Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Page Breaks

Demo tutorial


You can control when Word decides to break for a new page.
Ctrl+Enter is the keyboard shortcut, but there are a number of variations.

This MS link has both Demos and text tutorials.
Page breaks

BTW, a merged document is made up of Section breaks, not Page breaks.

For ease of printing, Replace ^b with ^m



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Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Change Info Box

Make up your own


When you press the Windows key + Break, you'll see the properties window with the standard manufacturer's data/ad.

The How to Geek shows how to change this. There is also a registry file that can be downloaded to make the basic entries.



Customize support info



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Monday, January 29, 2018

Word News (Still)

Here's another good newsletter



Editorium
Jack M. Lyon, a book editor who got tired of working the hard way and started creating programs to automate editing tasks in Microsoft Word. He's been editing more than twenty years and started working on the computer in 1985.
(Unfortunately has not published recently, but still full of good information)


A few back issues of Editorium Update arranged chronologically:

  • Deleting Unused Styles
  • Pasting Tracked Revisions
  • Indexing with a Two-Column Concordance
  • Fancy Sorting
  • Editing by Concordance
  • Making a Concordance
  • Numbers by Chicago
  • Fixing Typos Automatically
And more.



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Sunday, January 28, 2018

Date Arithmetic

The drunken cousin


Working with dates has a few twists.

Excel believes that time began on January 1, 1900.

Each day since then is counted so that September 1, 2003 in Excel-speak would be → 37,865.
9/1/03 7:33 A.M. is a decimal → 37865.31458333333

When you subtract one date from another, for instance 9/1/2003 (A1)minus 7/4/2001 (A2),
Excel displays the odd answer of → 2/27/1902.

Excel formats the result of a formula with the same format as the source cells,
Right-click the formula cell (=A1-A2).
Select Format Cells ..., and then choose a Number format with zero decimals.

The correct number of days → 789 will now be displayed.

Another way is to use the rarely documented DATEDIF function. Chip Pearson calls it "the drunken cousin of the Function family."

=DATEDIF(EarliestDate,LatestDate,Interval)

=DATEDIF(A2,A1,"d")


Here's THE source for date math:
Chip Pearson:
All About Dates
Also:

John Walenbach:
Extended Date Functions Add-In
"Many users are surprised to discover that Excel cannot work with dates prior to the year 1900. The Extended Date Functions add-in (XDate) corrects this deficiency, and allows you to work with dates in the years 0100 through 9999."


MS Knowledge Base:
How To Use Dates and Times in Excel




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Saturday, January 27, 2018

HTML Preview

HTML Tester

There you are, out in the wilderness of PCdom without a copy of FrontPage (Expression) around. How do you find out what HTML tags looks like?
(fire up notepad, save the file, open with a browser)

HTML Preview
Preview HTML in a new window by entering it into the form. This script allows you to pass anything to a new window.

Instructions help you create a preview on your own web page.

Such as:
HTML TEST BED



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Friday, January 26, 2018

Snowflake Patterns

Cut your own


You can create your own cutout snowflakes and the down load the patterns.









Pinterest.com - snowflake drawing easy



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Thursday, January 25, 2018

Quickly Query Table Names

Change by code


If you've ever developed a dozen or more complex queries, then had to change one of the table names, you know how frustrating it can be to all but rebuild the queries in the Query Design view grid by changing the table name in each cell.

One quick alternative is to choose View >SQL View while the query is open and then cut and paste all the SQL code into Word.

Next, do a Find and Replace, changing all the instances of the old table name to the new table name.

Finally, copy and paste the SQL statements back into the SQL view of your Access queries.

When you go back to the QBE, the new table will replace the old one.





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Wednesday, January 24, 2018

Reset Shortcut Menu

Context menu redo


For some reason (to be determined later) my shortcut menu started to accumulate a string of "Edit Formula" and "Delete Formula" entries.

They didn't cause a problem, but were distracting.

This little VBA code puts it back to the original settings until I can find a cause.



