Tips, Tricks & Answers for your Technology Needs.
Well it turns out that at least 1 person over at Microsoft has a sense of humor. And that would be the Crabby Office Lady. Annik Stahlhas been writing up great tips & tricks for the Microsoft Office programs since 2002 (according to her website).
I’ve heard of her, come accross all sorts of references & tips from her, and now have finally gotten around to bookmarking her page. I recommend you do to. You can find her at:
I’m always on the lookout for time saving feature when using Office. Recently I came across a couple of tricks that apply to Microsoft Word that I though were pretty cool.
Copying Formatting
Many of us know and use the Format Painter button in Word or Excel. Select the text you have already formatted and then select the text you want to apply that same formatting to. But did you know that there is a keyboard shortcut for that? I like this because there are times when the text I want to format is several pages down. Or there are several blocks of text I want to apply that formatting too. The Format Painter only lets you do one at a time. You have to keep going back to your original text to select its’ formatting.
Well if you use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+SHIFT+C you can copy the formatting of the text you selected. Then that formatting can be applied to multiple blocks of text using CTRL+SHIFT+V. Very handy.
Filler Text
One of the things I like in Adobe InDesign is the ability to put in filler text as a place holder when I haven’t had a chance to write something or if I’m waiting for someone else to write it for me. I can format it how I want it and then put the text in that I want and it’ll take that formatting. Turns out Word can do the same thing! If you type =rand() into a Word doc it’ll put in random text for you. Use =lorem() and it’ll put in some nonsense latin instead. Check out how it works and the options you have on Microsofts website, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/212251/en-us
One of our most popular trainings here at NPower is the eNewsletter for Nonprofits class. We explore the why’s, how’s and what for’s in using enewsletters effectively. I’ve incorporated several articles that Laura Quinn over at Idealware has created. And she offers a nice online session about picking the right enewsletter tool for you.
Well recently on her blog she included a post, with a very informative graph, about the importance of knowing your volume when sending out enews. Services that started out as less expensive flip flopped as it numbers went up.
I’ll definitely be including this in the next class.
I’ve been using the not so new Microsoft Office 2007 now for about 5 months. It’s pretty cool, has a great interface and some cool features. But the rub is not everyone here at NPower has switched over. So I’ve had to set mine up so it would automatically save all my files in the old office format. One of the big changes Microsoft made with the new version of Office, other than that rascal the Ribbon, was the file format. Word for example saves documents as .docx now, instead of just .doc.
So I save in the older format, which strips out some of the cool formatting that I was using. While it’s not a big deal it can be disappointing. Recently I was was reminded that users of the older Office programs can download and install the Microsoft Office 2007 compatibility pack. This allows those users to open files created and saved in the new Office file format. Yeah!
This can be very helpful if you received files from outside your organization from people who have the new version and don’t realize you don’t. It let’s you open, edit, and save in the new format in Word, PowerPoint & Excel.
You should make sure your system is up to date and all high priority updates have been installed before you load this.
You can find the compatibility pack on the Microsoft website at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en
Here at NPower Seattle we offer classes on how to use the Adobe Creative suite. It’s a great experience putting the skills that nonprofit staff need to handle their own creative materials into their hands. I generally get the classes that involve print materials. Using InDesign for example. To keep my skills up and to get tips that I can pass on to you, I check out several creative blogs & websites on a regular basis (hopefully the same as you’re doing checking out my blog).
On of these, thegraphicmac.com, caught my interest today. A graphic designer had been working with a company; developed their logo, print materials and even their website. They were sold and the new owners wanted all the materials that the designer had created for the company. Looks like they don’t want to use the designer. The designer was asking for advice on what to do. Give them the materials, not give them the materials, charge them, etc.
What really caught my attention was the responses. And here is where I think it’s really important for nonprofits to pay attention. Do you really own your logo & creative materials? Maybe not if you didn’t get it in writing from the designer. At least that what the responses seemed to indicate. If you pay a graphic designer to create materials for your nonprofit that doesn’t automatically mean you own them. You may be paying for their time and the option of having a final output ready product, but not the actual materials themselves.
