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Thursday, March 31, 2011 – Permalink –

Insert Line Breaks with Code

Label Captions

If you've ever needed to insert line breaks in a message box prompt, you most likely built a string that incorporated a line feed or carriage return character. Unfortunately, label objects aren't as forgiving when it comes to using these characters.

If you're setting a label's Caption property with code, you'll find that the special control characters are interpreted as squares, since they're otherwise un-displayable.

To successfully insert a line break in a label caption, you need to include both a line feed character and a carriage return character, entered consecutively.

To do so, you can use the Chr() function, such as:

Me.Label1.Caption = "Line 1" & _
Chr(13) & Chr(10) & "Line 2"

However, you can also simplify your code using an built-in constant:

Me.Label1.Caption = "Line 1" & vbCrLf & "Line 2"

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Labels: Access, Excel, Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:31 AM

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Wednesday, March 30, 2011 – Permalink –

Zoom Box

Better view

Access does not provide much room to enter long expressions in queries, forms, or reports.
You can drag the column wider, but there is a neater, quicker method.

With the insertion point in the field, hit: SHIFT+F2.
A Zoom box opens. Enter the formula and hit OK.

BTW: If you enter Field names in the Zoom box without square brackets. If the fields are recognized, Access will add the brackets.

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Labels: Access

<Doug Klippert@ 3:26 AM

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Tuesday, March 29, 2011 – Permalink –

Print Calendars

Good looking printouts

The standard calendar print out is dull:

The new free Calendar Assistant makes it more fun.

The Calendar Printing Assistant for Office Outlook 2007-10

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Labels: Outlook

<Doug Klippert@ 3:36 AM

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Monday, March 28, 2011 – Permalink –

Paint with Excel

A range of expressions

Ivan F Moala of XcelFiles.com has created a fascinating use for Excel.

The application/macro converts Bmp (24Bit & 256), Gif, Jpg, Jpeg files into Excel spreadsheets!

See the screen shots and download the free workbook:
Images to Excel

Excel 2003

This picture covers a range of A1:BL74, 4,736 cells, viewed at 15% zoom.

Excel 2007-10

This picture covers a range of A1:GR300, 60,000 cells, viewed at 10% zoom.

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Labels: Excel

<Doug Klippert@ 3:14 AM

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Sunday, March 27, 2011 – Permalink –

Office Art

2007 choices

Office 2007 uses OfficeArt to format text boxes, graphics and pictures.

It's available in Word, Excel , and PowerPoint, but it is most active in PowerPoint and Excel.

Here's a description:

Office PPT Art

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Labels: Excel, PowerPoint, Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:07 AM

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Saturday, March 26, 2011 – Permalink –

Bad Typography

Ugly when you look close

"From the company that popularized Arial, here are three examples of bad typography in Microsoft Word.
Bad typesetting in Word finds its way into résumés, business plans, research papers, government documents, even published books.
These small inconsistencies and imperfections may be un-noticeable in small doses, but paragraph-after-paragraph they stack up-resulting in ugly, visually in-cohesive documents.
Word isn’t for professional typography work, but that's no excuse for these typography sins.

Arial:

Garamond

Here's one that shows it can be done right:

BatangChe

Examples of Bad Typography

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Labels: Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:43 AM

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Friday, March 25, 2011 – Permalink –

Google Guide

How to do dat

Why Take The Google Guide Tutorial?

Google Guide

"Google is so easy to use, why take this online tutorial? If you're like many people, you use only a fraction of Google's features and services. The more you know about how Google works, its features and capabilities, the better it can serve your needs.

Just as the best way to learn how to sail is to sail, the best way to learn how to search with Google is to search with Google. Consequently, this Google tutorial contains many examples and exercises designed to give you practice with the material presented and to inspire you to find amusing or useful information."

