Office 95 Tips

POWERPOINT PRINTING

Version 4.x, 95
When you choose File|Print in PowerPoint, note that you have several options. If you click on the down arrow at the right of the Print What list box to expand the list, you'll see them. You can select from Slides (the default), Handouts (two slides per page, three slides per page, six slides per page), Notes Pages, or Outline View. Make your choice and click on OK to continue.

PERFECT BLACK-AND-WHITE SLIDES

Version 95
When you need to print slides for handouts, chances are you'll print them in black and white on a laser printer. You can print good quality slides on a laser printer, but usually not by good fortune alone. To see how those PowerPoint slides will look in black and white, click on the B&W View button in the toolbar. It's the button that has blue, green, and red on the top left diagonal corner, and white, gray, and black in the bottom left diagonal.

When you click on the B&W View button, all your slides will display as gray scale. And you'll probably notice that many of them look too dark to print well. To correct the situation, right-click on the slide and Black and White|Light Grayscale from the menu. This is usually a good choice for black-and-white printing.

When you're finished, click on the B&W View button to toggle back to color. Selections that you made from the Black and White menu have no effect on the color version of the slides.

WHERE'S THE DATE?

Version 4.x, 95
If someone inadvertently types a date into a cell formatted for numbers, there's no error generated--you just get some incorrect numbers. Actually, you get the number that represents the date, but not in date format.

Excel's date is really a number of days that have passed from January 1, 1900 to the entered date. So if you were to enter 10/22/97 into a number-formatted cell, you'd get 35725. That's the number of days between 1/1/1900 and 10/22/97.

To check this, set a cell to number format and enter 1/1/1900. You should get 1. To check it further, enter 12/31/1900. Since 1900 was a leap year, you'll get 366.

Just thought you'd like to know.

WHEN IS A SYMBOL NOT A SYMBOL?

Version 95, 4.x
Let's take a look at an anomaly that you might like to know about. Let's say you want to insert a symbol into a Word document, so you choose Insert, Symbol and choose a font and a symbol. Since Wingdings has a bunch of useful symbols, let's consider that font. We chose the "neither happy nor unhappy" face from Wingdings. After you insert the symbol, press Enter a few times and type in a K. Now select the K and choose Format, Font. Locate and select the Wingdings font and the K will turn into the "who cares" face. Select the first "who cares" face and press Ctrl-C to copy it.

Now go to the top of the document and press Ctrl-F to open the Find dialog box. Click on the Find What text entry box and press Ctrl-V to copy the symbol (it will appear as a K). Now click on Find Next. What you'll find is that Find won't find the "who cares" face you inserted as a symbol. It will find the one you inserted by typing in a K and then changing the font to Wingdings.

This isn't a bug, and it really isn't a problem as long as you know about it. Just don't bother searching for those inserted symbols.

SAVE IT

Version 95, 4.x
Here's something to keep in mind: Since most of us make changes to the Normal.dot file as we work, it's a very good idea to keep a backup of that file just in case you have a problem. If you have a backup, then you don't have to worry even if you're forced to completely reinstall your Office system.

In Office 4.x, you find Normal.dot in the \Winword\Template folder. To back it up, put a formatted floppy disk into Drive A and then open Windows Explorer and click on your MSOffice folder. Now expand that folder and locate \Template. In \Template, locate Normal.dot and drag its icon to the floppy disk to copy it.

In Office 95, you'll find the file in \MSOffice\Templates. Drag the file's icon to Drive A to copy it to the floppy disk. Now, if you have problems, you can always copy Normal.dot back into its proper folder and continue with your work.

If you have other templates that you've modified, copy them to the floppy disk along with Normal.dot.

A WORD CURIOSITY

Version 95, 4.x
Here's another little Word curiosity for you: If you move the toolbar (hold down Alt and drag the toolbar) to a vertical position, the Undo and Redo buttons no longer have a multilevel function. To check this, drag the toolbar to the left side of your screen. When the outline switches to vertical, release the mouse button. Now look at the Undo and Redo buttons. You'll notice that the down arrows are no longer there. If you type in some text and then delete it and do an Undo, you'll find that it only works at the first level. This only happens when the toolbar is vertical. If you drag it out onto your document, the down arrows will reappear. Weird, eh?

ENTERING A REAL APOSTROPHE

Version 95, 4.x
Even when you have Smart Quotes turned on, Word doesn't generate a real apostrophe if you add it to an existing line. Check it out. Say you want to enter the date as '97. The apostrophe is backwards. To make a real apostrophe, make sure the Numlock key is active and hold down Alt while you enter 0146 using the number pad. This produces a true apostrophe--even if Smart Quotes is turned off. While we're on this topic, there's another way to create the true apostrophe--hold down Ctrl and press the apostrophe key. Now release Ctrl and press the apostrophe key again.

MORE ON THE APOSTROPHE

Version 95, 4.x
In the last tips we showed you how to enter an apostrophe using two methods (Ctrl-', ' and Alt-0146). This time let's look at how you can assign keystrokes to make the job even easier.

