

You can also create a rule so that only certain types of messages receive this reply. To do this, choose Tools, Out of Office Assistant and click the Add Rule option to specify the types of messages to which the reply will be forwarded. For example, you may create one reply for external mail and one for internal mail.

If you don't have the Out Of Office Assistant available (this will be the case if you're using a standalone version of Outlook), you can mimic the solution using a template reply email and a rule. Ensure you are using Outlook as your email creating software – this won't work if you're using Word. To check this choose Tools, Options, Mail Format tab and ensure Word is not selected here and ensure Plain Text is selected. Now follow the instructions in the previous tip to create a reply template message.

Now choose Tools, Rules and Alerts and click the E-mail Rules tab and click New Rule to start the Rules Wizard. Click Start from a blank rule and select Check messages when they arrive, and click Next. When prompted with Which condition(s) do you want to check? select a box describing the type of message to apply it to – such as emails received through the specified account or Sent Only To Me. Click Next. When prompted with What do you want to do with the message?, click the Reply using a specific template option. In the second panel, click the specific template option and select your reply template and click Open. Click Next, add any exceptions and click Next. Name your rule and set it to run and click Finish.

Outlook tracks who has received the replies and won't send multiple replies even when it receives multiple messages from the same person.

DPReview postings

There has been some discussion on the forums of DPReview.com about opinions written by someone who calls themselves "Blue Water". They purport to be me.

Just to clarify the situation, I am not Blue Water. Until today I didn't know DPReveiw.com even existed and I had never posted there. The opinions and comments of Blue Water are not mine.

Helen Bradley (the real one!)

Picasa: quick and easy photo editing for free

Picasa is a great free photo organiser and editor and you can find and download it from picasa.google.com. Here are some of the key editing features in Picasa. If you already use Picasa, I suggest you update your version now. In past versions, edits you make in Picasa were only visible in Picasa and were not saved with the image unless you exported it. The new version avoids these problems.

1. To edit an image, from the main screen (called the Library), double click the image to open it in the editor. To straighten a photo, select the Straighten tool and drag the slider to the left or right to rotate the image until it is straight – use the grid as a visual guide to gauge when it is straight. Click Apply to apply the fix and crop the uneven edges from the image.
   
2. To lighten an image where the subject is in shadow, choose the Tuning tool and drag the Fill Light slider to bring the detail out of the shadows – this mimics using the fill flash on your camera. The Temperature slider adjusts the colour of the light in the image, drag it to the right to add yellow to the image and to the left to add blue.
   
3. To fix an image with poor contrast you have two options. The first is to use the Auto Contrast fix in the Basic tools. If the fix isn't enough or still needs some tuning, select the Tuning tab and adjust the Highlights and Shadows until you get the desired result. To fix a batch of images, select them in the Library by Control + clicking on them and choose Picture, Batch Edit, Auto Contrast.
   
4. To crop an image for printing, select the image and choose the Crop tool. To crop for 4 x 6 printing, choose the 10 x 15 option (the ratios are the same) and drag over the image. Drag on the edges of the shape to size it larger or smaller but still in the correct proportions. Click Apply to apply the change to the image.
   
5. When you've finished working on an image, sharpen it using the Effects menu and choose the Sharpen option. You can use this tool multiple times if needed to sharpen the image – every time you click it, the image is sharpened a little more. If you sharpen too much, click the Undo button to roll back the changes. An image you will print should be sharpened more than one you'll simply preview on the screen.
   
6. To turn an image into a black and white image, choose the Effects, Filtered Black and White. Click the Pick Color box and test the colours that appear – each will give a slightly different black and white image based on the colours in the original image – pick the version that looks the best – ie where there are best variations between dark and light areas.

Autonumber a series of Word documents

Word does not contain any option for automatically numbering a series of documents with a consecutive number - the type of thing you might want to do if you are using Word to create invoices or numbered purchase orders. The solution is to create a macro to do the work for you.

Start with a template that has a macro that runs when ever the template is used for a new document. The macro should read a number stored in a file on your drive, add it to your document and then, to prepare the number for the next time it's required, the number should be incremented by one and be written back into the file.

