The smallest details often make a big difference in the appearance of your documents. See how the simple trick of adding a couple of special characters can improve your page design.

Just a few quick touches with symbols can spruce up your documents in minutes. For example, say you’ve just formatted the newsletter shown in Figure A.

Figure A

You’d like to add something at the end of Article One that tells the reader the article ends there; you would also like to add something to indicate that Article Two continues on the next page. Follow these steps:

1. Go to Insert cialis daily generic | Symbol. (In Word 2007, click the Insert tab and then click Symbol in the Symbols group and select More Symbols.)

1. Click the Font box drop-down arrow and select Symbol.

1. Click the symbol in the last row, as shown in Figure B, and then click the Insert button.

Figure B

1. Click Close.

1. Select the symbol you just inserted and change the Font color to dark green.

1. Click at the end of the last column in the document.

1. Go to Insert | Symbol. (In Word 2007, click the Insert tab and then click Symbol in the Symbols group and select More Symbols.)

1. Click the Font box drop-down arrow and select WingDings.

1. Click the symbol shown in Figure C and then click the Insert button.

Figure C

1. Click Close.

1. Select the inserted symbol and change the font size to 18 and the Font color to dark green (Figure D).

Figure D

Note: When you need to use the symbols again, you can find them listed under the most recently used symbols in the Insert Symbol dialog box. In Word 2007, just click Symbol on the Insert tab.

Date: August 29th, 2008

Author: Susan Harkins When someone raises a question during your presentation, you can try to wing it — or you can smoothly bring up an ancillary slide that clarifies the issue. Having a few extra slides up your sleeve can make all the difference in the success of your delivery.

To make a presentation informative and efficient, you may sometimes exclude details that aren’t of interest to the general audience. But as soon as you make that decision, you can count on someone asking about what you left out. You can try to answer the question and move on. Or you can include a supporting slide. That way, if the topic comes up, you can skip to the slide, have a short discussion, and then return to the main presentation, exactly where you left off.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

Create the supporting slide

Supporting can mean many things, but for this technique, the term refers to an optional slide that’s available but that you might not display. A supporting slide contains data that further defines or augments information on another slide in the presentation. Simply insert a link on the slide that requires a supporting slide. Similarly, link the supporting slide to the slide it supports. Then, just hide the supporting slide. You can decide when — or if — to display it. In addition, you can print a support slide along with the presentation.

For example, the slide in Figure A highlights consulting skills. If someone asks how to contact a consultant, you can display the supporting slide with that specific information, shown in Figure B.

Figure A: Most slides exclude details.

Figure B: This supporting slide contains contact information, in case someone in the audience requests it.

Once you identify a slide that’s apt to prompt questions (like the one in Figure A), create the supporting slide and add a Return action button that takes you back to the main slide, as follows:

Figure C: Add a Return button to the support slide.

You can change the Return button if you like. Right-click the button and choose Format AutoShape. The default button fits our needs fine.

Now hide it and link to it

To keep PowerPoint from displaying the supporting slide during the presentation, you must hide it. The slide will stay with your presentation and be available, but it’s up to you to decide whether to show it. To hide the supporting slide, choose Hide Slide From Slide Show. PowerPoint identifies a hidden slide by displaying a strikethrough line in the number icon in Normal view.

At this point, the supporting slide is finished, so you just need to link to it. Select cialis daily 5mg the slide that requires a supporting slide. If you’re lucky, the slide will contain a picture or graphic you can use as a hyperlink. If not, you’ll have to add something. (As a last resort, use an Action button.)

For our purposes, the consultant’s name provides the perfect hyperlink hot spot. To add a hyperlink to the supporting slide, do the following:

1. Select the text or graphic you want to use as a hyperlink. In this case, that’s the consultant’s name in the slide’s title.
2. Right-click the selection and choose Action Settings to display the Action Settings dialog box. (You could also choose Hyperlink from the Insert menu.) In PowerPoint 2007, click Hyperlinks in the in the Links group on the Insert tab.
3. Select Hyperlink To.
4. Choose Slide from the Hyperlink To drop-down list, shown in Figure D.

Figure D: Create a hyperlink from text on the original slide.

1. In the Hyperlink To Slide dialog box, highlight the supporting slide, as shown in Figure E.

Figure E: Point to the supporting slide.

1. Click OK twice.
2. Save your presentation.

While running the presentation, PowerPoint never displays the supporting (hidden) slide on its own. You must click the hyperlink on the original slide to display the supporting slide. When you’re finished, click the Return button to go back to the original slide so you can continue the presentation. The downside to this technique is that the hyperlink usurps the text’s format.

