Microsoft Word & Microsoft Excel - Drawing a Straight Line

Have you ever tried to draw a straight line in PowerPoint and Word, and it goes crazy?

Well, here is the secret:

Press the Shift key while dragging to create your line.

This will ensure that your line is straight whether you are drawing it horizontally or vertically.

Try it!

Finding Your Contacts

Regretfully, there have been a lot of personnel moves in the last couple of years in every aspect of the construction industry. LinkedIn has a tool to help you locate "missing" contacts so you can re-connect. The story of the development of the software is interesting too.

The Story  The App

Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy

Watch this video!  So funny yet so true.  Thanks to Dean DeLisle for sharing this on LinkedIn.

Microsoft Excel 2007 - Free Excel 2007 Calendar Template

Did you know you can download and use a free calendar template in Excel 2007? Follow these easy steps.

1.  Click on the office button to open the drop down menu.

2.  In the left hand pane of the dialog box, click on the Calendars
     option listed under the Microsoft Office Online templates.

3.  Click on the desired category of calendars, such as
     2010 calendars.

4.  Scroll through the list to find the desired template.

5.  Click on the Download button to download the
     template to your computer.

The first time you download a template, before the download begins Microsoft's website checks to ensure that your computer is running a licensed copy of Microsoft Excel. Only licensed copies of Excel are permitted to download templates from Microsoft's website.

Note: To download this and other templates from Microsoft you need an internet connection.

Microsoft Word 2007 – Change All CAPS Shortcut Key

If you type a portion of your document in the wrong case, you won't have to retype it. You can change the font case with this shortcut.

Simply highlight the text you would like to change. Then press the Shift + F3 shortcut key. It will change between sentence case, all caps, and all lowercase letters. Keep pressing the shortcut key until the font is in the desired case.

Try it!

Obey the 24 Hour Rule

Many of you know that I'm a Harvey Mackay fan. I like his sense of humor and his down to earth advice.  This is an exceptionally good article about dealing with victories and failures. Please read it!

PowerPoint - Control the Pointer from the Keyboard

During a slide show, PowerPoint hides the pointer five seconds after you display each slide, and then it disappears. When you click to view the next slide, the pointer becomes visible for another five seconds.

Consider controlling pointer visibility from the keyboard:

• Ctrl + H hides the pointer immediately.

• Ctrl + A displays the pointer immediately.

Microsoft Excel 2007 - Select All with One Click

Here is a quick tip to select the entire workbook with just one click. The next time you need to select an entire worksheet, click the little gray box in the top-left corner of the sheet.

What are some of the reasons why you would want to select an entire worksheet?

1.  With the entire worksheet selected, you can copy it from one
     workbook and then paste it into another worksheet. By selecting
     the whole worksheet it ensures that you won’t accidentally miss
     something.

2.  With the entire worksheet selected, you can quickly and easily
     change the font in all cells or apply formatting to all cells.

3.  With the entire worksheet selected, you can double-click on
      any line separating two column letters or the line separating
      any two rows to adjust the width of the columns or the height
      of the rows.

Microsoft Word 2007 – Use Mouse to Zoom In or Zoom Out

If you zoom in and out of your documents quite a bit, you may get tired of using the pull-down zoom control on the toolbar. If you have a mouse that has the wheel between the two buttons, you can do a neat trick.

All you need to do is hold down the Ctrl key as you turn the small wheel. Each click of the wheel, up or down, increases or decreases the zoom factor by 10%.

What a great time saving trick.

Microsoft Excel 2007 – Enter Current Time & Date

Here is a quick and easy way to enter the current time in Excel.

1. Select your cell

2. Press Control+Shift+;

To enter the current date and time in a cell, enter the formula: =NOW ()

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 - Loop a Slideshow Continuously

Depending on where you plan on presenting your Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 slideshow, if it is set up to automatically advance between slides, you may wish it to continuously repeat. This may be useful, for example, if you are displaying a presentation at a conference while waiting for all of the attendees to show up and take their seats.

1 . Click the "Slide Show" tab in the Ribbon.

2.  In the "Set Up" section, click the "Set Up Slide Show" button.

3.  The "Set Up Show" dialog box appears. Underneath "Show
     options", check the box "Loop continuously until 'Esc'".

4. Click "OK" to close the dialog box.

Microsoft Excel, Word & PowerPoint 2007 - Stop Ignoring Mistakes like this M87akes

All Microsoft Office applications have a spell checker that adds a line underneath misspelled words. However, did you know that words containing numbers are not checked?
For example, this would not be considered misspelled:

At3 is meant to be ate.

When I spelled checked this document it did not come up as misspelled. Strange?

There is a setting you can change in all of these programs

1.  Click the "Office" button.

2.  When the popup appears, click "PowerPoint Options". OR “Word
     Options” OR “Excel Options” depending on which Office program
     you are in.

3.  Select "Proofing" in the left pane.

4.  Underneath "When correcting spelling in Microsoft Office
     programs", uncheck "Ignore words that contain numbers".
     As noted, this should  affect all Microsoft Office applications
     installed on the system.

5.  Click "Ok" to save your settings.