Sub ResetShortcutMenu()
Application.CommandBars("Cell").Reset
End Sub


Macros that Customize and Control Shortcut Menus



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Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Office VBA Tricks

Video + Free code


"Learn tips and use sample code for several Office applications. These tips can help you to be more productive and can also be a starting point for developing your own tools, utilities and techniques."
  • Update Word Document Statistics in the Title Bar
  • Create Outlook Rules Programmatically
  • Delete Repeated Text Throughout a Word Document
  • Run Macros Based on the Value of One or More Excel Spreadsheet Cells
  • Disable Related Controls on a PowerPoint Slide After a User Clicks an Input Control
  • Display Reminder Information When a User Opens an Office Document
  • Synchronize an Access Main Form to a Subform and Vice Versa
  • Log Worksheet Changes to an XML File
  • Merge Body Text from Multiple Outlook E-mail Messages to a Word Document
  • Use the Office Assistant as an Alternative to Displaying and Retrieving User Input
Ten Tips for Office VBA Developers

VBA Tips & Tricks

Getting Started with VBA in Office 2010

Download Office 2013 VBA Documentation


(VBA is VBA and is, in most cases, usable in all versions of Office)



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Monday, January 22, 2018

Background Templates

Fresh material



After seeing a few PowerPoint presentations, all of the backgrounds and graphics included with Office, start to look alike.

Luckily, there are generous folk who supply fresh material.

Sonia Coleman is one of the best.

She presents over 200 templates for download.

Free PowerPoint Templates

Explore the rest of her site including the Gallery section

Also see:

PoweredTemplates.com



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Sunday, January 21, 2018

Onscreen Keyboard

Tap or Click?


If you would like to have a keyboard on your screen that can be activated with your mouse you're in luck

Type osk in Start Run






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Saturday, January 20, 2018

Add Objects to Query Grid

Easy additions


If you need to add a table or query to a query you're building in Design view, you most likely click the Show Table button, drag the appropriate objects from the resulting dialog box, and then close the dialog box.

However, there's a much easier way to do this.

Simply drag the table or query object's icon directly to the gray background of the query design grid. This same technique also works with the Access Relationships window.



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Friday, January 19, 2018

Chiropractics for Excel

Knead and pound numbers

Chad Rothschiller, a program manager on the Excel team, discusses using formulas to 'clean up' data in Excel.
Excel is a great tool to use when you need to take data in one format, manipulate it into another format, and push the results along to another process, e.g. a database. In this context, Excel is a great landing pad or middle man, serving as a data transformation tool to move data from one system to another.

This example considers a sample data set and walks through the steps to clean up the data and perform various transformations on the data set to massage it into a more desirable format.

I'm sure you've been faced with at least one of theses problems:

  • Import the data and don't accidentally drop the leading zeros!

  • Formatting SSN

  • Inserting hyphens

  • Fixing up names

  • Lower case E-Mail Address

  • Format Home Phone

  • Inserting parenthesis & hyphens

  • Trim extra spaces from Address

  • Add City values to the new table

  • Make all State value upper case

  • Fill in Postal Code

  • Finalize the values
Manipulate and massage  



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Thursday, January 18, 2018

Image Sources

No cost


After awhile the graphics in Office Clipart or even the ones found on Microsoft's Office online appear the same.

Here is a list of 100 locations for royalty free stock images.




Free stock images



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Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Resetting the body clock

So very SAD


SAD

A wistful feeling comes over us in late autumn, as the last remaining leaves drop, morning frosts cover the ground, and the sun sets earlier each day. Hot cider and the warmth of a favorite old coat may be all you need to face the coming winter with good cheer, but for many people, fall melancholy deepens to winter depression.


Winter depression is still a mystery to scientists who study it. Many things, including brain chemicals, ions in the air, and genetics seem to be involved. But researchers agree that people who suffer from winter depression -- also known as "seasonal affective disorder," a term that produces the cute acronym SAD -- have one thing in common. They're particularly sensitive to light, or the lack of it.

