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General Windows Stuff Back to listOPTIONS FOR MOVING, COPYING, OR CREATING A SHORTCUT--PART 1 OF 2The next time you need to move or copy an icon, or create a shortcut, keep in mind that you have options. You can right-click and drag an icon (or selection of icons) to the desired destination, release the mouse button, and select Move Here, Copy Here, or Create Shortcut(s) Here (or Cancel, to forget the whole thing). Alternatively, you can rely on the Shift and Ctrl keys. Hold down Shift as you drag and drop an icon to move that item; or hold down Ctrl to copy that icon. In our next tip, one more option for moving and copying icons, and creating shortcuts... FULL-SCREEN VIDEO CLIPS Back to listThe next time you drag out your Windows 95 installation CD, take a minute to turn your monitor into a TV screen. Open the Control Panel--select Start, Settings, Control Panel--and double-click Multimedia. Select the Video tab and, in the dropdown list next to Window, select Show Video In Full Screen. Click OK and now play that video. Instead of displaying the clip inside a puny window, the image stretches from one edge of the screen to another. (A little distortion is a small price to pay for good entertainment.) Lost without your controls? Press Esc to exit. CHANGE BEHAVIOR OF SCANDISK AT STARTUP Back to list"I have a computer that is never shut down and, for security reasons, needs a password to unlock the keyboard. Occasionally, someone will try to get into this computer by rebooting it. Windows then comes up with the Not Shut Down Properly message and wants to run Scandisk. Since the keyboard is locked, no one can press any key to continue, so there it sits. Is there any way to tell Windows 95 not to want to run Scandisk after an improper shutdown, or to have Scandisk run without pressing a key?" By adding one of the lines below to the hidden, read-only MSDOS.SYS file in C:\, you can change the behavior of Scandisk on Windows boot-up. AUTOSCAN=0 Shuts off this feature AUTOSCAN=1 Is the default AUTOSCAN=2 Does the scan with no prompting
RIGHT-CLICK" WITH THE KEYBOARDDid you know you can "right-click" an item without ever lifting your fingers off the keyboard. With that item--folder, file, whatever--selected, hold down the Shift key and press F10. While you're at it, use your keyboard's up and down arrow keys to select the command you want, then press Enter. INVERT SELECTION Back to listThe next time you need to select most of the files in an open Explorer window--single- or double-paned--don't waste your time holding down Ctrl and clicking each one by hand. It's much easier to select the ones you don't need, and then let Windows reverse your selection. Inside an open window, hold down Ctrl as you select the file(s) you don't want to select (sounds backwards, but wait and see what happens). Select Edit, Invert Selection, and Windows turns your selection inside out! ADD DESKTOP TO SEND TO MENU Back to listDo you frequently move items to your desktop? Add this common destination to your Send To menu, and from then on, you can accomplish the move using the right mouse button. To add the desktop to your Send To menu, simply place shortcuts to the Windows\Desktop folder inside the Windows\SendTo folder. An easy way to do this is to open the Windows folder, right-click and drag the Desktop folder directly over the SendTo folder, release the mouse button, and select Create Shortcut(s) Here. You may also want to rename the new desktop shortcut now inside the SendTo folder. >From now on, moving an item to the desktop is a simple, right-mouse operation. Just right-click any file, folder, or shortcut, select Send To, and in the resulting list, select Desktop. No clicking or dragging necessary! CHANGING MS-DOS FILE NAME LENGTH Back to listTo change the file name length in MS-DOS, open the MS-DOS Command Prompt window, type \Windows\command /u:255 and press Enter. The current MS-DOS window will now support names of up to 255 characters. MOUSE POINTER INDICATES MOVE OR COPY Back to listCan't seem to remember whether holding down Shift (or Ctrl) while you drag and drop an icon moves or copies that item? Keep your eye on the mouse pointer. If you see a little white box with a plus sign (+) attached to your mouse pointer, you're about to copy the item(s) you're dragging. If you see no symbol attached, you're about to move the item(s). (If you see a shortcut arrow, as in the case of dragging an icon down to the Start button, you're about to create a shortcut.) RESTORE INFORMATION FROM *.REG FILE TO REGISTRY Back to listIn the last tip, we showed you how to use the Registry Editor to make full or partial Registry backups: Open the Registry, select Registry, Export Registry File; navigate to wherever you'd like to store the backup file; type a name for the file; select All or Selected Branch under Export Range; and click Save. Now watch how easy it is to restore this information to the Registry--for example, if you've made a change you want to undo. Double-click the *.reg file, click Yes to confirm that you want to restore this information, then click OK when the operation is complete. Or, from inside the Registry Editor, select Registry, Import Registry File, select the *.reg file, and click Open. EXPORT ALL OR PARTIAL REGISTRY TO *.REG FILE Back to listOne way to back up the Registry involves exporting all or part of the
Registry to a *.reg file. The information can then be restored to your
system easily. In today's tip, we'll show you how to perform a complete
and partial Registry backup. HOW TO CLOSE MULTIPLE OFFICE 97 DOCUMENTS Back to list"Most people end up with numerous open Office 97 documents during the
course of a day. You might have three or four Word documents open at the
same time, for example. ADD APPLICATIONS TO THE SOUNDS PROPERTIES EVENTS LIST Back to listYou probably already know how to associate a sound on your system with an event in the Sounds Properties dialog box: Open the Control Panel, double-click Sounds, select an event in the Events list, and select a sound under Name. But did you also know that if an event with which you'd like to associate a sound is not listed there, you can still associate a sound with it? Just add this event to the list by editing the Registry. (Note: As always, back up your Registry files--System.dat and User.dat, hidden files on the root of your hard drive--before proceeding.)
