MS OFFICE 2000 INVALID PRODUCT KEY

Many users are reporting problems because of an incorrect product key associated with CD 2 of Office 2000. The message "Setup Error: Setup failed to locate a valid qualifying product on your machine. Please select the drive where a qualifying product can be found" may appear when you attempt to run Publisher 2000 Setup. If you try again, "Error 1608: Could not find any previously installed compliant products on the machine for installing this product" may appear. Click OK, and you may see the "Setup ended prematurely because of an error" message. The only solution at this time is to contact Microsoft Office Technical Support at 425/635-7056 and ask for a valid product key.

USING AUTOCORRECT TO INSERT SYMBOLS

Many of us occasionally need to use Greek letters as mathematical symbols. An easy way to insert these letters is to use Word's AutoCorrect feature. Let's say we want to use the Greek letter tau.

Open a blank document in Word and type in t and then press Enter. Now, select the t, click the arrow at the right side of the Font list, and choose Symbol from the list. This will turn the t into a tau symbol. Select the tau symbol and choose Tools/AutoCorrect. When AutoCorrect opens select the "Formatted text" radio button. You should now have the tau symbol in the "With" entry box. Click in the 'Replace' entry box and type in tau then press Enter twice. From now on, when you type in tau, Word will replace it with the tau symbol.

WATCH OUT FOR A POSSIBLE DISASTER

When you're working on a document, be sure to save it frequently. This will help you avoid losses better than anything else you could do.

And now, for that possible disaster. Suppose you're working on a long document. You're starting a new sentence so you press Shift and the letter A. But, let's say that you accidentally press Ctrl + A instead of Shift + A. Now you keep typing and your entire document disappears. What has happened is that you selected all the text in the document and then replaced it with the next letter you typed.

If this should happen to you, don't panic and don't save the document at this point. Instead, press Ctrl + Z and Word will restore your lost text. Now, you can save the document. This may not happen often, but we have had it happen.

DOING SIMPLE ARITHMETIC EXCEL

When you want to simply add, subtract, or divide a few numbers in Excel, you can just type in an equal sign followed by the numbers. For example, if you want to add 96 and 23, you'd type

=96+23

and press Enter.

This is certainly simple enough, but if you'd rather not have to remember to type in that equal sign first, you can get Excel to drop the requirement. Just open a blank worksheet and choose Tools/Options. When the Options dialog box opens click the Transition tab. Select the check box labeled "Transition formula entry" and click OK.

Now, you can simply enter

96 + 23

to get the result of 119.

Note that you will now have to enter an apostrophe before a number that you want to enter as text.

CHANING THE AUTOENTRY DIRECTION IN EXCEL

Suppose you'd like to type and number into an Excel cell and then press Enter to move to the next cell on the right--not the next cell down. What you have to do is change the AutoEntry direction.

To make this change, choose Tools/Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Edit tab. Select (or leave selected) the check box labeled 'Move selection after Enter.' Now, click the arrow at the right side of the 'Direction' list box and select Right. Click OK to close the dialog box and record your selection. To test the change, type a number into cell A1 and press Enter. Excel should move to cell B1.

EXCEL BORDERS

One way to produce a more attractive worksheet in Excel is to put a border around your data, or segments of your data. As an example, open a blank worksheet and type some data into several contiguous cells. Now, select the cells that contain data and choose Format/Cells. When the Format Cells dialog box opens, click the Border tab. Let's click now on the 'Outline' preset and then click OK to close the dialog box and apply your new border. As you can see in the Border page of the Format Cells dialog box, you can select the type of border you want and also the color of the border.

AN EXCEL BUTTON TO USE WITH CAUTION

There's a handy little Print button in the Excel toolbar. If you click that button, Excel will print the current worksheet. That's it--Excel prints the entire worksheet whether that's what you want or not.

To have some input into your printing, choose File/Print, or press Ctrl + P. Either method will open the Print dialog box so you can tell Excel what you want printed.

A CLOSE BUTTON FOR EXCEL

In the last tip, we talked about how to add a Close button to Word. This time, let's look at how to add a Close button to Excel.

The procedure is basically the same in Excel as in Word -- you right-click the toolbar and choose Customize. When the dialog box opens, click the Commands tab. When you scroll down through the Commands list, you'll see Close -- but no icon.

Drag Close to your toolbar next to the Open button. When you release the mouse button, your button will be in place. But, it will be a text button. If you would prefer to use an icon, you can steal the icon from Word.

Run Word and right-click the toolbar. Choose Customize and then right-click the Close button and choose Copy Button Image. Click Close and run Excel. Right-click the toolbar and choose Customize. Right-click the Close button and choose Paste Button Image. Finally, click Modify Selection and choose Default Style. Click Close to close the dialog box.

USING THE CALCULATOR IN EXCEL

How would you like to have a nice full-featured calculator in your Excel toolbar? It's easy to place the Windows calculator in the toolbar. All you have to do is Choose View/Toolbars/Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Commands tab. Now, under 'Categories,' click Tools to select it. Scroll down through the 'Commands' list and use the mouse to drag the calculator icon labeled 'Custom' to the toolbar. All you have to do to use the calculator now is click the new icon.

COPYING CELLS IN EXCEL 2000

When you want to copy a range of cells to a new location, you don't have to paste the cells into an empty range. Instead, try it this way. Select the range of cells you want to copy and press Ctrl + C. Now, move to the location where you want the data to appear and press Ctrl + SHIFT + Plus Sign (+). When the Insert dialog box opens, click the direction you want the surround cells to move in and click OK. This is the approach you should use any time you want to paste data in between two existing columns of data.

SIMPLE EXCEL CALCULATIONS

Let's say that you run Excel and type

1

2

3

4

5

into cells A1 through A5. Now, you want to go to cell A7 and calculate the sum of cells A1 through A5. You could type in the formula. Or, you could just click in A7 then hold down the Alt key and press = (equal) and then press Enter.

CONCATENATING EXCEL CELLS

When you need t concatenate the content of two cells into a third cell, you can use

=concatenate(a1,a2)

But here is an easier way. To try this method, type

1

into cell A1

and

2

into cell A2. Now, click in cell A5 and enter

=A1&A2

That's all there is to it. The result is the same as using the Concatenate formula.

FORMATTING EXCEL CELLS

When you're working with Excel, you may often need to set the format of a specific cell. You can click the cell you want to change and choose Format/Cells to open the Format Cells dialog box. You can also right-click a cell and choose Format Cells. Or, you can click in the cell and press Ctrl + 1 to open the dialog box. If you like this method, note that you must use the 1 key at the top of the keyboard--the 1 key in the number pad won't work.

CREATING AN EXCEL CHART

There are times when a chart becomes the most effective way to present data. Charts aren't much of a problem for Excel. Here's how to create one.

Open a blank worksheet and enter some data. Perhaps you could enter

A

B

C

D

into cells A1 through A4, and then type

1

2

3

4

into cells B1 through B4. Now, select cells A1 through B4 and then choose Insert/Chart. When the Chart Wizard opens, accept the default settings and click Finish. Excel will place the chart on your current worksheet.

HOW TO COLLECT AND PASTE IN EXCEL

Office 2000 programs have a new Collect and Paste feature. To see how this works, let's use an Excel worksheet as an example.

Run Excel and enter some numbers into cells B1 through B5. Now, click cell B2 and press Ctrl + C to copy the cell's value to the Clipboard. Now, move to cell B4 and press Ctrl + C again. The Clipboard should now appear. If it doesn't, choose View/Toolbars/Clipboard. When the Clipboard appears it will show two Excel icons. Click in cell D1 and click the first icon on the left side of the Clipboard. This will paste the number from cell B2 into cell D1. Next, click cell E1 and then click the second Excel icon in the Clipboard to paste the contents of cell B4 into cell E1. You can click the X in the upper right corner of the Clipboard to close it.

INSERTING A COLUMN IN EXCEL

Suppose you have a worksheet that already contains a bunch of data. Now you discover that you really need to add a new column C, moving the current column C (and all columns after C) to the right. To do this, click in column C and press Ctrl + Shift + Plus Sign (+). When the Insert dialog opens, select the 'Entire Column' radio button and click OK.

EDITING EXCEL COMMENTS

In the last tip, we discussed how to add comments to Excel cells. This time, let's suppose that you have a comment in one of the cells in your worksheet and you need to modify it to match some changes to the worksheet. Right-click the cell that contains the comment and choose Edit Comment. This opens the entry box with the current comment. You can now modify the text in any way you wish. When you finish editing, click outside the comment entry box to close it.

EDITING IN EXCEL

By default, double clicking an Excel cell opens it for editing. We were asked if it's possible to change this so that double clicking a cell does nothing.

To eliminate the double-click editing feature, run Excel and choose Tools/Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Edit tab. Deselect the check box labeled "Edit directly in cell" and click OK to close the dialog box and save your selection.

