Microsoft Office

Groove provides a number of different ways to share ideas and carry out conversations. Specifically, you can chat, exchange instant messages, or carry out detailed discussions in a response hierarchy. Each method has its proper time and place, depending on the purpose and goals of the conversation.

About messaging in Groove

You can send a message to any Groove contact. Your messages can include audio recordings, file attachments, and Web address (URL) references. If Groove recognizes contacts listed in your contact list as also being Messenger contacts, you can start Messenger activities with these contacts from Groove.

Messaging is best when you need to share or exchange simple ideas quickly, such as a reminder, or a question that should yield a quick, simple answer. Messages tend to address a variety of unrelated topics, whereas topics in hierarchical discussion typically relate to the specific workspace context. Unlike a chat or hierarchical discussion, you can share messages with any Groove contact; that is, message recipients do not need to be members of any particular workspace.

Typically, a message yields a quick reply, because it gets the recipient’s attention, and can be dealt with quickly. Also, messages are commonly shared either between just two people, or between one person and a group. For example, one might send a message to a group asking if they plan to attend an optional meeting. However, using messages to carry out a conversation becomes unwieldy and is not recommended.

Note, however, that a message might not yield an immediate response if the recipient is not present. This differs from a chat, as explained below, in which all participants are typically present at the same time. Thus, if your message is time-sensitive, it is important to check the recipient’s online status.

Finally, although the Message History provides an historical record of all messages sent and received, this facility does not offer an easy way to review a thread of multiple exchanges.

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

Not all of the best features in Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 are obvious at first glance. This article provides an overview of the Office OneNote workspace and user interface and offers tips for customizing them to suit your personal preferences, your note-taking habits, and your type of computer.
The program window
As in other 2007 Microsoft Office system programs, you can freely add, remove, or reorganize menu commands and toolbar buttons in the program window to suit your needs and preferences.

Menu Bar
Toolbars
Search box
Navigation Bar

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Menu Bar
Click the headings on the menu bar to display menu commands. To customize OneNote menus, right-click the menu bar, and then click Customize on the shortcut menu. In the Customize dialog box, click the Commands tab, and then click Rearrange Commands.

Toolbars
Toolbar buttons provide quick and easy shortcuts to menu commands. By default, OneNote displays the Standard and Formatting toolbars that contain some of the most-commonly-used OneNote commands. To display other toolbars, right-click any toolbar button and then, on the shortcut menu, click the name of the toolbar that you want to display. You can drag toolbars to any location in the OneNote program window.

Search Box
The ability to search your notes is one of the main benefits of taking notes on a computer instead of paper. To search notes in the current notebook, type a word or phrase into the Search box and then press ENTER. If OneNote finds a match, navigation controls appear so that you can browse through the search results. (Click Exit Search to return to the Search box). To change the search scope, click the arrow next to the Search button.

Navigation Bar
As described in detail in the following section, the controls on the Navigation Bar can provide quick access to notebooks on your computer and in shared locations.

In Outlook 2007, with WordMail, we have made it easier to differentiate between different email responses. We added what we call thread shading to emails. Every time we see a new email response (or thread) we shade the entire “extra” content part. Now reading an email allows you to more easily see where one response or thread starts and ends. Check out this screenshot from Outlook 2007:

Thread Navigation and Shading
Reading emails has remained pretty much the same since it first came out; you read an email as one long piece of text. You have to keep scrolling down a message until you have read all responses, where each of the responses are usually separated by the presence of some “extra” content like lines or message headers, which contain information like who sent the email, to whom, when it was sent, etc.

In previous versions of Outlook, reading an email usually meant a lot of scrolling or use of the keyboard to move up and down an entire email message. You needed to notice the “extra” content to figure out when an email response started or ended.

We didn’t stop there. Sometimes you want to be able to skip over whole responses or threads at a time, or even skip to the first or last response within an email. In Outlook 2007 we have made this scenario easy. Moving your mouse over any of the shaded regions will reveal our thread navigation controls.

With these thread navigation controls you can easily navigate to the next, previous, first, or last thread within an email. Emails are becoming more and more popular, with some of us getting hundreds a day. Hopefully this feature will make reading emails a bit easier.

