UNHCE Information Technology & Distance Education Blog: April 2006 Archives
April 24, 2006
Toolbar buttons can have a different appearance depending on their
state--whether they have been clicked or not. This tip explains how
you can create the two necessary versions of a toolbar button for your
customizations.
Read the full tip: http://wordtips.VitalNews.com/T0748
Got tab stops in a paragraph? Change them quickly and easily be
dragging them around on the ruler. This tip explains how.
Read the full tip: http://wordtips.VitalNews.com/T0103
April 19, 2006
You can add a comment in Word using the Insert\comment option. This will open up a window on the bottom of the screen in which you can write a comment. Comments are listed by user and date and time they were added. Documents can be viewed or printed with or without comments.
One of the nicest features of Office XP is the ability to copy multiple clips to the clipboard without erasing the previous one. You can use this functionality outside of Office too.
Using the Office Clipboard with Other Applications
Office XP lets you dock the Office Clipboard in the Windows taskbar so that you
can use it with any application. As long as the Office Clipboard remains open in
the taskbar, users can cut or copy multiple items from any file and paste one--or
all of them at once--into any Office application.
For example, suppose you found three items on the Web that you want to save to
a Word document. Using the system Clipboard you would need to copy and paste
each item individually, but that's unnecessary when you use the Office Clipboard.
Follow these steps to cut and paste between applications:
1. In Word XP, press [Ctrl]C twice to dock the Office Clipboard icon in
the status section of the Windows taskbar.
2. Minimize Word on the desktop.
3. Open Internet Explorer and copy the first item. The following message
is displayed next to the Clipboard icon: "1 of 24 - Clipboard item
collected."
4. Continue copying items. As each item is copied, Office displays a
message indicating the number of the item on the clipboard.
5. Open the Word document into which you want to paste the items and, in
the taskbar, double-click the Clipboard icon to display the task pane
containing the items copied to the Clipboard.
6. In the Word document, position the cursor where you want the copied
items to appear.
7. Click Paste All to paste all items at once. To paste one item at a time,
position the cursor where you want the item to appear in the document,
and double-click the desired item in the task pane.
April 18, 2006
If your work involves a lot of typing, each keystroke you save helps you work more efficiently. Here's a tip that can help you virtually eliminate the need to perform the simple act of pressing the [Shift] key to capitalize the first letter of a sentence, depending on the kind of text you type.
Here's how it works:
1. Go to Tools AutoCorrect and click the AutoCorrect tab.
2. Click the check boxes for the options Capitalize First Letter Of Sentences and Capitalize Names Of Days.
With these options activated, you don't have to press [Shift] to capitalize the first letter of a sentence. After you type a period or a question mark to finish one sentence and type the first word of the next sentence, Word will automatically capitalize the first letter of that word. In addition, with the Capitalize First Letter Of Sentences option enabled, you can type the singular or plural form of any day of the week (e.g., Friday or Fridays) and Word will automatically initial cap each instance.
While you're in the AutoCorrect menu, go ahead and create your own AutoCorrect entries for the months of the year. For example, in the Replace field, type january, then type January in the With field. Click Add to include this change in the list. Click OK to save and close. How does Word know when the period you've typed is used in an abbreviation and not at the end of a sentence? Also under AutoCorrect, click the Exceptions button to display a list of common abbreviations that require periods. Word won't automatically change the capitalization of a word that follows any abbreviation in this list. You'll want to make sure that common abbreviations like Dr., Mr., Ms., and Mrs. aren't included in the Exceptions list so that Word will initial cap the names that follow them.
Here are some shortcuts to dialog boxes and functionality you can invoke by double-clicking your mouse:
1. Open the Page Setup dialog box, which provides access to margin, paper size and orientation (portrait and landscape), and layout (section start, header/footer control) options by double-clicking on the ruler bar. (If the ruler isn't shown, use the View/Ruler command.) Note: If you do not have a printer installed, the Page Setup dialog box may not appear. (Alternative: Use the File/Page Setup command.)
2. Double-click "TRK" in the status bar at the bottom of the work area to turn Track Changes on. This feature triggers Word to use a different color when displaying your changes, so the document's author can easily spot your work. (Alternative: use the Tools/Track Changes command.)
3. Double-click in the location information in the status bar (any spot within the area that shows the page number, section number, vertical position, line number, and column number of the blinking insertion bar) to open the Go To menu. By default, the dialog box is ready with "Go to Page" (you enter the page number). The tabbed dialog box also provides access to Find as well as Find and Replace commands. (Alternative: Press F5, Ctrl+G, or use the Edit/Go To command.)