Choose Insert, Symbol and click on the Special Characters tab. Now locate Single Closing Quote and select it. Click on Shortcut Key and then click in the Press New Shortcut Key text box. Now press Ctrl-Alt-' (apostrophe), click on Assign, and click on Close. Now click on Close again in the Symbol dialog box. From now on you can insert the apostrophe by simply pressing Ctrl-Alt-' (apostrophe).

GETTING AROUND QUICKLY IN EXCEL

Version 95, 4.x
If you want to move to a new sheet in Excel, press Ctrl-Page Down. To move to a previous sheet, press Ctrl-Page Up. To get to the very last data cell in your worksheet, press Ctrl-End. Ctrl-Home will take you to cell A1.

MAKE A SPECIAL TOOLBAR

Version 95, 4.x
Suppose you're working in Word (or one of the other Office programs), and you need something from your Data folder. To get to the folder, you might need to minimize Word and several other programs. However, you can add that Data folder to the Microsoft Office Shortcut bar (MOM) and have it always available when you're using Word (or whenever MOM is active).

To add a folder, right-click on MOM and choose Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click on Toolbars and then click on Add Toolbar. Now click on Browse and locate your Data folder (or whatever folder you want to use). Select the folder and click on Add. Back in the Customize dialog box, click on OK. To get back to your standard Office toolbar, right-click on MOM and select Office.

If you're missing one or more of your toolbars, you probably accidentally right-clicked on a button and deselected it. But no matter how the toolbar got lost, it's lost, and you want to get it back. To restore that missing toolbar, choose View|Toolbars and then select the missing toolbar from the menu. Alternatively, assuming you aren't missing all the toolbars, you can right-click on an existing toolbar to open the toolbar menu.

AUTOMATIC AUTOCORRECT

If you like to use AutoCorrect, but don't have time to sit around trying to decide what to add to it, you can add words and phrases while you check your documents' spelling. When you do a spelling check, watch the Spelling and Grammar dialog box closely. When the spelling checker finds a misspelled word for which it has a correction, the AutoCorrect button becomes active (most of the time it's inactive and grayed out). If the mistake is one that you feel you commonly make, click on AutoCorrect and the misspelled word and its correction will be entered.

EXCEL'S AUTOSAVE

By default, when you use Excel's Add-in AutoSave, the program will prompt you when it's time to save the document. If Excel is minimized when the time for a save comes, its taskbar icon will blink. So, if you see a blinking icon, don't worry--it's just Excel asking if you want to save the document. You can put an end to this prompt if you like. Choose Tools, AutoSave. When the AutoSave dialog box opens, deselect the Prompt Before Saving check box and click on OK. No more blinking icons for you.

INSERTING A MICROSOFT GRAPH IN POWERPOINT

If you're developing a new slide show and want to use some charts, you can use them very easily by selecting the right slide type up front. When you create a new slide, PowerPoint opens the New Slide dialog box from which you can select the type of slide you want. There are 24 slide layouts available, and three of them include chart placeholders. The three that use charts are (counting from left to right in the dialog box) slides five, six, and eight. After you select one of these three slide formats, you can insert a slide by simply double-clicking inside the chart graphic.

UNSHRINKING THE PREVIOUSLY SHRUNK

We've mentioned before that can shrink text in Word's Print Preview mode. For example, if you have only one or two sentences on the next page, you could use Shrink to Fit to make it all fit on the same page.

Several readers have asked about unshrinking a document. Well, here's the bad news--if you've already saved the document, there really isn't any good way to unshrink it. What you can do is open the document and press Ctrl-A to select all the text. Next, choose Format, Font and set the font size back to the original size. This will remove the shrink, but not automatically. You'll still have to go though the entire document and redo any headings (or other format styles) that you might have used in the original document.

Of course, if you just shrunk the document, and have now decided that you'd rather not, you can simply press Ctrl-Z to undo the shrink. You can avoid this dilemma by saving a backup copy of your file using the File, Save As command just prior to shrinking the document.

ADDING WORDS TO THE DICTIONARY

If you need to use a lot of words with strange capitalization, words such as AutoCorrect, AutoFormat, and ClipArt, here's a tip that may save you some time and energy. When you run a spelling check, words such as AutoCorrect will be tagged as incorrect if the word appears as Autocorrect or AUTOCORRECT, because of the way the capitalization appears in the Custom dictionary. However, if such words are in the Custom dictionary in lower case only, the case differences won't get tagged.

So, if you have a long list of oddly capitalized words in your Custom.dic file, you can save yourself some time if you make them all lowercase. To do this, choose Tools, Options and click on the Spelling tab. Now click on Custom Dictionaries. With CUSTOM.DIC selected, click on Edit. With your list of words available, you can either go through the list and make the necessary case changes, or you can make all the words lowercase by pressing Ctrl-A to select all the words and then choosing Format, Change Case. When the Change Case dialog box opens, select Lowercase and click on OK.

Now choose File, Close to close the dictionary file. Say Yes to all the questions about saving. If asked about format, you want Text Only.

