the MOST

More than once I’ve talked to people who clicked the Print Preview button before printing an Excel worksheet that should fit on one or two pages, only to discover that 100+ pages were slated to print, and all but the first few were going to be blank.

In my experience, this usually happens because you have something (data or sometimes just formatting) in an unused area of the spreadsheet that you are not aware of.

To keep from accidentally printing extra pages, it’s a good idea to set up a Print Area.  The Print Area tells Excel exactly what you want to print.  Once you set a Print Area, Excel will only print that area, until you clear it.

Set a Print Area

Excel 2007

1. Select the data you want to print.
2. Go to the Page Layout tab.
3. Click on the Print Area button.
4. Select Set Print Area.

Later, if you need to clear the print area, you can click on the Print Area button and select Clear Print Area. 

Excel 2003

1. Select the data you want to print.
2. Go to the File menu.
3. Hover your mouse over Print Area.
4. Select Set Print Area.

Later, if you need to clear the print area, you can go back and select Clear Print Area from the Print Area section of the File menu.

Print Only Selected Cells

Occasionally, you may want to only print certain cells.  I found a good post on Excel Tips for You, on how to print only certain cells, without having to change a print area.

If you’ve ever looked at Office 2007, then you know that things have changed significantly.  Most people I talk to are frustrated when they first switch to Office 2007, because they don’t know where to find the tools they used in earlier versions of Office.  Microsoft has put together videos, demos, and interactive guides to help ease the transition, but you may not want to go looking for them each time you have a question about a program.

Good news!  You can download a Get Started tab for Word 2007, Excel 2007, and PowerPoint 2007.  This places a tab on the ribbon that gives you helpful information Microsoft has provided for that program.  You will need an internet connection to use the tools on the Get Started tab.

Each tab must be downloaded individually.

To download:

Close all instances of the program to which you will add the Get Started tab, and click on the appropriate link below.

• Download the Get Started tab for Word.
• Download the Get Started tab for PowerPoint.
• Download the Get Started tab for Excel.

Click on the Download button, and then follow the instructions on the next page.

When you need to print a spreadhseet that has too many rows to fit on one page, the information on the second page can lose meaning without the column headers.  The same thing can happen if you have more columns than can fit on a page.  Fortunately, Excel has a feature that allows you to repeat the same row and the same column on every printed page.

Excel 2007

1. Go to the Page Layout tab and click on the Print Titles button.
2. Select the Sheet tab. 
3. Click on the Rows to repeat at top box.  Then, in your spreadsheet, highlight the row or rows you would like to have repeated at the top of each page. 
4. If you have more colums than will fit on one sheet, click in the Columns to repeat at left box.  Then, in your spreadsheet, select any columns you would like to have repeated on the left.
5. Click OK.

Excel 2003

1. Go to the File menu and select Page Setup.
2. Select the Sheet tab.
3. Click on the Rows to repeat at top box.  Then, in your spreadsheet, highlight the row or rows you would like to have repeated at the top of each page. 
4. If you have more colums than will fit on one sheet, click in the Columns to repeat at left box.  Then, in your spreadsheet, select any columns you would like to have repeated on the left.
5. Click OK.

The other day I was working on page five of a document, and really wished I could refer to something on page one.  Going to page one, and then going back to page five over and over gets old really fast.  Fortunately, you can use the Split feature in Word to view two different parts of your document at once.

Use Split View in a Word Document:

1. Go to the View tab.
2. Click on the Split button.
3. A moveable grey bar will appear on your document.  Move your mouse until the bar is placed where you would like the document to split, and click.
4. In the top view of the document, scroll to the section you would like to see.  In the bottom view of the document, scroll to the other portion you would like to see.

Un-Split Your Document:

1. Go to the View tab.
2. Click on the Remove Split button.

Make the Split Vertical:

1. If your document has a split, remove it.
2. Go to the View tab and click on the New Window button.  A second version of your document will open.
3. In either version of the document, go to the View tab and click Arrange All.
4. Resize and arrange the windows so you can view them side by side.

