Microsoft Office

From Office Online: 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.

#1: Format painter (Office)
The Format Painter tool replicates the formatting from one part of a document to another. So instead of manually redoing all the formatting yourself, you can use the Format Painter. First, select the text whose formatting you want to replicate. Then, click the Format Painter toolbar button. Finally, select the text you want to imbue with the format. For bonus points, you can double-click the Format Painter button to replicate the formatting to multiple areas of the document!

#2: Paragraph in/out/up/down (Office)
You can easily move a paragraph in four directions by pressing Alt+Shift+[Arrow]. To increase or decrease the indentation level of a paragraph or bullet point, press Alt+Shift+Right and Alt+Shift+Left respectively. To move a paragraph up or down, press Alt+Shift+Up or Alt+Shift+Down. This works especially well in PowerPoint, where it’s common to reorder bullet points or change indentation levels.

#3: Increase or decrease font size (Office)
To quickly increase the font size of selected text, press Ctrl+Shift+>. To decrease the size, press Ctrl+Shift+< . I find it easy to remember these keyboard shortcuts because the one with the greater-than symbol increases the font size while the less-than symbol decreases it.

#4: Quick Access Toolbar (Office)
Office 2007 has a Quick Access Toolbar that can be customized to include buttons for your favorite commands. The Quick Access Toolbar is in the top left corner of many Office applications. You customize it by clicking on the drop-arrow on its right.

#5: Fill handle (Excel)
Excel can auto-fill cells in eerily smart ways. Instead of manually typing a sequence in cells, you can simply type the first few values of the sequence and drag the fill handle to auto-fill the rest of the cells. The fill handle is the little black square at the lower right corner of a selected cell's border. Drag it to automatically fill adjacent cells.

If you drag the fill handle with only one cell selected, it will repeat that cell's value into adjacent cells. However, if you drag the fill handle with multiple cells selected, Excel is smart enough to figure out the series. For instance, in the following example, Excel will fill subsequent cells with the increasing series of odd numbers. This even works for other types of series, like dates and percentages.

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From the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Blog: So here it goes…. I’ll summarize four very different SharePoint offerings, some of them you probably weren’t even aware were based on SharePoint. Just for fun, I’ll call them Mini, Small, Medium, and Large-SharePoint.

Mini-SharePoint

Office Live Workspace, believe it or not, is built on SharePoint but highly customized and simplified for the end user. The idea is simple – create a workspace (which is like a folder), add files to it, then share it with others. Create and share Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents, pictures, notes, and custom lists with anyone you want. Or use it to share files between work and home, which is a lot easier than emailing files back and forth.

I’ve created one workspace to share files with colleagues, another workspace to share photos with family, and a third workspace to organize forms and schedules for my vanpool.

Find out more at http://workspace.officelive.com

Small-SharePoint

Office Live Small Business is also built on SharePoint but highly customized with Web features, Web applications, and Web site tools. It includes a Web site, multiple email accounts, and Web applications ideal for the small business with up to 10 employees. The Web site features allow you to create a site without knowing a thing about HTML, Web design, or Web creation software. Use the included Web applications to manage and communicate with employees and customers. For simple file sharing, use the Office Live Workspace included with your account.

My goal this year is to move my mom’s real estate practice to the Web using this service.

Find out more at http://smallbusiness.officelive.com

Medium-SharePoint

SharePoint Online, along with Exchange Online, Communications Online, and Live Meeting make up the new Microsoft Online Services. Rather than installing and maintaining SharePoint Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server, and other server software in your office, just sign up for this business hosting solution and let Microsoft do the heavy IT lifting for you. The service can handle up to 500 individual PC users. Just launch a Web browser, and you have immediate access to your entire business environment.

I would highly recommend this service to any small business that has outgrown Office Live Small Business but is too small to manage a SharePoint deployment.

Find out more at http://www.microsoft.com/online

Large-SharePoint

SharePoint Server (Windows SharePoint Services and Office SharePoint Server). Last but not least, we have the actual SharePoint software in the box. For the large and enterprise organizations looking to deploy a completely customized and integrated content management solution across the organization, this is what you need. With SharePoint running on your corporate servers, you have complete control over your corporate Intranet, Extranet, and Internet presence, and you can build on the existing collaboration tools, managed business processes, and integration with Microsoft Office client applications.