RESUMING FIND

If you need to interrupt a Word Find or Find and Replace operation before you're finished, you can resume the Find by pressing F4. To try this, start a Find and Replace and then click on Close. Now press F4 to continue with the operation. It will pick up in the same spot where you stopped, unless you moved your cursor.

BREAKING A LINK

When you have a file linked into a Word document, the time may come when you want to break the link. For example, once you're sure the linked file will no longer change, there's not much point in maintaining the link. To break the link, choose Edit, Links. When the dialog box opens, click on Break Link. Word will ask if you're sure. Tell it Yes. The object will remain in your Word document, but it is no longer linked to its source file. Any changes you make to the object's file will not appear in the Word document.

SCROLLING ALONG IN EXCEL

There are two ways to scroll through an Excel worksheet without changing the cell selection. One way is to use the scroll bars. You can scroll anywhere you want by clicking on the vertical or horizontal scroll buttons. Another (and easier) way to scroll without changing the cell selection is to press the Scroll Lock key and then use the arrow keys to scroll through the worksheet. You suspected that Scroll Lock key was good for something, didn't you?

TRANSPOSING COLUMNS AND ROWS

During worksheet development, you might find that you wish you had put your data in rows rather than columns, or columns rather than rows. The problem with this scenario is that you don't want to make all these changes by hand. But what if Excel could do it for you? Excel can.

Select the data range you want to transpose and then press Ctrl-C to copy it. Now click where you want it to appear and then choose Edit, Paste Special. When the dialog box opens, select the Transpose check box and click on OK.

GRIDLINES AND TABLES AND PRINTERS

When you create a table in Word, the table will appear in the document with gridlines. However, the gridlines don't appear on the printed sheet. If you'd prefer to work without the gridlines, you can choose Table, Gridlines. This is a toggle--so to turn the gridlines back on, choose the same command. If you want printing gridlines, select the table and choose Format, Borders and Shading. When the dialog box opens, click on Grid and then click on OK. The gridlines will appear in your document and will also appear in the printer output.

BE SUPER-SAFE

No matter how careful you are, there's always a chance that you could lose a document. Why not make the odds in your favor a little better by telling Word to always make backup files of your documents? Choose Tools, Options and click on the Save tab. Now select the Always Create Backup Copy check box and click on OK.

To retrieve a backed-up file, choose File, Open. When the dialog box opens, click on the arrow at the right side of the Files of Type list box to expand the list. Select All Files(*.*) and look for files with your document's name, but with a .wbk extension. Load the .wbk file.

LEAPING TO CONCLUSIONS

You'll find a bug in Excel that has been part of the product through the last three versions. Excel treats 1900 as a leap year. To check this, run Excel and enter
2/29/1900
Now click on the cell and choose Format, Cells. Select Date and then select a new format, perhaps something like March 4, 1997. Your date entry will now read February 29, 1900.

Leap years occur in every year that is exactly divisible by four EXCEPT when the year is also exactly divisible by 100 (an even century year). And these years are leap years only if they are exactly divisible by 400. Therefore, 2000 will be a leap year because 2000 divided by 4 equals 500, and 2000 divided by 400 equals 5. However, because 1900 divided by 400 equals 4.75, it wasn't a leap year.

More than you wanted to know? Sorry. Here's a bit more Excel date information. When you enter an incorrect date into an Excel cell, you get no warning; Excel simply converts your entry into text data. This is reasonable, but something you need to watch for. When the date is converted to text, the entry will be left justified. This is the most immediate way to spot an incorrect date entry.

Treating 1900 as a leap year is definitely a bug in the versions of Excel shipped with Office 4.x, Office 95, and Office 97.

USING DRAW TO MODIFY CLIP ART

Version 4.x, 95
When you insert clip art into an Office document, you might want to add other drawing objects to get the clip art to look just the way you want. To do this, choose View, Toolbars and select Drawing. This adds the Drawing toolbar to your window.

Now insert a clip-art object (choose Insert, Object and select Microsoft Clip Gallery). Once the clip art is in the document, you can click on the drawing tools in the toolbar to add objects to the clip art. For example, you might feel that adding a few lines will improve the picture. Click the Line button to add a line to the art.

You can also add callouts to the art. Let's say you've inserted the bear image and you'd like to depict the bear saying something. Click on the Callout button and use the mouse to add the object to the drawing.

With practice and imagination, the possibilities are unlimited.

INSTANT HEADERS

Version 95
Do you sometimes need to generate a document with a repetitive style? Perhaps you need a header, followed by text, then another header, etc. If so, this is a perfect time to use AutoFormat. Try this: Type in a header. Now press Enter twice--rapidly. The sentence should magically appear in Heading 1 style.

If this doesn't happen, choose Tools, Options and click on AutoFormat. Select the radio button labeled AutoFormat As You Type. Now, under Apply As You Type, make sure Headings is selected. Click on OK. Now type your header again and press Enter two times in rapid succession. You have to develop a touch for this.