4. Double-click in any empty area surrounding the top toolbar to open the Customize dialog box to tailor the toolbar to your liking. (Alternative: Right-click in the same area and choose Customize.)
5. Double-click on the speller icon in the status bar to begin the spelling checker. (Alternative: Tools/Spelling and Grammar menu command, or press F7.)
6. Double-click on the splitter bar (just above the up- pointing arrow in the vertical scrollbar) to open two equal- sized panes for the same document. This allows you to edit two different areas of the same document. (Tip: Double- click on the border between the two panes to return to a single-pane view.) (Alternative: Window/Split menu command.) 7. Select a word by double-clicking it. (Triple-click to select the current paragraph.)
April 13, 2006
When you’re trying to look through a large document and find something that appears different visually, such as a map, table, or graphic, try using Document mapping.
Document mapping produces small replicas of the page layouts in a sidebar on the left side of the screen. You can scroll up and down the document much more easily using document mapping, than paging through multiple pages.
To use this feature In Word:
Select View\document map. (Note: If the document is an outline, it will show the outline and clicking on an item will bring you to that area in the document. You may have to widen the left window to make the text legible.)
There are three great methods one can use to find a document using Office applications. For further information, click on the link below.
I. The first is to use the Preview function. (See: http://extension.unh.edu/blogs/itde/archives/001669.html )
II. The second is sorting by date. (See: http://extension.unh.edu/blogs/itde/archives/001670.html )
III. Lastly, you can try using Searching Tools (See: http://extension.unh.edu/blogs/itde/archives/001671.html )
Word 2002's Find dialog box allows you to find particular words and select those words for easy editing.
Read on to see the steps for that process.
Finding multiple instances of a word at once
You can use the Find command to count and highlight the occurrences of a particular word in MS Word.
1. Open the "Find" dialog box, by pressing [Ctrl]F or going to Edit | Find.
2. Type the word or words you want to locate in the "Find What" text box.
3. Select the "Highlight All Items Found In:" check box.
4. Press [Enter] or click the Find All button
5. Word will display the number of instances of that word occurring in your document. It will also select them so that they're easy to spot and edit.
If you are having difficulty locating the document, there are some search
features which can be of assistance.
To do a search from within Office 2002 (XP) applications, select File and then Search. A sidebar will appear with search options.
You can enter a text string you are sure is contained within the document.
The lower part of the menu allows you to refine your search to search in a
certain area or directory (and its subdirectories.) You can also confine
your search to certain filetypes. Access those options by clicking on the
down arrow next to the options.
Hint: When doing a search, look for the most obscure string you are sure
would be in the document or filename. For instance, if you are looking for
the UNHCE ITDE Strategic Plan, searching on Extension, Cooperative,
UNHCE, or strategic may produce a multitude of documents. If the team
was listed in the document, you know Mike Sciabarrasi was on the team,
and you don’t have his name in many other documents, a search on a
document containing the text Sciabarrasi will be faster and produce fewer
hits.
More advanced search options are available by selecting File\open from
the menu system. When the popup window comes up, select Tools and
then Search. Clicking on the advanced search tab allows you to search
based on several criteria, such as filename.
April 12, 2006
You can find documents more quickly by sorting the listing when you go
to open a document. When you go to the file open area, select view. (The
icon on the right side of the toolbar that looks like a miniature table.) On
the view menu, select details.
Clicking on the top of a column will sort by that column. This is helpful if
you are looking for a certain date, or want the list alphabetized. You can
also sort by file type or size.
Office applications will give you a preview of a document before you
open it. This can be helpful and a timesaver when you are looking for a
multi-page document or one with a lot of graphics or tables.
Select File\open from the menu system. When the pop-up window comes
up, select view. (This is an icon on the right side of the toolbar that looks
like a miniature table.) On the view menu, select preview.
Read the full tip: http://wordtips.VitalNews.com/T1748
Courtesy of: Allen Wyatt's Word Tips
April 7, 2006
When creating PDF documents for the web it is important to remember to add key descriptive elements to the document properties. Doing so enhances the chances of users finding your information via search engines.
1.Open the PDF file
2.Left Click on "File" (located in the upper left corner)
3.Select "Document Info" and then select "Summary" or "General" (depending on your version of Acrobat) You will see the following dialog boxes: Title, Subject, Author and Keywords.