"Research shows that bright light visual stimulation (light which enters the eyes), can change the timing of the body clock and its timing of sleep or awakening signals to the body. Thus, bright light therapy has been used to treat the range of disorders caused by a mis-timed body clock including shift work, jet lag, sleep onset and early morning insomnia mentioned above as well as winter depression (Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD)."

"Probably the greatest use of bright light therapy is for the treatment of winter depression, especially in very northern countries which have little sunlight in the winter months. These sufferers appear to have delayed body clocks and benefit most from morning light therapy.

At present, the blue LED glasses are still experimental devices. They are not yet commercially available. The Flinders University owns the intellectual property rights and a provisional patent. A commercial partner to manufacture and market the devices under license is still being sought."

Seasonal Affective Disorder



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Tuesday, January 16, 2018

Drawing Canvas

More than I want


The Draw layer has been around since about Word 97, but it has not been as intrusive as it is in Word 2002+.

Try to place an AutoShape on a page and the Drawing Canvas pops up by default.

To turn off this feature, go to:
Tools>Options.
On the General tab, remove the check mark from
"Automatically create drawing canvas when inserting AutoShapes"

To just dismiss it each time, choose your AutoShape and then touch the Delete or Esc key before drawing the object.

Here's some more information.


Knowledge Base
General Information About Floating Objects
(a discussion of Word's floating objects and layers)

As I understand it, the Drawing canvas is not really a new layer. The following illustration shows the classic layers. It is from the Knowledge base article:
How to Place Text over a Graphic


___________________
/                   /
/   <SURFACE OF     /
/       PAPER>      /
/                   /  /
Front drawing layer  -------------------  /
MAIN TEXT LAYER  =================== / /
Back drawing layer  -------------------/ / /
/ /
Front drawing layer  -------------------/ /
(Header/footer) BOTTOM TEXT LAYER  =================== /
Back drawing layer  -------------------/



You can dump the layer in 2007 in the Office button Word Option equivalent of Tools>Options:



Smart Art 2013



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Monday, January 15, 2018

Free Contact Templates

Free electronic business cards


Microsoft has business card templates that can be used in Outlook.

Just download the file and edit the information.



Contact Cards



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Sunday, January 14, 2018

Keyboard ALT Codes

Quick inserts


Here is a collection of Alt codes. There is also a free download that you can post near your computer.

  • Alt Codes for Letters with Accents for Languages
  • Alt Codes for Bullets, Symbols and Other Special Characters
  • Alt Codes for Mathematical Symbols - Symbols used in Mathematics
  • Alt Codes for Currency Symbols
  • Alt Codes for Drawing
  • Alt Codes for Characters from the Greek Alphabet
  • Alt Codes for "Additional" Letters particularly for Nordic / Scandanavian Languages
  • Alt Codes for Spanish
  • Intellectual Property Right symbols.
  • Alt Codes for Arrows
  • Alt Codes for Punctuation and Editing
  • Alt Codes in Computer Programming
Alt Codes



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Saturday, January 13, 2018

Shuffle Music

Like those fruity machines


Microsoft Media player can do more things than just play the odd sound file. You can set it up to go through a play list is random order; playing music all day long.



Shuffle Sort



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Friday, January 12, 2018

IE Temp Files

Storage area


Every once in awhile when the Berners-Lee pipeline clogs up, you are instructed to delete the temporary files that IE saves.

You can do it with the Click of an IE Options button.

Here's where those files are stored:




As you see, you could move that location if you wanted to.

Finding the Temporary Internet Files folder



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Thursday, January 11, 2018

Spreadsheet Boo-Boos

Design suggestions


A few links to sites with advice on spreadsheet design and error detection.

European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group:
Spreadsheet mistakes - news stories

Raymond R. Panko, PhD University of Hawaii

What We Know About Spreadsheet Errors



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Wednesday, January 10, 2018

YouTube in PowerPoint

Imbedded videos


Shyam Pillai has provided a free wizard to imbed YouTube clips into a PowerPoint Presentation

"Use this to insert YouTube videos into a PowerPoint slide. All you need to do is to provide the YouTube video URL that appears in the browser address bar, the rest is taken care of by the YTV Wizard.