Note that the Header style won't be applied to a sentence that includes punctuation at the end of the sentence. If you type
What, me worry
it gets converted to a heading. But if you type
What, me worry?
it won't be converted.

WHERE ARE THOSE FORMULAS?

Version 4.x, 95
When you're dealing with a large worksheet, you may have trouble finding all the formulas. All you see in the worksheet are the results. You can show the formulas in a worksheet by holding down Ctrl and pressing the Tilde key (~). This is the key to the left of the 1 key.

When you press Ctrl-Tilde, Excel will display all the formulas in the worksheet. To get back to normal view, press Ctrl-Tilde again.

WHAT IS PROPER?

Version 4.x, 95
Here's an Excel function you may not have seen. It's called Proper and its job is to render text with initial capitals.

Why would you need to use Proper? Well, if you purchase mailing lists, you know that many of them come in all caps. This is a poor stylistic choice for mailing labels, or embedded in a letter.

This is where Proper comes in. Of course, its most efficient use is in a macro, but you can check it out without writing a macro. Press the Caps Lock key and type something into cell A1. Try something like
THIS IS ALL CAPS
Next, go to cell A2 and enter
=Proper (A1)
and you'll get
This Is All Caps
Proper deals with any text, uppercase, lowercase, or mixed. Whatever you apply it to will come out with the initial character of each word capitalized.

HOLD ON TO THAT FORMAT

Version 4.x, 95
There are times when you need to save a file in text format. The problem is that you'll lose all the formatting. One way to preserve at least part of the format is to choose File, Save As and then click on the arrow to the right of the Save As Type list box. When the list expands, select MS-DOS Text With Layout (*.ASC). In Office 4.x, select MS-DOS Text With Layout (no *.ASC). The text file will be saved with the .ASC extension and will at least maintain the line formatting.

PEEP SHOW

If you'd like to know how a font, or several fonts, will look when printed, you can choose the font in Word, type in a sentence or two, and then print it. But since you're using Windows 95, there's an even quicker way to examine a font.

Run Windows Explorer and locate the Windows folder. Click on the little plus sign to the left of the folder and then locate the Fonts folder. All the fonts will appear in the right pane of the Explorer window. Locate the font you're interested in and double-click on it. This opens a dialog box showing the font in various sizes. Click on Print to see how all the sizes look on paper.

This saves time because you can print out several fonts very quickly. It requires one page per font.

DISTANT RELATIONS

Version 4.x, 95
Let's suppose you're in the process of developing a very large workbook with numerous worksheets. You could make the workbook look better by placing the most important totals on the first sheet. This leaves all the detailed stuff on the other sheets. This is no real problem for Excel, since you can refer to cells in any worksheet.

Suppose you have a long detailed list of numbers on sheet 2. In cell B35, you have the formula to sum all the numbers in B1 through B33. On sheet 1, you can put something like 1997 Total in cell A2. Then you can go to cell B2 and enter
=sheet2!B35
to display the sum from sheet 2. Alternatively, you could leave out the sum in sheet 2 and simply enter in sheet 1, cell B2
=SUM(Sheet2!B1:B33)
to display the sum in sheet 1, cell B2.

BOX IT UP

Version 4.x, 95
We've had e-mail from subscribers indicating that they have problems using the text box in Excel.

To use a text box, first you have to have access to the Drawing toolbar. Choose View, Toolbars and select Drawing. You can let the toolbar float in the window or you can drag it to the top or the bottom of the screen to anchor it.

Now that the Drawing toolbar is available, click on the Text Box button (it looks like a small page of text). Use the mouse to draw and size the text box. Don't worry too much about size or placement right now, though. You can change both later.

Next, click on the edge of the new text box to select it and then right-click on it and choose Format Object. When the Format Object dialog box opens, click on Font and choose the font and font size you want to place in the box (choose the color, too, if you want). Click on any of the other tabs to make your text box look just the way you want. Make sure you click on Alignment if you'd like to center the text. To center the text both horizontally and vertically, select the appropriate radio buttons and click on OK.

Now you can add your text. When you save the file, your new text box will save along with it, so when you open the worksheet again the text box will still be there.

A STYLISH SHORTCUT

Version 4.x, 95
When you want to select a new style in Word, you can move up to the toolbar, click on the down arrow next to the Style list box and select the new style. You can do the same using the keyboard. Press Ctrl-Shift-S. This highlights the Style list box. Use the arrow key to move through the list. When the style you want is highlighted, press Enter.

CUSTOMIZE EXCEL HEADERS, FOOTERS

Version 4.x, 95
Word isn't the only Office program that can use headers and footers. You can use them in Excel, too. The process just isn't as obvious or as versatile as it is in Word

Let's say you'd like to add a personalized header to an Excel printout. Choose File, Page Setup. When the Page Setup dialog box opens, click on the Header/Footer tab. If you want to set the font, choose either Custom Header or Custom Footer and click on the Fonts button (it's the one with the big A icon). Select the font and click on OK.

Now you need to decide where you want the information to appear: Left, Center, or Right. Type the new message into the area of your choice and then click on OK. When you get back to the Page Setup dialog box, click on OK again.