COPYING A FORMAT IN EXCEL

You may have used the Format Painter in Word, but it's possible that you have never noticed it in Excel. To see how Format Painter works, open a blank worksheet and enter anything in cell A1. Now, click cell A1 and choose Format/Cells. When the Format Cells dialog box opens, click the Patterns tab. Select any color and click OK.

Click in cell A5 now, and enter something. Click in cell A1 again to select it and then click the Format Painter button (its icon is a paintbrush). Your pointer will turn into a plus sign and a paintbrush. Click cell A5 and it will assume the formatting, color and all, of Cell A1.

EXCEL FORMULA CREATION

Here's a way to create a formula in Excel--just click the appropriate cell to select it and then click the Paste Function button (its icon is fx) in the toolbar. To see how this works, enter

1

2

3

4

into cells A1 through A4. Now, click cell A5 and then click the Paste Function button. When the Paste Function dialog box opens, double-click "Average." This will open a dialog box that displays the cells that Excel will use for the calculation. If the cells are correct (they will be in this case), just click OK. The average will now appear in cell A5.

CREATING A CHART IN EXCEL

Here is an Excel trick that has been around for a long time--maybe even from the time Excel was born. When you need to create a chart, you can simply use the keyboard (shift + arrow keys) to select your data and then press F11. That's all there is to it. Excel will create your chart with no further ado.

SELECTING A DATA RANGE IN EXCEL

Suppose you have data in cells A1 through D6. If you click in cell A1 and hold down Ctrl + Shift, you can then press the right arrow key to select the row A1 through D1. To select a column, click in cell A1 (as an example) and hold down Ctrl + Shift while you click the down arrow. This will select the column from A1 through A6.

You don't have to stick to the beginning and ending cells, though. For example, you can click in cell B2 and hold down Ctrl + Shift and press the down arrow key to select cells B2 through B6.

EXCEL IS READY FOR THE EURO

We'll all need to deal with the new Euro more and more frequently over the next few years. This is no great problem for you if you use Excel, though. All you have to do to activate the Euro currency tools is run Excel and choose Tools/Add-Ins. When the Add-Ins dialog opens, locate "Euro Currency Tools" and select its check box then click OK. Now, if you choose Format/Cells, then click the Number tab and select Currency, you'll find the Euro in the list.

EXCEL HEADERS AND FOOTERS

If you would like to add your own headers and footers to an Excel worksheet, just open the worksheet and choose File>>Page Setup. When the dialog box opens, click the Header/Footer tab.

Enter whatever you want for headers and footers and then click OK to save your entries and close the dialog box.

MAKING FOR FOR HEADERS IN EXCEL

When you need to use headers that turn out wider than the cells, you can increase the cell width, or you can set the header text on an angle and leave the cell width as it is. To do this, type in a header and then choose Format/Cells. When the Format Cells dialog box opens, click the Alignment tab. Now you can use the Spin box labeled 'Degrees' to set your text angle.

After you set the angle, click OK to save your setting and close the dialog box.

SPECIAL CUSTOM LISTS IN EXCEL

You can create a custom list in Excel for almost anything. Suppose you'd like to automatically list all the last names of the children in your elementary school class.

Run Excel and open a blank worksheet. Enter the names in cells A1 through whatever it takes. As an example, we entered names in cells A1 through A10 as shown here.

Amity

Beelzy

Cthulu

Damian

Eboz

Frankenstein

Gotho

Hammer

Iacob

Julien

Once you enter all the names, use the mouse to select all the cells. Now choose Tools/Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Custom Lists tab. Click Import and Excel will create a custom list from your column of names. Click OK to close the dialog box.

You can now delete the names in column A if you wish. To check your custom list, click a cell (B1 will do), type

Amity

and press Enter. Now, click in cell B1 again to select it. Use the mouse to grab the small mouse at the bottom right side of the selected cell and drag down to cell B10, and there's your list of names.

TRACING PRECEDENTS IN EXCEL

Excel will show you which cells contribute to a result. This is called tracing precedents. To see how this works, open a blank worksheet and enter

1

into cell A1 and press Enter. Next, move to cell C7, type

2

and press Enter. Now click cell B12, type in

=a1+c7

and press Enter. The result should be 3. Click cell B12 to select it and then choose Tools/Auditing/Trace Precedents. Excel will now draw an arrow from cell A1 to B12 and from cell C7 to B12 to display the precedents for the formula you entered in cell B12.

NAMING EXCEL RANGES AND HOW TO FOLLOW THE NAMING RULES

When working with a large worksheet, it's a good idea to name the ranges that you will use for your calculation. To see how this works, enter some numbers into a few cells and then choose Insert/Name/Define and type in a name (test is OK for this example). To prove that your named range is working, click somewhere away from the range and press Ctrl + G to open the Go To dialog box. Double-click Test, and Excel will go to the named range.

There are some naming rules that you need to follow:

• A name can contain up to 255 characters.

• You must use a letter or an underscore for the first character.

• After the first character, you can use letters, numbers, periods, or the underscore character.

HOW TO FREEZE EXCEL ROWS

Suppose you're working on an Excel worksheet and you place all your header information in the first two rows (1 and 2). Once the worksheet is finished, you scroll down to view more cells and the header information scrolls off the top so it's no longer visible.

There's a way to scroll an Excel worksheet without losing the headers. You can freeze the rows that contain the headers. To do this, click in Cell A3 and choose Windows/Freeze Panes. Rows 1 and 2 will now remain in view as you scroll down through your worksheet. To unfreeze the rows, choose Window/Unfreeze Panes.

EXCEL GRIDLINES IN COLOR

In the last tip, we discussed how to get Excel to print the gridlines. This time let's look at how to view those gridlines in some color other than the default black. To do this, choose Tools/Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the View tab. Now click the arrow at the right side of the "Color" list box (lower left-hand corner) to open the color palette and select a color. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your color selection.

If you print this on a color printer with gridline printing activated, the worksheet border will print in your selected color. However, the gridlines will still print in black.

EXCEL'S LEAP YEAR BUG

Several Excel users have pointed out to us that Excel contains a leap year error--it thinks that 1900 was a leap year when in fact it was not. To confirm this, run Excel and click cell A1. Type in

2/29/1900

and press Enter. Excel will accept this date as valid. If you enter an invalid date, Excel will convert the entry to text format.

A year is a leap year if divisible by four, unless it is also divisible by 100. A year is a leap year if it is divisible by 400, which explains why 2000 is a leap year. So although 1900 is divisible by four, it is also divisible by 100, and therefore was no a leap year. This will probably never cause you any problems with Excel, so don't worry about it.

ADDING A GLOBAL MACRO IN EXCEL

In the past, we have discussed how to make a macro available to all your workbooks by saving the macro in personal.xls. Another way to make a macro available to all workbooks is to create an Add-in. If you save your workbook as an Add-in, only the macros are saved. However, in this case, the macros are hidden so no one can modify them, or even view them.

To do this, write your macro then choose File/Save As. Click the arrow at the right side of the 'Save as type' list box and select Microsoft Excel Add-In (xla). Name your new Add-In and click Save to save it and close the dialog box. Excel will automatically save the Add-In in the correct folder. To use the Add-In, one must choose Tools/Add-In and select the new name.

CREATING RANDOM NUMBERS IN EXCEL

A reader asked if there is a way to generate random numbers between two limits in Excel without writing a macro. There is, and to see how it works, run Excel and open a blank worksheet. Let's say that you want to generate random numbers between 0 and 9. Click in cell A1, enter

=randbetween(0,9)

and press Enter. Excel will immediately generate a number between 0 and 9. To generate a new number press F9 (recalculate).

If the function doesn't work, then you probably need to load the Analysis ToolPak Add-In. Choose Tools/Add-Ins. When the dialog box appears, select the check box labeled "Analysis ToolPak" and then click OK.

A FEW EXCEL SHORTCUTS

Here are some Excel shortcuts.

To copy the contents of a cell to the cell directly below it, click in the target cell and press Ctrl + D.

If the cell you copy contains a formula, the formula is copied using the relative addresses. As an example, create a small worksheet with

1

2

3

4

in cells A1 through A4. Now enter

3

4

5

6

into cells B1 through B5. Click in cell C1 and enter

=sum(a1:b1)

and you'll get 4.

Now click cell C2 and press Ctrl + D. Your new result is 6 because the copied formula will be =sum(a2:b2).

TEXTURES FOR EXCEL TABLES

When you need to make tables in an Excel worksheet, you might like to spruce them up a bit with a nice textured background. Try this: run Excel and type in a few numbers. Now, select the numbers and choose Insert>>Chart. When the Chart Wizard opens, click Finish.

Now, right-click the chart background and choose Format Plot Area. When the dialog box opens, click Fill Effects. When the Fill Effects dialog box opens, click the Texture tab. Double-click the texture of your choice. Back in the first dialog box, click OK.

