February 18, 2009

On the Side

Do you use the miniature slides in MS PowerPoint for navigation purposes?

I don't know about you, but I love them! I can quickly scroll through a long presentation, locate the slide I need to edit, select its miniature version and zoom! I'm there in an instant.

There's no scrolling slide by slide to find what I need. Nope, the miniature slides are just big enough to go right where I want, with a single click of the mouse.

In my opinion, transferring that idea elsewhere would be an awesome thing!

Also, along that train of thought, I'd like to talk about MS Word 2007's thumbnails.

Thumbnails?

Yes, thumbnails!

If you check the Thumbnails checkbox under the View tab on the ribbon, you'll find that something similar to the PowerPoint miniatures appears on the left hand side of your program window.

While it's not exactly like PowerPoint's slide miniatures (you can't duplicate pages or rearrange them the way you do with slides), it's a quick and easy way to navigate through a long document, without being forced to guess where something is located.

Also, while the pages are small, I can definitely see uses for laying out your documents. The thumbnails are updated as you work, so you can see the effect any insertion or deletion has on the overall appearance of several pages in the document at once, without the Print Preview feature or a whole lot of scrolling between pages.

So, there you have it. It's what I consider to be one of the fastest document navigation techniques available!

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February 13, 2009

Many Slide Designs, One Presentation

Did you know you can choose to use multiple slide design templates within the same MS PowerPoint presentation?

As I've observed people using PowerPoint, I've noticed they always seem to apply a slide design template to the master, with the assumption it's their one and only chance to make that decision.

But cialis normal dose what if you have a long presentation with some very definite sections and you're thinking that changing the design template might be a good idea? You know, a visual clue that the subject is changing. I know we don't want to go crazy and make each slide different, but do they all have to be the same?

We all would like to think that PowerPoint isn't forcing us into anything, so I'd hope we have some control over the matter as well!

As it turns out, we do have control, so whatever your reason for wanting a design template switch, the big question now is how can you make it happen?

Fortunately, this one is probably easier to accomplish than you may think!

If you're using an older version of PowerPoint, you need the Normal View from the View menu. Now, open the Slide Design Task Pane (the Format menu, Slide Design choice will work).

For all you PowerPoint 2007 users, you're looking for the View tab on the ribbon, Normal choice. To get to your slide design choices, you need the Themes section under the Design tab on the ribbon.

With all of that accomplished, everyone needs to use the Slides tab on the left hand side of the program window to select the slide(s) that will have the Design Template. You can select a single slide or multiple slides with the Shift/Ctrl keys.

Now, locate the desired Slide Design Template in the Task Pane or under the Design tab.

If you have an older version of PowerPoint, you must click on the down arrow that appears when you place the mouse over your choice.

From the menu, choose Apply to Selected Slide.

If you have PowerPoint 2007, it's even easier! Simply click on the slide design of your choice from the Themes section.

Voila. The new Slide Design Template is applied to only the selected slides, leaving the rest as they were originally created!

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February 10, 2009

Avoid e-mail mistakes with a single setting

  • Date: October 13th, 2008
  • Author: Susan Harkins

We’ve all done it, and regretted it — sent an e-mail to the wrong person, sent an angry e-mail in haste, or sent an e-mail with mistakes. I don’t mind confessing my most humiliating e-mail mistakes because they’re so old:

  • I sent an article to the wrong publisher. Now, that’s not horrible and as a freelancer, all my editors know that I work for other publishers, but it was still unpleasant because I looked stupid.
  • I used the wrong publication name when corresponding with an editor. She responded with a curt, “I work for… ,” and I never received another assignment from her.

Most e-mail clients send e-mail as soon as you hit Send in the message window, and that’s why we get into trouble. Instead of sending each e-mail immediately, let them sit in the outbox. Later (usually a few hours or so), review the messages one last time and then send them. I often find small and seemingly unimportant mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless. Occasionally, I find something more cialis for sale important and I count my lucky stars! Letting a message sit for a while, especially if you’re angry when you respond, will give you a bit of time to rethink and perhaps, even save face.