MORE ON BUTTON IMAGES

Version 95
If you'd like to use some of the toolbar button icons as icons for other programs, you can copy them as we described in the last tip. You choose View, Toolbars, Customize. Then, on the toolbar, click on the button you want to copy and choose Edit, Copy Button Image.

Since you may want to make your icon larger, you can change the icon size before you make the copy. Choose View, Toolbars and selectthe Large Buttons check box. Click on OK to save the change and close the dialog box. Now choose View, Toolbars again. This time, click on Customize and then the Toolbars tab. Select the toolbar button to copy by clicking on it and then choose Edit, Copy Button Image. Click on Close to close the dialog box. If you want to put your icons back to normal at this time, open the Customize dialog box again and deselect the Large Buttons check box and click on OK.

Now that the icon is in the Clipboard, you can open Microsoft Paint and choose Image, Attributes. Set Width and Height to 10. Now choose Edit, Paste to paste in the copied icon. Next, choose File, Save As and give the icon a name. Since Windows 95 will let you use .BMP files as icons, your new icon is ready to go.

BUTTONS BY DESIGN

If there's a button image that you'd like to use for a custom button, you can make a copy of any button in the Word toolbar and use its icon in one of your custom buttons. To do this, choose View, Toolbars and click on Customize. Now click on theToolbars tab. At this point, you can click on (once) on the toolbar button you'd like to copy. Now choose Edit, Copy ButtonImage.

Now you're ready to copy the image to a custom button. Create the new button by dragging a command to the toolbar (this could be a macro or a command). Click on Assign and then choose Edit, Paste Button Image. You can click on Close now to close the Customize dialog box.

By the way, since the button image is in the Clipboard, you can paste it into your Word document if you like. Simply choose Edit, Paste.

CHECK IT FROM THE TOP

Version 4.x, 95This tip isn't exactly earthshaking, but it can save you a bit of time. Before you run a spelling check, press Ctrl-Home to move to the beginning of the document. This way, you won't get the dialog box asking if you want to continue checking the document from the top. And since we're trying save some time, use the keyboard shortcut to run the spelling checker. So, press Ctrl-Home and then press F7.

A DATE MACRO

Version 4.x, 95
If you'd like to add the days of the current week to your worksheet on a Monday morning, you can select a cell and type
=today()

Now select five cells beginning with the one you just entered today's date into and choose Edit, Fill, Series. Then select Date and Weekdays. Click on OK and the column will fill with the days of the current week. But why go through all that when you can use a simple macro to do it for you? Let's look at the macro first, and then we'll talk about how to install and use it.

Sub AddDate()
Range("A2").Select
ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = "=TODAY()"
Range("A2:A6").Select
Selection.DataSeries Rowcol:=xlColumns, Type:=xlChronological, Date _ :=xlWeekday, Step:=1, Trend:=False
Selection.NumberFormat = "dddd mmmm d, yyyy"
Columns("A:A").EntireColumn.AutoFit
Range("A7").Select
End Sub

To add the macro to Excel, choose Window and select Unhide if it's available. If Windows, Unhide is grayed out, choose Tools, Record Macro. When the dialog box opens, type in
AddDate
for the name and then click on Options. Make sure Personal Macro Workbook and Visual Basic are selected and click on OK. Now click on the Stop button on the floating Recorder window. At this point, Window, Unhide will be available, and you should select it now.

A dialog box will appear with Personal.xls selected (if something else is there and selected, select Personal.xls). Click on OK and the blank module page will appear. Type in the macro exactly as shown in the listing. When you finish entering the macro, choose File, Save to save Personal.xls. Next, choose Window, Hide to rehide Personal.xls.

Now you can choose Tools, Macro and double-click on Personal.XLS!AddDate to run the new macro.

AddDate selects cell A2 and inserts the current date (we assume you'll use this on Monday morning). Then it selects for more cells to hold the remaining days of the week. Next, it places the dates in the selected cells and then formats the date and the cell width. The macro then moves the cursor to the bottom of the row. This deselects the previously selected cells.

When you close Excel, you'll be asked about saving the personal workbook. Tell it Yes.

COLUMN AFTER COLUMN

Version 4.x, 95
If you've been appointed to produce a newsletter for your organization, club, or church, you can use columns to make the newsletter look more professional. Many Word users seem reluctant to use columns, but they're much easier to deal with than most people imagine.

Let's say you decide to create a two-column newsletter. This isn't a problem at all. Simply choose Format, Columns. Click on Two and click on OK. To view the document properly in two columns, choose View, Page Layout.

People run into problems when they want to use a full-width banner headline over a two-column page. But it can be done fairly easily. Go to the very top of the document and choose Insert, Break. When the dialog box opens, select Continuous and click on OK. This inserts a section break. Now click above the section break line and choose Format, Columns. This time, click on One and click on OK.

Now you can type in your headline and make it long enough to cover the entire width of the page, if that's what you want. In any case, you can center it on the page by clicking on the Center Text button in the Word toolbar.