Panning on Tablet PCs
If you are using a Tablet PC, we have added another way for you to easily read and navigate your email through the Panning Hand feature. The Panning Hand command can be found at the top of the vertical scroll bar.

When the Panning Hand is turned on, you can use the Tablet PC pen to scroll up and down an email.

Smart Scaling of Images in the Reading Pane
I don’t know about you guys, but I love being able to quickly read my emails with the Outlook Reading Pane. Unfortunately, the Reading Pane only has a small portion of the total width of my screen’s real estate. Usually, that’s not a bad thing, but if I receive an email with a very large image, my Reading Pane becomes harder to use for reading. The reason is because now I not only have to worry about vertical scrolling, but also horizontal scrolling.

In Outlook 2007 we have made reading such emails easier. Outlook detects if an image is too large based on the Reading Pane real estate size, and it appropriately scales down the image to fit it on screen without the need of a horizontal scroll bar. Check out the same email within Outlook 2007. You can now see the entire chart all within the Reading Pane.

We hope this feature makes it easier for you to read your emails more efficiently (no need to double-click an email message to view it outside the Reading Pane).

Hit Highlighting for Instant Search Results
The last thing I want to show you guys in this post is how we improved the user experience of search with WordMail. In Outlook 2007 you can search for specific emails by using the Search control. Doing so will not only find email messages that contain that string, but WordMail will also highlight and show you where in the email the text can be found.

bThis is the first community prototype from Office Labs. Community prototypes are projects Microsoft employees work on in their spare time. Speed Launch’s goal is to let you get to the stuff you use faster and with less frustration.

Why do I need Speed Launch?
Work faster and with less frustration. Speed Launch gives you lightning quick access to all the documents, files, and websites you use often. In the past when you used something a lot you might have created a desktop shortcut, added it to your IE favorites, or placed it on your quick launch bar. Speed Launch allows you to create centralized shortcuts to all the stuff you need and allows you to access them effortlessly.

What is Speed Launch?
Speed Launch is an application launcher that extends the functionality and usability of Microsoft Windows. With Speed Launch, users can select their own words to open frequently used websites, documents, and applications. The most compelling feature of Speed launch is the use of a drag and drop interaction model to make this advanced functionality more intuitive to novice computer users.

How is it used? How does it work with Windows?
Speed Launch is a downloadable program available at www.officelabs.com. After you’ve download Speed Launch, simply drag the file, document, or website url onto the Speed Launch bull’s-eye to create a Speed Launch shortcut. From then on, any time you need to access that file, document, or website, just hit “Windows+C”, type the shortcut name, and what you need will immediately appear.

Is there a shortcut key to open the launcher?
Yes. Use “Windows+C”.

How do I use Speed Launch to open multiple things?
Drag the first item on to the bull’s-eye and give it a name. Next, drag the second item on to the bull’s-eye and give it the same name. When you do this, Speed Launch will give you the option to replace or merge the two items, choose merge. Now, hit “Windows+C” and type the name. Speed Launch will open both items.

Is there a limit to how many items a single Speed Launch shortcut can open?
Not that we know of

I notice that Speed Launch comes with some shortcuts that allow me to search websites. How do I use them?
Speed Launch comes preloaded with a few useful fucntions. For example, to search Wikipedia just type “Wikipedia Search” and hit enter. Next, type what you want to search for in the new window and hit enter. Speed Launch will open the related Wikipedia page.

Cool! Can I create my own “functions”?
Yes… but it’s a little tricky. You can watch the video below for a walk through (and some good music). In short, go to the results page (e.g., search for the information you are looking for) and, if the search term appears in the URL, you can drag it on to the bullseye to create a function. Name it with a period (e.g., “MySearch.”) which tells Speed Launch you want a function, and follow the prompts. We will make this easier in the future, but our current focus is in making the basics as easy as possible.

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.

Today’s author, Scott Ruble, a Program Manager on the Excel team, is seeking feedback on a new prototype for building charts.

