28/07/2010

Recovering Unsaved Documents in Office 2010

We’ve just found a great trick with Office 2010. It’s the ability to recover unsaved documents. Just occasionally, you might accidently close a document without saving it. It seems that I do it more often when I’m up against a deadline

Great news – with Office 2010, you can get the file back! Simply drop into the ‘backstage’ (File) menu, click on ‘Info’ then hit the ‘Manage Versions’ button.

From the menu, pick ‘Recover Unsaved Documents’. You’ll now get a window up with your unsaved files. Simply click on the one you want and there it goes.

Unsaved Documents Image 2

Posted at 9:34 p.m. by Andrew Hunt | Category: Microsoft Office Tips | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

21/06/2010

Save your frequently used table in the Quick Tables gallery

Works for: Word 2007, Word 2010

You can save a table that you have designed and refined for your needs, so that you can use it again and again. At last, that awesome-looking table you spent ages slaving over can be saved, reused and marvelled at by others, many times over.

1. Create the table, apply formatting and refine the table columns and rows to your specification.

2. Select the table.

3. Go to Insert > Table > Quick Tables and click Save Selection to Quick Tables Gallery.

The table is saved in the Quick Tables Gallery for easy, future access. You can delete any unwanted tables by right mouse clicking over a table in the Gallery and selecting Organize and Delete…

Posted at 10:50 p.m. by Andrew Hunt | Category: Microsoft Office Tips | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

17/06/2010

Using an email address in your email signature

Works for: Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010

You probably already know that you can set your email signature in Outlook, making it easy to provide the recipient of your email with relevant contact details, such as your company website, fax number and direct phone number. You can also add your company logo or any relevant image to the signature.

But, here is something you should double check, especially if you have set your signature by copying an example sent by one of your colleagues (perhaps your office manager has sent a sample signature for you to copy, edit and save to use as your own).

At recent coaching events, I’ve noticed that some users have copied the correct format and layout (following their company’s standards for email signatures), but have inadvertently left the email address hyperlinking to the wrong address. Even if you overtype the email address with your email details, the actual hyperlink still points to the original email address.

To resolve this:

1. Go to Options > Mail > Signatures

2. Select the hyperlinked email address

3. Ensure Text to display displays the correct email address

4. Ensure E-mail address displays the correct email address

5. Click OK to save any changes you make

Posted at 9:47 a.m. by Andrew Hunt | Category: Microsoft Office Tips | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

2/06/2010

Outlook 2007: Create and use email templates

Recently, a client asked how to create a template in Outlook 2007, enabling them to quickly compose consistent messages, and reuse the same message again and again. Here’s the quick way to create and then use an email template.

To create a template:

1. Click the New icon to create a new mail message.

2. Type the content for your email template; enter the Subject and other relevant information in the body of the message.

3. Go to Office button > Save As.

4. In File name, enter the name of the template.

5. In Save as type, select Outlook Template from the drop down menu.

6. Click Save.

Use a Template:

1. From Outlook, click Tools > Forms > Choose Form...

2. Browse to your email template, select it and click Open.

3. The template will open, you can still make changes to it, and Save As a new template, if required. Alternatively, add the recipient’s name and send the message.

Posted at 12:46 p.m. by Andrew Hunt | Category: Microsoft Office Tips | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

20/05/2010

Add random placeholder text to a document

Sometimes you need to add random text to your document, as a part of a demonstration, or to get the feel of a new layout. I use this quick random text generator during coaching sessions, and it never fails to impress.

1. Type the following formula anywhere in a blank space on your document:

=rand(x,y)

· The equals (=) sign tells Word you are typing a formula.

· Rand is abbreviation for ‘random’.

· x is the number of paragraphs you wish to insert, and y is the number of sentences within the paragraphs.

2. Change the x and y to numerals, e.g. =rand(4,3).

3. Press Enter.

Once you press Enter, text will be automatically added to the document. In the example given in step 2, four paragraphs will appear, each containing 3 sentences.