Wow, that really blew me away. Which it shouldn’t have, I have plenty of graphic designer friends. I guess it never came up in conversation.
The moral - get it in writing that anything the designer creates for you is yours, not theirs.
Or even better, take some training classes at NPower and create your own. That way you know it’s yours.
Like Microsoft Word, Adobe InDesign can show you a character for every space, tab or return that you type. You can turn this command on, or off if you like, under the Type menu - “Show Hidden Characters”. I use it all the time to help me format my documents, to see if I hit the return key too many times for example.
However there are lots of other characters that it will display, some not as familiar. I get files from all sorts of places. Some Word, some InDesign, some PDF’s. So every once in a while I see formatting character and think “What in the world does that mean???”.
Well wonder no more. Adobe has a list of some of the character on their website. You can find it at:
http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/InDesign/5.0/WSa285fff53dea4f8617383751001ea8cb3f-6f73.html
One of the great features in Outlook is Auto-complete. That handy thing Outlook does when you start typing in the TO: field when sending an email. It is a little mis-understood sometimes. I’ve had students ask “I updated so & so’s email address but every-time I go to send them something it puts in the old email address! What’s the deal?”
The deal is that the Auto-complete address is different from your contacts. Auto-complete keeps track of who you’ve emailed, or who’s emailed you. It’s not part of your contact list nor is it permanent. If you move to another computer, you won’t get those addresses. Think of it as short term memory for that individual computer.
However I just discovered that you can take that short-term memory with you if you upgrade or change computers. The folks over at LifeHacker have a posting about it that I recommend you check out, if you’re thinking of upgrading your computer. You can find it at http://lifehacker.com/354855/edit-and-remove-auto+complete-entries-in-outlook-with-nk2view
Now about those “old” email addresses that keep haunting you. You can delete individual entries in your Auto-complete list. Start by typing the first letter for your entry. You’ll get a “list” of entries if you have more than on that starts with that letter. Use your arrow keys on your keyboard to scroll down until you find the entry you want to delete. When it’s selected & highlighted blue, hit the delete key. Now it’s gone!
I’ve been an avid Adobe Photoshop users for years. To me it is one of the best programs out there for editing digital photos. I’ve used both the consumer version - Photoshop Elements, and the pro version - Photoshop Extended. Today Adobe announced a web-based version that’s aimed at every day people who just want to touch up their photos so they can share them with friends - Photoshop Express.
Macword has a nice article about this service at:
http://www.macworld.com/article/132715/2008/03/photoshopexpress.html
Or you can check out the Adobe news release from the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshopexpress/?promoid=CBTVM
I’m really excited about this product for a couple of reasons, even though it is currently in Beta.
Now with that said, I haven’t played with it yet so I’m not sure how good it is. But I have high hopes.
Make sure you read the requirements, you need to have a high speed internet connection and Flash 9 player installed in your browser.
If you decide to use it, let me know what you think. Either post a comment here or email me, I’d really like to know what your experience with it is like.
Ever find yourself spending way too much time hunting through menus for an option you know is there somewhere? You know what it’s called but you just can’t find it.
Well InDesign will actually let you sort your menu alphabetically. Before clicking on the menu name, hold down the CTRL + SHIFT + ALT keys and then click on the menu name. You should see all of the commands in A to Z order. Very handy. Once you clicked on the menu name you can let go of the keys, if you move your mouse over to a different menu it will also be sorted A - Z.
I was playing around with Acrobat 8 this weekend and came across one of the best new features that Adobe has added to Acrobat in a long time. I create forms all the time, using Word or InDesign. Up til now I’ve had to either add the form fields manually, one at a time, using Acrobat or bring my PDF into the Adobe LiveCycle Designer (which most people don’t even know about) to add the fields.
Acrobat 8 has a nifty command that you can run on your PDF to automaticall add form fields. The Run Form Field Recognization command, under the Forms menu, will scan your PDF for areas that it can recognize as fields that you may want to fill out. While not perfect, it did recognize many of the fields in my PDF. And it automatically created the field and named them. In all cases it was correct too! So my Name field was for a name, Address for addresses, and so on.
I recommend giving it a try.