Note: YouTube videos are streamed so a live internet connection is required to playback the video during the slideshow. Use the free FlashBack add-in to play/rewind the YouTube video automatically."

YouTube Video Wizard



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Tuesday, January 09, 2018

Gmail Features

The top 10


Bill Kee, Associate Product Marketing Manager for Gmail, has a blog and has listed 10 major features of the free web based email system.
Including:

"When you get an email that references an address, look to the right and you'll probably see a link from Gmail pointing you to a map of the address on Google Maps.

Gmail also recognizes email text that refers to an event (e.g., 'dinner tomorrow at 8pm'), and will give you a link to add it to your calendar.

It'll even pick up on package tracking numbers from UPS and link you directly to the tracking page, so you don't have to copy and paste the number. I really like this last one when I order stuff online and want the instant gratification of knowing a package is on its way.


Gmail features Part 1

Gmail features Part 2



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Monday, January 08, 2018

Web Data

Numbers from the ether


Excel has had a feature called web query. Here's an add-in that makes it a little easier.

"The Excel 2007 Web Data Add-In makes it easy to use a Web page as a data source in Excel.

The add-in plugs into Excel 2007 seamlessly, its entry point located on the Data Tab under the From Web option. The system extracts data by learning from a user’s selection of data they wish to capture into Excel. The more selections, the more the system is trained."



Web Data

Getting data from the Web in Excel

2013 Web Data YouTube



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Sunday, January 07, 2018

Charity or Scam

IRS worthy or not


Did someone call asking for money for the Global Relief Foundation, Inc. or some other charitable organization?

You can look them up with the IRS.

BTW, you might think again about these groups:
  • Benevolence International Foundation, Inc.
    Palos Hills, Illinois

  • Global Relief Foundation, Inc.
    Bridgeview, Illinois

  • Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development
    Richardson, Texas

  • Rabbi Meir Kahana Memorial Fund
    Cedarhurst, New York
Search for Charities  

Revoked by IRS 


Here's the site for Washington state:
Secretary of State



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Saturday, January 06, 2018

Outlook Shortcuts

Good Strokes


Check names--------------------------------------Ctrl + K or Alt + K
Check spelling-----------------------------------F7
Choose the account from which to send
a message(with focus on the To line)
and then TAB to the Accounts button------------Ctrl + TAB
Convert an HTML or RTF message to plain text-----Ctrl + Shift +O
Delete a mail message----------------------------Delete or Ctrl + D
Display the Address Book-------------------------Ctrl + Shift + B
Find a message ----------------------------------Ctrl + Shift + F
Find text----------------------------------------F3
Forward a message--------------------------------Ctrl + F
Go to folder-------------------------------------Ctrl + Y
Go to next mail message--------------------------Down or Up arrow
Insert signature---------------------------------Ctrl + Shift + S
Mark a message as read---------------------------Ctrl + Enter or Ctrl + Q
Move between the Folders list and message list---Tab
Open or post a new message-----------------------Ctrl + N
Open the Address Book----------------------------Ctrl + Shift + B
Open the Inbox-----------------------------------Ctrl + I
Open the Outbox----------------------------------Ctrl + O
Open the selected message------------------------Ctrl + O or Enter
Post to a folder---------------------------------Ctrl + Shift + S
Print the selected message-----------------------Ctrl + P
Reply to a message-------------------------------Ctrl + R
Reply to all-------------------------------------Ctrl + Shift + R
Send (post) a message----------------------------Ctrl + Enter or Alt + S
Send and receive mail----------------------------Ctrl + M or F5
Switch among Edit, Source, and Preview tabs------Ctrl + Tab
Switch to Inbox----------------------------------Ctrl + Shift + I
Switch to Outbox---------------------------------Ctrl + Shift + O 


Royal National Institute of the Blind:
Outlook Keyboard Shortcuts

Outlook 2013 shortcuts



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Friday, January 05, 2018

MHTML

One file web pages



When a web page is created using HTML, the coding is normally contained in one file and the graphics in separate folders.