Another source of problems people experience comes in trying to place graphics or pictures in the columns. We'll discuss that in the next tip.

PICTURE-PERFECT COLUMNS

Version 4.x, 95
In the last tip we talked about setting up columns in Word and discussed using section breaks as a way to place large headlines over a two-column layout. This time, let's look at how we can add pictures to a two-column newsletter.

Let's say you'd like to place a picture right in the center of a two-column page. To begin, choose View, Page Layout so you can view your two-column document in the form in which it will print. Next, add the picture by choosing Insert, Picture and then locating and selecting the picture you want to include. After you select the picture file, click on OK.

Once the picture is in the document, don't worry about its placement just yet. Right-click on the picture and choose Frame Picture. With the picture framed, you can drag it anywhere in the document--even between the two columns. You can also size the picture now.

The text should flow around the frame. If it doesn't, right-click on the picture and choose Format Frame. Make sure you select Around and click on OK. You can also use this dialog box to set the distance between the text and the frame. The default is 0.13 inch. Reduce that number to place the text closer to the frame. After you enter the new number, click on OK

TABLE AUTO-CREATION

Version 4.x, 95
If you frequently insert a specific size and type of table into your Word documents, here's a macro you can use to do the job for you. Of course, the table we're creating with AddTable might not be the one you need, so you'll have to edit the macro a little.

TableInsertTable .ConvertFrom = "", .NumColumns = "8",.NumRows = "2", .InitialColWidth = "Auto", .Format = "7",.Apply = "167"
Macros just don't get any simpler than this. To get the macro into Word, choose Tools, Macro. In the Macro Name text box, type
AddTable
and click on Create. Now type in the macro as shown above. Choose File, Save to save the new macro.

To change the table parameters, change NumRows and NumColumns. To choose a different table format, change the Format value. The number corresponds to a table format listed in the AutoFormat dialog box. To get there, choose Table, Insert Table and click on AutoFormat. Unfortunately, you're forced to count down the list to figure out which number goes with which table format--the first format, (none) is zero, then Simple 1 is number one, Classic 1 is number four, and so on. Our number 7 corresponds to the Classic 4 format. After you finish looking over the table formats, click on Cancel and then click on Cancel again.

To use the new macro, choose Tools, Macro. Click on AddTable to select it and then click on Run.

A BUTTON FOR THE TABLE MACRO

Version 4.x, 95
In the last tip, we showed you a macro that you can use to create a table. This time, we'll show you how to make a toolbar button for the new macro (or any macro).

Choose View, Toolbars and click on Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click on the Toolbars tab. Now scroll down until you locate Macros. Click on it once to select it and the macro list will appear on the right side of the dialog box. Use the mouse to drag your new macro to the toolbar. When you reach the macro's chosen location, release the mouse button.

When the Custom button dialog box opens, select a button, or just use the suggested text name and click on Assign. Now click on Close and your new toolbar button should work just fine.

DRAG AND DROP

Version 4.x, 95
You probably know that you can select text (words, sentences, paragraphs) and then grab the selected text with your mouse and move it to a new location. You hold down the mouse button during the drag and release it when you reach its new home.

Word also lets you copy selected text using the drag-and-drop method. To do this, all you have to do is select the text and then hold down Ctrl while you drag the text to a new location.

GET IN LINE

Version 4.x, 95
When you have a group of objects on a PowerPoint slide, you may want to align all of them so that they fall into the general categories of left, center, or right.

Let's say you have three pictures on a slide. You'd like to have them all appear to be standing on the same floor. Click one of the figures and then press and hold the Shift key while you click the other two to select them. Choose Draw, Align. Next select Bottoms. Now all the figures will be aligned across the bottom.

NUMBER YOUR LISTS

Version 95
If you want to let Word handle numbered lists for you, here's how to stay in control of what type of lists you get.

If you would like to use Roman numerals, enter
I
followed by a period, a space, and the text. When you press Enter, the next Roman numeral will appear. It should look like this:
I. This is the first line
II. This is the second line
III. And this is the third line

You can also automatically create bulleted lists. Let's say you'd like to use a round bullet. Type
*
followed by a space or tab, then your text. When you press Enter, the bullet for the next item in the list will appear.

Finally, if you'd like to use a fancy greater-than sign (>) as a bullet, type
>
followed by a space or tab, and then your text.

IMAGES EVERYWHERE

Version 4.x, 95
You know you can insert images into a Word document. You can also insert images into the header and footer. But how about the mailing label? Why not put an image in the mailing label too? You can do this, but the method isn't quite as obvious as inserting pictures into documents and headers. Here's what to do. Locate a BMP file that you'd like to use in your labels. Now choose Tools, Envelopes and Labels. When the dialog box opens, click Labels. Now click in the Address box. Press Ctrl-F9 to create a field. Enter into the field
IncludePicture C:\\windows\\MyOwn.bmp
where the picture is in the Windows folder and is named MyOwn.bmp. Make sure you use the double slashes (c:\\) as shown for every subdirectory when you enter the file name). Now, while the cursor is still in the field, press F9. The picture will load and appear in the label. If the picture is too large, use the mouse to size it. This works best with small, simple figures. For example, inserting a small company logo should work well.