Open the Registry Editor by selecting Start, Run, typing Back to listregedit and clicking OK. Navigate your way to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps. There, you'll see a list of applications with events in the Sounds Properties dialog box. (In case you're wondering, .Default is Windows.) Now create a new key for the application whose events you'd like to add to the Sounds dialog box. Right-click the Apps key, select New, Key, type the name of the program's *.exe file without the extension or path (for example, type Winword for Microsoft Word), and press Enter. In the right pane, right-click (Default) and select Modify. In the Edit String dialog box, on the Value Data line, type the application name, such as Microsoft Word Click OK. Repeat these steps for other applications. Now, under each new application key, create a key for each event with which you'd like to associate sounds. Right-click the application key, select New, Key, type a legitimate event name, and press Enter. (To view a list of these names, double-click the .Default key under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps.) Repeat these steps for each of the application's events you'd like to see in the Events list, then follow these same steps to add events for other applications. When you're finished, close the Registry Editor. The next time you open the Sounds Properties dialog box, you'll see your new application and events in the Events list. You can now associate these sounds with events just as you normally would: Select an event, then select a sound under Name. (Note: If the sound you want to use isn't in the list, click Browse, navigate your way to that file, select it, and click OK.) QUICK ACCESS TO FIND Back to listWhen you need to find something on your system, do you select Start, Find, Files Or Folders, define a folder on the Look In line, and so on? The Start menu is one way to start this search utility, but depending on where you're starting, there may be a faster way to get there. From the desktop or an open Explorer window, press F3 to open the Find: All Files window already focused on the current folder. ADVANCED FIND OPTIONS: DATE LAST ACCESSED AND FILE TYPE Back to listNeed to locate a file, but can't remember its name? Windows' Find utility offers plenty of ways to track it down. Just fill in what you do know about the file on the Name & Location, Date, and Advanced tabs, and chances are, Windows can find the file you're looking for. Let's suppose the only things you can remember about a file are that you opened it last Friday and that it was a Microsoft Word document. Select Start, Find, Files Or Folders. On the Look In line, click the down arrow and select the drive on which the file is located. (If you aren't sure, select My Computer.) Click the Date tab, select Find All Files, click the down arrow next to this option, and select Last Accessed. Select Between and complete both date fields with last Friday's date. Finally, select the Advanced tab, click the down arrow next to the Of Type box, and select Microsoft Word. Click Find Now, and the resulting list will include all Microsoft Word documents opened last Friday. ADVANCED FIND OPTIONS: CONTAINING TEXT Back to listSuppose the one thing you know about a document you're trying to track down is that it discussed horseback riding. Select Start, Find, Files Or Folders. On the Look In line, click the down arrow and select the drive on which the file is located. (If you aren't sure, select My Computer.) Click the Advanced tab and, next to the Containing Text box, type the text that you know appears in the document--in this case, horseback. Click Find Now and check the resulting list for the missing document. PRINTING FROM EXPLORER Back to list"This isn't strictly an Office 97 tip, but there is a very easy way to print MS Office files from Windows Explorer. For example, if you're in Explorer and want to print a Word file named Mine.doc, all you have to do is right-click Mine.doc and choose Print." KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS FOR WINDOWS PROGRAMS Back to listShift-F10-----------------Right-click selected item
WINDOWS KEY SHORTCUTS Back to listDo you have a Windows key on your keyboard? Press this key to display the Start menu, or hold it down and press: E to open Windows Explorer REMOVE ITEMS FROM RUN COMMAND LIST Back to listYou can delete lines from this list by editing the Registry. (Note: As always, back up your Registry files--System.dat and User.dat, hidden files in the Windows folder--before proceeding.) Open the Registry Editor by selecting Start, Run, typing regedit and clicking OK. Navigate your way to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/ RunMRU. In the right pane, you'll see all the items that currently appear in your Run list. To delete an item, right-click its letter (under Name), select Delete, then click Yes to confirm. Repeat these steps for every item you want to delete, making sure not to delete the items named MRUList and (Default). When you've finished, close the Registry Editor; then select Start, Run, and check out the new, shorter command list. CLEAN A USER'S DOCUMENTS LIST Back to listAre there items on your Start menu's Documents list that you'd like to delete? The procedure varies a bit depending on whether you have user profiles enabled (and whether you've installed IE 4.x). If you don't have user profiles enabled, navigate your way to