A few months ago, a staff member ran into a problem I had never heard of before.  She was making a header in an Excel spreadsheet.  She accessed the header and typed a title that included an ampersand (&).  When she looked at the header in her spreadsheet, the ampersand did not appear.

A Google search turned up an article that explains the problem and the solution.

The cause:

In a nutshell, the & is used for commands in Excel, so when you put one in a header, Excel assumes you’re trying to code something with it.  If the & and whatever follows don’t mean anything to Excel, it will just not display the &.  If you happen to put something after the & that does mean something (like the letter T, which means to insert the time), then something you did not expect will be displayed (like the current time).

Click the thumbnail for another example.

The solution:

Put two &s side by side.  Excel will ignore the first one and display the second one.  If you want your header to display Apples & Oranges Income Statement, you will need to enter Apples && Oranges Income Statement in the header.

Some of you may be wondering how you insert a header in an Excel spreadsheet to begin with.

Inserting a Header

Excel 2007

1. Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon.
2. Select Header.
3. Type into the header fields that appear on the top of the spreadsheet.
4. To stop editing the header, click anywhere else on the spreadsheet.

Excel 2003

1. Go to the View menu and select Header and Footer.
2. On the Header and Footer tab, select a default header from the Header drop down menu, or click on Custom Header, enter text, and click OK.
3. Click OK.

When you paste something in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and some of the other Office programs, a Paste Options button will appear.  (It is usually at the bottom of the pasted material, although with something really long, I sometimes see it appear at the top right.)  If you click on this button, you see different options.  They vary depending on what you are pasting and if you are pasting between programs.  In Word, they are usually Keep Source Formatting, Match Destination Formatting, and Keep Text Only.

This button can save you time and work.  I use it all the time.

To access the Paste Options, click on the button immediately after you paste.  If you start working on something else, it goes away.  Sometimes, I realize I want to use it but have already moved on in my document.  In that case, I just delete what I pasted and paste the information again to get it back.

If you do not see the Paste Options button when you paste, you might need to turn it on.  You can do this through the Options for the program you are using.

Office 2007

1. Go to the Office Button.
2. Click on the program Options button at the bottom right side of the Office Button menu.
3. In the left column, select Advanced.
4. Go to the Cut, Copy, and Paste section.
5. Check the box for Show Paste Options Button.
6. Click OK.

Office 2003

1. Go to the Tools menu and select Options.
2. Click on the Edit tab.
3. In the Cut and paste options section, check the box for Show Paste Options buttons.
4. Click OK.

If you use Word 2007 or Outlook 2007, you will see many more options in the Cut, Copy, and Paste section.  If you find that every time you paste you use the Paste Options button to change to a specific option, you might want to change the paste settings.  To learn more about this, read the Microsoft help article about controlling formatting when you paste.

You are probably aware that you can send a file as an attachment in Outlook.  (If you were not aware of it, read the Training Team’s Outlook 2003 instructions.  If you have Outlook 2007, just click on the paperclip button and then follow the 2003 instructions.)

What you might not know is that you can also send Outlook items as attachments.  For example, you can send a contact or distribution list, a calendar appointment, or an email as an attachment.

To send an Outlook item as an attachment:

1. Create a new email message.
2. In Outlook 2007, on the Message tab of the ribbon, click on the Attach Item button.
   In Outlook 2003 the process varies depending on if Word is your email editor or not.  If Word is not turned on as your email editor, go to the Insert menu and select Item.  If Word is turned on as your email editor, click on the arrow next to the paperclip button and select Item.
3. A window will open showing your mailbox folder structure.
4. Navigate to the folder that contains your item.
5. The bottom of the screen will show you the contents of the folder.  Find and select the item you want to attach.
6. In the Insert As section at the right side of the window, select Attachment.  If you select Text Only, it will not send an attachment, the text from the item will be inserted into the email.
7. Click OK.
8. Compose and send your email as usual.

The person who receives the message can just drag the attached item and drop it in the appropriate folder to add it to the folder.  To simply read the contents, they can double-click on it to open it.