Try to size the picture before you insert it into the label. If the picture doesn't look good at a reduced size, then it certainly won't look good in the label. If you use a black-and-white printer, you need to make sure the picture you intend to insert into the label will print well on your printer.

DISTORTING FOR APPEARANCE

Version 4.x, 95
Ordinarily when we discuss resizing inserted pictures (such as Clip Art) we tell you how to do it without distorting the picture. There are times, though, when you might want to distort a picture to enhance its appearance. For example, suppose you're making up a document (Word or PowerPoint) for a weight-loss program. Perhaps you'd like to show a before-and-after cartoon. To do something like this, you could import one of the Clip Art images of a cartoon person. There are several available.

You may want to do this in PowerPoint rather than in Word, because PowerPoint offers more options for working with Clip Art. If you need the pictures in Word, you can import them later.Insert one of the pictures. If there are extraneous objects in the picture you want to use (such as a briefcase) select the object and choose Draw, Ungroup. Now click away from the drawing and then click the extraneous object. Move it away from the main drawing and press Delete.

Now that you have a clean drawing, press Ctrl-A to select everything and then choose Draw, Group to put the object back together again. Now select the picture and choose Edit, Copy. Next, choose Edit, Paste. Position the two copies as you want. Now click the picture on the left and use the mouse to stretch it horizontally. Now that you have a genuinely overweight person, you can either leave the original version alone, or use the mouse to make that person even thinner.

Since you may want to import the pictures into a Word document, press Ctrl-A to select both and then choose Draw, Group. From now on they'll stay together. You can click the picture and choose Edit, Copy to copy it to the Clipboard. Then you can move to Word and choose Edit, Paste to paste the picture into your Word document.

COOLER CALLOUTS

Version 4.x, 95
Some subscribers have asked about using callouts in text. Is there a way to make the primary text wrap around callout text? Yes, there is--well, sort of. What you can do is insert a frame (Insert, Frame) then draw a callout inside the frame.

Before you insert the callout, place the frame where you want it to appear when finished (at least as close as possible). Now, if you don't see the Drawing toolbar, choose View, Toolbars and select Drawing. Once the toolbar is visible, click the callout button (it looks like one of the speech bubbles you see in a comic strip) and draw the callout inside the frame.

Now you can right-click the frame and choose Format Frame. In the Frame dialog box, choose to have text wrap around the frame. When you're finished here, click OK. Now you can enter your callout text. If you need to change the placement of your callout, move the frame and then move the callout back inside it.

SPECIAL DATES

Version 4.x, 95
You can do more with Excel's date formatting than you might think. Suppose you'd like a particular cell to show only the month and the day. Click the cell (to select it) then choose Format, Cells and select Custom. Double-click the entry that's in Type and press Delete to get rid of it. Now, under Type enter
mmmm dd
and then click OK. Let's say the date is 1/25/98. The cell will display January 25.

Suppose now that you'd like to show the day of the week, the month, and the day (numerical). Choose Format, Cells and select Custom again. This time, type
dddd, mmmm dd
to produce a display of Sunday, January 25. Click OK to close the dialog box and record the changes. If you want to add the year, go back to the Format Cells dialog box and type
dddd, mmmm dd, yyy

Now click OK. This time, the cell will display Sunday, January 25, 1998.

HOW DO YOU COUNT THE DAYS?

Version 4.x, 95
If you'd like to know how many days left until St. Patrick's day, run Excel and type
="03/17/98" - "01/15/98" ' or today's date
into a cell. Excel will return the number of days (61) between the two dates.

How many days until Christmas? Enter
="12/25/98" - "01/15/98"
and you'll get 344 days. Time to think about shopping. The trick here is to remember to use the quotes. If you don't use quotes, you'll get some very strange results.

SIZED OR CROPPED?

When you insert a picture, such as a Clip Art object, into Word, youoften have to size it to make it fit your document properly. You cansize a picture without distorting it by simply watching the displayat the bottom left of the Word window. This display reports thecurrent size as a percentage of the original width and height. Aslong as the two numbers match, the scaling is distortion-free.

To crop a picture in Word, hold down the Shift key while you use themouse to drag one of the picture handles.

WORKING WITH SECTIONS

When you need to change the formatting of one portion of a page (ordocument), the best approach is to insert a section. To do this,position the cursor where you want the new formatting to start andchoose Insert, Break. When the Break dialog box opens, select theContinuous radio button and click OK.

Now you can set the formatting and add your new text. When you wantto go back to the original formatting, choose Insert, Break again andselect Continuous. Click OK.

Note: If you decide to delete a section mark, the format of thesection before the break will change to match that of the secondsection. Make sure this format change is what you want before youdelete a section break.

GROUPING IN WORD

Grouping of objects isn't limited to PowerPoint. In fact, it's a goodidea to group objects in Word, too. Grouping them keeps them togetherand easier to deal with.