Try it! It’s a handy way to generate natural looking text at blazing fast speed.

(Works with Word 2003, 2007, 2010)

Posted at 6:24 a.m. by Andrew Hunt | Category: Microsoft Office Tips | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

6/05/2010

Deleting old 'frequent' eMail Addresses

One of the most popular features in Outlook is the way that it recalls your most commonly used email addresses. We're used to typing in the start of a name, and Outlook magically completes it for us.

Sometimes though, the list gets out of date - old email addresses remain. Even worse, when you accidentally use one of them!

The good news is that its relatively easy to maintain.

Next time you begin to send an email, and the wrong (old) names appear in the address list, just highlight them in the drop-down, and hit 'delete' - that'll fix them so they don't appear again.

One of the neat features on Outlook2010 is that it makes this more obvious by giving you a little 'delete' button - so it's even easier.

Posted at 4:59 p.m. by Andrew Hunt | Category: Microsoft Office Tips | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

2/04/2010

Comparing two documents in Word

We get asked for this by our legal clients all the time - "how do I compare two versions of the same document and highlight the changes?"

View documents side by side

Word 2007 enables you to compare two documents, side by side, without having to switch between the documents.

1. Open both of the documents that you wish to compare.

2. On the View tab, click View Side by Side.

By default, both documents will scroll at the same time, but you can control how each document scrolls:

· To scroll both documents at the same time, click Synchronous Scrolling in on the View tab.

· To close Side by Side view, click View Side by Side again to toggle off.

If you don't see View Side by Side or Synchronous Scrolling, click Window on the View tab, and then click View Side by Side or Synchronous Scrolling.

Compare and Merge Changes

You can also compare documents and merge any changes into one document. From the Review tab, select Compare > Compare and browse to the original and revised documents you wish to compare.

After clicking OK, the original, revised and compare documents will open in 3 separate window panes. The 3 panes scroll synchronously.

· The original document displays in the top right hand pane.

· The revised document displays in the bottom right hand pane.

· The compare document displays in the centre.

You can accept any changes by clicking against a difference and then clicking Accept from the Review tab. The review pane details what changes have been made and displays a summary at the top.

1. On the Review tab, click Compare.

2. Click Combine revisions from multiple authors.

3. Under Original document, click the name of the document that you wish to hold the combined changes from reviewers. If you don't see the document in the list, click Browse for Original .

4. Under Revised document, browse for the document that contains the changes suggested by one of the reviewers.

5. Click More.

6. Under Show changes, set relevant options. By default, Word 2007 displays changes to whole words, e.g. if the word ‘dog’ has been changed to ‘dogs’, the entire word ‘dogs’ will show as changed, not just the letter ‘s’.

7. Under Show changes in, click Original document.

8. Click OK.

To change which documents appear on the screen when you click OK, click Hide Source Documents or Show Source Documents on the Review tab.

If you have multiple documents returned from multiple reviewers, you can repeat the steps above comparing two documents and merging changes into the original document.

NOTE: Word can only store one set of formatting changes at a time. When you merge multiple documents, you may be prompted to keep the formatting from the original document, or use the formatting from the edited file. If you don’t need to track formatting changes, you can clear the Formatting checkbox in Compare and Merge Documents dialogue box.

Compare Documents using Legal Blackline

The legal blackline option compares two documents and only displays what has changed between them. The documents that are being compared are not actually changed. The legal blackline comparison is displayed in a third document pane.

1. On the Review tab, click Compare.

2. Click Compare two versions of a document (legal blackline).

3. Under Original document, browse for the document that you want to use as the original.

4. Under Revised document, browse for the other document that you wish to compare.

5. Click More, and select relevant compare settings. In Show changes, choose whether you want to show character or word level changes. If you do not wish to display changes in a third document, choose which document you want the changes to appear in.

NOTE: Any options that you select in More will be the default options for comparison next time you use Compare.

6. Click OK.

7. If either version of the document has tracked changes, Word displays a message box. Click Yes to accept the changes and compare the documents.

