- Date: September 30th, 2008
- Author: Mary Ann Richardson
Avoid the hassle of manually importing Word form data into Excel. With the help of an Excel wizard, you can quickly step through the process.
Word forms provide a convenient way to gather information from users or clients so that you can analyze it later. But bringing the data into Excel can be a big chore. To avoid having to manually enter the data into a worksheet, let Excel’s Text Import wizard bring it in for you. To demonstrate, let’s say you’ve asked employees to complete the form shown in Figure A.
Figure A
Follow these steps to save the data in each completed form to a text file that can be imported into Excel:
- Open one of the completed forms.
- Go to Tools | Options, click the Save tab, and select the Save Data Only For Forms check box. (In Word 2007, click the Office button, click Advanced, scroll to Preserve Fidelity When Sharing This Document, and select the Save Data As Delimited Text File check box.)
- Click OK.
- Save the file as a .txt file.
- When the File Conversion dialog box appears (Figure B), click OK.
Figure B
You can now import the data in the text files into a spreadsheet by following these steps:
- cialis canadian pharmacy
Open a blank worksheet in Excel.
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Go to Data | Import External Data | Import Data. (In Excel 2007, click the Data tab, click Get External Data, and then select From Text.)
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Click the text file you want to import, then click Import.
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Select the Delimited option (Figure C) and then click Next.
Figure C
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For this example, clear the Tab check box and then select the Comma check box (Figure D).
Figure D
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Click Next and then click Finish.
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Click in cell A1 and then click OK.
Figure E shows the resulting data. Note that headers have been inserted above the data in row one.
Figure E
To import the second text file, you just open the same Excel worksheet and click in the second row below the last row of data; in this case, A4. (The wizard forces you to skip a row each time you add a new row of data. You can delete these blank rows later.)
Important note: If you need to enter more than a handful of forms a day, you should consider using ADO (ActiveX Data Object) to create a code connection to the worksheet that will automate the data transfer process.
- Date: September 30th, 2008
- Author: Mary Ann Richardson
Set up a simple form that can quickly tell you how long you’ve been working on a project. Mary Ann Richardson walks through the process.
Do you need to know how long you’ve spent on a project? You can create an Access form that will answer that question for you. Follow these steps:
- Click on the Form Object in the Database Window and click New. (In Access 2007, click the Create tab and then click Forms Design in the Forms group.)
- Click the Text Box control tool and then click and drag in the form where you want to locate the control.
- Click on the text box label and change the caption to Enter Project Start Date.
- Right-click the text box and select Properties.
- Click in the Name Property box and enter ProjectStart.
- Click the drop-down arrow of the Format property box and select cialis c20 ShortDate 6.
- Click the Text Box control tool and then click and drag in the form to create a second text box below the first one.
- Click the text box label and change the caption to Actual Work in Months, as shown in Figure A.
Figure A
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Right-click the second text box and select Properties.
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Click in the ControlSource property box and under the Data tab, click the Build button.
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Type the following function code as shown in Figure B:
=DateDiff(”m”,[ProjectStart],Now())
Figure B
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Click OK.
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Close and save the form as Total Work Calculations.
When you run the form and enter a date in the ProjectDate text box, Access will automatically display the number of months from the entered date to today, as shown in Figure C.
Figure C
- Date: September 26th, 2008
- Author: Susan Harkins
Word lets you insert a graphic into a document’s header or footer. Excel’s not so flexible, but you can cheat. Insert the graphic and specify it using the Print Titles feature. Excel will print the graphic at the top of each printed page, which is really what you want — header or not.
The first step is to get the graphic into the workbook. Try to insert it into cell A1 and then adjust the cell’s height to accommodate it, but that might not work. Depending on the size of the graphic, Excel might insert cialis c10 it as is, usurping several rows and columns. To insert a graphic, choose Picture from the Insert menu, select From File, locate the file, and then click Insert. In Excel 2007, click Picture in the Illustrations group on the Insert tab.
The next step is to identify the graphic using the Titles feature as follows:
- Choose Page Setup from the File menu and click the Sheet tab. In Excel 2007, the Page Setup group is on the Page Layout tab.
- Click the row or drag across the rows that contain the graphic. Or enter the rows in the Rows To Repeat At Top control. For instance, the RabbitTracks graphic (above) covers rows 1, 2, and 3. Therefore, you’d enter $1:$3. When you finish, click OK.
Click Print Preview to view the graphic on all pages of the worksheet. You can’t really tell, but the following picture shows the second page of a long sheet, and each page displays the same graphic at the top.
- Date: September 30th, 2008
- Author: Susan Harkins
PowerPoint’s AutoContent wizard gives you a head start on setting up a presentation based on various prefab templates. But you can also plug your own presentations into the wizard, making it easy to reuse their design, structure, and content.
The AutoContent Wizard is a great place to start when you’re not sure what a presentation should cover. This wizard creates a new presentation using built-in templates, offering content ideas to help you organize the information you include on each slide.
What you might not know is that you can add an existing presentation to the AutoContent Wizard’s library. To do so, follow these steps:
- Launch the wizard by choosing New from the File menu.
- Click the From AutoContent Wizard link in the New Presentation task pane.
- Click Next in the wizard’s first pane.
- Choose the most appropriate content template category from the list (Figure A) and click Add.
Figure A
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Locate the presentation you want to use as a content template and click OK.
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Proceed through the rest of the wizard’s prompts.
The presentation you added is now available to use as a template when you run the AutoContent Wizard.
Don’t cialis buying let a good generic presentation go to waste. You’ll still have to customize it to suit your particular purpose, but that’s true of any content template you choose.
Notes: The AutoContent Wizard isn’t available in PowerPoint 2007. Instead, use a themed template. Choose File from the Office menu and select New to get started.
Microsoft offers more free templates.
- Date: September 30th, 2008
- Author: Mary Ann Richardson
One of the most common word processing chores is changing the case of text in a document. You can greatly streamline the process if you learn a couple of Word’s most useful keyboard shortcuts.
Do you find yourself continually pressing the Caps Lock key to change from uppercase to lowercase, and vice versa, as you type? While the Caps Lock key is better than having to search for the Change Case commands with the mouse, you can’t use it to change the case of text that has already been typed.
Word does provide a couple of toggle key combinations you can use to change the case of selected text without retyping. For example, say you typed the following text and want to change it to all uppercase:
Caution! To avoid injury, please read all instructions first.
Just select the text and press Ctrl + Shift +A.
You can also use this key cialis buy online combination to change case as you type. Follow these steps:
- Press Ctrl + Shift + A.
- Type: Caution! To avoid injury, please read all instructions first.
- Press Ctrl + Spacebar to return to lowercase.
Another helpful key combination is Shift + F3, which lets you toggle case from lowercase to uppercase and then to initial caps. For example, say you just typed Tcp/Ip. To change it to all uppercase, select it and then press Shift + F3. To change the phrase “All’s well that ends well” to initial caps, select the text and then press and hold the Shift key while you press F3 three times.