Let's say you've inserted several Clip Art objects into a Worddocument. You've placed these objects just where you want them inrelation to the page and to each other. You don't want to lose thisrelationship, so click the first object and then press and hold downthe Shift key while you select the remaining objects. If the Drawingtoolbar isn't available, choose View, Toolbars, Drawing. Now clickthe Draw button in the Drawing toolbar and choose Group. Your objectswill become one.

Note that you cannot Ungroup Clip Art in Word. If you need to make acustom picture by ungrouping and removing some portions, usePowerPoint and then copy the result and paste it into your Worddocument.

MAKING WORD SPILL THE BEANS

If you write Word macros, at times you'd probably like to get someinformation about the system. You can get all the system info bysimply inserting the command
MicrosoftSystemInfo
into your code. This opens the Microsoft System Information dialogbox.

If you'd like to get specific information for your macro to use, youcan use code such as the example shown here:
Sub MAIN
Dim info$(30)
GetSystemInfo info$()
FileNewDefault
FormatTabs .Position = "1 in", .Set
Insert "CPU" + Chr$(9) + info$(1)
InsertPara
Insert "Windows" + Chr$(9) + info$(3)
InsertPara
Insert "Disk Space" + Chr$(9) + info$(5) + " bytes"
End Sub

This code uses GetSystemInfo to gather information about thecomputer. It reports the type of CPU used, the current version ofWindows, and the remaining disk space.

There are some differences in the way this macro reports informationin Word 6 and Word 7. In Word 6, the results are
CPU i486
Windows 3.95
Disk Space 302448640 bytes
In Word 7, the same macro reports
CPU Pentium
Windows 4.0
Disk Space 305725440 bytes

A WORKSHEET IN EXCEL, A TABLE IN WORD

There are several ways to get Excel worksheet data into a Worddocument. In all cases, you begin by selecting the cells you want toput into the Word document. So select the cells and then press Ctrl-Cto copy your selection to the Clipboard.

Now let's look at our first method. Switch to your Word document andchoose Edit, Paste (or press Ctrl-V). This will paste the worksheetselection into Word as a table. Note that this method does notprovide a link to the Excel document. Changes made in Excel will notappear in Word.

To insert the worksheet selection as a linked file, copy theselection (Ctrl-C) and then switch to Word. Now choose Edit, PasteSpecial. When the Paste Special dialog box opens, select FormattedText (RTF) and Paste as Link. Now click OK, and the worksheetselection will appear as a linked table in your Word document.

You can also insert a linked table by copying the worksheet data(Ctrl-C) and then choosing Edit, Paste Special. This time selectMicrosoft Excel Worksheet Object and Paste as Link, and the data willappear as just numbers--no table.

In both cases, the data is linked to the Excel worksheet, so anychanges you make in Excel will also appear in the Word document.

If you use Edit, Paste Special and choose Formatted Text (RTF) andPaste as Link, the data will appear in table form. You can select thetable and then choose Table, AutoFormat to format the table to suityou. This is also the case when you simply copy the worksheet dataand then switch to Word and press Ctrl-V. You can format the table asyou wish.

If you paste the data using Edit, Paste Special and choose MicrosoftExcel Worksheet Object and Paste as Link, the data will not appear intable form. Therefore you can't apply table formatting.

IS THIS PAGE BLANK?

If you write Word macros, you may sometimes need to know when aparticular page is completely blank. For example, if you need tosearch a page for some particular text, there's no point in searchinga blank page. Try this code:
StartOfDocument
If AtEndOfDocument() = -1 Then Stop()

The code moves the insertion point to the start of the document andthen checks to see if the insertion point is at the end of thedocument. If the start and end are the same, then the page is blank.When you get to the Stop, a dialog box will appear informing you thatthe macro was interrupted. If you don't want this message, use
If AtEndOfDocument() = -1 Then Stop(-1)

This will cause the macro to stop without a message.

MAKE A QUICK MOVE

In Excel, you can copy a group of cells by selecting them and thenpressing Ctrl-C. This copies the cells to the Windows Clipboard. Nowyou can move to another cell range and press Ctrl-V to paste thecells to the new location.

If you prefer to move the group of cells, simply select them andpress Ctrl-V at a new location.

In either case, you'll find that you can eliminate the Ctrl-V part ofthe paste operation by clicking into the first cell of your targetrange and pressing Enter.

This shortcut doesn't actually save any keystrokes, since you pressCtrl and V at the same time to make the paste. But simply pressingEnter has a certain elegance about it.

ADDING NEW COLOR TO PIE CHARTS

In the last tip, we showed you how to modify the colors of the barsin a bar chart. You can do the same for your pie charts, but themethod is slightly different. Insert your pie chart. You'll get thosesame weak colors that you get by default in the bar chart.

First, double-click the chart. Next, click one of the slices toselect it. Now right-click the selected slice and choose Format DataPoint. When the dialog box opens, click the Patterns tab and chooseyour new color. Click OK to close the dialog box and apply the colorselection. Repeat as necessary.

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