Archive for February, 2009

Clean Up Copied Data in MS Excel Easily

Monday, February 16th, 2009

Sometimes when you copy and paste data in MS Excel you copy over non-printing character and other strange looking things that you did not intend to copy.

Well the good news is that there is an easy way to clean up that data with a very easy to use MS Excel function called the Clean Function.

Follow the steps below to learn how:

  1. Select the cells with the data that needs to be cleaned.
  2. Enter the following formula: =CLEAN(A2) or whatever cell you are referencing.
  3. Click CTRL + Enter.
  4. MS Excel will now display the contents of the cells without the non-printable characters.

You can now copy the results to another part of your workbook using the Paste Special option to copy the values without the formulas.

Add Background Color to MS Word 2007 Documents

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

MS Word 2007 has some cool features that make word processing a lot more fun. For instance, if you want to dress up a document with a little background color, it is very easy to do now.  I’m not saying that I think colored backgrounds should be used all the time as it doesn’t present a very professional image, but there are times when it can be quite appropriate, such as Christmas newsletters, sale ads, etc.

Follow the steps below to add a color background to your 2007 Word documents:

  1. Launch MS Word 2007 if it is not already open.
  2. Open the document in which you would like a color background.
  3. On the Ribbon, click the Page Layout tab.
  4. In the Page Background group, click the drop-down arrow next to Page Color and select the color you would like for your background.

  • One of the nicest features of MS Word 2007 is that you can hover your mouse over each color to see a preview of how your document will look with that background.
  • Select the background color you like.

That’s it!  You are finished!

Create a Drop-Down List in MS Word Forms

Wednesday, February 11th, 2009

Lots of times there is a need to create a form within MS Word wherein the form is e-mailed to a colleague or a client and they fill out the form and send it back to you.

It can be very tedious to sort through the information when users insert data that you are not specifically looking for and that is where drop-down lists come in very handy, because you can create a drop-down list with specific items for selection.

To create your drop-down list, follow the steps below:

If your form template has already been created, open it and remove protection from the form.

If you are just creating your form, right-click on an empty spot on your toolbar which will open the list of Toolsbar.  From there, click on the Forms Toolbar, which will open a floating toolbar.

Click the Drop-down Form Field button.

Double-click the field to open the dialog box.

Type each choice for the drop-down list and click Add.

Make sure you arrange them in the order you prefer.

Click OK.

The form will display the typical arrow next to the field. When you click it the choices are displayed for you.

Don’t forget that you will not be able to use the form until you protect it!

You can use these same techniques to create an online form for the Web. In this case, however4, use the tools on the Web Tools toolbar to creatre the form fields, which has many of the same controls as the Forms toolbar.

Go ahead and experiment with it. I think you will find that it is fun to create forms and not difficult at all!