Daily Tips and Tricks Special Delivery - Microsoft

Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar In Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Word, and Microsoft Office PowerPoint, the title bar contains a set of icons known as the Quick Access Toolbar. If unchanged, it will have four default icons: Save, Undo, Repeat, and Quick Print. All of these will be displayed, as long as they are active. To customize the Quick Access Toolbar: 1. Click the small arrow to the right of the toolbar, and then click More Commands to view a configuration form. 2. Click the action icon that you want to see on the toolbar, click Add, and then click OK. Notice that the icon is now part of the Quick Access Toolbar. Recalling Messages in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 If you want to recall an e-mail message after clicking the Send button: 1. In the Sent Items folder, open the message. 2. On the Ribbon, in the Actions section, click Other Actions, and then click Recall This Message.

Counting Words You can find the number of words in your Microsoft Office Word document by selecting only the text that you want to count. Look at the status bar displayed on the bottom of the screen. It shows you the number of words in the selected text first, and then the count for the entire document. Wrap Text in Excel 2007 In Microsoft Office Excel 2007, if the text you type is too long to be displayed fully in a cell, you can easily set the text to wrap. This setting enables the cell (and the rest of the row) to expand automatically so that the content of the cell is always visible. 1. Click in the cell that you want to wrap. 2. On the Home tab, in the Alignment section, click Wrap Text.

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Select a Slide Layout Whenever you insert a new slide, you can select from a variety of slide layouts. Slide layouts are designed to make it easy for you to precisely place text, graphics, diagrams, and other items on your slides. 1. On either the Home tab or the Insert tab, click the Add Slide icon. (Note: You will need to click the lower half of the icon to choose the type of slide that you want to insert.) 2. Select a layout option from the Add Slide gallery. 3. On your new slide, click a placeholder to add text or slide content. Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 also makes it easy to create and use your own custom slide layouts. If you need unique layouts that aren't part of the standard slide layouts in the Add Slide gallery, search for "Add a Layout" by using Office Help (press the F1 key to get to Office Help at any time). Set Aside Time to Work on Tasks Contained in E-Mail You can book a slot on your calendar to complete a specific e-mail task. Go to your Inbox, click an e-mail message, and then drag it to your chosen day on the To-Do Bar calendar. This immediately creates a reminder to handle the task on that day. It's then up to you to choose the scheduled time, but drag-and-drop task scheduling makes time management easy.

Adding and Editing Comments You can add and edit comments in Microsoft Office Excel by using the keyboard. To add a comment: 1. Press SHIFT+F2 to insert a comment in the current cell. 2. Type the text of your comment, and then press ESC twice. To edit a comment: 1. Go to the cell that contains the comment and press SHIFT+F2. The comment opens. 2. Make your changes, and then press ESC twice. 2003 to 2007 SmartArt Diagram To make your Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 presentation more compelling, you might insert a diagram. Unfortunately, clicking the Insert menu and then clicking Diagram presents only six available commands, and all of your supporting text must be entered in individual text boxes. With Microsoft SmartArt in the 2007 Microsoft Office system, you can right-click an existing bulleted list in Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, and then click Convert to SmartArt. Then select from the 20 default options, or click More SmartArt Graphics and browse through a large gallery of available diagrams. You can use the SmartArt Tools contextual command tabs to change the diagram type or apply interesting effects like three dimensions or color options. To edit SmartArt text, click the diagram, and then edit your text in its familiar list format in a box that appears to the side of the diagram. Watch your diagram dynamically change to match the new text.

Selecting Excel Ranges by Using the Name Box In Microsoft Office Excel, you can select a range of cells by typing it in the Name box. This is particularly useful if the range is large and will therefore take time and a lot of scrolling to select by hand.

Deleting E-Mail Messages Permanently To delete e-mail messages from Microsoft Office Outlook: 1. Select the e-mail messages that you want to delete. You can select messages that appear in your mailbox consecutively by holding down the SHIFT key while clicking the first and last messages that you want to delete from the list. Alternately, hold down the CTRL key while you click the individual e-mail messages that you want to delete. 2. Hold down the SHIFT key and press DELETE to permanently delete your selected e-mail messages. 3. To complete the deletion, you must confirm it in the dialog box that appears when you close Outlook. But be careful, because permanently deleted e-mail messages are eliminated immediately, not stored in the Deleted Items folder. In other words, they cannot be recovered if you find you've made a mistake.