Title: The title will default to whatever the original file was named (ex: staff01.doc, dtfcitminutes.doc, etc.) which could mean little or nothing to the viewer when it shows up in a search. By entering a title, in the PDF title field it will appear in the search results instead of the filename. Example: Staff Roster 2001 instead of staff01.doc and Communications/Technology Team Meeting Minutes 12/12/01 instead of dtfcitminutes.doc.
Subject: Enter a brief description of the subject.
Author: The author will default to the computer/username of the person who entered the document . If necessary, change the name to the true author.
Keywords: By adding keywords you enhance the ability of a search engine to find your document. Enter as many keywords as you wish, separated by commas.
Ever had a PDF print with lines in the graphic or a box over the graphic? If the document prints from other computers fine, the reason is probably due to low system resources. To print a PDF you must have at least 50% of your systems resources available. Reboot your computer and open Adobe Acrobat Reader. Print document. The graphics should appear without lines or boxes. However, if the document is large and you are printing from the web, you should print only a few pages at a time or if multiple graphics per page, try printing one at a time.
WordPerfect Tip: Did you know that you can send a file as an attachment in Eudora when you are in WordPerfect!?
- WordPerfect Tip: Did you know that you can send a file as an attachment in Eudora when you are in WordPerfect!?
Follow these easy steps.
1) Open up the file you want to send as an attachment in WordPerfect. If you have just created a file and want to send it you must save it first.
2) Go up to the first item on the top menu bar marked "File" and look for the "Send to" selection about half way down the menu.
3) One of the choices under "Send To" is "Eudora". Click on that.
4) Eudora will be opened and the file that you were in will be listed as an attachment!
5) Just address and write your email as you would normally!
You are done.
P.S. The "Send To" selection on the File menu is a folder on your hard drive. You can put just about anything in that folder, ie a short cut to another folder, another program and even to a folder on another computer. Want to know more call the ITDE team! - Did you know that you can send a file as an attachment in Eudora when you are in WordPerfect!?
Follow these easy steps.
1) Open up the file you want to send as an attachment in WordPerfect. If you have just created a file and want to send it you must save it first.
2) Go up to the first item on the top menu bar marked "File" and look for the "Send to" selection about half way down the menu.
3) One of the choices under "Send To" is "Eudora". Click on that.
4) Eudora will be opened and the file that you were in will be listed as an attachment!
5) Just address and write your email as you would normally!
You are done.
P.S. The "Send To" selection on the File menu is a folder on your hard drive. You can put just about anything in that folder, ie a short cut to another folder, another program and even to a folder on another computer. Want to know more call the ITDE team!
Do you frequently insert the current date and/or time into your documents? If so, Word offers a number of timesaving shortcuts for this.
To insert a date field, press [Alt][Shift]D. Doing so enters a date field, the appearance of which is determined by the current default date/ time format. Should you decide to update that field to reflect a future date, select the field and press [F9], or right-click on the field and choose Update Field from the context menu. To change the default date/time format, go to Insert | Date And Time, select a format, and then click the Default button. When you do, Word will ask you to confirm that you want to set a new default format. Click OK, and then click OK to close the Date And Time dialog box. Now, when you press [Alt][Shift]D, Word will display the date field using the new format. To enter a field that displays the time as well as the date, press [Alt][Shift]T.
In addition to changing the default date/time format, you can enter the system date or time by going to Insert | Date And Time and choosing a format. This approach inserts, by default, a literal date or time string instead of a date field. To enter a date field using the Date And Time dialog box, activate the Update Automatically option before you click OK.
April 5, 2006
If your work involves a lot of typing, each keystroke you save helps you work more efficiently. Here's a tip that can help you virtually eliminate the need to perform the simple act of pressing the [Shift] key to capitalize the first letter of a sentence, depending on the kind of text you type.
Here's how it works:
1. Go to Tools AutoCorrect and click the AutoCorrect tab.
2. Click the check boxes for the options Capitalize First Letter Of Sentences and Capitalize Names Of Days.
With these options activated, you don't have to press [Shift] to capitalize the first letter of a sentence. After you type a period or a question mark to finish one sentence and type the first word of the next sentence, Word will automatically capitalize the first letter of that word. In addition, with the Capitalize First Letter Of Sentences option enabled, you can type the singular or plural form of any day of the week (e.g., Friday or Fridays) and Word will automatically initial cap each instance.
While you're in the AutoCorrect menu, go ahead and create your own AutoCorrect entries for the months of the year. For example, in the Replace field, type january, then type January in the With field. Click Add to include this change in the list. Click OK to save and close. How does Word know when the period you've typed is used in an abbreviation and not at the end of a sentence? Also under AutoCorrect, click the Exceptions button to display a list of common abbreviations that require periods. Word won't automatically change the capitalization of a word that follows any abbreviation in this list. You'll want to make sure that common abbreviations like Dr., Mr., Ms., and Mrs. aren't included in the Exceptions list so that Word will initial cap the names that follow them.
