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| Microsoft Office - Tips and Tricks - Keyword Shortcuts
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Microsoft Office - Advanced Tips and Tricks
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Microsoft Office Toolbars
Avoid ordering off the menu, if possible.... use Microsoft
Office Toolbars
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Toolbars in software applications give you point and click access to
the most common functions in a particular program. Without Microsoft
Office toolbar buttons, youd still be able to get the job done
through menus, but youd end up doing a lot more work than
you needed to.
Microsoft Office Toolbars Rule!
The Toolbars in Microsoft Office applications
save time, mouse clicks and keystrokes. Yet, Im always shocked
how many small business PC users are missing out on this huge productivity
booster.
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In fact, not using Microsoft Office Toolbars can be a major
barrier standing in your way of using Microsoft Word and
Microsoft Excel more productively. Most of what youre about to
learn also applies to other Microsoft Office applications, including
Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Publisher.
Pull-Down Menus: More Time Consuming
Menus include virtually every available
command, but you are probably visiting menus a lot more than you
need to. For most of us, the great majority of whats needed is in
the Standard and the Formatting Toolbars. Table 3-4 lists popular
toolbar buttons.
Youll notice a few repeats in Table 3-4,
such as Format Painter and Undo/Redo. Again, one of the big benefits
of using multiple applications in Microsoft Office is the idea of
learn once, apply many places. As youre gaining proficiency in
one application, youre already learning small pieces of all
the other Microsoft Office programs and toolbars.
ScreenTips: What Does That Microsoft Office Toolbar Button Do
Again?
Microsoft helps you to easily and quickly
recall the function of each Toolbar button with something called
ScreenTips. To use the ScreenTip for a particular Toolbar button,
simply move your mouse pointer on top of the Toolbar button and
leave it hovering there without clicking the mouse button.
Toolbar buttons save you lots of time in
Microsoft Office
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Word
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Excel
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Borders
Columns
Format Painter
Increase/Decrease Indent
Insert Table
Numbering/Bullets
Show/Hide
Style
Undo/Redo
Zoom
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AutoSum
Chart Wizard
Drawing
Fill Color
Format Painter
Merge and Center
Paste Function
Spelling
Sort Ascending/Descending
Undo/Redo
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Common buttons on the Standard and Formatting
Toolbars in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.
Within a moment, a little yellow box pops up to
give you a very concise explanation of the Toolbar buttons
functionality. For example, if I hover on top of the little yellow
file folder button on the Standard toolbar in Microsoft Word or
Microsoft Excel, a ScreenTip called Open pops up to remind me that
this button is used to open a file.
Customizing your Microsoft Office Toolbars
If there are a few missing wish list buttons
that still have you trekking to the pull-down menus, you easily
can customize Toolbars in Microsoft Office applications without any
programming or even anything remotely technical. Just make a note of
the menu command you want on your Toolbar.
Next, go to the Tools menu, Customize command,
click on the Commands tab, and find the desired command and icon.
Then, drag and drop the command icon up to the appropriate Toolbar
with your mouse and release. Voila! If you want to save great
amounts of time and make your employees more productive,
invest a few minutes and place your most commonly used Microsoft
Office commands on various Toolbars.
Microsoft Office Toolbars Action Items
Are your employees trained on what the
Standard and Formatting Toolbar buttons do in Microsoft Word and
Microsoft Excel?
Are your employees aware that ScreenTips
can help them quickly recall the function of a Toolbar button?
Are there any tasks in Microsoft Office
applications that your employees do several times a day, which could
be streamlined through the use of Toolbar buttons?
Do you know of any commands in Microsoft
Office applications that your employees wish there was a Toolbar
button for? If so, have you tried to simply customize the Toolbar by
dragging and dropping the menu command onto an available Toolbar
slot?
Learn how to recover a lost MS Office toolbar.