This is what I use at work every day to communicate with colleagues, collaborate on projects, find critical business data, and actively monitor projects in my department and other departments.

Find out more at http://www.microsoft.com/sharepoint

I hope this clarifies the various SharePoint offerings that you or your business can choose from.

From Inside Office Online blog: The October employment news was not good. Another 240,000 people lost their jobs. The unemployment rate reached a 14-year high of 6.5 percent, with 2.8 million more people unemployed than at this time last year. The double whammy of mortgage woes and unemployment is hitting home.

How can we help?

Over the next several months we’ll be rolling out to you as much timely information about job skills as we can. We’ll cover honing your skills so you excel at the job you already have or have in mind, as well as tips for finding and landing the job you want. We’ll serve up everything from resume templates and training courses to clever (sometimes even extreme) job search strategies—including ones we’ve used ourselves.

If you’re hiring, we’ll also provide or point you to resources that can help you make sure you hire the right people the first time.

It won’t all be grim–even in the midst of a job crunch we have to laugh (sometimes ruefully) and celebrate. So we’ll do what we can to keep it light, too.

This will be an ongoing project–one in which many of us here at Office Online will take part. We’ll ask for your feedback as we go, so we can tailor what we deliver to the situations you actually face. I.e., reality.

For starters, what, in your experience, is the most frustrating thing about looking for work?

Courtesy of Nancy BuchananKnow the recipient
Chances are that if you are making a gift for a friend or loved one, you already know their favorite colors, hobbies, pets, and other interests. It is important to think through what it is that they like or don’t like before you dig into your gift idea. For my project, I wanted to put together several gifts for each of my 10 year old daughters. The gifts for my daughter Julia are shown above. They all incorporate her love of the color green, animals, and bright and cheerful images. Younger children might like to see more pictures of them, teenagers might want more humorous or irreverent gifts, and adults might want gifts that relate directly to their hobbies.

Create custom note cards
I always have a few boxes of blank note cards for my printer on hand. You can buy them at your local office supply store in a variety of colors and sizes. A stack of pre-made cards with designs the recipient loves can be an easy, inexpensive, and considerate gift.

Start at the Template Gallery on Office Online
Most note cards made for printing have a model number or template number on the package. I usually search for the template number on Office Online first to see if there are any templates already available for my note cards. For my daughter I used the Friendship Card. I printed the cards on blank note cards I purchased from Office Max.
Note If a template isn’t available specifically for the note card you have, look for one that is the same size. You can also look on the Web site for the maker of the note cards; they usually have templates for Microsoft Word available for download.

The template opens in the program for which it was created, such as Word.

Produce padded notepads
Padded notepads use special glue called padding compound to stick a stack of pages together on one edge. You can purchase padding compound at most office supply stores. For this project you can print sheets with a decorative heading on the top, then stack the pages up and apply padding compound on one end to bind the paper together yet make it easy to tear a sheet off. Here is how I created 4 pads of paper, each with 40 sheets:

In Word, start with a blank document and then change the orientation to be Landscape, the margins to be narrow, and to use 2 columns. You can download the document I created in Word 2007 for my daughters here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC300035581033.aspx.
: There are a few times in life when buying a gift at a store just won’t do, especially if it’s too late to get to a store. And it’s definitely time to make a gift at home when the gift recipient is important enough to create something truly unique and personal. Whatever your motives, here are a few ideas how you can create these unique gifts at home: custom note cards, padded notepads, stickers, and tee shirts.

Print 40 sheets of the document on your printer. You can use plain printer paper.
Note This can also be a great way to use recycled paper. Instead of printing on new paper, just print your design on the blank side of recycled paper.

Cut each sheet of paper into 4 equal pieces. For example, cut the paper in the middle lengthwise and then again widthwise. Now you have 160 smaller pieces of paper.
• Divide the pieces of paper into 4 stacks of 40 pieces and then follow the padding compound’s instructions to pad one edge of the pieces of paper. I purchased padding compound from GreenLightOffice.com.
Note My padding compound’s instructions said to use a vice to hold the pages together while you paint on the compound. I didn’t have a vice handy so just stacked the pages between books with the end being padded sticking out far enough for me to paint it.