April 3, 2006
Here are some shortcuts to dialog boxes and functionality you can invoke by double-clicking your mouse:
1. Open the Page Setup dialog box, which provides access to margin, paper size and orientation (portrait and landscape), and layout (section start, header/footer control) options by double-clicking on the ruler bar. (If the ruler isn't shown, use the View/Ruler command.) Note: If you do not have a printer installed, the Page Setup dialog box may not appear. (Alternative: Use the File/Page Setup command.)
2. Double-click "TRK" in the status bar at the bottom of the work area to turn Track Changes on. This feature triggers Word to use a different color when displaying your changes, so the document's author can easily spot your work. (Alternative: use the Tools/Track Changes command.)
3. Double-click in the location information in the status bar (any spot within the area that shows the page number, section number, vertical position, line number, and column number of the blinking insertion bar) to open the Go To menu. By default, the dialog box is ready with "Go to Page" (you enter the page number). The tabbed dialog box also provides access to Find as well as Find and Replace commands. (Alternative: Press F5, Ctrl+G, or use the Edit/Go To command.)
4. Double-click in any empty area surrounding the top toolbar to open the Customize dialog box to tailor the toolbar to your liking. (Alternative: Right-click in the same area and choose Customize.)
5. Double-click on the speller icon in the status bar to begin the spelling checker. (Alternative: Tools/Spelling and Grammar menu command, or press F7.)
6. Double-click on the splitter bar (just above the up- pointing arrow in the vertical scrollbar) to open two equal- sized panes for the same document. This allows you to edit two different areas of the same document. (Tip: Double- click on the border between the two panes to return to a single-pane view.) (Alternative: Window/Split menu command.) 7. Select a word by double-clicking it. (Triple-click to select the current paragraph.)
Do you like to use the fastest method possible to get your work done? If so, you probably use keyboard shortcuts whenever possible, rather than going through the menu system. Access 2000 and 2002 support a number of keyboard shortcuts that can save you time when you're entering records or working on a new project.
Keep this list of shortcuts handy for easy reference:
* [CTRL]' inserts the data from the same field in the previous record.
* [CTRL]: inserts the current time.
* [CTRL]; inserts the day's date.
* [CTRL][ENTER] inserts a carriage return in a memo or text field.
* [CTRL]C copies the current selection.
* [CTRL]F summons the Find And Replace dialog box.
* [CTRL]N opens a new database.
* [CTRL]O summons the Open dialog box.
* [CTRL]P summons the Print dialog box.
* [CTRL]S saves the current database.
* [CTRL]V pastes the contents from the clipboard.
* [CTRL]Z undoes the most recent change you've made.
* [ESC] undoes changes made to the current field.
* [ESC][ESC] undoes changes made to the current record.
* [F11] displays the database window.
1. If your menus only show the most recently used commands, display all commands by selecting Tools/Customize, choosing the Options tab, and checking the “Always show full menus” option.
2. If you like abbreviated menus, show the full menu by leaving the drop-down menus displayed for at least 6 seconds. Turn on this feature by selecting Tools/Customize, choosing the Options tab, and un-checking the “Always show full menus” option checking the "Show full menus after a short delay" option.
3. You can also display the full menus by clicking the down-pointing double arrows at the end of the menu list or by double-clicking the main menu options (for example, double-clicking the File, Edit, View, Insert, etc., menu options in Word).
4. In Word and Excel, you can close all open documents at once. Hold down the Shift key as you click on the File command. The Close command changes to Close All. (Note: you'll have to use your mouse to select the File command; pressing Alt-F doesn't work.)
There are a couple of different ways to create a message filter in Eudora. These instructions refer to the manual method as that is the most straightforward. Making filters automatically can easily result in your filtering unintended messages.
For the example we will create a filter that will send messages to a junk mailbox if they contain the words turkey or stuffing in any of the message headers.
1. In Eudora go to the Tools menu and down to Filters. In the dialog box, click on the New button in the lower left-hand pane.
2. In the Match section (upper right-hand pane) click on Incoming. Then, using the pull-down menu make a selection in the Header box. Using will catch all headers, even those that are hidden.
3. The next selection box defaults to contains. This is the most common kind of filter, but there are other selections there that you can use to customize your filter.