To create the solution, create a new document (or open an existing one to use as a template) and click where you want the sequential number to appear, and choose Insert, Bookmark, type docNum in the Bookmark name area and click Add.

Save this file as a template by choosing File, Save As, from the Files as type list choose Document Template (*.dot), give the file a name and click Save. With the file still open, choose Tools, Macro, Macros and type the name of the macro docNum and, from the Macros In list choose the template file name for the file you just saved and choose Create.

Type this macro as shown, the sub and end sub lines should be there already:

Sub docNum()
Dim MyString, docNumber
FileToOpen = "c:\windows\docNumfile.txt"
Open FileToOpen For Input As #1
Input #1, docNumber
Close #1 ' Close file
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks("docNum").Select
Selection.InsertAfter Text:=docNumber
docNumber = docNumber + 1
Open FileToOpen For Output As #1
Write #1, docNumber
Close #1 ' Close file.
End Sub

Now choose File, Close and Return to Microsoft Word. With the template on the screen, choose File, Close and answer Yes when prompted to save your changes.

Now open Notepad and type a number 4 or 5 numbers less than the number of the first quote you want to use. So, if you want to start numbering at 200, type 195 so you have a few numbers to use to test the process. Choose File, Save As and save the file as a text file, calling it docNumfile.txt and save it to this folder: C:\windows. Close Notepad

To test the process, choose File, New, choose the template file and click OK. Now run the macro by choosing Tools, Macro, Macros, docnumb, Run. If you have everything right the document number will be inserted in the document.

When this is working fine, alter the macro so this process of inserting the document number happens automatically whenever you create a new document based on this template. To do this, choose Tools, Macro, Macros, click on docnumb and click Edit. Change this macro's procedure name by altering this line of code:

Sub docnumb()

to read

Sub AutoNew()

Choose File, Close and Return to Microsoft Word. With the template on the screen, choose File, Close. Say No to saving your changes to this file but answer Yes to save the changes to your template file.

Now test again by creating a new file using File, New, choose your template and click OK. The document number should be added automatically to the new document.

If, in the process of testing you find you go past your starting document number, open Notepad and open the file docnumfile.txt, type a new starting number and save it again.

Start Smart in Excel

When Excel starts a default new workbook displays. This workbook contains many of the default settings for Excel and it can be customized so it looks the way you want it to look.

You can configure the defaults for your starter Excel worksheet if you place your settings in one of the two Excel templates; Book.xlt and Sheet.xlt. Neither file is required but, if you have one or other, or both, stored in your XLStart folder then Excel opens them whenever it opens and uses the data you have stored in them as its own default settings.

When you're creating either or both of the files make sure to put the relevant settings in the right file. Book.xlt should contain the defaults for all new workbooks such as styles and toolbars.

Use Sheet.xlt for options appropriate for all new sheets in a workbook which are added when you choose Insert, Worksheet. A word of warning, when you save a workbook as sheet.xlt make sure it contains only one Sheet.

Misunderstood Photoshop - Clipping Paths

My latest article in the Misunderstood Photoshop series is out today.

The Photoshop clipping mask feature is a quick way to create effects such as text filled with a photograph. Helen Bradley points out more handy uses for clipping masks, such as limiting the effect of adjustment layers, or simplifying the process of editing a portion of an image. You can follow along with the accompanying video tutorial to see exactly how it's done.

Find it here: Misunderstood Photoshop - Clipping Masks

There are more articles to come!

Helen

Shameless Self Promotion

Ok, so it's not exactly a tip of the day, but I already did today's so I feel it's justified.

I have lots of cool Photoshop tutorials around my site, check these out:

Photoshop Brushes tutorial
Learn how to create your own Photoshop Brushes

How to use Adjustment Layers
Make photoediting a simple and undoable process using Adjustment layers

Photoshop Gradients
Fix images and create colorful effects using Photoshop Gradients

Straighten an image in Photoshop, Elements and Paintshop Pro
Straighten your images with this simple to follow tutorial that covers the popular photoediting programs

Photoshop Shapes -New!
Helen Bradley explains how to use Photoshop Shapes to edit your photos and create fun shape overlays.

Create and use Photoshop Masks
Masks aren't as hard as you think they are and this tutorial makes them simple to use.