Correcting a Capitalization Error Here’s a simple fix for a capitalization mistake in Microsoft Office Word: Select the text you have mistakenly typed with CAPS LOCK on, and then press SHIFT+F3. The words will revert to either lowercase or uppercase, depending on what you typed. Inserting Predefined Fields To insert a predefined field: 1. In datasheet view, on the Ribbon, in the Fields and Columns section, click New Field. 2. In the Field Templates pane, select the field you want, and then drag it to your table.

Color-Code an Individual Sender's E-Mail Messages You can color-code your incoming e-mail to spot quickly what's important. 1. Click an e-mail message, and then click Tools. 2. Click Organize. 3. Click Using Colors, and then select your color of choice. All future e-mail from that sender will appear in that color.

Changing Gridline Colors You can change the look of your worksheet. 1. With a Microsoft Office Excel worksheet open, click the Office button, click Excel Options, and then click Advanced. 2. Under Display options for this worksheet, select the gridline color of your choice. 3. Click OK. Create a Resource Plan Resource managers and project managers can make resource assignments to projects that have not yet been fully developed, reducing the availability of the resource for project work. You can assign resources to projects by using the following steps: 1. In Microsoft Office Project Web Access, under the Projects section of the left Action pane, click Proposals and Activity Plans. 2. On the New menu, click Activity Plan. 3. Complete your new activity plan, and then click Save (or Publish). 4. After saving, click Resource Plan on the Activity Plan page. 5. Click Build Team, click Add, and then click Save to select resources for the project. 6. On the Resource Plan page, click View Options to define the date range, resource units, and utilization settings for the resource plan, and then click Apply. 7. Define the hours for each resource in the resource plan, and then click Save (or Publish).

File Multiple E-Mail Attachments Quickly in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 Here’s a quick way to save multiple files attached to an e-mail message. 1. Open the message, and then click Other Actions on the Ribbon. 2. Click Save Attachments. Hold down the SHIFT key while using the arrow keys to select the attachments that you want to save. Alternately, hold down the CTRL key and use your mouse to select the attachments that you want to save. Click OK. 3. Browse to a folder on your hard disk drive or to a document library on a Microsoft SharePoint site, and then click OK. The attachments will be saved to the new location.

Previewing Charts in Grayscale You can preview your charts in Microsoft Office Excel before you print. 1. Open the file that you want to print, click the Office button, point to Print, and then click Print Preview. 2. On the Print Preview ribbon, click Page Setup, click Sheet, and then click Black and white. The preview will be in grayscale so that you can evaluate whether the contrast is good enough to distinguish the lines, bars, and columns.

2003 to 2007 Insert Chart Microsoft Office PowerPoint is a presentation program, not a data analysis tool. Why then does inserting a chart in a Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 presentation open a separate datasheet object for customizing chart data? Instead, you can work with chart data in a program that was designed to handle it—Microsoft Office Excel 2007. 1. In Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, click the Insert tab, and then click Chart in the Illustrations group. 2. Select the chart type you want, and then click OK. Notice the split-screen PowerPoint 2007/Excel 2007 view, in which you can edit your chart data in a familiar Excel environment. 3. To resize the chart data range, drag the lower-right corner of the range in Excel 2007 and watch the chart dynamically adjust on your PowerPoint 2007 slide. Setting Up Meetings in Outlook 2007 If you're tired of making phone calls to set up meetings, you can use Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to schedule a meeting. 1. On your calendar's sidebar, click Send a Calendar Request via E-mail. 2. Select the date. Your meeting request will then be sent directly to the recipient.

Split the Screen In Microsoft Office Word, on the View tab, in the Window section, click Split. This splits the screen and displays a dividing line in the current window. To switch between the screens, use the F6 key. Easily Insert Rows or Columns in Excel With a Microsoft Office Excel document open, you can insert extra rows and columns by holding down the SHIFT key while you grab a cell by its handle and drag it. Excel will insert as many cells as needed.