ADDING A MAP BUTTON TO THE EXCEL TOOLBAR

If you use Excel's Map very often, you might find it convenient to place a Map button into the toolbar. To do this, choose Tools/Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Commands tab. Now, under 'Categories,' click on Insert to select it. Under 'Commands,' locate the Map icon and use the mouse to drag it to the toolbar. Click Close to dismiss the dialog box.

CREATING AN EXCEL WORDART BUTTON

Although you can use WordArt in Excel by choosing Insert/Picture/WordArt, Excel has no WordArt button as does Word. But, you can add a WordArt button to the Excel toolbar. To do this, choose View/Toolbars/Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Commands tab. In the "Categories" list, select AutoShapes and then drag the WordArt icon from the dialog box's right pane to the location you want on your toolbar.

SHARING AN EXCEL WORKBOOK

Did you know that two people can work on an Excel worksheet at the same time? Suppose you're on a LAN (Local Area Network) and you could save some time if you and a co-worker could access the same worksheet simultaneously. Here's what you do. Open the worksheet and choose Tools>>Share Workbook. When the Share Workbook dialog box opens, select the check box labeled "Allow changes by more than one user at the same time. This also allows workbook merging." Click OK to close the dialog box. Now, ask someone on your LAN to open the same workbook. You'll find that sharing a worksheet is easy.

USING A MACRO IN ALL EXCEL WORKBOOKS

If you write a macro in Excel, the macro is attached to the current and will not be available in other workbooks. If you want to make a macro available to all workbooks, you can create them in a special workbook named personal.xls.

To do this, enter a macro in a blank workbook. Choose File/Save As and name the workbook 'personal.xls.' Now, still in the Save As dialog box, navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\XLStart and click Save.

Next, choose Window/Hide and then choose File/Exit. When asked if you want to save changes, click Yes.

Your macro will now be available to all workbooks. Since personal.xls is hidden, it won't appear unless you choose Window/Unhide, which is what you'll need to do to add or modify any macros.

HIDING DATA IN EXCEL WORKSHEETS

Suppose you have data in cell A1 that you would like to hide from the rest of the world. To hide that data, click cell A1 and then choose Format/Cells. When the Format Cells dialog box opens, click the Numbers tab and then select Custom from the "Category" list. Now, double-click in the "Type" entry box and type in three semicolons (;;;). Click OK to close the dialog box and continue. The data in cell A1 is still there, and will work in calculations, but it isn't visible.

DRAWING SHAPES IN EXCEL WORKSHEETS

When you draw AutoShapes in Excel, you may often want the shapes to line up with the existing cells lines. To see how this works, run Excel and see if the Drawing toolbar is visible. If it isn't choose View>>Toolbars>>Drawing. Now, click the Rectangle tool. Press and hold down the Alt key while you draw the rectangle.

The rectangle sides will line up perfectly with the worksheet cell lines.

ENTERING FRACTIONS IN EXCEL WORKSHEETS

Have you ever entered a fraction in an Excel cell and had it appear as a date? This is not a bug. The problem occurs simply because, in some cases, Excel has no way of knowing whether you want to enter a date or a fraction. For example, if you enter a whole number plus a fraction (1 5/8, 2 1/4) Excel knows you want a fraction. But, if you enter 3/64, Excel will think you want to enter March 1964. If you enter 3/6, Excel will display March 6. To make sure Excel sees your entry as a fraction, you can enter fractions such as 3/64 as

? 3/64

which Excel will interpret as the fraction 3/64 (0.184615384615385) rather than March 1964.

MOVING BETWEEN EXCEL WORKSHEETS

If you're working with more than one worksheet in an Excel workbook, you can move between worksheets very quickly with a few keystrokes. Let's suppose you're working on Sheet 1 and you'd like to move to Sheet 2. Just press Ctrl + PageDown to move to Sheet 2 (the next sheet). To move to the previous sheet (Sheet 1 in this case), press Ctrl + PageUp.

PRINTING COLOR EXCEL WORKSHEETS ON A LASER PRINTER

Suppose that you'd like to use color in your Excel worksheets, but the only printer you have is black and white. You can still use color in the worksheets and you can print them in black and white. Choose File/Setup. Then click the Sheet tab. Under Print, select Black and White and click OK.

Note that some colors won't print as you might expect. Light colors often print as just white and some darker colors print as black. The only solution to this problem is to experiment with some colors and make test prints. Then try to stick with those colors in your worksheets.

ZOOM IN ON EXCEL

You probably know that you can zoom in on a worksheet to make the cell contents easier to see. But, did you know that you can zoom in on a range and have Excel choose just the right amount of zoom for your selection? Try this: enter some numbers into cells D5 through D9. Now, select the cells and choose View/Zoom. When the Zoom dialog box opens, select the 'Fit selection' radio button and click OK.

After you finish with the zoomed in view, you can simply press Ctrl + Z to undo the zoom. However, this won't work if you made any changes while in the zoomed view--the changes will get undone. In this case, choose View/Zoom again. When the Zoom dialog box opens, select the "100%" radio button and click OK.

USING EXCEL'S AUTOSUM

Suppose you enter

1

2

3

4

5

into cells A1 through A5 and now you want to sum them. So you click in cell A7 and then click the AutoSum button on Excel's toolbar (its icon is the Greek letter sigma). Excel will now enter a SUM formula into cell A7 and you can simply press Enter to get your sum.

However, when you use the AutoSum button, be sure to check the formulas Excel writes. In the example above, Excel will use the formula

=SUM(A1:A6)

which doesn't hurt anything because blank cells (A6 in this case) are not counted in a summation. It's a good idea to always check to make sure you're including the correct cells.

USING EXCEL'S CLEAN FUNCTION

When you import data into an Excel Worksheet, you may sometimes encounter nonprinting characters. These characters will appear as small rectangles in your cells. To get rid of these useless characters, you can use Excel's CLEAN function.

Let's suppose that you have some nonprinting characters in cell A1. You want to get rid of the nonprinting characters, but you need to keep the data. Try this: go to cell B1, type

clean (a1)

and press Enter. Cell B1 will now display the text or data that you need, but not the nonprinting character.

SETTING EXCEL'S FILE OPTIONS

By default, Excel saves its documents to My Documents. However, if you would like to have Excel save all your workbooks to some other folder, you can permanently change Excel's default folder. To do this, choose Tools/Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the General tab. Now, click in the entry box labeled "Default file location" and enter your new folder's path. Click OK to save your changes and close the dialog box.

HOW TO USE EXCEL'S LEFT FUNCTION

We were recently asked if there is any way to automatically extract only the first two digits of a column of numbers in Excel. To do this, use Excel's LEFT function. To see how this works, open a blank worksheet and enter some three-to-five digit numbers in cells A1 through A5. We used the following numbers:

12345

23456

34567

45678

56789

Now, go to cell B1 and enter: =left(a1,2)

Then select cell B1 and use the small handle at the bottom of the cell selection (the handle) and drag down to cell B5. Cells B1 through B5 will now display:

12

23

34

45

56

FINDING AND FIXING MISTAKES

Suppose you are reading over a program that you created and discover you misspelled the guest speaker's name. However, at least you misspelled it consistently--it's spelled the same way all through the document.

The best way to correct such an error is to use Word's Find and Replace feature. To do this, choose Edit/Replace to open the Find and Replace dialog box. Now enter the guest speaker's misspelled name in the "Find what" entry box. Next, enter the correct spelling in the "Replace with" box. Since you misspelled all occurrences of the name, click Replace All. Word will replace all the misspelled versions of the name with the correct spelling.

ADD FOOTNOTES

Having to put footnotes into a document is a real hassle with some word processors, but not with Word. You don't even have to worry about formatting or numbering the footnotes. Click where you want the footnote to appear and then choose Insert/Footnote. When the Footnote and Endnote dialog box opens, click OK to select the default settings--Footnote and Automatic numbering. When the Footnote window opens, type in your footnote text. When you finish entering the footnote, click Close to close the Footnote window. You don't have to worry about footnote numbering if you move or delete a footnote--Word automatically renumbers them. To view a footnote citation from your document text, just move the mouse pointer over the citation number you wish to view. A pop-up box appears to display the footnote text. You can also choose View/Footnotes to open the Footnote window for viewing or editing.

AUTOCORRECT IN POWERPOINT

When you often use the same words in your PowerPoint slides, why not take advantage of AutoCorrect to speed up your work? For example, if you work for Willy's Wonderful Widget World, you could enter wwww into AutoCorrect and let PowerPoint type in Willy's Wonderful Widget World whenever you type wwww.

To do this, choose Tools/AutoCorrect. Into the 'Replace' entry box, type

wwww (for our example)

and then type

Willy's Wonderful Widget World

into the 'With' entry box. Finally, click Add, then OK.

Now if you type in wwww, you'll get your company name as soon as you press Space, or any punctuation mark.

ANIMATING POWERPOINT CLIP ART

How would you like to have a ClipArt picture put itself together right before the audience's eyes? To see how to create this kind of animation, run PowerPoint and choose Insert/Picture/ClipArt. Right-click the picture you want to use and choose Insert to place it on your slide. We suggest you use the knife, fork, and spoon set found under Signs.

