Date: June 12th, 2008
Author: Susan Harkins
In Access, you can limit user entries by forcing users to choose a value from a list control. Office applications use the same functionality in built-in drop-down lists. For instance, the Highlight and Font Color controls on most Formatting toolbars use this flexible tool. Simply click the small triangle to the right of the icon to display a list of choices.
You can create the same type of control for your users in an Excel sheet, but the process isn’t intuitive. The option is in the Data Validation feature. Fortunately, once you know the feature exists, it’s easy to implement. You need only two things: a list and a data entry cell. The following sheet shows a simple drop-down list in an Excel sheet.
Users click the drop-down arrow to display a list of items from A1:A4. If a user tries to enter something that isn’t in the list, Excel rejects the entry. To add this drop-down list to a sheet, do the following:
- Create the list in cells A1:A4. Similarly, you can enter the items in a single row, such as A1:D4.
- Select cell E3. (You can position the drop-down list in most any cell or even multiple cells.)
- Choose Validation from the is propecia covered by insurance Data menu.
- Choose List from the Allow option’s drop-down list. (See, they’re everywhere.)
- Click the Source control and drag to highlight the cells A1:A4. Alternately, simply enter the reference (=$A$1:$A$4).
- Make sure the In-Cell Dropdown option is checked. If you uncheck this option, Excel still forces users to enter only list values (A1:A4), but it won’t present a drop-down list.
- Click OK.
You can add the drop-down list to multiple cells. Select the range of data input cells (step 2) instead of a single cell. It even works for noncontiguous cells. Hold down the Shift key while you click the appropriate cells.
It’s worth noting that the drop-down arrow is visible only when the cell is active.
Date: June 13th, 2008
Author: Susan Harkins
PowerPoint’s guides intersect the middle of a slide, resembling a gun sight, just a bit, if you ask me. You can use these guides to measure the distance between objects and to position things accurately.
Guides are easy enough to display. Just right-click the slide, choose Grid And Guidelines from the resulting context menu, check the Display Drawing Guide On Screen, and then click OK. By default, there are only two guides, but you can move them. Simply click a guide and drag it.
Moving guides around can present a bit of a problem if you’re working with a lot of objects. Sometimes, it isn’t the guides’ position — you simply need more of them. The good news is that you can add as many guides as you need. This is one of those tips that seems simple and intuitive, especially if you use Office products a lot. Yet, I just discovered it. I can’t remember that I ever needed it before, which is generic propecia safe probably explains the lapse.
To add new guides, press Ctrl and drag a guide. Instead of dragging the existing guide to a new position, PowerPoint generates a new guide.
This works in all versions, including the newest, PowerPoint 2007.
Date: June 16th, 2008
Author: Mary Ann Richardson
You can make it easier for users to update records by adding an Undo button to a form. The Undo button will allow them to cancel changes made to a record without is generic propecia just as good having to go back and retype or delete entries made to a field. Follow these steps to add an Undo button to a form:
- Open the form in Design view.
- Right-click any toolbar and click Toolbox. Click to activate the Control Wizards button, if necessary, and then click the Command button tool. (In Word 2007, in the Form Design Tools tab, click to activate the Use Control Wizards button in the Controls group, if necessary, and click the Command button.
- Click and drag in the form where you want to locate the command button.
- Under Categories, click Record Operations.
- Under Actions, click Undo Record.
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Click Next.
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Click Next.
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Enter cmdUndoRecord.
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Click Finish.
Date: June 16th, 2008
Author: Mary Ann Richardson
You can use Excel’s Lookup functions to build a worksheet that can be used to search a database table. For example, say you’ve imported the following table from your Access database to Sheet2 of your Excel workbook:
To build a worksheet that can be used to look up an intern’s pay rate by entering the intern’s ID, follow these steps:
- Open the workbook, click the Sheet2 tab, and select the range A2:H5.
- Click in the Name box, type Interndata, and then press [Enter].
- Click on the Sheet1 tab.
- Click cell D6 and enter Employee ID.
- Click cell D8 and enter Name.
- Click cell E8 and enter the following function:
=VLOOKUP(E6,Interndata,3,FALSE)&" "&VLOOKUP(E6,Interndata,2,FALSE)
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Click in D10 and enter Pay Rate.
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Click in E10 and enter the following function:
=VLOOKUP(E6,Interndata,8,FALSE)
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Change the cell format of E6, E8, and E10 to match the data type of the data in the table.
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Add a header and formatting as shown here.
how much does propecia cost width=”100%” size=”2″ />
Date: June 16th, 2008
Author: Mary Ann Richardson
At the end of the month, you send out a statement for each customer’s account. You would like to send one statement to customers with outstanding balances and a second one to those with a $0 balance. You do not have to create two different mail merge documents. You can use the same mail merge document for both types of customers. Follow these steps:
- Open how effective is propecia a blank document.
- In Word 2002/2003, right-click any toolbar and select Mail Merge. In Word 2007, click the Mailings tab.
- In Word 2002/2003, click the Select Data Source button. In Word 2007, click Select Recipients and then click Use Existing List.
- Navigate to the Customer database and click Open.
- Select the Customer table and then click OK.
- Click in the document. The figure below shows inserted fields after toggling field codes.
- Click the Insert Merge Field button.
- Select Customer_Number.
- Press Enter.
- Click the Insert Merge Field button and select Name.
- Press Enter.
- Click the Insert Merge Field button and select City. Press Enter.
- Click the Insert Merge Field button and select State. Press Enter.
- Click the Insert Merge Field button and select Zip Code. Press Enter twice.
- Type “The balance for the
- Click the Insert Merge field button and select Customer_Number.
- Type “account is “.
- Click the Insert Merge Field button and select Balance.
- In Word 2002/2003, click the Insert Word Fields button in the Mail Merge toolbar. In Word 2007, click Rules, then click If …Then…Else.
- Enter the fields as shown below and click OK.
- Save the Mail Merge Main document as Monthly_statements. (To check your work, select the text in the document, right-click, and select Toggle Field Codes, as we did in the first figure.)
To produce the statements:
- Open the Monthly_statements document.
- In Word 2002/2003, click the Merge To New Document button on the Mail Merge toolbar. In Word 2007, click Finish And Merge and then select Edit Individual Documents. Click OK.