Using Search Operators:
Advanced Operators

Google Guide TOC:
Table of Contents

Also:

GoogleTutor.com

and

Googling for XML

also:

Logoogle

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Labels: Addendum, Internet

<Doug Klippert@ 3:57 AM

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Thursday, March 24, 2011 – Permalink –

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets

As a web page is formatted in FrontPage, the style choices are applied to each element.
To format the body of the page, the HTML code might be:

<body background="blue" color="white" font-family="times, serif" font-size=10pt>

Every page on the site would need to be coded this way in order to have a consistent look.
Cascading Style Sheets will simplify the problem. On an external page the elements can be defined like this:

body {

background: blue;

color: white;

font-family: times, serif;

font-size: 10pt

Each page would contain a reference to the CSS definitions:

<head> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="mystyle.css"> </head>

When the element "body" is used it will now use the CSS references.

For more information see:

Using Cascading Style Sheets on Your Web Site - David Berry
and
Eric Meyer's Site

In this Blog:
CSS Links
and:
More Cascading Style Sheet Help

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Labels: Expression Web, HTML, Internet

<Doug Klippert@ 3:30 AM

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Wednesday, March 23, 2011 – Permalink –

Place Controls Exactly Where You Want

Works with other apps as well

The Snap To Grid feature is an invaluable tool for aligning controls when you're designing forms and reports. However, when you fine-tune the placement of some controls, you'll probably want to move some of them to positions that aren't exactly aligned with the design grid.

You can temporarily disable the Snap To Grid feature by holding down the [Ctrl] key. Then, you can use your mouse or the cursor arrows to place the controls exactly where you want them.

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Labels: Access

<Doug Klippert@ 3:25 AM

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Tuesday, March 22, 2011 – Permalink –

Replace Today

Weather or not

Replace MSNBC's Outlook Today page

"For the past several years, MSNBC provided a customized Outlook Today page that added news, weather, and stocks to the Outlook Today page. They recently discontinued the service and provided instructions to uninstall it.

Not all is lost however. You can replace their news, weather, and stock feeds with feeds of your own. FrontPage offers replacement applets in the Insert, Web components menu or you can find scripts or applets on the Internet to use.

Here is a replacement page available for download. You will need to enter your own zip code or ICAO code for local weather, instructions are here. Instructions are in the HTML to change the news to feed to international or to provide sports news etc."

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Labels: Outlook

<Doug Klippert@ 3:55 AM

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Monday, March 21, 2011 – Permalink –

Create a Template

More of a good thing

After putting together the ultimate proposal, or dunning notice, you can save the document as a template so that you don't have to re-invent the whole thing.

Here's how to do it in Word 2007-10.
(Earlier versions also use "Save As")

Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Open.
Open the document that you want.
Make the changes that you want to appear in all new documents that you base on the template.
Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Save As.
In the Save As dialog box, click Templates if your computer is running Windows Vista, or click Trusted Templates if your computer is running Windows XP.
Give the new template a file name, select Word Template in the Save As type list, and then click Save.

Note You can also save the template as a Word Macro-Enabled Template (.dotm file) or a Word 97-2003 Template (.dot file).

Create a new template

Also: Templates are digital stencils

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Labels: Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:49 AM

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Sunday, March 20, 2011 – Permalink –

Read All About IT

Excel reading

Bastien Mensink, from the Netherlands, runs ASAP-Utilities.com.

He has aggregated the headlines from a number of Excel Blogs.

If you don't have them as part of your RSS list, you should.

Weblog Headines

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Labels: Excel

<Doug Klippert@ 3:07 AM

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Saturday, March 19, 2011 – Permalink –

Synch Time

Time Server

Things I've forgotten or never knew.

Double click on the date and time on the taskbar to open the time applet.
Click on the Internet Time tab.
Choose a time server, and click on the Update Now button.

As long as you are connected to the internet, Windows will attempt to synchronize the time once per week.

You can type the name of a time server if you want to use one that is not listed. Only time servers that use the Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) will work. Inserting an Internet address that uses the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) will not work. The time server time.windows.com is operated by Microsoft. The time server time.nist.gov is operated by the U.S. government. Other time servers provided by your computer's manufacturer might also be listed.

Also: Time Flies Like an Arrow

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Labels: Internet, Windows

<Doug Klippert@ 3:02 AM

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Friday, March 18, 2011 – Permalink –

Foley Sounds

Clip Clop

Here's a subject you have heard about:

A Foley Artist 'recreates' sound effects for film, television and radio productions on a Foley Stage in a Post Production Sound Studio.
Using many different kinds of shoes and lots of props - car fenders, plates, glasses, chairs, and just about anything found at the side of the road - the Foley Artist can replace original sound completely or augment existing sounds to create a richer smoother track.
Almost every motion picture and television show you have ever seen and heard contains a Foley track!