Now select the picture, then choose Draw/Ungroup. Next, choose Slide Show, Custom Animation. When the dialog box opens, click the Effects tab. In the "Check to animate slide objects" list, click the first object. Then hold down the Shift key and scroll down to select the last object. With all objects selected, click the arrow at the right side of the "Entry animation and sound" list box and select an effect.

Now click the Order & Timing tab and then select the radio button labeled Automatically. Click OK to close the dialog box and then press F5 to run the slide show. Each part of the ClipArt picture will appear as you instructed when you chose an effect.

CLIPART INFORMATION IN POWERPOINT

Suppose you decide to insert a particular ClipArt picture into a PowerPoint slide. How much do you really know about that picture? Do you know how large it is (in bytes)? What if you think you'd like to use the same picture again. Can you find it easily, or will you have to do a manual search?

You can get all this information very easily. Just run PowerPoint and choose Insert/Picture/ClipArt. When the Insert ClipArt dialog opens, locate a picture that you want to use. Right-click the picture and choose Clip Properties. This will open the Clip Properties dialog box, where you'll find the file size along with the name and path of the file. Since you now know the name of the file, you can save that information and locate the same picture again later. To locate the picture, choose Insert/Picture/ClipArt. Type the file name into the "Search for clips" entry box and press Enter.

INSERTING CLIPART IN POWERPOINT

You often need to insert more than one ClipArt picture into a PowerPoint slide. You don't have to keep closing and opening ClipArt to do this. Just right click the picture you want to use and choose Insert. Now, you can move to another picture and insert it using the same method. When you've finished inserting ClipArt, click the Close box (the X in the upper right corner) to close the Insert ClipArt dialog box.

A POWERPOINT COLOR EFFECT

Have you seen The Wizard of Oz lately? The film starts out in black and white. Then when Dorothy opens the door in Oz, the movie suddenly switches to full color. Why not try the same effect in a presentation?

To see how this would work, run PowerPoint and open a blank slide. Choose Insert/Picture/ClipArt and insert any picture. Now, choose Insert/Duplicate Slide to copy the slide. Go back to the first slide now, and select the picture by clicking it. When the Picture toolbar opens, click the Image Control button (second from the left) and choose Grayscale.

Now, choose Slide Show/View Show. When the first slide appears, click the mouse to move to the second slide. The ClipArt picture remains in place, but suddenly appears in color.

COOL POWERPOINT LABELS

Here's an effect that you can use to enhance some of your graphic objects in PowerPoint. Try this: run PowerPoint and open a blank slide. Now choose Insert/Picture/ClipArt. When the Insert ClipArt dialog box opens, select a picture, right-click it and choose Insert. Close the ClipArt dialog box.

Now, to create the effect, let's place a semitransparent white rectangle over a portion (or all) of the picture. To do this, click the Rectangle tool (in the Drawing toolbar) and draw the rectangle over whatever portion of the picture you choose. Next, right click the rectangle and choose Format AutoShape. When the dialog box opens, click the Colors and Lines tab. Under Fill, click the arrow at the right side of the Color list box and choose white. Select the check box labeled Semitransparent and click OK to close the dialog box and save your setting selection.

DRAWING LINES IN POWERPOINT

You know that you can draw a perfectly straight line in PowerPoint by holding down the Shift key while you draw the line. But, did you know that you can also draw the straight line at a perfect angle as well? To try this, click the Line tool and then hold down the Shift key while you draw a line. Without releasing the mouse button or the Shift key, move the mouse to drag the line around in a circle. The line will snap into position every 15 degrees.

AN OBJECT DRAWING MACRO FOR POWERPOINT

Here's a PowerPoint macro that automatically draws circles of random colors in random positions on a slide. The parameters are set to place the circles approximately in the center portion of a 10" X 7.5" (On-screen Show).

To enter the macro, run PowerPoint and open a new blank slide show. Choose File/Save As and name your slide show and save it. Next press Alt + F8 and click in the "Macro name" entry box and type in DrawCircles. Click Create and then enter the macro as shown here. Note that PowerPoint will add the Sub DrawCircles and End Sub lines for you.

Sub DrawCircles

Dim Index As Integer

Randomize

For Index = 1 To 50

With ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange

.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(Int((255 * Rnd) + 1), Int((255 * Rnd) + 1), Int((255 * Rnd) + 1))

.Fill.Visible = msoTrue

.Fill.Solid

End With

ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange.Duplicate.Select

With ActiveWindow.Selection.ShapeRange

.IncrementLeft Int((600 * Rnd) + 1)

.IncrementTop Int((350 * Rnd) + 1)

End With

Next

ActiveWindow.Selection.Unselect

End Sub

Press Alt + Q to return to your slide and press Alt + F8. Double-click DrawCircles and the macro will create 50 circles of a variety of colors. ActiveWindow.Selection.SlideRange.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeO val, 72#, 72#, 18#, 18#). Select

A POWERPOINT DRAWING TIP

If you click one of the PowerPoint Drawing tools (rectangle, ellipse), you can insert the object and open the Format AutoShape dialog box at the same time. Just click the tool you want to use and then double-click the slide. The object appears in the slide and PowerPoint automatically opens the Format AutoShape dialog box. After you make your formatting selections, click OK to close the dialog box and save your settings.

SMALL POWERPOINT FILES

If you're going on the road with a PowerPoint slide show, you want to keep your files as small as possible. One way to do this is to use JPG files rather than BMP. JPG files are ordinarily very highly compressed. And, although you may lose a bit to the compression, it's nothing that anyone will ever notice in a slide show.

ANIMATING POWERPOINT FIREWORKS

In the last tip, we showed you how to create the drawings you need for a fireworks display slide in PowerPoint. This time, we need to show you how to animate your drawings.

First, click the rocket to select it. Now choose Slide Show/Custom Animation. When the dialog box opens, click the Effects tab and then click the arrow at the right side of the top list box under ''Entry animation and sound." Select Fly from the list and then accept the default of "From Bottom" and click the arrow at the right side of the "After animation" list box and select Hide After Animation.

Under "Check to animate slide objects" click Explosion 1. Next, click the arrow at the right side of the "Entry animation and sound" list box and select Flash Once from the list. Click the arrow at the right side of the second list box under "Entry animation and sound" and select Explosion.

Click the Order & Timing tab now and select the radio button labeled "Automatically." Select the second object in the "Animation order" list and again select the "Automatically" radio button. Click OK to close the dialog box and record your settings.

Press F5 to run your slide show. The rocket should move up from the bottom and then disappear. The explosion figure will flash on the screen and you will hear the explosion sound.

FOURTH OF JULY FIREWORKS IN POWERPOINT

If you Americans out there didn't get enough fireworks back on Independence Day, or if the rest of you want to jazz up your presentation, try this animated fireworks display.

To create the slide, run PowerPoint and open a blank slide. Choose AutoShapes/Block Arrows/Chevron. Use the mouse to draw the chevron. Now, click the Free Rotate tool (it's near the bottom left of the PowerPoint window) and then use the mouse to rotate the chevron to a vertical position. This is your rocket. Move the rocket near the top of the slide.

With the rocket in place, you can now add some explosions to the slide. To do this, choose AutoShapes/Starts and Banners and choose one of the explosions. Use the mouse to draw the explosion over the rocket. With the explosion figure selected, click the arrow at the right side of the Fill Color button (its icon is a paint bucket) and select a color for your explosion. You will probably also want to recolor your rocket using Fill Color.

Once you get all your drawings in place, it's time to animate them. We'll show you how in the next tip.

IMPORTING INTO POWERPOINT

Many people like to work in Word as much as possible and then import the Word document into PowerPoint. To do this, run Word and open the document you want to use in PowerPoint. Now choose File/Send To/Microsoft PowerPoint. This will open PowerPoint and load the current Word document into a new slide show.

A POWERPOINT INTERMISSION ANIMATION

When you're presenting a PowerPoint slide show, you might want to use an animated slide during the intermission period. You can set this up to run continuously until you start the next part of the show.

As an example, suppose you create a slide that contains only the title of your presentation using WordArt (choose Insert/Picture/WordArt). With the WordArt in place, right click it and choose Custom Animation. Click the WordArt object to select it. Next click the arrow at the right side of the "Entry animation and sound" list box and select Swivel from the list. Now click the Order & Timing tab and select the "Automatically" radio button. Leave the timing at the default of 00:00 and click OK to close the dialog box and apply the settings. Click Slide Show/Set Up Show. When the dialog box opens, select the "Loop continuously until Esc'"check box and click OK to close the dialog box. Next choose Slide Show/Slide Transition and select the "Automatically after" check box. Set the time to two seconds and click Apply to close the dialog box and save your new selections. Now press F5 to view the animated slide.

MOVING AROUND IN POWERPOINT

When you want to go to the first slide in a PowerPoint slide show, you can simply press Ctrl + Home. If you want to go to the last slide in the show, press Ctrl + End.