Create seamless patterns in Photoshop
Whether you need them for the web or for a background for an Excel worksheet, here's how to create great seamless patterns and we've included a mini tutorial on TV scan lines.

Color match photos in Photoshop
Even if your photos were taken in totally different lighting

Color Swatches in Photoshop
Create your own custom color swatches and use them in your photo editing work.

Ok, so that's done, now back to the tips..

Excel 2003 lists

Excel 2003 offered a cool new tool for managing data that was in a list format. It made Excel the place of choice for small lists and it simplified the process of charting list data - Excel lists expanded automatically to allow for more data to be entered and charts based on the list data automatically expanded to include the new data - wonderful!

Here's how to work with lists in Excel:

1. Turn an existing table of data into a list by clicking on a cell in the range and choose Data, List, Create List. If your list has a heading row, enable the My list has headers checkbox and click Ok. Notice the border around the list.


2. To add a row, click in the list area and click in the last (Insert) row which has an asterisk in its first cell. It is also possible to add a row in the middle of the list by clicking where the row should appear and choose List, Insert, Row.


3. When data is created as a list, the AutoFilter feature is enabled. To sort data in the list, click the dropdown arrow to the right of the column (field) to sort on and choose Sort Ascending or Sort Descending as required. To sort on multiple columns, use the Data, Sort dialog.


4. To create a complex filter for your list, click the Custom option from the dropdown list for the field that you want to create the query on. Set the tests to use and select And or Or depending on what information you need to extract. Click Ok to view the results. To display all records again, choose Data, Filter, Show All.


5. When you create a chart based on list data it will be automatically updated when you add a new item to the list. To create your chart, click in the list and click the Chart Wizard button on the new List toolbar and proceed through the Wizard as you would for any other chart.


6. To perform calculations on list data use the Toggle Total Row button. This adds a total row to the list and totals the right most column. To disable this total or create another one, click the down pointing arrow to the right of the total and choose None or a different calculation. Each column has its own down pointing arrow from which you can select the calculation to be made on that column's data.
   

Creating Access Lookups

You're already used to using Lookup lists in many of the programs you use. You use a lookup or dropdown list to select from a series of entries that the programmer has provided for you to choose from. When you create a database in Access, you get to be the programmer and you can create your own lists.

So, whenever you have a list of options that can be used to fill a field in an Access database you can create a lookup field to manage it. Then, whenever data is entered into the table all the user has to do is to select an option from a dropdown list - this makes the dataentry process much faster and more accuate too. Here's how to create one:

1. Start by creating a table that contains the details you want to allow your user to select from. You will need two fields in the table – one for a unique ID and another for the data. For example, for a list of states, include an ID field and a list of the states. Save your table.


2. Open the main data table that you want to access the states information from. In the field for the State details, from the data type list choose Lookup Wizard. When the dialog opens choose 'I want the lookup column to look up the values in a table or query' and click Next. Select the table containing the data – in this case it would be the States table you create in step 1.


3. Click Next and, from the Available fields list choose the field containing the names of the states as you want them to appear in the dropdown list and move it to the Selected Fields list. Click Next. In the sort area choose the field containing the data and set it to be sorted Ascending.


4. Click Next and adjust the column width to the desired amount. Click Next, type a field name and click Finish and save the results. When you next enter data into the table you will find that the field with the lookup has a dropdown list that displays the data so you can choose an item from it.
   
   

5 Hot ways to make grayscale images in Photoshop

There are lots of differnt ways to convert a photo into a grayscale image and each of them offers different benefits such as speed or the ability to customise the results.

Here are five great ways (and one cool extra tip) for making a grayscale image in Photoshop:

(Hot tip) Before you convert an image to black and white, adjust it to ensure there is a good tonal range in the image. Choose Image, Adjustments, Levels and make sure the markers are under the ends of the chart. Adjust the midtones slider (the middle one), until you have a good result. An image with good contrast and a pleasing tonal range will give better results in the steps that follow.

Grayscale - Version 1
The simplest method of converting to Grayscale is to choose Image, Mode, Grayscale. When you do this, you create a grayscale image and color cannot be added back into it unless you convert it back to a color mode. To do this, choose Image, Mode, RGB Color if you plan to do more work with the image. Convert to CMYK color mode only if you intend to send the image for commercial printing.