C:\Windows\Recent and delete any of the items inside. If you do have them
enabled, then the address of the Recent folder is
C:\Windows\Profiles\ (Note: If you have IE 4.x installed on your system--or had it and then upgraded to a later version--you can delete an item from the Documents list by right-clicking it on the Start menu and selecting Delete.) USE REGISTRY TO REMOVE ITEMS FROM INSTALL/UNINSTALL LIST Back to listYou'll just to do a little Registry editing. (Note: As always, back up your Registry files--System.dat and User.dat, hidden files on the root of your hard drive--before proceeding.) Open the Registry Editor by selecting Start, Run, typing regedit and clicking OK. Navigate your way to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall In the left pane, with the Uninstall key expanded, right-click any item and select Delete. Click Yes to confirm, and that item is officially off the list. Repeat these steps for each item you'd like to remove, then close the Registry Editor. COLLAPSE AND FULLY EXPANDED EXPLORER FOLDER Back to listYou can fully expand a folder inside a double-paned Explorer window by Selecting the folder and then pressing the asterisk key (*) on your numeric keypad. When you're all done, and you'd like to fully collapse the folder, your first instinct might be to click the minus sign next to the top folder. Doing so will appear to collapse the folder, but the next time you click its plus sign, the folder will appear fully expanded again. To make all those folders slide back into place, click the minus sign next to the top dog, then press F5. Backing up Folders in Explorer Back to listIf you're viewing a folder's contents and want to view the contents of the parent folder (the one that contains the folder you're viewing), what do you do? You click the Up One Level icon (or Up, if you have IE 4.0 or beyond installed), or just press the Backspace key on your keyboard. Microsoft WordSelect large amounts of text Back to listWe suggested using Shift plus the arrow keys to solve this problem. "There is a simple way to select text in Microsoft Word 97 using a mouse. Click at the place where you want to begin the text selection. Then use the vertical scroll bar to move to the end of the text you want to select. Now hold down the Shift key while you click at the end of the text you want to select. This selects all the text, even if they span a number of pages."
Insert a blank line between bulleted lines Back to list
When you need a blank line between bulleted lines, you can press Shift-Enter. To start the next bulleted line, just press Enter. This produces the effect shown below: 1. This is the first line 2. This is the second line 3. This is the third line (say you want the next line blank--press Shift- Enter now) 4. And now the fourth line resumes after the break 5. And here's the fifth line. REPLACING CARRIAGE RETURNS THE EASY WAY Back to listEver try to copy and paste text from Web pages into MS Word? Can't get the text to wrap to the margins until you remove the hard carriage returns at the end of each line. There a way to remove all of the hard returns on a page at once. You might still need to do a bit of manual formatting, though. Run Word and open a document that has carriage returns at the end of each line. Now press Ctrl-H to open Find and Replace. When the Find and Replace dialog box opens, click the Find What entry box and type ^p Leave the Replace With entry box blank and then click Replace All to replace all the carriage returns with nothing. Once you've done this, you'll need to go back through the document and press Enter to create paragraphs where necessary. An alternative is to enter ^p as described and then click Find Next. When Find And Replace locates a carriage return you don't need, click Replace. CHOOSING FROM ANY STYLE IN WORD 97 Back to list"Here is a tip that I have never seen anywhere. When you click the arrow at the right side of the Style list box in the Word 97 toolbar, you see only the styles that are used in your template (usually Normal.dot). However, if you hold down the Shift key while you click that drop-down arrow, you'll get a list of all the available styles." ADDING TO WORD'S AUTOCORRECT LIST Back to list"As you type, you can add typos and their corrections to AutoCorrect. Just choose Tools, AutoCorrect, enter the information, and press Enter twice (as a recent tip pointed out). However, there is a much easier way--simply right-click the typo and choose AutoCorrect from the menu. Now select the correct spelling, and that particular typo won't bother you again. "If Word has no spelling suggestions, the AutoCorrect option won't appear in the menu." SEARCHING FOR PARAGRAPHS IN WORD Back to listTo find paragraph marks in a Word document, press Ctrl-F to open the Find And Replace dialog box, then enter