You can navigate through a slide show by pressing the Page Up and Page Down keys.

POWERPOINT NOTES

When you rehearse a presentation, it's always a good idea to make some notes to yourself as you go along. One way to do this is to make the notes in PowerPoint itself. To do this, start your slide show. Now, right click anywhere on the screen and choose Speaker Notes from the pop-up menu. The Speaker Notes dialog box will open and you can enter your notes.

PRECISE OBJECT SELECTION IN POWERPOINT

There are times when you need to select a very small object in PowerPoint. Or perhaps you need to select an object that's hidden behind another object. Try this: press Esc to make sure that nothing is selected. Now, press the Tab key until the desired object is selected.

To see how this works, first draw a small rectangle. Next draw a larger rectangle over the small one so the small one is completely obscured. Press Esc to make sure all are deselected and then press Tab until the small rectangle is selected. You will see the handles to indicate that it's selected.

TRANSPARENT OBJECTS IN POWERPOINT

Let's suppose that you have a ClipArt picture on a PowerPoint slide. Now, you'd like to draw a circle over the picture and still have the picture show through. Try this:

Open a blank slide and choose Insert>>Picture>>ClipArt. Insert the picture and then close the Insert ClipArt dialog box. Now, click the Oval tool in the Drawing toolbar and draw your circle. Move the circle over the drawing as you want it to appear. Right-click the circle and choose Format AutoShape.

When the Format AutoShape dialog box opens, click the Colors and Lines tab. Under "Fill," click the arrow at the right side of the "Color" list box and select a color. Now, select the check box labeled "Semitransparent" and click OK.

Your ClipArt picture will now show through the circle.

WORKING WITH DEFINED POWERPOINT OBJECTS

We were recently asked by a new PowerPoint 2000 user why Microsoft puts titles in the defined text boxes. This PowerPoint user had been deleting all text from the boxes that weren't needed.

Microsoft put the text there as a guide. For example, you'll see "Click to add text," "Click to add Title," etc. None of this text will appear on your slide during a slide show. So you don't have to bother deleting it.

HOW TO RECOLOR A PICTURE IN POWERPOINT

Let's suppose that you have inserted a ClipArt picture onto a PowerPoint slide. The picture is just what you want, except that the dress the cartoon woman is wearing is red and you'd rather it be green. No problem (or least, no big problem). All you have to do is right click the picture and choose Format Picture. When the Format Picture dialog box appears, click the Picture tab and then click Recolor.

When the Recolor Picture dialog box opens, click the arrows at the right side of the "New" color list boxes and select your new colors. When you finish, click OK. Back in the Format Picture dialog box, click OK again to close the dialog box and record your selections.

SIZING PICTURES IN POWERPOINT

Sizing pictures in PowerPoint slides is an easy job. All you have to do is grab the picture by a corner and drag.

This should increase the picture size without changing the aspect ratio. But, if you want to be absolutely sure that you don't change the aspect ratio, hold down Ctrl while you use the mouse to size the picture.

QUICKLY ACCESS THE POWERPOINT SLIDE MASTER

In PowerPoint 2000, you can access the various views using the small toolbox at the bottom left side of the window. If you move your mouse pointer over these buttons, you'll see the function of each. But, you won't see "Slide Master." So, what if you want to open the Slide Master? Just hold down the Shift key and click the Slide View button.

ANIMATING POWERPOINT SLIDE SHOWS

Let's suppose that you would like to move a PowerPoint object very quickly from one point on a slide to another point. Many new PowerPoint users try to do this with multiple slides. However, the best way to handle a fast motion is to use only two slides--one with the object in its original position, and another with the object in its new position. It is interpreted as a very fast motion.

To see how this works, run PowerPoint and open a blank slide. Choose Insert/Picture/ClipArt and select a picture. Move the picture to the center of the slide and then click the picture to select it. Next, press Ctrl + C to copy the picture to the Clipboard, and then press Ctrl + M + Enter to insert a new slide. Press Ctrl + V to copy the picture to the new slide. Now move the picture to the right side of the slide. Now, run the slide show to see how your animation looks.

CUSTOM POWERPOINT SLIDE SHOWS

Suppose you have to go on the road with a slide show. The show is basically for all the sites you will visit, but site 1 needs to see one group of slides and site 2, a slightly different group. You don't have to create two or more slide shows. Just use PowerPoint's custom slide show feature.

Run PowerPoint and open a blank slide. Create three or four new slides and Insert/Picture/ClipArt to place a ClipArt picture on each of the new slides to help you see what is happening. In slide view, choose Slide Show/Custom Shows. When the Custom Shows dialog box opens, click New. Type in a name for your new custom show (anything you want).

You'll see the slides in your new show listed under "Slides in presentation." Let's suppose that you created a show with four slides. Click Slide 1 and then hold down Ctrl while you click Slide 3. After you select the slides you want in your custom show, click Add. Now click OK to close the dialog box and apply your selections. Back in Custom Shows, click Close to close the dialog box.

To start your custom presentation. Choose Slide Show, Custom Shows. When the Custom Shows dialog box opens, select the custom show you just created and click Show. PowerPoint will run the slide show using only the slides that you added to the custom show. When you choose Slide Show, View Show, PowerPoint will display all the slides in your original show. And, of course, you can create more than one custom slide show.

HOW TO LOOP POWERPOINT SLIDES

Suppose you want to place a monitor that continually shows a PowerPoint slide show in your store window. The best way to do this is to choose the Kiosk mode. Run PowerPoint and open your slide show. Now, choose Slide Show>>Set Up Show. When the dialog box opens, select the "Browsed at a kiosk (full screen)" radio button and click OK to close the dialog box and save your selection.

You'll need to set up some timings, so choose Slide Show>>Slide Transition. Select the check box labeled "Automatically after" and set the time you want between slides. Click Apply to All to set all the slide timings to the same value and close the dialog box.

You'll need to press Esc to stop the show.

PHOTOS IN POWERPOINT SLIDES

A number of people have asked about inserting photographs from a digital camera into a PowerPoint slide. This is a practical way to get some good pictures into your slides, but you have to be careful of the size of the photo. Some photos are very large and will take a significant amount of time to load.

It's probably best if you use the software that came with your camera to size the pictures before you insert them into PowerPoint.

WIDESCREEN POWERPOINT SLIDES

We were recently asked if there was a way to get wide pictures onto a PowerPoint slide. What we suggest is that you change the aspect ratio of the slide that you want to place the wide picture on. To do this, you can choose File>>Page Setup. When the dialog box opens, leave the width as it is and change the height to 4 inches (just as an example). Now, choose Insert>>Picture>>From File and insert the wide picture. This slide will appear on the screen looking much like the letterbox movies you see on TV.

SMALLER POWERPOINT FILES

When you create a PowerPoint presentation to go on the road, you'll want to have the smallest files possible. One way to achieve this goal is to avoid using BMP files and use JPG instead. JPG files are usually highly compressed, and you really can't tell the difference between the qualities of the two images when shown on a screen.

REHEARSING POWERPOINT TIMING

When you want to run your PowerPoint slide show automatically, you need to set the appropriate timing for each slide. To do this, open the slide show you want to work with and choose Slide Show/Rehearse Timings. When the slide show opens, you'll see a small timer on the screen. Watch the timer and decide when you need to move to the next slide. When ready, click the screen to move to the next slide. The timer will reset to zero and begin timing your new slide. When you reach the last slide, PowerPoint will ask if you want to save the timings. Click Yes if you're happy with the timings and No if you're not happy.

MAKING PERFECT SHAPES IN OFFICE 2000

Someone recently commented that it was very hard to make a perfect circle in a PowerPoint slide. Well, the fact is it's very easy to make a perfect circle, square, or any other shape in PowerPoint, Word, or Excel. All you need to do is click the object button (Oval, Rectangle) in the Drawing toolbar. Then hold down the Shift key while you draw the circle. If you select the Oval tool, you'll get a perfect circle. If you select the Rectangle tool, you'll get a perfect square. If you click the Line tool and then hold down Shift while you draw, you'll get a perfectly straight line. The same technique works with AutoShapes.

CHANGE THE SIDEBAR BORDER

You may not care much for the default text box border on your Word sidebar--perhaps you would like a heavier border instead. So, let's take a look at how you can make your sidebar border a bit thicker. To do this, move the mouse pointer over the sidebar (text box) border. When the pointer changes to a four-headed arrow, right-click and choose Format Text Box. When the Format Text Box dialog box opens, click the Colors and Lines Tab. Now, click the up arrow at the right side of the 'Weight' spin box to increase the line thickness. When the line reaches the correct thickness, click OK to close the dialog box and apply your new border settings.