Grayscale - Version 2
A RGB color image is made up of three color channels Red, Green and Blue. These channels are grayscale images displaying the relative amount of that color in the image at any point. To see the channels, display the Channels palette and click on the channel to view, hiding the others. If you like the grayscale representation of a particular channel display it, hide the rest, and choose Image, Mode, Grayscale and you'll be asked if you want to discard the remainder of the channels – this turns the current channel into the grayscale image. Answer Yes to do so. To work on the image again in color, choose Image, Mode, RGB Color.

Grayscale - Version 3
Another method of converting an image into grayscale image but which retains the RGB color mode is to choose Image, Adjustments, Hue/Saturation. If you select the Master channel and then drag the Saturation slider to the far left, you'll remove the color from the image by desaturating it. However, because it is still RGB Color you can add color back without needing to alter the mode.

Grayscale - Version 4
The Channel mixer gives you the opportunity to tweak the final grayscale representation by using more or less of the colors from the image. Choose Image, Adjustments, Channel Mixer and click the Monochrome checkbox. Now adjust the Red, Green and Blue sliders until you get a result you like. Ideally, you should ensure that your percentages add up to 100% although this isn't a hard and fast rule.

Grayscale - Version 5
One situation you may encounter is where you want to convert a single layer into grayscale but leave the other layers in the image in color. In this case, choose the layer to convert to black and white and choose Layer, New Adjustment Layer, Hue/Saturation and enable the Use previous layer to create clipping mask checkbox and click Ok. Move the Saturation slider to the far left and click Ok.

So, there you have it - more ways to convert an image to black and white than you ever thought possible?

Make room for graphics in Publisher

When you're working on a Publisher document, chances are you may not have all the final images in hand. If you're waiting on graphics, you can add a placeholder for each image to your Publisher file so you can allocate the space for the images and so everything else can be finalized in the meantime.

To do this, click Picture Frame and choose Empty Picture Frame then drag a frame into your document. Size it to the size required. Later, when the image comes in, you can add it to your placeholder by right clicking the placeholder and choose Change Picture, From File and locate the file to use.

Create a winning smile in GIMP

Shiny white teeth look great but, let's face it, not all of us have the benefit of expensive orthodontics. Luckily, armed with some graphics software you can give yourself or your best friend a professional whitening job in seconds.

To whiten teeth, in GIMP, click your favourite selection tool and make a selection around the teeth. Take care to select all the tooth area but avoid including any of the gum line or lips. You may find the "Select contiguous regions tool" is the best to use. Set a feather by choosing Select, Feather and set a feather value of 1 or 2 if the image is large.

Choose Tools, Color Tools, Hue-Saturation and click the option button for the Yellows so you'll adjust only the yellow coloring in the selected area. Reduce the intensity of the yellow by dragging the Saturation slider a little to the left. Check the Green and Red channels to see if altering their saturation has an effect and repeat as needed. Click on the Master button and drag the Lightness slider to the right to lighten the entire selection.

Create an Outlook sticky note

I love sticky notes but not stuck all over my computer monitor. My computer desktop, that's another thing - Sticky notes there look so cute and they're so useful because they're right there where I can see them.

Outlook has a great sticky note feature. Simply type a quick reminder using an Outlook Note and you can 'stick' it on your desktop. Click the Notes icon in Outlook or choose File, New, Note and type the text for your note. Make the first line explanatory of the note's contents as this becomes its name so it's the first thing you see. When you're done, click the Note's Close button to finish.

Now drag and drop the Note onto your desktop - it will stay there and remain accessible even when Outlook isn't open. To view the Note's contents, simply double click it.

Viewer for Publisher Files

I wish! You wish! We wish.. but no go..

We'd all love to see one of these but, unfortunately Microsoft hasn't deigned to give us one. There are, however some options you can use. If you can ask the person who created the PUB file to open and save it in a different format you can then view that - for example it can be saved as a Tiff format file.

If you have a PUB file but no access to Publisher, try one of the free online PDF file conversion tools that can handle Publisher files. I like PDFOnline, it handles PUB files up to 2Mb in size and all you need to do is to browse to upload the file to their server, type a name for the PDF file they'll send you in return and type your email address. In minutes you'll have a PDF version that you can read using Adobe's free Acrobat Reader software.