caret-P in the Find What entry box. Click Find Next to locate the paragraph marks. INSERTING TABS IN WORD TABLES Back to list"I have to use many Word tables and I have been trying to figure out a way to insert a tab in a Word table cell. If I press the Tab key, Word merely moves to the next cell. Can you help?" Yes. To insert a tab in a Word table cell, click where you would like the tab to appear, then press Ctrl-Tab. Creating Tables in Word Back to list"Did you know there is a very easy way to create a table in Word? Let's say you want a table with three columns. If you type +---+---+---+ and press Enter, Word creates a table with one row and three columns. If you need another row, type +---+---+---+ on the next line, and press Enter. Word appends another row to your original table. You can continue this process for as long as necessary. "If you need wider columns, just add more dashes (-). For example, for a single-row, single-column table that runs all the way across your page, you could type +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ and press Enter." CLICKING TO THE NEXT WORD WINDOW Back to list"Although you can switch between open Word windows by pressing Ctrl-F6, there is another way. Choose View, Toolbars, Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Commands tab. Under Categories, select Window and Help. Under Commands, drag Next Window to the Word toolbar. Now, when you want to switch to another open document, just click Next Window." CREATING MESSAGE BOXES IN WORD MACROS Back to listRun Word and press Alt-F11 to open the VBA editor. Find a blank spot and type the following code: Sub MessageBox() Here's what we just did: We added some text to the message box and told it to appear with a Yes and a No button (vbYesNo). We then used an IF-THEN statement to determine what to do when you click a button. Since we have defined only two buttons, we will assume that if you don't click Yes, you must have clicked No. So we see if FirstResponse equals vbYes. If it does, we set NextResponse to You Clicked Yes. If you click No, we assign You Clicked No to NextResponse. Finally, we use another message box to display PASTING DRAWINGS INTO WORD HTML DOCUMENTS Back to listYou can get the WordArt into an HTML page, but there's a little trick to it. Example: Open a blank document in Word. Now choose Insert, Picture, WordArt. Double-click the style you want to use, type your text, and click OK. Now save your file as a Word DOC file. Next, right-click the WordArt and choose Copy. Choose File, Save As HTML. Since your WordArt is now in the Clipboard, choose Edit, Paste Special. When the Paste Special dialog box opens, select Picture and deselect the Float Over Text check box. Click OK to continue and you'll find that your picture is now in the HTML document. You will find that Word has saved the image in your current folder and named it Image1.gif (or something similar). Make sure you upload the image file to your site along with the Web page.the result of the first box. Power Point Back to list
Animate the individual components of a chart in PowerPoint Back to list
"Is it possible to animate the individual components of a chart in PowerPoint? I imported an Excel chart into a PowerPoint slide and would like to animate each bar in the chart. I have been trying to do this, and all I get is the entire chart." To do this, you must first ungroup the chart. Select the chart and choose Draw, Ungroup. Now press Ctrl-A to select all the components. Next right-click one of the bars and choose Custom Animation. Click the Timing tab and select Animate. Select the components to animate, then click the Effects tab. Select the animation effect you want for each component. After you make all your selections, click OK to close the dialog box and apply your settings. To run the slide show, choose Slide Show, View Show. SOME CLIP ART ANIMATION FOR POWERPOINT SLIDES Back to listYou can very easily create a PowerPoint slide so that your clip art will appear to put itself together when you open the slide. To see how this works, run PowerPoint and open a blank slide. Choose Insert, Picture, Clip Art; select a picture; and click Insert to place it on your slide. Size the picture to suit your needs and, while the picture is still selected, choose Draw, Ungroup. When the dialog box opens asking if you are sure, click Yes. Now, don't click anywhere because you'll deselect all the individual pieces if you do. Choose Slide Show, Custom Animation. When the Custom Animation dialog box opens, select Appear from the Entry Animation drop-down list. Now, click the Timing tab and select the Animate and Automatically options. Set the spin box to zero seconds (the default) and click OK. You can run the slide show now to see how your new animation looks. Simply choose Slide Show, View Show. Note: If your object's animation is too slow, go back to the Custom Animation dialog box and select another type of animation. Peek From Bottom is a good one for small pictures with few pieces. Appear is best for large pictures with many pieces. Try some other types of animation to see which offer the best effect for