Generally speaking, an add-in is supplemental functionality that adds custom commands and specialized features to the 2007 Microsoft Office system programs. Examples of add-ins are: COM add-ins (COM add-in: A supplemental program that extends the capabilities of a Microsoft Office program by adding custom commands and specialized features. COM add-ins can run in one or more Office programs. COM add-ins use the file name extension .dll or .exe.), automation add-ins, application add-ins (.wll, .xll, .xlam), XML expansion packs, XML style sheets, smart tags, and so forth. This article describes how to view and manage the add-ins for your Office programs.

Excel
Click the Microsoft Office Button , click Excel Options, and then click Add-Ins.
View the add-ins and application extensions that are categorized as follows:
Active Application Add-ins Lists the extensions that are registered and currently running in your Office program.
Inactive Application Add-ins Lists the add-ins that are present on your computer but are not currently loaded. For example, smart tags or XML Schemas are active only when the document that references them is open. Another example is the COM add-ins that are listed in the COM Add-ins dialog box. If the check box for a COM add-in is selected, the add-in is active. If the check box for a COM add-in is cleared, the add-in is inactive. To learn how to open the COM Add-in dialog box, see the section called Manage the installed add-ins.
Document Related Add-ins Lists template files that are referenced by currently open documents.
Disabled Application Add-ins Lists add-ins that were automatically disabled because they are causing Office programs to crash.

Outlook
On the Tools menu, click Trust Center, and then click Add-ins.
View the add-ins and application extensions that are categorized as follows:
Active Application Add-ins Lists the extensions that are registered and currently running in your Office program.
Inactive Application Add-ins Lists the add-ins that are present on your computer but are not currently loaded. For example, smart tags or XML Schemas are active only when the document that references them is open. Another example is the COM add-ins that are listed in the COM Add-ins dialog box. If the check box for a COM add-in is selected, the add-in is active. If the check box for a COM add-in is cleared, the add-in is inactive. To learn how to open the COM Add-in dialog box, see the section called Manage the installed add-ins.
Document Related Add-ins Lists template files that are referenced by currently open documents.
Disabled Application Add-ins Lists add-ins that were automatically disabled because they are causing Office programs to crash.

PowerPoint
Click the Microsoft Office Button , click PowerPoint Options, and then click Add-Ins.
View the add-ins and application extensions that are categorized as follows:
Active Application Add-ins Lists the extensions that are registered and currently running in your Office program.
Inactive Application Add-ins Lists the add-ins that are present on your computer but are not currently loaded. For example, smart tags or XML Schemas are active only when the document that references them is open. Another example is the COM add-ins that are listed in the COM Add-ins dialog box. If the check box for a COM add-in is selected, the add-in is active. If the check box for a COM add-in is cleared, the add-in is inactive. To learn how to open the COM Add-in dialog box, see the section called Manage the installed add-ins.
Document Related Add-ins Lists template files that are referenced by currently open documents.
Disabled Application Add-ins Lists add-ins that were automatically disabled because they are causing Office programs to crash.

Word
Click the Microsoft Office Button , click Word Options, and then click Add-Ins.
View the add-ins and application extensions that are categorized as follows:
Active Application Add-ins Lists the extensions that are registered and currently running in your Office program.
Inactive Application Add-ins Lists the add-ins that are present on your computer but are not currently loaded. For example, smart tags or XML Schemas are active only when the document that references them is open. Another example is the COM add-ins that are listed in the COM Add-ins dialog box. If the check box for a COM add-in is selected, the add-in is active. If the check box for a COM add-in is cleared, the add-in is inactive. To learn how to open the COM Add-in dialog box, see the section called Manage the installed add-ins.
Document Related Add-ins Lists template files that are referenced by currently open documents.
Disabled Application Add-ins Lists add-ins that were automatically disabled because they are causing Office programs to crash.

Automatically reply to messages with the Out of Office Assistant

You can set up Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 to send an automatic response to some or all of the people who send you e-mail messages.