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MS Office Toolbar Dependence Syndrome
Once a new Microsoft Office user gets
comfortable with Toolbar buttons, the user is likely to virtually
abandon use of more complex menu commands. So, panic can rapidly set
in a when one of the Toolbars vanishes without a trace. This is one
of the most common tech support and training requests I see
with Microsoft Office users.
Easily Remedied with a Few Minutes of Training
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Include some simple training in your employee
computer orientation to show how to get back a Toolbar that may have
wandered off the screen. You control which Toolbars are displayed
through the View menu, Toolbars command. By default, Microsoft Word
and Microsoft Excel display the Standard and Formatting Toolbars.
You can turn the display of various Toolbars on and off by toggling
displayed checkmarks (Figure 3-3).
Lost MS Office Toolbars Action Items
Do your employees use any Microsoft Word
and Microsoft Excel Toolbars, beyond the default Standard and
Formatting Toolbars?
Do you know how to enable and disable the
display of various Microsoft Office toolbars?
Are your employees trained on how to
recover a lost toolbar in Microsoft Office?
Microsoft Word Templates
Build a Microsoft Word templates library to slash your offset
printing bills.
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Are you still paying outside companies to print
small quantities of envelopes, letterhead, memo pads, vacation
request forms, employment applications, employee annual evaluations
and potentially dozens of other office forms and stationery?
Eliminating Some Outside Printing Costs with Microsoft Word
Templates
Although some unusual circumstances still may justify these
old-fashioned practices, most small businesses can save a bundle by
setting up various templates in Microsoft Word to eliminate some of
your outside printing costs.
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Four-Step Plan of Attack with Microsoft Word Templates
1)
Get your companys logo digitized in a format that can be
inserted readily into Microsoft Word documents and templates. If
its not already in an accessible electronic format such as .TIF
or .BMP, get your logo scanned in and touched up for clarity.
2)
Pull out your offset printing bills for the past year or so
and see where youre spending the most. This will help you
prioritize your cost-saving potential. Then determine whether
some of these outside printing jobs could be handled internally
if your company, for example, purchased a special grade of paper
for your laser printer or invested in a high-speed color laser
printer. As a fellow small business owner, I know Im
constantly evaluating these cost-saving possibilities.
3)
Assemble a team of Microsoft Word savvy staff members to
begin drafting some templates. For the sake of consistency and
branding, your staff should agree on a common set of formatting
styles (fonts, sizes and so forth). If your documents look
bland, vaguely resembling as much flair and pizzazz as something
coming off an electric typewriter, get familiar with some of the
included Microsoft Word templates and styles. Using these
pre-fabricated design elements is not difficult, but is often
the key difference between an amateurish and professional
document appearance.
4)
Dont format text by hand in Microsoft Word. Templates
always include a set of preformatted styles, which you can
easily modify or add to. As seen in Figure 3-4, you can find the
Style drop-down list on the left side of the Formatting toolbar.
Be sure to use styles in your Microsoft Word documents to ease
your initial formatting and document maintenance.
Professionally designed styles give your
documents a sense of flair and consistency, while easing maintenance
burdens.
Keeping Employees on the Same Page with Microsoft Word Templates
To ensure consistency within your company,
place newly customized and created Microsoft Word templates (.dot
files) in a folder on your file server that all employees have
access to.
Then, under the Tools menu, Options command,
File Locations tab, select Workgroup Templates. Then Modify and
select the shared template folder location (Figure 3-5).
Tip:
To maintain greater centralized control, you may want to
give read-write permissions to these files only to
designated managers. Everyone else could get read-only
permissions.
By pointing all
employees Microsoft Word configurations to the same Workgroup
Templates folder on your server, you can ensure that everyone has
the same version of Microsoft Word templates available when choosing
the File, New command.
Microsoft Word Templates Action Items
Do you currently have a clean version of
your company logo in a digital format, ready for printing, such as .tif,
.bmp or .eps (Encapsulated PostScript)?