If you're wanting to share your Publisher files with others who don't own publisher then try a program like the free PDF converter PrimoPDF which installs as a printer driver allowing you to create your own PDFs as easily as printing from Publisher.

Perhaps best of all is your option to download and install the trial version of Microsoft Publisher 2007. It works for a limited time to allow you to open, read and edit Publisher documents. After the trial period is over, you can only open, view and print existing Publisher documents - pretty much what a viewer program would do in my book!

My Photoshop Articles

In the past few month's I've written some cool articles for InformIT on Photoshop, here are a few of them:

Misunderstood Photoshop: Blend If
Here I explore Blend If, a smart Photoshop blending tool that can be used to knock out an object from its background or to blend two images. The article also includes a video tutorial so you can easily follow along.

Misunderstood Photoshop: The History Brush
Photoshop's History Brush is great for fixing those little "oops" moments when you've messed up an image, but it also lets you use previous states of the image to create new effects. Helen Bradley shows why the History Brush should be a valued member of your Photoshop toolkit in this article and video tutorial.

Create Art: Make Your Own Photo Background
If the background of your picture is getting more attention than the subjects in the foreground, try Helen Bradley's Photoshop trick for making the background more attractive and a lot less distracting.

Enjoy!

Display an Excel Workbook's path

Sometimes it's handy to show the path of an Excel workbook on the screen. Here's a workaround using a toolbar to do this.

1. Right click on the menu bar and choose Customize and then the Commands tab.
   
2. From the Categories list choose Web and, from the Commands list drag the Address option onto a toolbar or into the menu bar.
   
3. Click Close and voila! the file's full path will appear in the box.
   

Posting to an Outlook folder

Try this scenario: you're working in Outlook and you want to add a note to your inbox - perhaps instead of emailing your work address someone emails your home email address and you want to keep your work emails up to date so you want to note the conversation in your inbox. Here's how to do it, using a Post:

1. Click the folder to post into so you have it open.
   
2. Choose File, New, Post in this folder and type your note - in my scenario it would be details from the email but it could, conceivably, be anything.
   
3. Click the Post button on the toolbar and the note will be saved into the folder – you’ll know it isn’t an email because it has a special icon but it behaves like one so you can open and view it.

I love Posts. They're are a handy way of recording information in an email folder when it's there that you'd expect to find it.

Excel 2007 goes total color!

It's always been confusing to me and my readers why you have an unlimited number of colors to choose from in Word but only a handful of really ugly colors to use in Excel. It doesn't make sense - do Word users have better design skills than Excel uses - do they think that those of us who create worksheets somehow won't be blindsided by how ugly the color combinations we're being served up are?

Well, if you've been hankering after a rich color palette for your worksheets, you need do so no more. Excel 2007 gives you access to a full range of 16 million colors from the colors dialog so that you can use these colors, for example, for formatting text, charts or drawn objects. You can also select a Theme which gives you instant access to colors that are selected from the same monochromatic group and guaranteed to look great together. The new and very colorful options in Excel 2007 are guaranteed to wow you!

Calculating elapsed time in Excel

It's a common enough scenario - you want to know how old you are in months or days or the number of days left in the year. There appears to be no Excel function for calculating the difference between two dates. Not so! there is a function and it's called Datedif.

The Excel Datedif function isn’t well known because it is largely undocumented in the Excel help files. Its purpose is to calculate the difference between two dates and it can do this by measure the distance using one of these attributes: "m" for months, "d" for days, "y" for years.

So this formula calculates the difference in months between FirstDate and SecondDate:

=Datedif(FirstDate,SecondDate,"m")

Replace "m" with "y" to get the result in years etc..

Always ensure that the first date occurs earlier than the second or you'll get an error.

More colours in Excel 2003 and earlier

I don't know why, but there are heaps of colors available in Word for formatting text and lines but only a small subset of colors are available in Excel. Does Microsoft think we don't like color in Excel?

Unfortunately we can’t specify additional colours for use in Excel workbooks either but we can change the colours that are displayed in the color palette to a mix of what we do like. So, if pink isn't your thing, you can replace all the pinks with colors you do like and will use.