Important The Out of Office Assistant command only appears on the Tools menu when you are using a Microsoft Exchange Server account. If you are using an Exchange Server account, click in the Inbox folder, and then the Out of Office Assistant command does not appear on the Tools menu, we encourage you to contact a Microsoft support professional for assistance. An alternative method to automatically reply to messages is available for all Outlook users. Go to Automatically reply to messages.

On the Tools menu, click Out of Office Assistant.

Note The Tools menu appears on the main Outlook window. The main window is the same window that appears when you start Outlook and includes the File, Edit, View, Go, Tools, Actions, and Help menus. There is no Tools menu in windows where you create or view items such as e-mail messages, contacts, or tasks.

If the Out of Office Assistant command does not appear, an alternative method to automatically reply to messages is available for all Outlook users. Go to Automatically reply to messages.

Click Send Out of Office auto-replies.
If you want, select the Only send during this time range check box to schedule when your out of office replies are active. If you do not specify a start and end time, auto-replies will be sent until you click Do not send Out of Office auto-replies.
On the Inside My Organization tab, type the response that you want to send while you are out of the office.
To send auto-replies to people out of your organization, continue with steps 4 and 5.

On the Outside My Organization tab, select the Auto-reply to people outside my organization check box, and then type the response that you want to send while you are out of the office.
Note Organization is usually defined as your company and includes people who have an Exchange Server account on your e-mail system.

When the Auto-reply to people outside my organization check box is selected, the Outside My Organization tab displays (On) next to the tab name.

On the Outside My Organization tab, click My Contacts only or Anyone outside my organization to specify the people to whom auto-replies are to be sent.
Note The contact must exist in your Exchange Server Contacts folder. If the contact exists only in a folder that is a part of a Personal Folders file (.pst), the auto-reply message will not be sent.

Publisher features templates that you can use to create a short catalog. Just choose a catalog template, and then replace the placeholder pictures with your own and type in the text that you want.

Your catalog merge template should have the same layout (page size and orientation) that you want for your final merged pages. Also, it should contain any text or graphics that you want to appear on each page of your final publication, for example, a background image or the name of your company.

If you plan to add your merged pages to the end of an existing publication, make sure that your catalog merge template matches the existing publication in the following ways:

Page size (height and width)
Page view (one-page spread or two-page spread)
Publication type (Web or print)
Page order (left-to-right or right-to-left)

Create the catalog merge template
On the File menu, click New.
In the New Publication task pane, click Blank Page Sizes, and then choose the size that you want..
Note If you plan to post your catalog to a Web site, click Web Sites under Blank Page Sizes, and then click the size that matches your target screen resolution.

Click Create.
On the File menu, click Page Setup.
In the Page Setup dialog box, make any changes to the margins that you want, and then click OK.
On the Tools menu, point to Mailings and Catalogs, and then click Catalog Merge.

Connect to your data source
After you format your catalog merge template page, use the Catalog Merge task pane to create or locate and connect to your data source. The option that you choose next depends on whether you already have a data source or whether you want to create a new list in Publisher.

In the Catalog Merge task pane, under Select Product List, do one of the following:
Click Use an existing list if you already have a data source that you want to use.
Click Select from Outlook Contacts if you want to create a directory of your contacts.
Select Type a new list if you need to create the data source for your merge.
Click Next: Create or connect to a product list.

Use an existing list
In the Select Data Source dialog box, locate and click the data source that you want.
By default, Publisher saves data sources in the My Data Sources folder. You may need to browse to the My Data Sources folder to locate your data source.

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From Microsoft Office Online: The procedure in this article creates a new database by first exporting data from the Northwind.mdb sample database into Microsoft Excel, and then getting that information into Access. You can do this by either importing or by linking that data into a new database table.

To export the table to Excel and create the database in Access Open the Northwind sample database.
I can’t find the Northwind.mdb database file

The default folder location of the Northwind sample database is as follows, for these versions of Access:

Access 2003 \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Samples
Access 2002 \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Samples
Access 2000 \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Samples

Export the Employees table to an Excel 97-2003 (*.xls) file by clicking Export on the File menu, and then clicking Microsoft Excel 97-2003 (*.xls) in the Save as type box.
Note In Access 2000, select file type Microsoft Excel 97-2000. In Access 2002, select file type Microsoft Excel 97-2002 (*.xls).