4. In the field to the right of contains, enter the word to filter - turkey for our example.
5. If the word turkey were our only filter criteria, we would leave the next field set to ignore. Since we also want to catch the word stuffing, we would change this field to say or. Then, select in the next box and enter stuffing in the box to the right of contains.
6. In the Action box (lower right-hand pane) set the Action to Transfer to - A button will appear to the right that defaults to the In mailbox - Click right on the In button and go to New in the menu. The New Mailbox window will appear. Type in Junk for the name of the mailbox and click OK. Do not put a check in the box for "Make it a Folder".
7. Go to the File menu and click Save.
You have just created a filter that will automatically send any email with turkey or stuffing in any of its headers straight to your Junk mailbox. It is safer to direct your filtered mail to a mailbox other than Trash so that you do not automatically delete all the messages in there. This affords you the opportunity to review the mail that has been trapped by the filter before you dump it, just in case you've caught something that was legitimate.
One final caution - do not attempt to setup a filter for the phrase xxx using the option . Often xxx is used internally in headers as a result of timing errors, routing options, etc. If you would like to filter out this phrase, please limit it to the Subject header.
Many people become annoyed when they receive an email that lists the addresses of multiple recipients, including their own.
There are two popluar methods to avoid sharing email addresses and publishing that information to everyone on the list. ONe is to vreate a list. The other is to use Bcc:
Teh attached has information on using Bcc.
One way that senders sometimes try to suppress these addresses is to list the majority of the recipients in the BCC: field (blind carbon copy). This does take care of the problem but there is an easier way.
First, you need to create a list for your intended recipients in your address book. Simply create a new Nickname in your address book. (do NOT add it to the Staff Listing or Distribution Lists address books as these files are overwritten each time you update your address book). For the sake of this example, we will call the Nickname My Friends. Enter all recipient addresses on the Address tab, one per line.
Once you have entered all of the recipient addresses, click on the Info tab for the Nickname. Enter a name for the list in the Name field. You can use the same name that you used for the Nickname or enter something different. The name that you enter on the Info tab is the one that the recipients are going to see. For this example, we will enter the name Buds.
Now, when you send a message to My Friends the only thing that the recipients will see in the To: field is Buds:; If the name that you entered on the Info tab contains a space, such as My Buds, then the name will be quoted in the To: field. ("My Buds";:) When you are composing the message you may see all of the addresses in the To: field but your recipients will not. If you have the "Automatically expand nicknames" box checked in your Miscellaneous Options, you will see all the addresses.
Clearing your cache (infomration stored in RAM) is sometimes necessary for better system performance.
Cache is a collection of web page copies stored on your computer's hard disk or in its random-access memory (RAM). The browser accumulates these copies as you browse the Web. Sometimes, you need to clear your cache in order to view the latest version of a web page.
- Here's how to clear your cache in Netscape:
Click on Edit
Click on Preference
Double Click on Advanced (so it expands)
Click on Cache
On the right you will see two buttons - clear disk cache and clear memory cache
Click on both of them
Click OK
Close Netscape and then reopen - Here's how to clear your cache in Internet Explorer
Click Tools
Click Internet Options.
On the General tab, click Clear History
Click OK
Close IE and reopen
For information on how to create PDF Files from Word with Acrobat 5.0, see:
http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/325969.html
UNHCE has published a 12-page document with links and directions for several of the most popular features in Microsoft Word XP. TO access this document, go to:
http://extension.unh.edu/Intranet/ITDE/WordTips.pdf
UNHCE has developed some tutorials for commonly used tasks. These two enable you to repeat table headers in WP documents.
Repeating table headers across multiple pages
To repeat table headers across multiple pages in Word, see: Repeating Table Headers (Microsoft Word XP)
To repeat table headers across multiple pages in Word, see: Repeating Table Headers (WordPerfect 10)
CIS has announced their training sessions through May of 2006. Sign up early for CIS classes. Not only are the most popular classes oversubscribed early; CIS cancels classes which are under-enrolled two weeks prior to the class date.
Vendor-based classes are being offered in the following subjects through May of 2006 :
* Access (2 levels)
* Dreamweaver (2 levels)
* Excel (3 levels)
* PowerPoint (2 levels)
FREE Sessions offered by CIS:
CIS will be offering a FREE session titled: Scanning Demonstration for Faculty April 26 and May 24
They also offer free training in Blackboard for those who use it as a teaching tool.
Note that they have also listed offerings for April and beyond. They will continue to add to their offerings as they become available.
To see current offerings and their descriptions, or sign up for a session, use their web site at: "http://training.unh.edu They keep adding to their offerings, so check back for updated information.