your slide. POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS ON A CD Back to list"Since my new computer has a CD-RW drive, I was wondering if it is practical to put several slide shows on a rewritable CD for use at a remote location. Everyone has a CD-ROM drive these days, so there would always be a computer available. What do you think?" It sounds like a good idea, but there are a few potential problems. The biggest problem is that most CD-ROM drives won't read the rewritable CD-RW discs. You may also have some problems if you use software that allows you to copy files to a recordable CD-R disc. Many drives won't read these discs. We suggest that you burn your files onto a standard recordable CD using your CD manufacturer's software. This should produce a disc most drives can read. PRODUCING A REMOTE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION Back to listSend a PowerPoint presentation on a floppy disk to someone who does not
have the program. This is a job for Pack And Go. Note: When we rely on this method, we have had problems with losing the correct timing on single slides that loop continuously using custom animation. Function Keys F12 key to save a document. Blank the screen during a presentation Back to listEver need to pause a slide show during a presentation. At these times, don't like to just leave the slide sitting on the screen, because the audience looks at the slide and pays little attention to what you have to say. If you simply press B, PowerPoint will display a completely black screen. To display the slide again, press any key.
Excel Back to list
HIDING DATA IN EXCEL WORKSHEETS Back to list
Let's say you have some data in cell C5 you would like to hide from the casual viewer.
INVOICES IN EXCEL 97 Back to list
Run Excel and choose File, New.
EXCEL CALCULATION ACCURACY Back to listI did a worksheet for our payroll that will figure out wages, withholdings, and our tax deposit. In my worksheet I have wages fixed. I just enter the hours, and it calculates wages just fine. Then the trouble begins: I multiply the wages by 0.062 for FICA and 0.0145 for Medicare. "I have formatted the cells for currency, which rounds off to two decimal places and displays as such. The problem is that the computer is retaining the actual amount out to four or five decimal places, so that when it adds the two numbers and prints them, the total is incorrect. For example, Excel might add 35.68 and 24.32, then display 60.01 because it is really adding 35.6848 and 24.3239. How can I make it add only the two decimal places?" An easy way to solve the problem is to tell Excel to calculate based on two places. Run Excel and open your worksheet. Choose Tools, Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Calculation tab. Under Workbook Options, select the check box labeled Precision As Displayed. Click OK to close the dialog box and save your settings. Note that choosing this option reduces workbook accuracy. If you should need to use the workbook for anything that requires greater accuracy, you'll need to deselect the Precision As Displayed check box.
MOVING BETWEEN WORKSHEETS IN EXCEL Back to listRun Excel and make sure you have at least two worksheets. Assuming you are initially at Sheet1, press Ctrl-PageDown to get to Sheet2. To move to the previous worksheet, press Ctrl-PageUp.
QUICK ARITHMETIC IN EXCEL Back to listIf you work in Excel, you may have been annoyed by the way the arithmetic is accepted when entering a formula. With the default settings, you need to type an "=" sign before your calculation. Actually, this is an option users can change. Choose Tools, Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the Transition tab. Select the Transition Formula Entry check box, then click OK to close the dialog box and apply your settings. Excel will do your calculations automatically when you type something such as 27 * 3 without any equal or plus sign." CONCATENATING TEXT IN EXCEL WORKSHEETS Back to listI use Excel to keep track of names. I put the last names in a column, then the first names in another column. There are times when I need to use the full name. For example, if cell A1 is Smith, and cell B1 is John, I would concatenate the two to get the full name. Since the name I want to see is John Smith, I go to (as an example) cell A5 and type =b1 & a1 This produces JohnSmith with no space between the names. To add the space, I type =b1 & " " & a1 This tells Excel to add a space to John and then add Smith." A SIMPLE EXCEL CALCULATION Back to listIf you need to sum a row of numbers, all you have to do is hold down the Alt key while you type in the equal sign (=).
For example, enter the following in cells A1 through A5: Then click in cell A7 and press Alt as you type the equal sign to enter the Sum formula. All you have to do now is press Enter to get the sum." MOVE EXCEL WORKSHEETS TO A NEW WORKBOOK Back to list
First open your original workbook and choose Edit, Move Or Copy Sheet. Credits Back to listMosts of the tips come from Microsft Help, things I have picked up through my own experience, and from Topica's Tip World at www.topica.com/tipworld. |