Close and then restart Access.
Click Open on the File menu.
Click the arrow to the right of the Look in box, select the path to the Excel file, and then double-click its icon.
On the first page of the wizard, select the First Row Contains Column Headings check box, and then click Next. If you are not using Northwind.mdb, be sure to select the check box only if your data contains column headings in the first row.
On the second page of the wizard:
If you are linking data, type a name for the new table in the Linked Table Name box, and then click Finish.
If you are importing data, click In a New Table, click Next three times to accept the default values, and type a name for the new table in the Import to Table box. Click Finish.
Access creates and opens a new database. If you used the Link Spreadsheet Wizard, Access linked the data in the Excel spreadsheet file to the new table. In the following graphic, notice the icon that designates it as a linked table from Excel. If you used the Import Spreadsheet Wizard, Access imported the Excel spreadsheet as a new table

From The Microsoft Office Word Team’s Blog: When you think of stories in Word, you likely think of the things you read in books, magazine, and newspapers. After reading this post, when you think of stories in Word, you’re list will be different.

Internally, Word thinks of all documents as a collection of stories. But these stories are not the “Once upon a time…” type. Instead, they are distinct regions of content that makeup a Word document and share properties and functionality. Put differently, behind the scenes, Word breaks all documents up into a collection of chunks with shared properties and functionality. Officially, these are called stories.

The canonical Word story is the “main story” or what most people would call the body of the document. But, Word also considers all of the following stories:

Comments
Endnotes
Footnotes
Footers
Headers
The main story
Textboxes
The glossary document
Essentially, this means that to Word, comments, the body of your document, footers, etc. are basically the same. And this is good because if a feature works in one story, there’s a very good chance it works in all stories. This is why you can track changes in not only the body of your document (i.e., “main story”), but also in headers, footers, endnotes, text boxes, etc.

Put simply, this common story architecture enables as much Word goodness in as many places in Word as possible.

Why Do I Care?
When you understand how Word thinks of your document, you can better understand how Word treats your document. For example, except for the glossary document (defined later), all stories in a document utilize a common set of properties that determine the presentation of the contents within each story. These shared properties include font information, style definitions, numbering definitions, and document settings.

Read more by clicking above.

Vern Yip, a former “Trading Spaces” interior designer whose work is now featured on HGTV’s “Design Star” and “Deserving Design,” offers tips for good home office design.

 Pick a space with good natural light
- Good lighting, in a home or business, is one of those things that goes unnoticed — if it’s done well. You only notice the lighting of a room if it’s too bright or too dim, not if it’s just right.
- You can add variety by using different types of fixtures and having illumination flow in different directions.
 Determine your design style
- Determine how you want your home office to look and how you want to feel while you are in your space.
- Accessories are a great way to showcase your personality and individuality.
 Use natural colors and textures
- Coordinate the finishes of materials.
- Balance the visual weight of pieces with the size and height of the room. Strong, simple fabrics and large pieces of art also anchor a room without adding visual clutter.
 A little technology goes a long way - Look at digital solutions for scanning in receipts, keeping notes and managing information instead of having boxes of paperwork and notebooks lying around.
- Find technology that helps your business look more professional and get great results faster.
 Make the space work for you- A clear desk is directly related to your productivity. Clutter free = stress free!
- Whenever possible, store regularly used items where you use them most.
- Choose furnishings for function as well as beauty.
 Place something organic in your space
- Bring something from nature indoors. Live plants go a long way toward making a space more inviting, natural and homey.
- There are plants that can live in virtually any environment — ferns can thrive in low light, orchids bloom for up to eight weeks and can go two weeks without watering, for example.
 Always place imagery that inspires you
- Whether it’s family photos, pictures of your friends, trips or pets, make sure to be surrounded by what matters to you most.
 Work in colors that stimulate you
- Choosing the right color is important — people react to colors differently — some people are energized by red, some people find it relaxing.
- Nothing changes the look and feel of a room as dramatically as color, so updating the walls can make a big change to any room.