INSERTING A SIDEBAR

Do you have text in your Word document that you want to really stand out? If so, why not use a sidebar? To create a sidebar, run Word 2000 and choose Insert/Text Box. The mouse pointer will change to a crosshairs. When it does, double-click the mouse button to insert your text box and open the Format Text Box dialog box. When the dialog box opens, click the Layout tab. Next click the text wrapping option that you want to use. In most cases, you would want your document text to wrap around the text box, so click either 'Square' or 'Tight' and then click OK to close the dialog box and apply your selections.

Now, you are ready to add your sidebar text. Click in the text box and choose Format, Font. When the Font dialog box opens, select the font and font size you want to use for your sidebar and click OK to apply your new selections and close the dialog box. Now type in your text. You can use the mouse to size the sidebar and place it in your document. To do this, click the text box border to select it. Now when you move the mouse pointer over the border, the pointer will turn to a double-arrow at the corners. When the pointer is a double arrow, you can drag to size the text box. When the pointer turns to a four-headed arrow, you can drag the text box to a new location.

RUNNING THE WINDOWS CALCULATOR FROM EXCEL

As you most likely know, there is a very nice calculator in Windows 9x/Me/2000. When you're working with Excel and need a calculator, you can click Start and choose Programs, etc. But, let's make things a bit cooler than that. Let's put a calculator button in the Excel toolbar. Here's how.

Run Excel and choose View/Toolbars/Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Commands tab. Now, under "Categories" click on Tools. Scroll down through the "Commands" list and locate the calculator icon (it's labeled "Custom"). Drag the icon to your toolbar and release the mouse button. Now, you can simply click the new toolbar icon to open the calculator.

EXCEPTIONS TO THE WORD AUTOCORRECT RULES

Many Word users aren't aware of the AutoCorrect exception list. Let's say that you commonly use an abbreviation such as tty. in your documents. You wouldn't want to start a new sentence every time you use the abbreviation so you'd add that word to the Exception list. To view the Exception list, choose Tools/AutoCorrect. When AutoCorrect opens, click Exceptions. To add tty. to the Exceptions list, type the abbreviation into the "Don't capitalize after" entry box and then click Add. Click OK to close the dialog box and record your entry. When you get back to AutoCorrect, click OK to close the dialog box.

AUTO CORRECTING PARTIAL WORDS IN WORD

Here's a little-used Word 2000 feature for you--you can use AutoCorrect to correct partial words. For example, if you commonly type the ending 'tion' as 'toin,' you could configure AutoCorrect to correct just the ending.

To do this, choose Tools/AutoCorrect. When AutoCorrect opens, type

toin

into the 'Replace' entry box. Now, type

tion

into the 'With' entry box. Click Add, then click OK.

If you now type in 'natoin' AutoCorrect will turn it into 'nation'. Note that you must be very careful about correcting partial words. You could end up incorrectly correcting correct words, turning them into incorrect words.

BULLETS FOR WORD

Making bulleted lists in Word is almost too easy. You don't even have to choose any menu commands. All you have to do is type

* (asterisk)

followed by a space. Then type in your sentence and press Enter. Word will automatically insert the default bullet for you.

When you finish with your bulleted list, simply press Enter twice and Word will terminate the bulleting.

USING DROP CAPS IN WORD

Drop caps can greatly enhance your Word documents. But be careful -- it's very easy to overdo drop caps. To see how drop caps work, run Word and open a blank document. Type in a sentence or two and then click anywhere in the new text. Now choose Format>>Drop Cap. When the dialog box opens, click Dropped and then click OK.

A CLOSE BUTTON FOR WORD

In the Word toolbar, you'll see buttons for New, Open, and Save. But, there is no button for Close. If you would like to add a Close button to Word, right-click the toolbar and choose Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Commands tab. Now, scroll down through the commands (the right side of the dialog box) and locate the Close icon. Use your mouse to drag the icon to your toolbar next to the Open button. Click Close to close the dialog box and save your new selection.

WORD COLUMNS

With school starting up again, perhaps it's time to start brushing up on some of those Word features that can help you produce great papers. One way to get a more professional look in some of your papers is to use columns like a newsletter. To make a two-column paper, choose Format/Columns. When the Columns dialog box opens, look under "Presets" and double click "Two.

AUTO SUMMARIZE A WORD DOCUMENT

Have you tried Word's AutoSummarize feature yet? To check this out, load a document and then choose Tools/AutoSummarize. When the AutoSummarize dialog box opens, select the type of summary you want to apply. For example, you can click "Create a new document and put the summary there." Click OK to continue. A new document will open and display your summary. You can edit the summary, and then save it under any name you choose.

You'll need to check the different forms of AutoSummarize to get a feel for how they work. Note that it's very unlikely that Word will create just the summary you need--the odds are good that you'll need to do some editing.

ADDING A DOCUMENT BUTTON

Did you know that you can place buttons for your documents on the Office Shortcut toolbar? To do this, right-click the toolbar and choose Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Buttons tab. Now, click Add File. When the Add File dialog opens, locate the file you want to add and double-click its icon. When you get back to Customize, click OK to close the dialog box and record your selection. Your selected document button will now appear in the Office Shortcut toolbar.

GO TO THE NEXT WORD DOCUMENT

In Word for Windows 2000, you can use several methods to move between two open documents. Two of the methods common to Word 97 and Word 2000 are:

• choosing Window from the menu and then choosing another document, or
• pressing Ctrl + F6.

In Word 2000, you can also press Alt + Tab to move between documents. Take your pick.

HOW TO OPEN WORD WITH NO DOCUMENT

When you open Word, there is always a new blank document present so you can start typing immediately. If you'd prefer to have Word open with no document at all, there is a way.

To open Word with no document, you'll need to modify the shortcut that you use to run Word. To do this, right-click the shortcut and choose Properties. When the Properties dialog box opens, click the Shortcut tab. Now click in the "Target" text entry box and use the arrow keys to move to the end of the line. Make sure the line is not selected. Now, press Space and then add

/n

to the end of the existing line. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your new Word switch.

STARTING WHERE YOU LEFT OFF IN A WORD DOCUMENT

When you open Word and load the document you were working on the day before, the cursor always appears at the top of the document. So you have to locate where you left off to continue your work. This is often a real pain if you're working with a long document and you were not working at the end of that document when you closed Word. To get back to where you left off, run Word, load the document and then press Shift+ F5. Word will place the cursor just where it was when you last closed the program.

PRINTING WORD DOCUMENTS FROM THE WINDOWS EXPLORER

Did you know that you can print a Word document from the Windows Explorer? Try this: run Windows Explorer and locate a Word (*.doc) file. Select the file and choose File>>Print. Word will open, print the document using the default printer, and then close.

If you like, you can even print more than one document. Just select the first document and then hold down the Ctrl key while you select other documents. Then choose File>>Print.

SEARCHING FOR PARAGRAPHS IN A WORD DOCUMENT

We were asked if there is a way to quickly locate paragraphs marks in Word 200. What you do is press Ctrl + F to open the Find and Replace dialog box. Type into the 'Find what' entry box:

^p

and then click Find Next. Word will locate a new paragraph mark each time you click Find Next. Note that this works even when the paragraph marks aren't visible.

INSERTING A WATERMARK INTO A WORD DOCUMENT

A watermark is a very light graphic that appears on document pages. The normal text of the document appears over the watermark. For example, you might like to have your company logo appear as a watermark on some of your documents.

To test this, open a blank document and choose Insert/Picture/Clip Art. When the Insert Clip Art dialog box opens, select a picture and insert it into the document. Size and locate the picture as you like. Right-click the picture and choose Format Picture. When the Format Picture dialog box appears, click the Picture tab (if necessary) and then click the arrow at the right side of the 'Color' list box. Select Watermark from the list. Next click the Layout tab and then double-click 'Behind text.' Finally, click OK to close the dialog box and save your watermark.

QUICKLY CHANGING CASE IN WORD DOCUMENTS

Suppose you've just finished writing a paper for school in Word 2000, when you notice that some of your capitalization is incorrect. You can select the word and choose Format/Change Case and go from there. But, if you'd rather not use the mouse, you can simply click inside the word you want to change and press Shift + F3. Each time you press Shift + F3, Word will move to a new case type. Just keep pressing the key combination until you get the one you want.

APPLY DROP CAPS TO WORDS IN WORD DOCUMENTS

You know that you can apply drop caps to the first letter in a sentence, but what do you do if you'd like to apply drop caps to the first word of a sentence? What you do is simply select the entire word and then choose Format/Drop Cap. When the Drop Cap dialog box opens, click the type of drop you want to use and then click OK to record your changes and close the dialog box.

INTERNET LINKS IN WORD DOCUMENTS

When you send someone a Word document via email, it's very easy to imbed any Internet links that you would like the recipients to view. All you have to do is type in a URL (use http://). You will notice that the link appears in underlined blue. If you (or your recipients) click the link, your system will dial the ISP (if necessary) and navigate to that link.

If this fails to work for you, then that Word option has been disabled. To enable it, choose Tools/AutoCorrect. When the AutoCorrect dialog box opens, click the AutoFormat As You Type tab. Select the check box labeled "Internet and networks paths with hyperlinks." Click OK to close the dialog box and record your selections.