The Mime HTML or MHT/MHTML format changed that.

Starting with Office 2000 as an add-in and carried through XP as a "Web Archive" option, the format emerged in Office 2003 as a "Single file web page" selection in the File Save As dialog box.

Here are the Save As choices available in an application such as Word:
  • Web Page, Complete means that the contents of the page (including any pictures) will be saved into a folder as separate files, similar to those on the server hosting the site.

  • Web Page, HTML only means that only the HTML information will be saved. This option and Web Page, Complete will enable you to open the file for viewing in Internet Explorer (or any other browser) at a later time, even when you are offline.

  • Web Archive means that the page will be saved, along with any images it contains, as a single file. You can view a Web Archive later without being connected to the Internet.

  • Text File means that only the text on the page will be saved, not the HTML (or any other) formatting, including graphics.
MIME Encapsulation of Aggregate HTML Documents (MHTML)  

Short Summary of the MHTML Standard



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Thursday, January 04, 2018

Product Key Finder

Search machine


You have a legal copy. You installed it and activated the application.

Now your machine blew up and you have to install it again. Where's the Product key? Probably gone sometime in the past 10 years.

"The Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is a freeware utility that retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install windows from your registry.

It has the options to copy the key to clipboard, save it to a text file, or print it for safekeeping.

It works on Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Windows 7, Office XP, Office 2003, and Office 2007-10.


Keyfinder



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Wednesday, January 03, 2018

New Tables in Town

Bigger and better (?)


Pre '07 versions of PowerPoint limited tables to a maximum of 25 rows and columns. You were able to ungroup the table cells before, but that has been taken away.


"In this release, we have increased that maximum to 75x75 within the UI.

We were able to do this because we made the decision to move away from the metaphor of a table simply being a group of shapes, as it was in previous versions.
This has been one of the largest enabling factors in our performance gains, and as a result, tables are workable at sizes much greater than that of 25x25.

A tradeoff made in order to obtain these gains in performance was the ability to "ungroup" a table.

While this tradeoff means that there are a set of scenarios no longer present, specifically the ability to ungroup a table to animate individual pieces, we feel that the performance gains (not to mention all the other aspects talked about in this section of the blog) along with the ability to use multiple tables and/or shapes in these scenarios will benefit users in a much greater way."

PowerPoint Tables

It can still be done:

Workaround for animating a table:

  1. Right-click the table, choose Save as Picture

  2. Save as EMF (choose EMF from the "save as type dropdown list)

  3. InsertPicture, insert the EMF

  4. Ungroup the EMF twice

  5. Now regroup the parts you need to animate -- rows, columns, or whatever
microsoft.public.powerpoint



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Tuesday, January 02, 2018

Mailbox Diet

Prune the fat


Microsoft provides a tutorial on the mechanics of Outlook 2007 mailboxes.
Learning how to manage your Microsoft Outlook 2007 Mailbox and keep it within a specific size limitation.

After completing this course you will be able to:
  • View the size of your mailbox and its folders.

  • Understand what makes an e-mail message big and find the size of any message.

  • Set up some simple processes and use tools built into Outlook to prevent e-mail pileup from happening in the first place.
Battle mailbox size  

Performance problems with a large .pst file  

Manage with Mailbox Cleanup



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Monday, January 01, 2018

DOS Were the Days

Take CMD


Here's an introduction to the Command Prompt:
Command Line


Microsoft has provided product documentation on the use of the Command line in Windows.

Hopefully this won't be something you need in an emergency.
Use it in good health.

Details for Command line

  • Cmd
  • Command-line reference A-Z
  • Command shell overview
  • Change the command history settings
  • Change the size of the command prompt cursor
  • Change command prompt display option settings
  • Change the command prompt screen layout
  • Change command prompt window Edit Options settings
  • Copy and paste MS-DOS text using the mouse
  • Change MS-DOS command prompt window fonts
  • Change colors of command prompt elements




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