NPR presented this story:
Jack Foley: Feet to the Stars

Also:

Art of Foley

Film Sound Q&A

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Labels: Addendum

<Doug Klippert@ 3:31 AM

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Thursday, March 17, 2011 – Permalink –

Hardcopy Relationships

Document database

When you're documenting your database applications, you may want to include the same visual diagram of your table relationships that's available through the Relationships window.

In Access 2000 thru 2003, this is easy. Simply display the Relationships window as usual and then choose File>Print Relationships from the menu bar. Doing so displays a report preview that you can then print or save.

In 2007-10, to just print out a report, find Database tools on the Ribbon and click on Database Documenter.

Relationships are at the bottom of the All Object Types tab

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Labels: Access

<Doug Klippert@ 3:36 AM

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Wednesday, March 16, 2011 – Permalink –

Life With PowerPoint

Cruel tips

" Don McMillan is "Technically Funny". Before he became a nationally known stand-up comedian, Don spent 10 years as an engineer at IBM, AT&T, and VLSI Technology. He knows what corporate life is all about. His show is funny, smart, clean, AND he is the ONLY comedian working in PowerPoint.

Life After Death by PowerPoint

Don McMillan

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Labels: PowerPoint

<Doug Klippert@ 3:45 AM

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Tuesday, March 15, 2011 – Permalink –

Specifications for Excel 2007-10

More flexibility

Lots of limits have been changed with 2007. The size of a worksheet is now 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns. The number of undo levels has gone up to 100.

Here are some more changes:

Worksheet and workbook specifications and limits
Calculation specifications and limits
Charting specifications and limits
PivotTable and PivotChart report specifications and limits
Shared workbook specifications and limits

Excel 2007 Specifications Excel 2010 Specifications See all Topics

Labels: Excel

<Doug Klippert@ 3:19 AM

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Monday, March 14, 2011 – Permalink –

Piggyback on GMail

An added tool

Google's Gmail is free and offers some features you can use in conjunction with your email program.

Send email to Gmail
Forwarding
Gmail spam control
Centralized Email
Additional email storage

"As well as a backup, it means you can easily access your messages via Internet terminal or mobile phone. Gmail is easily searched online or indexed offline using Google Desktop Search."

Here's the article from Office Watch: Gmail as your spam filter

Here's GMail's Fetch gadget: How to set up Mail Fetcher

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Labels: Internet, Outlook

<Doug Klippert@ 3:00 AM

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Sunday, March 13, 2011 – Permalink –

Use the Ruler

Measure by Measure

Here is an article that explores the use of Word's Rulers.

About the only thing I don't see is that you can bring up the Page Setup dialog box by double clicking in the dark area of the ruler that indicates the margin.

Once again this tip comes from the Microsoft Word MVP site:

Ruler of all you survey:
How to make the best use of Word's rulers

Here's the spot to click to show rulers in Word 2007-10:

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Labels: Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:11 AM

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Saturday, March 12, 2011 – Permalink –

Clippy and Friends

Office Assistants

They were in the background, waiting to pounce.

Chris Pratley was there in the beginning:
Clippy and User Experiences

Stanford University:
Bob and the assistants
Social science research influences computer product design

..."They have found that to a very considerable extent people treat their computers and other computer-driven technology in the same ways that they treat people - as if the computer possessed reason, feelings, etc. People also treat pictures on screens as real objects, rather than as representations of real objects. This is relevant to anyone who wants to design technology or content that is as effective as it can be ..."

Also see:
Microsoft Bob
Clippy's Revenge

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Labels: Windows

<Doug Klippert@ 3:27 AM

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Friday, March 11, 2011 – Permalink –

Undo Excel

Level talk

In Excel 2007. the number of levels of the "undo stack" was increased from 16 levels to 100.

Setting AutoFilters, showing/hiding detail in PivotTables, and grouping/ungrouping in PivotTables are now reversible.