What kinds of printing jobs are typically
sent to your local offset printing company?
Have you ever considered whether any
printing jobs could be run internally if, for example, you purchased
a certain paper grade for your high-speed laser printer, or invested
in a high-speed color laser printer?
Which of your employees are most
highly-skilled on Microsoft Word and in the best position to
recommend and design a set of companywide document templates?
Are there certain employees that you'd want
to be the authorized maintainers of templates, while all others are
merely users and locked out from modifying templates?
Do you have any existing Microsoft Word
templates that are being used in different places in your company?
Are employees aware of how to use Microsoft
Word templates and accompanying formatting styles to give documents
a professional, consistent appearance?
Do you have a centralized folder on your file server where you can
access, store and manage the company library of Microsoft Word
templates?
File Naming Conventions
Appoint one person in charge of server folder structure and
file-naming conventions.
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Implementing a local area network (LAN) is one
of the easiest ways to scale up from personal productivity to
workgroup or companywide productivity.
However, once employees begin sharing file
folders on a centralized file server, chaos can follow rapidly.
Avoid Productivity-Sapping Chaos with Well-Planned File Naming
Conventions
If youre looking for an analogy in the offline world, consider
what would happen if you bought a new lateral file cabinet and told everyone
they could put whatever they wanted in it, without any
underlying structure (no drawer labels, no hanging folders, no
nothing).
Four Steps to Organizational Success with File Naming
Conventions
As a result, its very important to appoint
an owner of each shared-file folder. This person gets four key
responsibilities.
File Naming Conventions Action Items
How organized, or disorganized, are your
file server's shared folders containing Microsoft Office data files?
Is there anyone who's currently in charge
of monitoring and enforcing orderly use of shared server folders and
naming conventions?
If you don't currently have anyone
accountable for maintaining a well organized set of server folders
and naming conventions, do you have some employees or managers who
would be good candidates for folder owner or captain?
Who monitors how much storage space is
remaining on the server and who is using and possibly abusing
various storage space resources? Do you use any third-party utility
programs to automate these tasks?
Who is responsible for archiving and purging obsolete folders and
files?
Computer Virus Protection
Treat all unexpected Microsoft Office files e-mailed to you as
virus suspects (i.e computer virus protection 101).
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Microsoft Office viruses, mainly those that
attack Microsoft Outlook (and to a lesser extent Microsoft Word and
Microsoft Excel) are prolifically prevalent and
destructive.
Worse yet, a virus will strike when you least
expect it to.
So you need some basic computer virus
protection techniques.
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Innocent until proven guilty? (when it comes to computer virus
protection)
This is not a good approach to dealing
with Microsoft Office documents that appear in your e-mail Inbox.
Instead, unless you specifically know
that the file is coming, you should handle every
unsolicited Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel file you receive in
your e-mail Inbox as suspicious, even if the file comes from
someone you know.
Computer viruses can be very expensive
to clean up once theyve infiltrated your company. Well look at
antivirus software and best practices in more detail in Chapter
8.
But for now you should at least know that any
Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel file thats e-mailed to you that
you werent expecting, no matter who its from (even from a
boss, spouse or computer consultant), should be looked at with a strong
degree of virus containment skepticism.
Third-Party Assistance with Computer Virus Protection
In addition to keeping your third-party
antivirus software up to date daily or weekly, Microsoft provides
many Microsoft Office-specific security patches that, among other
things, help to protect you from viruses.
Microsoft Assistance with Computer Virus Protection
The Microsoft Office Product Updates Web page offers an easy way to
keep up with the latest Microsoft Office patches, enhancements and
service releases.
Computer Virus Protection Action Items
Are your employees trained on how to deal
with unsolicited Microsoft Office file attachments that land in
their e-mail Inboxes?
Do you use the Microsoft Office Product
Updates page to keep your Microsoft Office installations up to date
with the latest patches, enhancements and service releases?