When Office 2007 was released, one of the strong pieces of feedback was Excel needs to do a better job guiding users in the proper selection of charts to effectively communicate their data. Though it wasn’t our intent, some of the new formatting options such as glow and legacy 3D charts can be used inappropriately, which obscure the meaning of a chart. Some people felt that these features contributed to creating more “chart junk.” In an effort to improve this situation, we have created a prototype called the Chart Advisor. The Chart Advisor intelligently suggests different chart types based on an analysis of your data in Excel 2007. Depending on the feedback we get on Chart Advisor, we may incorporate this as a native Excel feature in a future release. For a quick tour of Chart Advisor, please check out the video or read the steps below and give it a try.

Background
Chart Advisor was developed by Office Labs which is a new organization within Office that focuses on concept validation and incubation. Over the course of several months, we compiled a set of well defined heuristics such as when to use a line chart versus a column chart. These heuristics were incorporated into an advanced rules engine which scans your data and scores all of the relevant chart types. Top scoring charts are presented for previewing, tweaking, and inserting into your Excel worksheet. The rules used for scoring can be complex and we know that some rules are missing or need fine tuning. Given the breadth of possible chart types and data sets this will probably always be the case - even for a fully functional shipping version of Chart Advisor. To address this, the rules were separated from the rules engine into an XML file which can be modified by you to meet your individual business needs. Other notable features of the Chart Advisor are shown below.

Automatic pivoting to generate more useful charts
Hidden rows and columns are ignored in the spreadsheet
Totals for columns or rows are ignored in the charts so as not to skew the data plotted
Ability to quickly change the data displayed in the chart through the Modify chart pane
Ability to filter data
Intelligent mapping of data to the axes
Scoring of charts to show the best charts first
Chart formatting (legend on/off/location, chart style) is rules-based - e.g., no legend if only one value series
The vision for Chart Advisor was for it to address four different areas of recommendation:

Chart type (e.g., column, line, scatter, etc.)
Formatting (e.g., fill, color, effects, etc.)
Chart element (e.g., legend, trendline, error bars, etc.)
Aggregations and pivots
The Chart Advisor is a proof of concept. As such, it doesn’t address all aspects of our vision just yet. Currently it focuses on providing chart type suggestions and to a more limited extent formatting, chart element, aggregation, and pivot suggestions. However, I’d love to get your feedback on other ways you think the Chart Advisor could add value.

for InfoPath Forms Services environments (Office SharePoint Server)

This performance and capacity planning scenario incorporates a single Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 farm that is running InfoPath Forms Services. The farm is used to publish InfoPath form templates. Note that the test results that are shown in this article are specific to InfoPath Forms Services in Office SharePoint Server 2007. Test results may not be representative of the performance characteristics of Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007.

Key characteristics
Key characteristics describe environmental factors, usage characteristics, and other considerations that are likely to be found in deployments based on this scenario.

The key characteristics for this scenario include the following:

Authentication, access control, and authorization Integrated Windows authentication is used in this scenario. Typically, sites and content are secured either by using security groups or by granting access to individual users based on their user accounts. Authentication and authorization affect throughput and require a network connection between farm servers and domain controllers. Throughput is the number of operations that a server farm can perform per second. Throughput is measured in requests per second (RPS).

Associated directory service This scenario incorporates an associated Active Directory directory service to provide user and organizational information. This information is used by Office SharePoint Server 2007 features to provide advanced functionality such as presence, targeting, and audiences.

Complex (read/write) user operations In a forms environment, users view and contribute to content. Throughput targets for this scenario are designed to ensure reasonable response times for complex user operations such as uploading form templates or filling out forms.

Data and site growth over time In addition to estimating the initial data volume, an Office SharePoint Server 2007 collaboration environment must also allow for data and site growth over time. A server farm that is designed for the initial data volume can quickly become insufficient.

User response times Target user response times for common, uncommon, long-running, and rare operation are listed in the User response time table at the end of the article Plan for software boundaries (Office SharePoint Server). Some organizations might tolerate slower user response times or might require faster user response times. The expected user response time is a key factor that determines overall throughput targets. When you have more users, you require a higher throughput target to achieve the same user response time.

User concurrency A concurrency rate of 10 percent is assumed, with 1 percent of concurrent users making requests at a given moment. For example, for 10,000 users, 1,000 users are using the solution simultaneously, and 100 users are making requests.

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.