Word displays a new third document in which tracked changes in the original document are accepted, and changes in the revised document are shown as tracked changes.

Posted at 12:39 p.m. by Andrew Hunt | Category: Microsoft Office Tips | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

20/01/2010

Using Favourites when opening or saving documents

Often, we use some file directories more than others. We set up a subdirectory for a particular client, or a project, to help us organize our documents. And some of these folders get absolutely hammered as we use them over and over. But each time you go to access that directory, you have to remember to navigate all the way through your directory structures. It can get a bit boring and time consuming.

The answer is sitting right on the screen when we open documents, but often we glance right past it. To the left of the file dialogue is a ‘favorites’ group. These screen shots are from Windows7 and Office2010 but the same basic idea exists in Vista and XP and the concepts will work with those as well.

Screen Shot

In the screen above, I’ve set up favourites to our intranet document library, our client documents, admin files and sales files. As it happens, these examples are all on our SharePoint intranet which means I can even access them from home. I’ve also shortcuts to my hard drive, and to my home server – they can be anything that you open files from.

Adding in your favourites is easy. And once you have them, it’s a just a single ‘click’ to access your most-used file directories – no more tedious navigation!!

In this example, I am going to create a shortcut to my company planning folder – I’m busy doing next year’s budgets, business and marketing plans, and I’m using source files quite a lot at the moment, so a shortcut will be very useful.

First, I start to open a file as I usually would. I hit ‘file open’ then navigate to the directories that I use a lot. Once I’m there though, rather than simply opening the file I want, I take one moment to add the directory to my favourites. I simply ‘right-click’ on the word ‘favorites’ in the left hand of the dialogue box, and chose ‘Add current location to favorites’.

Screen Shot

That’s it. Finished! Next time I go to open or save a file, the directory is right there in my favorites and it is just a single click to jump straight to it.

Screen Shot

Posted at 9:10 p.m. by Andrew Hunt | Category: Microsoft Office Tips | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

12/01/2010

Screen Snips

How often have you needed to grab an image from a screen for a user manual, or a logo for a sales proposal or similar?

One of my favourite tools in Windows Vista and Windows 7 is the 'Snipping Tool'. It isn't the most obvious tool, it's not obvious on the start menu, so I've pinned it to my Windows7 task bar.

To find the Snipping tool, type in 'Snip'.

Once you've got the Snipping Tool on your screen, simply click the 'New' button - this will change the mouse icon to a crossbar, and whiten the screen. Drag the mouse, holding down the mousebutton to highlight the area you want to 'snip'.

Now, you've captured your image, and you can hit the Save button to save the image as a PNG, JPG, or GIF, or copy it to the clipboard, or email the image.

It's that easy. As you explore the Snipping Tool, you'll see there are also freeform clips available, along with pen, highlighter and erasers allowing you to mark-up the image.

I find this a really useful tool for doing documentation, or even for writing these hints!

We do caution you to respect the copyright of images you find on the internet. Just because you can copy it, doesn't mean you have the legal right to do so - but of course all our readers are careful of intellectual property!

Posted at 8:49 p.m. by Andrew Hunt | Category: Windows Vista | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

22/12/2009

Word Calculations

We know Excel is great at adding up numbers and so forth - but did you know that Word 2007 can too? Its one of the great secrets of Word!

Here's a simple trick to make your Word sales proposals and other documents easier. In your table of data, simply move to the cell where you want the total (or average, count or other summary data), then, on the 'layout' menu, on the right hand side, hit the Fx button.

This will pop up a simple dialogue, giving you a bunch of options. By default it will try and add the numbers above (or the left - it's pretty clever at guessing). There are format options, and a range of formulas you can choose.

We think this is pretty clever. if you change the data, you can recalculate simply by highlighting the cell and hitting F9. Some readers will realise that this works outside tables as well - but that's another story for another hint one day!

Posted at 2:08 p.m. by Andrew Hunt | Category: Microsoft Office Tips | Permalink | Email this Post | Comments (0)

RSS Feed