We received an email about using the Instant Search feature in Outlook. Instant Search is a great way to effectively go through and find specific email, attachments, contacts or notes in Outlook. Never again scroll through months of email looking for that lost message with the one thing you need. Instead use Instant Search to search by sender, for a specific attachment, or even for a particular word in the subject or the body of an email.

Windows Vista users will already have this feature installed.

Most of us at McCombs are using Windows XP. XP prompts you to install Instant Search; you may have installed it or you may have checked Do not show this message again and forgot all about it.

If you have never installed Instant Search there will be a prompt below your search box in Outlook where you can enable it. When you “Click here to enable Instant Search” you will need to follow the steps to download Windows Desktop Search 3.01, and then once downloaded, click through the Install Wizard.

For more info on running effective searches in Outlook, follow this link to the Microsoft Office Site:
Narrow Your Search Criteria

Happy hunting!

Last semester a student came to my office with a problem I had not encountered before.  He needed to make PowerPoint handouts, but they had to be included as part of a document that was going to be bound.  Because part of the left side of the page would be hidden by the binding, he needed to be able to adjust the left margin.

He had already tried the Handout Master in PowerPoint, but it did not help because it does not allow you to adjust the margins.  Instead, he needed to be able to move the handout into a Word document.

If you don’t know what I mean by PowerPoint handouts, click on the image below for a couple of examples.
 

As it turns out, PowerPoint has a feature that does that very thing.  Here’s how to use it:

PowerPoint 2007

1. Click on the Office button.
2. Select Publish.
3. Select Create Handouts in Microsoft Office Word.
4. In the dialog box that opens, select your preferred page layout.
5. Select Paste or Paste link*.  Paste link will update the Word document when you make changes to the PowerPoint presentation.  You will be asked if you want to update it each time you open your Word doc.
6. Click OK.

PowerPoint 2003

1. Go to the File menu.
2. Select Send To.
3. Select Microsoft Office Word.
4. In the dialog box that opens, select your preferred page layout.
5. Select Paste or Paste link*.  (In my experience, Paste link didn’t work properly in 2003.) 
6. Click OK.

* If you use Paste link, don’t move your files, as the link can easily be broken.

Your document tells people more about you than you think.  No, I’m not talking about when people look for double meanings in your words or calculate the average number of syllables you wrote to decide how smart you are.  There can be hidden information in your documents that a savvy user could access.

Office 2007 has a built-in tool, called the Document Inspector, to help you remove hidden information.  This way, when you send an electronic copy of your document, you can be sure that it doesn’t contain information you don’t want to send.  I helped a PhD candidate use the Document Inspector a few days ago when she needed to submit a paper anonymously.

What kind of hidden information are we talking about?

The kind of information varies depending on the program.  For the full list, and full descriptions, look at the  Office Help file for the Document Inspector.

• Comments and Tracked Changes - This is reviewer information you may not realize is still in your document.  See the post about Track Changes.
• Document Properties and Personal Information - This can include username, author, and reviewer information.  This is also called metadata, meaning data about data.
• Headers, Footers, and Watermarks
• Hidden or Invisible Content - Text, worksheets, columns, rows, slides, and other things that are formatted as hidden or invisible.
• Document Server Properties - Information about the server your document is saved on, assuming it’s saved on a server.
• Custom XML Data

Once again, for the full list for each program, and more details, look at the tables in the Office Help file.

How do I use the Document Inspector?

1. Make a copy of the file, in case you want an uninspected one later.  Some of the changes the Document Inspector makes cannot be undone.
2. Click on the Office button, click on Prepare, then select Inspect Document.
3. Check the boxes for the kind of inspections you want the Document Inspector to do.
4. Click Inspect.
5. The Document Inspector will let you know what categories of data it found.  Click Remove All for any category you want to remove the data for.
6. Click Close.

The Fine Print

• Undo may not restore data that the Document Inspector removed.
• If you’re working on an Excel workbook saved as a shared workbook, the Comments and Annotations, Document Properties and Personal Information, and Headers and Footers inspectors won’t work.
• If you’re using one of the Open Document Formats (.odt, .ods, .odp), you’ll have to run the Document Inspector every time you save.