I’ve got that information right here… somewhere… hold on…

Being unprepared to answer questions from the audience can be frustrating (and embarrassing) for you and disappointing to your audience. Add details to supporting slides and then display the information as needed. The details are there, but only if you need them. This technique is great for displaying flow charts, detailed figures, and so on — anything that supports the presentation can end up on a supporting slide.

We all have tools that we use more than others, and if you’re like me, you appreciate having them when you need them — not necessarily when Word thinks you need them. In other words, I’ve moved and/or copied some tools from one toolbar to another, which isn’t as difficult as you might think.

You can customize toolbars by right-clicking a toolbar and choosing Customize to open the Customize dialog box, which contains cialis cheap online many neat tricks. If you just want to move or copy a tool from one toolbar to another, you don’t need the Customize dialog box at all:

Of course, both toolbars must be visible for this shortcut to work.

This shortcut doesn’t work with 2007’s new Ribbon.

While you can use Word’s Printed Watermark dialog box to add a custom watermark to your document, Word also lets you create a watermark from any graphic object (SmartArt, charts, shapes, clip art, etc.) by simply copying the graphic into the Header window. Follow these steps to create a watermark from a copy of a picture taken from the Clip Art Gallery:

1. Click the Behind Text option.
2. Right-click the portion of the picture in the Header window and then select Send To Back.
3. Click Send Behind Text.
4. Click and drag the bottom-right picture handle to extend the cialis canadian pharmacy picture into the middle of the document beyond the header.

You can also format the picture to make it more transparent. For example, in Word 2007, follow these steps:

1. Double-click the Header to display the Header window.
2. Right-click the picture in the Header window and then select Format Picture.
3. Click the drop-down arrow of the Recolor button and click the first selection under Light variations. (Alternatively, you can choose Washout under Color Modes.)
4. Click Close.

Lots of mail in your Inbox doesn’t mean you’re popular. It means you’re unorganized. It might even get you into trouble. Messages in a cluttered Inbox tend to fall off the screen and into a black hole.

The truth is that most of us use our Inbox as a storage bin and that’s a bad idea. An Inbox full of mail is oppressive. Trying to manage all that mail is like cleaning your garage-it’s hard work that you avoid at all cost. The more you avoid it, the bigger the mess grows.

The hardest part is making all those decisions. Each E-mail requires your attention:

Now, you may have a broader list of possibilities, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that you have to make a decision for every message you receive. Managing E-mail is a three-layer line of defense:

• Delete the old.
• Divide (and conquer) what you must keep.
• Let Outlook manage incoming mail.

The first step is the hardest but you must get rid of all those old messages. Create a personal folder and name it Old Stuff or something just as appropriate. Then, sort the messages in your Inbox by the Receive column. Move everything that’s older than a month (or a week if you’re really drowning) to the Old Stuff folder.The next step is to find some commonality among the messages that are left. For instance, you might receive a lot of mail from family and friends or you might have several messages regarding ongoing projects. Create personal folders to accommodate these categories. It doesn’t matter if you get it exactly right the first time. Just start. Later, you can combine folders or add more.

Once you have all the folders you need, drag messages from the Inbox into their respective folders. Next, create rules to download subsequent messages directly into these folders-bypassing the Inbox altogether.
Congratulations, you’ve seriously reduced the messages in your Inbox. Even better, you’ve reduced the number of subsequent messages that will ever see your Inbox.

All that should be left in your Inbox at this point is miscellaneous items. Go ahead and deal with them now. The goal is to empty your Inbox. If you find something you can’t delete, find a folder for it.

Now, you can’t just forget about all those moved messages. Go through the folders and continue to delete as much as you can. Use flags to identify, in some meaningful way, what’s left. It might cialis c20 take you a few days to come up with just the right flag system.

Once all your mail is in a folder and flagged, settle on a routine for checking new mail. Everything in your Inbox should be deleted or moved to an appropriate folder. All new messages in personal folders should be deleted or flagged.

By combining flags and search folders you can easily manage the E-mail you must keep. For instance, you might have many folders for current projects, but using just one  search folder you can view all messages flagged for an immediate response. You don’t have to sort through every folder. Just view the appropriate search folder.

Keeping the Inbox empty will be easier, but don’t expect miracles. Adjust rules or add new ones as necessary. The idea is to let Outlook filter messages into folders, bypassing the Inbox completely.

It will still take some effort on your part to keep things manageable:

• Quickly pursue new E-mails in the Inbox by deleting them, or moving them and flagging them.
• Check new messages in personal folders and delete them or flag them.
• Use search folders to manage flagged messages.

Don’t forget about the Old Stuff folder. It might take you several days to get through all that old mail, but none of it’s going anywhere. Chances are you’ll delete most of it. When you find a message you need to keep, drag it to a folder, flag it, and use a search folder to manage it.