FINDING THE NEXT OCCURENCE IN WORD DOCUMENTS

Not long ago, we did a tip on how to repeat a Find in Word. We suggested clicking double down arrow at the bottom of the scroll bar. Since then, several readers have pointed out that you can use keystrokes to repeat a find. All you have to do is press Shift + F4 or Alt + Ctrl + Y.

To check this out, open a document in Word and press Ctrl + F to open the Find and Replace dialog box. Type in "the" and click Find Next. When Word finds the first occurrence of "the," click Cancel to close the dialog box. Now press Shift + F4 and Word will move to the next "the." After you do this a few times, press Alt + Ctrl + Y and you'll discover that it works just the same as Shift + F4.

HOW TO REPEAT FIND IN MICROSOFT WORD

Suppose that you want to use Find to locate all occurrences of a particular word. You press Ctrl + F to open the Find and Replace dialog box and type in your word. Then you click Find Next and locate one occurrence of your word. You close the Find dialog box, but later on, you want to find another occurrence of the same word.

One way to do this is to click the blue double-down arrows on the vertical scrollbar. If you want to search backward rather than forward, click the blue double-up arrows.

PLACE THE CURRENT FILE NAME INTO THE WORD FOOTER

A friend recently asked if there is some way to get Word to automatically put the name of the current document into the document footer. You can do this with a macro. To write the macro, run Word and press F11 to open the VBA editor. If you don't currently have any modules, click Normal and choose Insert, Module. Now, add the following code as shown here.

Sub InsertInFooter()

Dim ThisFile As String

ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Type = wdPageView

ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekCurrentPageHeader

If Selection.HeaderFooter.IsHeader = True Then

ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekCurrentPageFooter

Else

ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekCurrentPageHeader

End If

ThisFile = ActiveDocument.Name

Selection.TypeText ThisFile

ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.SeekView = wdSeekMainDocument

ActiveWindow.View.Type = wdNormalView

End Sub

Press Ctrl + S to save your new macro and then press Alt + Q to return to your Word document. Now you can press Alt + F8 to open the Macros dialog box, then double-click InsertInFooter to run the macro. Note that this will add the document name to the footer each time you run the macro. So you should run this macro only once for a given document.

CUSTOMIZED WORD GRAMMAR

If you're mostly writing letters and other friendly documents in Word 2000, then you may find the Grammar checker just a bit more rigid than you'd like. You can easily correct this. Just run Word and choose Tools>>Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Spelling & Grammar tab. Click the arrow at the right side of the "writing style" list box. From the expanded list choose "Casual." Click OK to close the dialog box and save your selection. You'll find that Word is now much more lenient in the grammar department than before.

SPELL CHECK YOUR WORD HEADINGS

When you spell check a Word document, you may find that the headings don't get checked. To correct this, run Word and choose Tools/Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Spelling & Grammar tab. If you use all uppercase letters in your headings, make sure you deselect the check box labeled "Ignore words in UPPERCASE" and click OK to close the dialog box.

If this doesn't solve your problem, click on one of your headings and then choose Format/Style. When the Style dialog box opens, click Modify. In the Modify Style dialog box, select the check boxes labeled "Add to template" and "Automatically update" and then click Format and choose Language from the list.

With your language selected, look to see if "Do not check spelling or grammar" is selected. If it is, deselect it and click OK. Back in Modify Style, click OK to close the dialog box. In Style again, click Apply to apply your new setting and close the dialog box.

USAING A LINE BREAK IN WORD

Suppose you're typing along and you really could use a break in the text. The problem is if you press Enter, you'll get a paragraph break. But, if you want to start a new line and don't want to start a new paragraph, you can just use a line break. To do this, just press Shift + Enter. Now you can start a new line in the same old paragraph.

A WORD MACRO SHORTCUT

To record a Word macro, choose Tools/Macro/Record New Macro. Then click OK in the Record Macro dialog box to start recording.

However, you can also open the Record Macro dialog box with a simple double-click. Look at the status bar at the very bottom of the Word window. There you'll find a button labeled REC. Although this button appears grayed out, you can double-click it to open Record Macro.

When you start recording, you'll notice that the REC button is no longer grayed out. This indicates that recording is active.

CHANGING THE OFFICE 2000 ASSISTANT

If you don't mind the Office Assistant, but you are getting sick of the obnoxious paperclip, why not try one of the other cartoons? To do this, run Word (or Excel) and press F1 to open the Office Assistant. Click Options and when the dialog box opens, click the Gallery tab. Click Next (repeatedly) to see what characters are available and select the one you like. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your selection. If you didn't load all the characters when you install Office 2000, you'll need to insert your installation disc and follow the instructions from there.

CHANGING THE WORD FONT SIZE

There is a very easy way to change the font size in a Word document. All you have to do is select the text you want to change and then press Shift + Ctrl + < (less-than sign) to make the font smaller and Shift + Ctrl + > (greater-than sign) to make the font size larger.

USING THE OFFICE ASSISTANT IN WORD MACROS

Even if you don't care for the Office Assistant in general, you might like to use it in a Word macro. The following macro simply counts the number of occurrences of Heading 8.

You can change this to suit yourself by changing the .Style = wdStyleHeading8 line. To enter the macro, press Alt + F8. When the dialog box opens, click Create and enter the macro as shown.

Sub Count()

Dim Counter As Integer

With ActiveDocument.Content.Find.ClearFormatting.Style = wdStyleHeading8

Do While .Execute(FindText:="", Forward:=True, Format:=True) = True Counter = Counter + 1

Loop

End With

With Assistant.FileName = "Clippit.act".Visible = True

End With

With Assistant.NewBalloon.BalloonType = msoBalloonTypeButtons.Heading = "Article Count".Text = Str(Counter) + " Articles".Show

End With

With Assistant.FileName = "Clippit.act".Visible = False

End With

End Sub

Press Alt + Q to return to Word. To run the macro, press Alt + F8 and double-click Count.

FINDING YOUR PLACE IN WORD

When you work on long documents in Word (a History paper, for example), it's very easy to lose track of where you were working before you moved the cursor. This isn't really a problem though, because Word keeps track of the last three locations where you edited text.

If you open your document and press Shift + F5, Word will take you to the last place you typed in, or modified, some text. Press Shift + F5 again, and you'll go to the place before the last. Press the keys once more and Word will jump to two places before the last.

USING CAPTIONS FOR WORD PICTURES

If you're composing a newsletter, or some other type of document that needs figures, you can get to add captions to your figures. Suppose you'd like to just call the figures Figure 1 through Figure X. Right-click the graphic object and choose Caption. When the Caption dialog box opens, accept the default settings and click OK. Word will insert 'Figure 1' below the picture. Right-click the next picture and choose Caption, then click OK. Word will insert 'Figure 2' below the picture. Continue until you have captions for all your graphics.

EDITING IN WORD PRINT PREVIEW

Although we tend to think of Word's Print Preview as just a way to see how a document will look when printed, you can also use it to touch up your documents. For example, suppose you need to make a few changes in the text to get the document to look its best when printed. Here's how:

Choose File/Print Preview. Click the area of the document that you want to edit and Word will zoom in on that area. Now, click the Magnifier button to deactivate it. When the cursor changes to the standard I beam, you can start editing. When you finish editing, you can click Close to exit Print Preview mode.

THUMBNAIL PRINTING IN WORD

It's very easy to print thumbnails when you use Word 2000. Suppose you'd like to print as many as 16 pages of your current document on a single sheet of paper for layout inspection (or just for the heck of it). All you have to do is choose File/Print. When the Print dialog box opens, click the arrow at the right side of the 'Pages per sheet' list box and select 16 (or 1, 2, 4, 6, or 8). Click OK to print.

WORD RULER TIP

Sometimes the Word ruler is handy to have on the screen. But 99 percent of the time all the ruler does is take up screen real estate. So, we like to keep the ruler turned off. However, for those times we do need to see the ruler, we just move the mouse pointer near the bottom edge of the toolbar (where the ruler would be if the ruler were there) and the ruler appears. To turn off the ruler, choose View/Ruler. You can turn it back on the same way--it's a toggle command.

HOW TO DISPLAY SHORTCUT KEYS IN WORD SCREENTIPS

When you move the mouse pointer over a Word toolbar button, a screen tip will open to inform you of that object's function. You can also get Word to show you any shortcut keys that might apply to a button. To do this, run Word and choose Tools/Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Options tab. Now, select the check box labeled "Show shortcut keys in ScreenTips" and click OK.

Note that this change will affect Word and PowerPoint, but will not apply to Excel.

ADDING A BLANK SPACE ABOVE A WORD TABLE

You may not have noticed this, but you can now add a blank space above a Word table that appears at the top of a page. All you have to do is place your cursor in the first row of your table and press Enter. Word inserts a paragraph above the table. This only works when the table is at the top of a page. Of course, if the table is not at the top of the page, you can insert a new paragraph anyway. This feature is new to Word 2000.