And the undo stack is not cleared when Excel saves, be it an AutoSave or a Save by the user.

If you think the number of undos should be changed, here's how:

Close any programs that are running.
Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then click OK.
In Registry Editor, expand one of the following registry subkeys, as appropriate for the version of Excel that you are running:

Microsoft Office Excel 2010
```
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Excel\Options
```
Microsoft Office Excel 2007 uses Office\12.0\
Microsoft Office Excel 2003 uses Office\11.0\
Microsoft Excel 2002 uses Office\10.0\
Microsoft Excel 2000 uses Office\9.0\
On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value. Select New Value #1, type UndoHistory, and then press ENTER.
On the Edit menu, click Modify.
In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, click Decimal under Base. Type a value between 0 and 100 in the Value box, click OK, and then exit Registry Editor.
Start Excel. Excel stores an undo history for the number of actions that you specified in step 6.

Modify the number of undo levels If you want to clear the undo stack, just run a macro such as:

Sub ClearUndo()
Range("A1").Copy Range("A1")
End Sub

Allen Wyatt: Clearing the Undo stack

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Labels: Excel

<Doug Klippert@ 3:35 AM

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Thursday, March 10, 2011 – Permalink –

Leaf Animation

Animation tip

This tutorial will walk you through the steps you can use to display a leaf as it floats and swirls across the screen.

There is also a file that you can download to see how its done.

PowerPoint Heaven:

Leaf Motion

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Labels: PowerPoint

<Doug Klippert@ 3:18 AM

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Wednesday, March 09, 2011 – Permalink –

Help Choices

From a Crabby Lady

"Sometimes when you're stuck on a problem using an Office program, you need help and you need it NOW (not unlike the "I need it NOW!" urgency for a very nearby public restroom for your recently trained 2-year-old). You just want to be able to type a word or a phrase into search and have your answer immediately returned in the form of a simple, short article that explains it all.

Other times you might like to watch someone show you how it's done, although it isn't always possible to wander the hallways and look for an unsuspecting coworker to enlighten you.

Office Online offers a multitude of ways to get "show me now!" help as well as other types of assistance. Today I'll cover six of them."

Six degrees of Office Online Help

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Labels: Addendum

<Doug Klippert@ 3:27 AM

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Tuesday, March 08, 2011 – Permalink –

Startup Switches for Access

Your choice

"This article shows you how to customize the way that Microsoft Office Access 2007 starts by adding switches and parameters to the startup command. For example, you can have Office Access 2007 open a specific file or run a specific macro when it starts."

Office.Microsoft.com

Also:

Support.Microsoft.com
VB123.com

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Labels: Access

<Doug Klippert@ 3:09 AM

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Monday, March 07, 2011 – Permalink –

Screen Capture Gear

Better than PrtScn

You can add graphics to instructions using the built in PrtScn button, but there's not much versatility.

WritersUA by WinWriters, Inc has a discussion on some available apps that can help.

"Almost all of us need to include screen captures in our user assistance from time to time.

Of course, it's possible to do almost all of this by pressing + to copy the active window to the clipboard, and then pasting it into your favorite image-editing application.
However, for each screen capture this requires you to go through the same set of actions in order to crop, set the color depth, add borders or edge effects, and finally save it.
If you only take the occasional screen capture, then this is fine. But it can become extremely tedious and time-consuming if you have a large number of screens to capture."

Capture Tools

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Labels: Windows

<Doug Klippert@ 3:17 AM

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Sunday, March 06, 2011 – Permalink –

Daylight Savings

Get a little, lose a little

"Beginning in 2007, daylight saving time (DST) will be extended in the United States. DST will start on the first Sunday in March, which is three weeks earlier than usual, and it will end on the first Sunday in November, which is one week later than usual .This results in a new DST period that is four weeks longer than in previous years.

Unless certain updates are applied to your computer, the time zone settings for your computer's system clock may be incorrect during this four-week period. In particular, you must make sure that both your Windows operating system and your calendar programs are updated.

Home users: If you use Windows Vista or have Automatic Updates turned on, you may not be affected by the change in daylight saving time. If you want to confirm, follow the steps in the Daylight Saving Time Update Guide.

