Microsoft Office Tips & Tricks

Get rid of the Office Shortcut Bar and use new Windows 98 Quick Launch

If you are using Microsoft Office 97 with Windows 98, the new Windows 98 Quick Launch bar operates as a more versatile and convenient Office Shortcut Bar.
It's located just to the right of the Start button on the taskbar.
You can place buttons on it in any order you want and put it anywhere you want on your desktop.
To move your current shortcuts from the Office Shortcut Bar to the Quick Launch bar:
   1. Open Windows Explorer.
   2. Go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Shortcut Bar.
   3. Click and drag any shortcuts you want to the taskbar.
   4. Right-click a blank area on the Office Shortcut Bar and click Exit.
When prompted if you want the bar to run when you restart Windows, click No.

Change the Font or Size of Text Using Keyboard Shortcuts

You can use keyboard shortcuts to access the Font box and the Font Size box on the Formatting toolbar and then quickly change the font or size of selected text.
Here's how you do it:

1. Select the text you want to change.
2. Press CTRL+SHIFT+F to access the Font box or CTRL+SHIFT+P to access the Font Size box.
3. Press UP ARROW or DOWN ARROW to select the font name or size you want. Press ENTER to accept
        the font name or size.

Editor's Note: This tip works in the following Office 2000 programs: Microsoft Excel, Microsoft FrontPager, PowerPoint, Microsoft Publisher, and Word.

Show Shortcut Keys in ScreenTips

You can teach yourself keyboard shortcuts for the most commonly used commands in Microsoft Word by turning on shortcut keys in ScreenTips. When you choose to show toolbar ScreenTips, you can specify that Word also display a shortcut key combination for the toolbar button.
To display shortcut keys in ScreenTips:
1. On the Tools menu, click Customize, and then click the Options tab.
2. If it's not already selected, select the Show ScreenTips on toolbars check box.
3. Select the Show shortcut keys in ScreenTips check box.

Editor's Note: When you select the Show shortcut keys in ScreenTips check box, the setting affects all Office programs except Microsoft Excel.

Speed Up Your Typing with AutoCorrect

If you find yourself typing long words again and again, you should consider setting up typing shortcuts, so you only need to type in part of the word and Word fills in the rest.
For example, if I need to type New Smyrna Beach, I just type NSB; then I press the SPACEBAR, Word automatically spells out all the words.

Here's how I set up this shortcut:
1. On the Tools menu, click AutoCorrect. Select the Replace text as you type check box.
2. In the Replace box, type an abbreviation you will remember-for example, NSB.
3. In the With box, type the complete spelling of the word-for example, New Smyrna Beach.
4. Click Add.
5. Repeat steps 2 and 3 to add additional terms, then click OK.

You can also use this tip to quickly type people's names, technical terms-anything you want. And once you add a term to your AutoCorrect list, it also works in PowerPoint and Outlook-if you use Word as your default e-mail editor.

Quickly Zoom In and Out of Your Office Documents

If you have a Microsoft Intellimouse pointing device, you can use the wheel button, the third (middle) button, to quickly zoom in and out of an Office document.
Simply hold down the CTRL key as you rotate the wheel button forward or back.

Editor's Note: This tip works in the latest versions of Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft PhotoDraw, and Microsoft Project, as well as many other Microsoft Windows programs. You can also use it in Internet Explorer to increase or decrease to size of text on the screen.

Use Your Keyboard to Quickly Change the Case of Text

Here's how you can use your keyboard to quickly change the case of text in Microsoft Word:

Select the text you want to change and press SHIFT+F3.
Each time you press the F3 key, the text case switches between Title Case, UPPERCASE, and lowercase.

Increase or Decrease Text Size

To quickly increase or decrease the size of text in Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft FrontPager, or Microsoft Publisher, first, select the text you want to resize. Then, to increase the font size, press CTRL+SHIFT. To decrease the font size, press CTRL+SHIFT+.

Find Out What Formatting is Applied to Text in Word

To find out what formatting (fonts, style, alignment, etc.) is applied to a paragraph in Word:
1. On the Help menu, click What's This?.
2. When the pointer becomes a question mark, click the text you want to check.
Then a message will appear describing the formatting in that section.
3. When you have finished checking your text, press ESC.

Office Formatting

Apply Text and Graphics Formatting Multiple Times in Office 2000

Have you ever wanted to make several non-sequential words stand out by using a special font in your document? Or have you ever wanted to change certain solid lines to dotted lines in graphics created with the drawing tools?

If you've ever wanted to apply the same format to items in different locations in a file, you might not realize how easy it is. Instead of clicking the Format Painter button on the Standard toolbar every time that you want to apply the new format, you can take advantage of the button's "sticky" feature.

1. Select the item whose format you would like to copy.
2. To copy the selected format to several items, double-click the Format Painter button.
The button stays selected, or "sticky."
3. Select the text or graphic where you want to apply the new format.
4. When you're finished applying the format, click the Format Painter button again or press ESC.

Note: Applying text and graphics formatting multiple times does not work between programs. For example, you cannot apply formatting from Word to PowerPoint.

More Information

For more information, type format painter or copy formats in the Office Assistant or on the Answer Wizard tab in the program's Help window, and then click Search.

For related information, see Quickly Copy Formatting with the Format Painter in Office 2000 at http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000 /articles/OFormatPaint.htm and Insert a Drawing Object Multiple Times of Office 2000 at http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/ focus/articles/StickyDraw.htm.

Copy Formatting to Multiple Targets in Word 97/2000

The Format Painter button on the Standard toolbar is a quick and easy way to copy character or paragraph formatting from one place to another in a Microsoft Word 97/2000 document.

If you select a paragraph before clicking the Format Painter button, it copies all the paragraph formatting (including font formatting). If you select only characters, it copies only the character formatting. When you double-click the Format Painter button, you can apply the same formatting repeatedly throughout your document until you click the Format Painter button again to turn it off.

Graphics

Speed Up Scrolling by Hiding Graphics in Word 2000

Have you ever scrolled through a document with a lot of graphics in it? You may have noticed that it takes more time than if the document had no graphics. This is because loading and displaying graphics requires additional memory.

To speed up scrolling, just hide your document's graphics:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the View tab.
2. To hide clip art or imported graphics, select the Picture placeholders check box under Show.
Word displays only an outline of the graphic.
3. To hide graphics created with the drawing tools if you are in print layout or Web layout view,
clear the Drawings check box under Print and Web Layout options. Word does not display the
graphic or an outline. (In normal or outline view, graphics created with the drawing tools are not
displayed.)

Note: Word will apply these settings to all your documents. If you'd like to display graphics in a different document, you must restore the default settings.

More Information

For more information about ways to work faster in Word, see the following:
Changing Document Views in Microsoft Word 2000 at
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/articles/wViews.htm
Navigate Through Long Documents with Word 97/2000 Document Map at
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/ articles/wDocumentMapNav.htm
Quickly Reorganize Long Documents in Word 97/2000 Outline View at
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/ articles/wOutlineViewReorg.htm
Using Outline View with Long Documents in Word 97 or 2000 at
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/articles/wOutlineViewUse.htm

Office 2000

Show All Menu Commands in Office 2000

By default, Office 2000 displays only the commands that you use most often on the new, personalized menus. Do you wish you could see all of the commands at once like you could in Office 97? Here's how: To turn off personalized menus:

1. On the Tools menu, click Customize, and then click the Options tab.
2. To show all the commands on the menus, clear the Menus show recently used commands first
check box. You can do this from any Office 2000 program, and it applies to all of your other
Office programs as well.