To do this, in Excel, choose Tools, Options, Color tab and select a color to change. Click Modify to choose a new color in its place. Repeat as desired.

Using special characters in Word documents

I write for UK magazines so I often have to use pounds symbols and my mum's and brother's surnames have an 'e' with an accute accent - unfortunately neither is on my keyboard. So, to make things easier to write, I use a macro to convert a word to a typed character.

Here's a sample you can use and adapt. It converts the words cents, pounds, degrees and division to their character equivalents and you can use it to replace almost any word or character with another single character, word or phrase of your choosing:

Sub ConvertText()
FindAndReplace "cents", "¢"
FindAndReplace "pounds", "£"
FindAndReplace "degrees", "º"
FindAndReplace "division", "÷"
End Sub

Sub FindAndReplace(FindThisWord, ReplaceWithWord)
Set EditRange = ActiveDocument.Content
EditRange.Find.ClearFormatting
EditRange.Find.Execute FindText:=FindThisWord, ReplaceWith:=ReplaceWithWord, MatchCase:=0, Replace:=wdReplaceAll
End Sub

Avoiding that "oops!" moment in Outlook

I think we've all had that sinking "Oh no!" feeling when we've sent an Outlook email. Either you've forgotten to include an attachment or you've thought twice about what you said and you want to recall the email. In most cases an email can't be recalled, but you can delay it being sent.

To add a delay to outgoing emails, use a rule:

1. Choose Tools, Rules and Alerts and click on New Rule.
   
2. Choose the Start from blank rule option and then select Check messages after sending and click Next.
   
3. Click Next as all messages will be delayed (but you can set an exception shortly) and click Next and Ok again to confirm the rule will apply to all sent messages.
   
4. Choose Defer delivery by a number of minutes and set this to the number to wait – say 2 minutes and click Next.
   
5. Now, set an exception for messages that just have to be sent immediately, for example, select Except if it is marked as importance and set this to High.
   
6. Click Next, type a name for the rule such as Delayed Send, enable the Turn on this rule checkbox and click Finish.

Now, when you click Send, your messages will be held for 2 minutes before being sent except if you make them High importance.

Automatic Excel cell entries

We all love to save time and here's a great tip to make repetitive cell entries in Excel just so much easier to complete.

You do this by making a drop-down list in a cell so you can select your entry from it rather than having to type it fresh each time.

To do this:

1. Type the list of items to use in a single column in a spare sheet in the workbook.
   
2. Select these cells and choose Insert, Name, Define and type DataForList and click Ok.
   
3. Move to the sheet where the data goes, select the cells for the drop-down list and choose Data, Validation, Settings tab. From the Allow list choose List and, in the Source area, type =DataForList and click Ok.

Now, whenever you click a cell in this range you’ll see a list box indicator appear and you can choose the cell entry from the list.

Sorting a Word list

While it looks like Word has no tool for sorting a list – only for sorting data in a table, this is not the case and the Table sort tool works just fine for sorting data in a list.

To sort a list, such as a list of names, where each name appears on a new line and the last name is separated from the first by a comma and a space, choose Table, Sort. From the Sort by list, choose Field 1 and then, from the Then by list choose Field 2 and click Ok. This sorts the data into order by last name and then by first name where there are two or more people with the same last name.

If the names appear with the first name then a space and then last name you'll have to tell Word to differentiate between the two names. To do this, select your list and choose Table, Sort, Options and click the Other option and press the Space bar and click Ok. From the Sort by list, choose Word 2 and then, from the Then by list choose Word 1 and click Ok. This sorts the data into order by last name and then by first name where there are two or more people with the same last name.

If you find that Word 2 doesn't appear as an option in the Sort by list, click Ok to exit the Table Sort dialog and select the option again.

Save an Outlook message as a file

When you need to save a copy of an Outlook message simply hold the Control key as you drag it out of your Inbox and drop it into a folder in an open Windows Explorer window or onto the desktop.

The message is saved as a .msg format file that you can open again at any time by double clicking it in Windows Explorer. When you do this, the email itself opens and can be read, even if Outlook is not open.

To save a message as an .html file, open it and choose File, Save As and type a name for it and choose a location for it.