Microsoft Office Tips, Tricks, and How-to's to help you use MS Office like a pro!

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Author Archives: Carol Bratt

Quicker Formulas in Excel 2007

Posted on by Posted in Excel 2007

MS Excel in this latest version, has some very easy browsing techniques. Having said that, suppose you aren’t exactly sure what you are looking for? Suppose you know what you need but can’t remember the name of the formula? It is easy to become aggravated under these circumstances. Surely there must be a quicker way to find it without going through the Formula Ribbon!

Well I’m here to tell you that there really is an easier way. When you cannot remember an exact formula name, you no longer have to roam around looking for it.

Follow the steps below to find out how:

  1. Start the formula with the usual equal sign (=) and they type the first couple of letters in the formula that you need.
  2. MS Excel 2007 will automatically provide you with an alphabetized list of formula names, starting with the letter(s) that you entered. It will even provide you with descriptions when selected.
  3. Browse through the list to select the correct formula that you need.

Now here is a handy little tip regarding this tip – an extra if you will.

  • To select the formula name, use your Tab key or, if you prefer, double click the formula with your mouse.

Great information to have, don’t you agree?

How to use Legal Line Spacing in Word

Posted on by Posted in Microsoft Word

A lot of legal secretaries have written to me asking for ways to quickly change the line spacing in a document as they are frequently moving from single line spacing for block quotes and double line spacing for text and then back to single line spacing for signature blocks in pleadings.

It really isn’t all that difficult. If you find that you are frequently changing the line spacing in MS Word to double or you are making the switch more often than not, it’s time to take measures so that this happens seamlessly and without lots of time and keystrokes.

After speaking with more than a few of these secretaries I found that most of them were using the Normal style in their documents and so I will assume for this tip that everyone is, although hopefully not!

I could tell you how to modify your Normal.dot style, which is the style on which you base every new document in MS Word, but I don’t see the point to that because then every document you create would have double line spacing. Wouldn’t that be a fine howdy do?

Instead, I will give you a quick key combination to use to change your line spacing on the fly in your documents.

When you are setting up your document using the Normal.dot style, everything will be in single line spacing.

  • Once you have typed the heading of your pleading, you now want to start using double line spacing so place your cursor where you want that spacing to start and depress and hold your CTRL key and click the number 2 on your keyboard.
  • That’s it! When you want to go back to single spacing, depress and hold your CTRL key and click on the number 1 on your keyboard.

Quick and easy, just the way I like it!

How to Remove all Formatting in Word

Posted on by Posted in Microsoft Word

Let’s say you have just finished a document and you decide you don’t like the formatting. Oh geez, do we have to go back and reformat each and every paragraph? Luckily, the answer is no.

Follow the steps below:

  1. Click on CTRL + A to select the entire document, or select the portion of the document to be changed.
  2. Then click CTRL + SHIFT + N.

Pretty slick isn’t it?

Working with Excel 2007 Worksheets and Workbooks

Posted on by Posted in Excel 2007

Each new Excel workbook starts out with three blank worksheeets and an index tab at the bottom of each worksheet identifies the sheet by name.

You can add a new worksheet or delete an existing worksheet and rename or rearrange worksheets to suit your whim. A fourth tab is the Insert Worksheet tab. Click it and a new worksheet is created instantly, as well as a fifth Insert Worksheet tab that appears just in case you want to keep adding worksheets. If you don’t want to click, you can always use the handy shortcut – Shift + F11.

insert_worksheet

 

In Workbooks with many worksheets, you will not be able to see all the sheet names without using the four arrow buttons to the left of the sheet names to scroll.

However, I learned this neat trick from Woody Leonhard:

You can right-click any of those arrow buttons to display a pop-up list containing the names of all the worksheets in the current workbook.

pop_up_list

 

 

Click any name to jump straight to that worksheet.

Using Politically Correct Grammer in Microsoft Word

Posted on by Posted in Word 2007, Word 2010, Word 2013

Sometimes you want to be careful to use gender-neutral words in your documents. Word’s grammar checker offers an option that will underline words that violate this gender neutrality with a green squiggly line, similar to what it does for sentence fragments and run-on sentences.

To ask Word to check for gender-specific terms such as policeman, follow the steps below:

  1. Click on the Office button.
  2. Choose Word Options from the bottom of the large dialog that opens.
  3. In the Word Options dialog, click on Proofing in the left-hand list.

proofing_dialog

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. On the right-hand side, look for the When correcting spelling and grammar in Word section.
  2. Check the Check grammar as you type box and the Check grammar with spelling box, if they are not currently checked.
  3. In the Writing style drop-down menu, choose the Grammar only option.
  4. Click the Settings button by the drop-down menu.
  5. Word shows the Grammar Settings dialog box.

grammar_settings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. You will find the Style section about half way down the dialog box.
  2. Check the option marked Gender-specific words.
  3. Click OK.
  4. Click the Recheck Document button (Word 2007) to find gender-specific words in your current document.
  5. Click OK.
  6. You can also click OK twice to return to your document without rechecking your document.

Now that should underline words that refer to a specific gender. It will not find him and her or he and she, but instead words that include a gender reference, such as policeman.

I say should because it doesn’t always work. It would be nice to have this feature as an option if it worked, but unfortunately it just isn’t happening this time around.

Subscribers: Table shortcut keys in Word

Posted on by Posted in Subscribers Microsoft Word
Shortcut Keys
Function Editing Key
Select a column Click the columns top gridline border
Select a row Click to the left of the row
Select multiple rows, cells, columns Highlight the column, row or cell
Select the entire table Click the Smart tag on the left top corner of the table.
Select a cell Click at the edge of the cell
Move to next cell Tab or click at the beginning of the cell with the left mouse key
Move to preceding cell Shift + Tab
Move to preceding cell or next row Up or Down arrow keys
Move to the first cell in the row Alt + Home or Alt + 7 (num lock key off)
Move to the last cell in the row Alt + End or Alt + 1 (num lock key off)
Move to the first cell in the column Alt + Page Up or Alt + 9 (num lock key off)
Start a new paragraph Enter
Add a new row Click on the Add a row icon or Table | Insert Rows
Add text before a table Enter
Move row up or down Highlight row, press Alt + Shift up and/or down arrow keys

Note: All of these functions can be performed either by clicking the right mouse button or choosing Table from the menu option.

Autotext in Word 2007

Posted on by Posted in Word 2007

AutoComplete has been disabled in Word 2007 due to the enormous quantity of Building Blocks (the expanded successor to AutoText) that would otherwise cause AutoComplete to occur just about all the time.

To force completion after typing the first four characters, you’ll need to press the F3 key. This will work with any Building Block, not just AutoText. But, it will work only if there are no other entries that begin with the same four letters.

Some users are finding it useful to use AutoCorrect entries instead of AutoText entries as a work-around, and to purposely create short names that match what they were typing in Word 2003 and earlier. There is still no AutoComplete display, but typing any Word separator (space, period, comma, etc.) will trigger that automatic change from the short name into the expanded form.