IT professionals and IT managers: The Daylight Saving Time Update Guide will lead you to KB articles and downloads"

Support.Microsoft.com:.
DST Help and Support Center

Also see"
Go Back 23 Hours

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Labels: Windows

<Doug Klippert@ 6:13 AM

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Non Stop Show

Stop the breakout

If a PowerPoint show is running, it can be stopped by using the escape key. Here's a way to prevent that from happening.

A User can exit out of a show accidentally/intentionally by pressing the ESC key. This add-in disables the functionality of the ESC key.

Note: If the show is set to run in Kiosk mode, disabling the ESC key will provide no way of getting out of a slide show, hence please ensure that you have provided an escape route (e.g an invisible shape set to End show) to exit the show.

No ESCape Add-in
by Shyam Pillai

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Labels: PowerPoint

<Doug Klippert@ 3:46 AM

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Saturday, March 05, 2011 – Permalink –

Continued

More to come

You can place the word "More" or "Continued" at the bottom of every page except the last one.
The field, for those of you who know how to use them is:

{ IF { PAGE } = { NUMPAGES } "" "more" }

You can't just type in the brackets, you must use Insert>Field or Ctrl+F9.

For step by step instructions, go to:
How to Control the Page Numbering in a Word Document on TechTrax

Here is a more sophisticated formula:

{ IF { PAGE } < { NUMPAGES } "Continued on page {={PAGE} + 1}" "Last Page"}

Also see the Word MVP site
How to control the page numbering in a Word document

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Labels: Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:54 AM

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Friday, March 04, 2011 – Permalink –

Cmabrigde

Crorcet Sllipneg

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

Spanish:

"Sgeun un etsduio de una uivenrsdiad ignlsea, no ipmotra el odren en el que las ltears etsan ersciats, la uicna csoa ipormtnate es que la pmrirea y la utlima ltera esten ecsritas en la psiocion cocrrtea. El rsteo peuden estar ttaolmntee mal y aun pordas lerelo sin pobrleams. Etso es pquore no lemeos cada ltera por si msima preo la paalbra es un tdoo."

Russian:

See: Matt Davis - Cmabrigde, for a full discussion.

True or fsale? TheSpellingBlog

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Labels: Addendum

<Doug Klippert@ 3:28 AM

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Thursday, March 03, 2011 – Permalink –

Use a Table Alias

to change names in a query

When you need to change the table name referenced in an existing Access query, it can be a pain. This is especially true if the query contains a large number of fields.

You typically might use an alias when you need to relate a table to itself or tables have long or unwieldy names.

If you make a practice of always using aliases in your queries, you can easily change which table is used by changing the one occurrence of the original table name in the query's FROM clause.

To set a table alias in the query's Design view,
Right-click on the table field list and choose Properties.
Then, enter the alias name you want to use in the Alias text box.

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Labels: Access

<Doug Klippert@ 3:51 AM

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Wednesday, March 02, 2011 – Permalink –

Make Powerpoint HTML Sing

Web sounds

"The situation usually is that someone has spent the time to create a wonderful slide show with music set to start on the first slide and run throughout the entire presentation.
Unfortunately, when the presentation is saved as HTML, and it is tested, the music plays only on the first slide.

This article will not only explain what to do, it will also give you exact HTML code and tell you where to put it in the file. "

A Sound Solution: Playing Music on HTML Presentations

Michael Koerner (MS PPT MVP) has a sample PowerPoint to HTML.

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Labels: PowerPoint

<Doug Klippert@ 3:54 AM

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Tuesday, March 01, 2011 – Permalink –

And then there was Word

Remember the past

As one writer put it:

"Before the development of personal computers and word processing software,
documents were produced on typewriters."

Chris Pratley, a Microsoft Program Manager, started with the Excel team in 1994 and then worked with the Word team. He has written about the early days:
Let's talk about Word

And more Word words:

Also see:
WordStar Resource Site
(Includes a WordStar emulator for Word)

Also see:

Let's talk about Word

And more Word words:

Key Events in Microsoft History

Also see:
WordStar Resource Site
(Includes a WordStar emulator for Word)

Also see:
In Search of Stupidity

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Labels: Word

<Doug Klippert@ 3:25 AM

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