ARTICLE: Word Has a Mind of It's Own

If you have attended one of my workshops, you may already know what a huge fan I am of the Crabby Office Lady. Here's a terrific article she wrote about many of the "troubles" people have with Word. I know I've answered my share of these questions myself. Even though this article is from September 2005 and deals with Word 95-2003, it's still worth reading. The topics are still relevant to 2007, but you will have to find them in the new places.

Word has a mind of it's own: So do you
"I get a lot of inquiries about how to institute a restraining order on Word to stop it from guessing what you want to do with your documents. I created a video about it, and now we'll delve a little deeper..."

PowerPoint 2007: Status Bar View Switching

The view switcher group in the status bar lets you, with a single click, switch between the main document views. For many releases now PowerPoint has had a view switching control in the status bar. What's not obvious to most folks is there is hidden access to multiple views in each of these buttons! Here's where the fun starts. You can "modify" the effect of clicking on any of these buttons by holding down the SHIFT key or CTRL key while you click each button. This gives you a number of additional views you can quickly shift to. Here are the main commands.

• SHIFT-Click the Slide Sorter button to switch to the Handout Master View
• CTRL-SHIFT-Click the Slide Sorter button to expand the Outline to the full window
• SHIFT-Click the Normal button to switch to the Slide Master View
• CTRL-SHIFT-Click the Normal button to hide everything except the slide
• SHIFT-Click the Slide Show button for quick access to the Set Up Show Dialog
• CTRL-Click the Slide Show button to display a 1/4 screen preview (miniature) of the slide show. The miniature view is a full featured slide show, complete with transitions and animations, all of the standard navigation and even the final "click to exit" black screen. While it is running you can click back into the normal view, make changes to the slides, and resume the show displaying those changes.

Can You put a PowerPoint Presentation on an iPhone?

by chris@pirillo.com (Chris Pirillo)

Chris | Live Tech Support | Video Help | Add to iTunes

Excel 2007: Enter the Same Value

You can enter the same value into multiple cells simultaneously. Even though this is a tip that has been around for a while, it's worth mentioning again. I'm all about saving time and this is great!

1. Select all the cells into which you want to enter the value.
2. Type the value in the active cell of your selection.
3. Press CTRL+ENTER
   

ARTICLE: Top 10 most useful secret ninja moves in Office

It's no secret I'm a fan of the shortcut. Some say I'm lazy, I prefer "efficient." In either case, check out this recent article from Office Hours.

Office Hours: Top 10 most useful secret ninja moves in Office
June 16, 2008
Philip Su
"Office is a treasure trove of hidden features that make everyday life easier. Although each version of Office has made improvements in helping users discover the available features, I find that some of my favorite features are still not well-known amongst friends and family." [Read the entire article for the tips.]

How do I… Spice up a list in a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation?

During my PowerPoint workshops, I emphasize making the text visual and getting away from bulleted lists and turning it into something more graphic. Here is a terrific article on how to do that from TechRepublic blogs.

How do I… Spice up a list in a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation?
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/msoffice/?p=545&tag=nl.e056
May 13, 2008
Susan Harkins
"Most of us use bullets or numbers to introduce specific ideas or points. There’s nothing wrong with them, but they are rather ordinary. In a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, you might want to forgo the ordinary and go with something a bit more novel, and certainly unexpected." [read the entire article on TechRepublic.com]

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007: Setting Your Default Theme in PowerPoint

Setting a default design is particularly useful if you work in department that requires you to use specific template. Whenever you open PowerPoint the design you chose is automatically applied to the new document, and you're ready to go!
As you're probably aware by now, Office 2007 introduces Themes; professionally created collections of colors, effects, and fonts, which can be applied to Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. Themes provide a uniform professional look across different document types, as well as providing powerful customization options.

1. Apply your theme of choice from the Theme gallery of the Design ribbon; it will then appear in the gallery. If you downloaded any of the approved templates from http://www.unl.edu/ucomm/ucomm/resources.shtml, you will need to select Browse for Themes… in the gallery to navigate to and select the theme.
2. With the gallery open, right-click the theme thumbnail you want to make the new default and select Set as Default Theme.

To return to the original, repeat the steps above for the “Office Theme” found at the beginning of the Built-In section of the gallery.