WORD TABLES

Do you need to make a list in Word 2000? Let's suppose that you want to make a list of books, authors, and publication dates. Run Word and open a blank document. Now choose Table/Insert/Table. When the Insert Table dialog box opens, enter 3 into the 'Number of columns' entry box (you can type in a 3, or you can use the up and down arrows to enter the number). Click OK to close the dialog box and continue.

Note that you don't need to set the number of rows right now. Into the first row, type the heading names (for our example, Book, Author, Publisher, Publication Date). Now, add the first book and its related information. To add another book, you will need another row. So, click in the last row and choose Table/Insert/Rows Below. Each time you add a new book, you'll have to insert a new row, so just repeat the described procedure and enter your new book. Don't forget to save your document when you add a new book.

ADDING CAPTIONS TO WORD TABLES

Suppose you've already added a number of tables to a Word document. Now, you'd like to add caption to the tables. You don't have to redo anything, just click the table to select it and then choose Insert>>Caption. When the Caption dialog box opens, select the kind of caption you want to use and click OK.

SORTING A WORD TABLE

In the last tip, we showed you how to create a sample book list using a Word table. Now, let's look at how to sort that list. Let's say that you want to sort the list alphabetically by book title. Run Word and choose File/Open. Now, double-click Booklist.doc to open your Booklist document. Next, click in the table and choose Table/Select/Table. With the table selected, choose Table/Sort. When the Sort dialog box opens, click OK to accept the defaults (sort ascending by Column One). Since Column One is the book titles in our sample table, Word will now sort the table alphabetically by title. Of course, you could also sort by author or publisher. All you need to do is select the column you want to sort by in the Sort dialog box. Make sure you select the entire table before you sort--otherwise, you will lose the association between the columns

ALIGNING TEXT IN WORD

Let's imagine that you have already written a rather long document. Now, you see that a portion of the text would look much better centered. You don't have to redo any part of your document. All you have to do is select the text you want to center and press Ctrl + E. You can apply any format to selected text. Select the text and press Ctrl + E to center the selection, Ctrl + L to align to the left, or Ctrl + R to align it to the right.

SOME WORD TEXT SELECTION HINTS

You know that you can double-click a word to select it in a Word document. You can also drag the mouse to select a large area of text. But, what do you do if you want to select a single line? You move the cursor to the left of the line of text you want to select until the cursor turns into a pointer. Then you click. To select an entire sentence, press Ctrl and click inside the sentence.

SPARKLING TEXT IN WORD

If you create documents that people will read on the computer, you can add a bit of spice to your text. Open a Word document and select some text. Now, choose Format/Font. When the Font dialog box opens, click the Text Effects tab. Now, click one of the text effects--Sparkle Text, for example. Now click OK to close the dialog box and apply your selection.

We were once asked why the sparkle didn't work on the printout. Please don't ask that--we don't know.

DRAGGIN WORD TEXT WITH THE RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON

If you select text in Word 2000 and then use the mouse to drag it to a new location, the text moves to that new location and it no longer exists at the original location.

However, if you use the right mouse button to drag selected text to a new location, Word will open a menu offering you some choices. You can move the text, copy the text, create a hyperlink, or just create a link.

MOVING WORD TEXT

As you probably know, you can select text in Word and then drag the selected text to a new location using the mouse. Here is another way to move text in Word. Select some text and then hold down Shift + Alt while you use the Up and Down arrows to move the text.

GENERATING TEST TEXT IN WORD

When you need to type some text into a Word document for test purposes, don't waste your time--let Word do the job for you. Let's say that you would like to type in a single four-sentence paragraph. Just click at a blank line in your document, type =rand(1,4) and press Enter. Word will automatically type:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

The first number inside the parentheses is the number of paragraphs and the second number is the number of sentences in each paragraph. So, for 22 paragraphs of 22 sentences, you'd enter =rand(22,22).

MOVING OR REMOVING WORD TOOLBAR BUTTONS

If you don't like the Word toolbar and menu arrangement, you can move the buttons around to suit yourself. Suppose that you'd rather have the View menu at the right side, between Table and Window. Just hold down the Alt key and use the mouse to drag the View menu to the area between Table and Window, then release the mouse button. The menu may open when you do this. Pay no attention--it won't hurt a thing.

You can change any menu or button location using this method. Just hold down Alt and drag. Suppose there are some button or menus that you don't want at all. Just hold down Alt and drag the item away from the toolbar.

USING THE WORD TOOLBAR

You can access most of the Word functions using the menu bar. But, if you prefer, you can use the toolbar buttons. Some of the button functions are made obvious by their icons. Others are more obscure. To find out what a button does, just move the mouse pointer over the button and leave it there for a few seconds. A tool tip will open and display the button's name.

TOOLBARS IN WORD

You can use the mouse to drag toolbars to a document window. If you drag a toolbar to one side of the window, it will anchor there. However, if the toolbar has a text box (such as the Formatting toolbar in Word), you'll only see the text box if the toolbar is anchored in a horizontal position (at the top or bottom of the screen). If you anchor such a toolbar on a side where it must become vertical, the text boxes turn into buttons. They aren't lost; they just changed size to fit into the space allowed them.

ENTERING USER INFORMATION IN WORD

We were recently asked if there is a way to change the user name in Word. The question was from a person who had taken over a computer previously used by someone else.

To enter a user name in Word 2000, choose Tools/Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the User Information tab. Now, enter your name, etc. and then click OK to close the dialog box and record your new entry.

VIEWING SPECIAL FILES IN WORD

Let's imagine that you have a large number of files in your Word data folder. These files are not all DOC files--some are RTF, some are TXT, etc. So, you choose File/Open and then click the arrow at the right side of the 'File of type' list box and select 'All Files (*.*). Now click Cancel.

The next time you choose File/Open, you will see all the files in your data folder. What if you want to see only RTF files right now, but, you don't want to change 'Files of type' each time you need a new file? What you do is choose File/Open and type in the 'File name' entry box '*.rtf'. Now, only the RTF files will appear and you can make your selection.

WORRYING ABOUT A WORD VIRUS

As we all know by now, there are a number of evil virus infections awaiting the unwary Word user. The viruses usually come to us via email and then infect Word when you attempt to read the infected Word document.

So, what can we do? First of all, we can be very careful about reading Word documents that come to us from strangers. Even Word documents that come from friends could be infected. It's best to ask the sender if they have had any virus problems. And, finally, you should virus check your email. Note that the only absolutely effective way to avoid these infections is to never read an emailed document.

PREVIEWING WEB PAGES IN WORD

When you create Web pages in Word (and many people do), you don't have to leave Word and run a browser to see how your Web page looks. All you have to do is choose File/Web Page Preview. This will cause your default browser (whether it's Internet Explorer, Netscape, or something else) to open with your current page loaded.

TURNING OFF WORD'S ADAPTIVE MENUS

Word 2000 uses menus that display only a few basic commands. After a pause, Word will finally display all the commands. If you don't like this feature--and most people don't--here's how to turn it off.

Choose Tools/Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Options tab. Now, deselect the check box labeled 'Menus show recently used commands first' and then click Close to dismiss the dialog box.

ADDING TO WORD'S AUTOCORRECT

When you need to add a word to AutoCorrect, you choose Tools>>AutoCorrect, type in your word and click Add. Then you click OK to close the dialog box and apply the correction. But you can shorten this up some. All you have to do is enter your word and press Enter twice -- one time for Add, and again for OK.

USING WORD'S AUTOSHAPES

You know you can insert drawings into Word documents, but why not check out AutoShapes to see what they have to offer. First of all, you'll need the Drawing toolbar. If it isn't visible, choose View/Toolbars/Drawing. In the Drawing toolbar, click the AutoShapes button to expand the menu. In Basic Shapes, you'll find a happy face, a heart, a lightning bolt, and other potentially useful shapes. All you have to do is select the shape you want to use and then draw it with the mouse. You can now use the mouse to resize your drawing and to move it into a new location.

WORD'S FORMATTING MARKS

Word's formatting marks are not displayed by default.

However, you might want to consider displaying them to help you better see the structure of your documents. For example, with all the formatting marks displayed, you can see how many spaces there are between words, you can see the paragraph marks, and you can see the tabs.

To turn on the formatting mark display, choose Tools/Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the View tab. Under "Formatting marks" select the check box labeled "All." Or you can select only those check boxes that represent the marks you want to see. After you make your selection, click OK to close the dialog box.

USING WORD'S WORK MENU

Here's a cool Word feature that not everyone knows about. Word includes a hidden command named Work. With the Work menu in place, you can choose Work/Add To Work Menu to add the current open document. You can add as many documents as you want and then open any document by selecting it from the Work menu.

To add the Work menu to your toolbar, choose Tools/Customize. When the dialog box opens, click the Commands tab. Now, under 'Categories,' click Built-in Menus. In the 'Commands' list, locate Work and drag it to the toolbar wherever you'd like it to appear.