Posts Tagged ‘feature’

Super Fast Find Next in MS Word

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

MS Word has a very nice search feature that allows us to make replacements on the fly.

We all know the key combination shortcut to use Search and Replace — Ctrl F. It allows us to search for just about anything in our documents. There is the issue of screen real estate when using this great function however.

The Navigation Pane opens on your screen and takes up valuable real estate and not only that, it can be distracting to some folks (me).  When you click on Next that pane is still there.

Now the good news is that you CAN have your search and not have the pane (no pun intended).

Follow the steps below to learn how:

  1. Use your Navigation Pane as you normally would, specifying what you would like to search for and look for the first occurrence.
  2. When Word displays the first occurence, click your Esc key or click on cancel. Word will obey and close the Navigation Pane.
  3. To find the next occurrence, simply click Shift + F4.

It works exactly the same as clicking Next Search Result and it is just as fast without that distracting Navigation Pane!

Always looking for ways to help you work smarter, faster and more comfortably!

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Posted in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Word, Word 2010 | No Comments »

Highlight Information in MS Word Using Shading

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Word provides you with a very handy method of shading text in your documents. Shading can be added together with any border you may specify for your paragraph. This is a great little feature – it even allows you to precisely control the level of shading.

 Follow the steps below to learn how:

  1. Place your cursor in the paragraph that you would like to highlight.
  2. Click the Home tab of your Ribbon.
  3. In the Paragraph group, click the down-arrow to the right of the Shading tool that resembles a paint can to display the shading palette.
  4. Select one of the ten theme colors at the top of the palette. Each color has options under them to represent a different level of shading for that particular color.

If you are using an earlier version of word:

  1. Place your cursor in the paragraph that you would like to highlight.
  2. Click on Format | Borders and Shading to display the dialog box.
  3. Click on the Shading tab.
  4. Using the Style drop-down list, select a degree of shading you want to use for your paragraph.

  • Click OK.

Highlighting your text using the shading settings is completely different than highlighting text using the highlighter tool.  Personally, I think it is easier to do using shading and you have a lot more flexibility as well.

You can apply the shading technique to styles and create a character style that incorporates shading. You can then apply the character style to anything you would like to shade and you can easily remove the style, replace it with other formatting or search for the style.

The process is much more inolved when working with highlighting that has been applied using the highlighting tool.

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Posted in Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Word, Word 2003, Word 2007, Word 2010 | No Comments »

Add AutoNumbering to your MS Excel Spreadsheet

Thursday, February 26th, 2009

Autonumbering will advance your numbered rows and keep them current, even if you should delete or add a row.

Unfortunately, MS Excel does not ship with an autonumbering feature like that found in MS Access, that increments a number each time you add a new row. In Excel 2003 and 2007 however, you can use the Row function to add your own autonumbering to a list.

Say you want to create a list of all of your school’s classes and their corresponding learning materials.

Follow the steps below to add autonumbering to the list:

  • In A1, enter the formula below:

=TEXT(Row(A1),”000-000″)

  • Enter the name of the first class in B1.
  • Enter the learning material of the first class in C1.
  • Copy cell A1 to A2.
  • Enter the name of the second class in B2.
  • Enter the learning material of the second class in C2.
  • Select A1:C2.
  • Go to Data | List and select Create List.

Data List Dialog Box

  • In Excel 2007, press CTRL + T and then click OK.

Notice, that when you type the name of the next class in B3 and press Tab, MS Excel will automatically provide the next number for you.

Autonumbered List

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Posted in Excel 2003, Excel 2007, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Excel | No Comments »