Does every desktop PC, notebook and server in your office have
regularly updated third-party antivirus software installed and
properly configured?
Repair Access Databases
Get familiar with the built-in maintenance and repair tool for
Microsoft Access.
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Mention the buzzwords, relational
database, and many small business managers eyes glaze over at
the prospect of maintaining and repairing their Microsoft Access
database. Dont let the thought of these tasks intimidate you.
Maintaining and repairing a Microsoft Access database isnt much
more difficult than those things you already know about other
Microsoft Office applications.
Crucial Backups vs. Having to Repair Access Databases
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Before I introduce you to this key utility that
can prevent an emergency technical support or computer consultant
call, you need to do a nightly verified and regularly tested backup
of any Microsoft Access databases at your company. If you
have a very low tolerance for data loss, you even may want to
back up more than once a day.
In Part III, well look at all kinds of data
protection measures you can take to prevent expensive, devastating
database corruption. But, for the time being, backing up a Microsoft
Access database regularly should be a top priority.
Maintenance 101: Compacting and Repairing a Microsoft Access
Database
Relational databases run best when all the
tables are indexed properly, the way you can look up information in
a book quickly by referring to a properly designed index in the
back.
Microsoft Access does a decent job of keeping
these indexes up to date on its own. This alone is a huge
improvement over previous generations of relational database
programs. However, as various items in a database (tables, queries,
reports, forms, fields and records) are added and removed, space
builds up between data that makes using the database less efficient.
This dilemma is very similar in concept to the
way a hard drive becomes fragmented. To eliminate disk
fragmentation, youd run a defragmentation utility. In Microsoft
Access, the process is called compacting.
Note:
Before running this utility program on a Microsoft
Access database, make sure all users are out of the
database, and that you have a current verified and
tested backup copy.
To run the Compact and Repair operation on a Microsoft Access 2000
database, go to the Tools menu, choose the Database Utilities
command, followed by the Compact and Repair Database command on the
submenu (Figure 3-9). In most cases, Microsoft Access takes care of
the rest, without complications.
The Compact and Repair Database command
in Microsoft Access can be used to optimize and repair a
database.
Tip:
If you want to see what kind of impact compacting has on the
size of your Microsoft Access database, open Windows
Explorer and look at the size of the .mdb file before and
after you run the utility program.
If your Microsoft Access database application is split between
two .mdb files, where one contains the data tables and the other
contains the front-end, youll need to run the Compact and Repair
process on each .mdb file separately.
Repair Access Databases Action Items
Do you use Microsoft Access databases?
Do you perform a verified, nightly backup
of your Microsoft Access databases? How often do you test restoring
the database to make sure your backup system is really working as
expected?
Would it be devastating to lose up to one
full day of work in a Microsoft Access database? If so, would you
consider running a verified backup of the Microsoft Access database
more than once daily?
Do you know how to compact your Microsoft
Access databases to make them run more efficiently?
Do you know how to repair a corrupted
Microsoft Access database?
Are any of your Microsoft Access databases split up between a
front-end and back-end .mdb file?
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Outlook PST Repairs
Learn to use two simple maintenance and repair tools for
Microsoft Outlook.
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Just as with Microsoft Access databases,
Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders (.pst files) can become bloated
and inefficient, as well as corrupted or damaged.
Crucial Microsoft Outlook .pst File Backups
As with Microsoft Access, be sure your Personal
Folders File is backed up and verified every night. Again, if
you have a very low tolerance for data loss, consider backing up
more often than once a day.
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The Corporate or Workgroup version of
Microsoft Outlook 2000 has a very straightforward utility for
compacting your Personal Folders File (.pst). And, just as when you
compacted Microsoft Access .mdb files, you can get an idea of the
impact of this operation by inspecting the .pst file size, both
before and after compacting. Once again, you can find file size
information through Windows Explorer.