Outlook is configured to send mail when you click Send in the New Message window. To reset this option so that you control when Outlook sends mail, do the following:

  1. From the Tools menu, choose Options.
  2. Click the Mail Setup tab.
  3. Click Send/Receive in the Send/Receive options.
  4. Uncheck the Include This Group In Send/Receive (F9) option in the Setting For Group “All Accounts” section. Most of us will set this for all accounts, but you can configure Outlook to handle each account differently.
  5. Click Close and then OK.

After unchecking the Send/Receive option, you must remember to click Send/Receive on the Standard toolbar to send mail. You can also set Outlook to send e-mail when you launch or close Outlook, or schedule it to send and receive e-mail at regular intervals, so be sure to consider those options as well. You’ll still have to find the mistakes, but putting a little time between creating and sending messages makes it easier to catch mistakes you might otherwise miss.

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Flash Outlook contacts

  • Date: September 29th, 2008
  • Author: Susan Harkins

If you’re like me, you live and breathe by your contacts. They’re vital to my business, as they probably are to yours. When I’m on the road without remote access, that can be a problem. I know that I can print my contacts, but taking the .pst file with me is much better. (The .pst file contains your contact information.) It’s a simple process:

  1. From the File menu, choose Import And Export.
  2. Choose Export To A File and click Next.
  3. From the list of file types, choose Personal Folder File (.pst) and click Next.
  4. Select Contacts and click Next.
  5. Save the exported file to your flash drive (or a CD).
  6. Click Finish.

To use the file, you can simply import cialis for daily use it into Outlook on another computer. But you should also be prepared to not have access to Outlook. Repeat the above process again, saving your .pst file as Microsoft Excel file and a comma-delimited text file (Comma Separated Values). If the worst happens, you can at least view the information.

Now, you probably already knew that you could export the .pst file. What you might not have considered was how easily you could save that exported file to a flash drive and take it with you.

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Run a parameter query within an Access form

  • Date: October 3rd, 2008
  • Author: Mary Ann Richardson

When your users need to run a parameter query while they’re working in a form, this custom button will save them some time.


Users can enter criteria directly into a parameter query’s dialog box, but there may be times when they’ll need to run a parameter query while working in a form. You can add a button to the form that will run a query using criteria entered in a form field. For example, say your company services customers in two states, Missouri and Illinois. You would like to create a query that will allow service personnel working in either state to quickly get a list of their customer data. Follow these steps:

  1. Open the form in Design View.
  2. Click on the Text Box tool and then click and drag to locate the control in your form.
  3. Right-click the text box and select Properties.
  4. Click in the Name property box and enter txtEnterState.
  5. Click in the Caption property box and type Enter MO or IL.
  6. Click on the Command Button tool and click and drag to locate the button in your form (Figure A).

Figure A

  1. Close and save your form. (In this example, we saved the form as qryFormQueryState.)
  2. Click on the Query object in the Database window and click New. (In Access 2007, click the Create tab and then click Query Design in the Other group.)
  3. Add all the fields you want to your query.
  4. Right-click the Criteria cell under the State field and select Build.
  5. Enter the following code at the prompt, as shown in Figure B:
    [Forms]![frmQueryState].[txtEnterState]

Figure B

  1. Click OK.
  2. Close and save the query. (In this example, we saved the query as Customer Query by State.)
  3. Open the form in Design view.
  4. Click the Command Button control and then click and drag to locate the control in your form.
  5. In the Command Button Wizard, click Miscellaneous in the Categories box, and then click Run Query (Figure C).

Figure cialis fast delivery C

  1. Click Next. Select Customer Query by State, and then click Next again.
  2. Click in the text box and type Run Customer Query by State, as shown in Figure D.

Figure D

  1. Click Next and then click Finish.

Now when service representatives want a customer list, they simply enter the appropriate state and click the Run Customer Query by State button (Figure E).

Figure E

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