Daily Tips and Tricks Special Delivery - Microsoft

Fine-Tuning Objects in Presentations When working with text in Microsoft Office PowerPoint, you can use the F2 key to switch between selecting text in a placeholder and selecting the placeholder itself. So the next time you've edited some text and want to reposition it on the slide, instead of clicking the tiny edges of the box, just press F2. The entire text box will instantly be selected for you, ready for alignment. 2003 to 2007 Mark as Final To make a Microsoft Office Word 2003 document read-only, you need to close the file, right-click it in Windows Explorer, click Properties, and then select the Read-only check box. If it's a Microsoft Office Word 2007 document, you can save yourself the trouble and change the document to read-only from within the program. 1. Click the Office button, and then point to Prepare. 2. Click Mark as Final. Not only is the document now read-only, but the editing commands on the Ribbon are unavailable. To enable editing again, follow the same steps to turn the Mark as Final feature off.

Color-Code Meetings You can use color codes in Microsoft Office Outlook to highlight key diary dates and additional activities, such as traveling. When you create a new appointment in the Outlook calendar, you can categorize it as an internal or external meeting so that you can easily see when you need to leave the office. On the Appointment tab, in the Options section, click Categorize, choose a color category, and rename it with a suitable label (like Needs Preparation or Travel Required). For meetings already in your calendar: 1. Right-click, click Categorize, choose the color you want to use, and rename it with a suitable label. To rename all the color categories, right-click, click Categorize, and then click All Categories; or, in the Calendar view, click Edit, click Categorize, and then click All Categories. 2. Choose one of the existing color categories and rename it. You can automatically color all appointments that meet a condition, much like setting up a message rule. 1. Click Edit, click Automatic Formatting, and then click Add. 2. Give the rule a name, choose a color, and then click Condition to choose which appointments will be color-coded.

Changing the Color of Excel Comments In Microsoft Office Excel, comments appear in little yellow boxes by default. Here’s how you can change the color of a comment: 1. Right-click its border, and then click Format Comment from the shortcut menu. 2. On the Colors and Lines tab, choose a color from the Color list. Changing the default color for comments is a little more involved; here’s how to do it: 1. Right-click any blank area of your Windows desktop, and then click Properties from the shortcut menu. 2. Click the Appearance tab, and then click the Advanced button. 3. Select ToolTip from the Item list. 4. Click the arrow next to the Color box, and then choose a color for your comments. 5. Click OK.

Overprinting Watermarks on Documents You can easily insert a watermark into your document in Microsoft Office Word 2007. Click Watermark from the Page Layout tab on the Ribbon. Lookups and Relationships Often you need to add fields that look up data from other tables. For example, you may want to assign a task to someone in your Contacts table. To add such a field: 1. In datasheet view, on the Ribbon, in the Fields and Columns section, click Lookup Column. 2. If you want to type the lookup values instead of looking up a field from a different table, select I will type in the values; if not, click Next. 3. Select the table that you want to look up from, and then click Next. 4. Select the fields that you want to include in your lookup, and then click Next. 5. Select the sorting method you want, click Next, and then click Next again on the following screen. 6. Label the lookup column and check the box if you want to allow the selection of multiple values. Click Finish.

Generating an Efficient Frontier You can assess your selected project portfolio against the Efficient Frontier. (Note: These steps assume you have already run an optimization scenario.) Here’s how: 1. Right-click an optimization scenario, and then click Insight Analysis from the Advanced Analysis commands. 2. Wait while the Efficient Frontier is generated. 3. Analyze the constraints (in the right panel) that are prohibiting the portfolio from reaching the Efficient Frontier. Quickly Switching to Inbox or Outbox To jump to your Inbox, press CTRL+SHIFT+I. To jump to your Outbox, press CTRL+SHIFT+O.

Use Conditional Formatting to Highlight Data Trends Conditional formatting can help you highlight trends in your data. First, either open a fully populated Microsoft Office Excel file, or start with an empty document and fill its cells with some values. To apply conditional formatting: 1. Click the Conditional Formatting button on the Home tab of the Ribbon. 2. On the menu that appears, try selecting Data Bars, Icon Sets, or Color Scales and pause over the options. Your data is partitioned according to the rules you set, and it instantly displays visual cues that will aid understanding of the data. 3. If you don't like the options available, you can create your own rules, use your own colors, and establish your own thresholds. Better still, you can reuse your rules each time for consistent and clear presentation. All of these options are available on the Conditional Formatting menu. Insert Pictures To insert a picture in your notes, click Insert, click Pictures, and then click either From Files or From Scanner or Camera.

Multiple Level Undo, Change Highlighting, and Task Drivers In Microsoft Office Project Professional, project managers can visualize the effects of changes and trace back their steps. To turn the Change Highlighting feature on or off, click the View menu, and then click Hide Change Highlighting or Show Change Highlighting. While the feature is enabled, all levels of tasks affected as a result of a change are highlighted with a color as a visual indicator. By using this feature together with the Multiple Level Undo feature, project managers can do what-if analyses by trying a set of changes and then reversing unwanted changes. If further analysis of a task’s schedule is needed, the project manager can use Task Drivers on the Project menu to determine the factors—such as task dependency, calendar constraints, schedule date, or vacation time—that are driving a task’s start date. Search All Folders in a Mailbox You can set Microsoft Office Outlook to automatically search across all your folders at once. Here’s how: In Outlook, click Tools, click Options, and then click Search Options on the Preferences tab. In the Search Options dialog box, if you click All folders, you can search all folders instead of just the selected one.