Tip:
To learn whether youre running the Corporate or
Workgroup version of Microsoft Outlook 2000, go to the
Help menu and choose the About command.
Compacting a Microsoft Outlook .pst Personal Folders File
To compact your Personal Folders File, first
exit out of Microsoft Outlook. Then, from your Start menu, go to
Settings, and then Control Panel.
Within the Control Panel, open the Mail applet. Then, select the
Personal Folders entry and click the Properties button, as youll
see in Figure 3-10. Finally, in the Properties dialog box, click the
Compact Now button. Microsoft Outlook will take over from there. Do
not interrupt this operation while the file is being compacted.
Although a Microsoft Outlook Personal
Folders File (.pst) can become bloated, the Compact Now button
allows you to remedy this problem easily.
While youre in this dialog box, for future
reference record the file name and path of the Personal Folders File
in Table 3-5.
Microsoft Outlook .pst File Maintenance Planner
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Inbox Repair Tool
(Scanpst.exe)
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Personal Folders
(*.pst)
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Location on
My Computer
(drive letter:
\folder\filename)
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To run the Inbox Repair Tool, youll
need to know the file path location of both the Inbox Repair
Tool and the Personal Folders File. Use Table 3-5 to record
these file path locations.
When compacting is complete, click OK and then
another OK to close the Mail applet. Then close the Control Panel.
Inbox Repair Tool for Microsoft Outlook .pst Files
Sometimes, instead of just compacting for the
sake of proactive maintenance, you may get an error message that
prevents you from opening your Personal Folders when you launch
Microsoft Outlook. If youve already tried obvious troubleshooting
steps (rebooting your PC and making sure youre logged on
properly), try the Inbox Repair Tool.
Because the Inbox Repair Tool utility program
and Personal Folders File often end up in various locations on
different PCs, the first step is to find the Inbox Repair Tool. So
lets first open Windows Explorer, also known as Exploring Windows
or Windows NT Explorer.
Right click on My Computer and choose the
Search or Find File command. To find the Inbox Repair Tool, well
search for the file named scanpst.exe,
as youll see in Figure 3-11. Then record the folder path of scanpst.exe
in Table 3-5 earlier in this section. The full path and file name of
your Personal Folders File (.pst)
already was recorded in Table 3-5 when you compacted the
Personal Folders File earlier in this section.
Before you can run the Inbox Repair Tool
for Microsoft Outlook, first determine where its scanpst.exe
file is on your hard drive.
To launch the Inbox Repair Tool, double click
on the scanpst.exe
file that you found a few moments ago. Then, as you see in Figure
3-12, click the Browse button to select the location of your
Personal Folders File (.pst) we identified earlier.
Before you can click Start, first enter
the name and path of the Personal Folders File you want to
scan.
Next, click the Start button and allow the
Inbox Repair Tool to do its magic. Take great pains to make sure
this process doesnt get interrupted midstream, as this may result
in severe data corruption. After the Inbox Repair Tool scans
through your Personal Folders File (eight steps), youll get a
progress report (Figure 3-13) and an opportunity to back up your
Personal Folders File before proceeding.
When youre ready to continue, click the
Repair button to complete the process. Once finished, you will be
asked to click OK to acknowledge that the repair process is
complete.
Before the Inbox Repair Tool goes into Repair mode, youll
get a brief summary of results and the opportunity to view
Details of findings.
Microsoft Outlook PST Repairs Action Items
How often does your company backup users'
Microsoft Outlook Personal Folders files (.pst files)?
Do you know if you're running the
"Corporate or Workgroup" or "Internet Mail Only"
version of Microsoft Outlook?
Do you know where your company's Personal
Folders Files are stored?
How often do users compact their Microsoft
Outlook Personal Folders Files (.pst) to keep Microsoft Outlook
functioning at peak performance?
Do you know how to use the Inbox Repair Tool (scanpst.exe) to repair
a damaged Microsoft Outlook .pst Personal Folders File?
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