Borders aren’t just for tables and text — they can add polish and prominence to the pictures in your documents as well. Here’s a look at this simple design trick.

Using Word’s Borders And Shading Dialog box, you can quickly add a border and/or shading to any image in your document. For example, say you want to add a border to the clip art shown in Figure A.

Figure A

Follow these steps:

Figure B

1. Select 4-1/2 pt from the Width drop-down list and click OK.

The specified border and shadow will appear around the clip art as shown in Figure C.

Figure C

To insert a special character, you probably choose Symbol from the Insert menu to launch the Symbol dialog box. In the scheme of things, access to these special characters is well organized and quick. However, you may want even quicker access, if you find yourself launching the Symbol dialog a lot. In any Office application, you can launch the Symbol dialog box from a toolbar by adding the Symbol command to generic cialis buy a toolbar as follows:

The next time you want to insert a symbol, just click the Omega button instead of using the Insert menu. Admittedly, you’re only saving a click, but that’s not really the point. If you frequently insert symbols, you’ll find the easy access beneficial.

If you insert the same symbol a lot, assign a shortcut key to insert it:

1. From Insert, choose Symbol.
2. In the Symbol dialog box, select the symbol and then click the Shortcut Key button.
3. Enter the keys you want to assign as this symbol’s shortcut. For instance, you might use [Alt]+C to insert a checkmark symbol.

1. Click Assign, click Close, and then click Cancel (or Insert).

To insert the symbol, simply press the shortcut you assigned. In this case, you’d press [Alt]+C to insert the selected checkmark symbol.

You can set up your slide shows to include a little preview presentation that will help prime your audience for the main event. Susan Harkins shows this simple but highly effective technique.

Displaying an introductory or welcome slide while your audience arrives for a presentation is common. You might display general information or a friendly hello. Usually, you display just one slide and the presentation doesn’t progress until you begin the presentation manually. This setup is okay, but to generate a bit more interest, you might want to display more than one introductory slide — call it a mini presentation if you like. That way, you’ll have the attention and interest of your audience before you even begin.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download, along with a sample presentation that demonstrates the technique.

Two presentations in one

While the audience enters the room and finds a seat, they may chat with one another, help themselves to refreshments, or sit quietly and wait for the show. Regardless, most will be thinking about other things, and not your presentation. The one-slide introduction that says welcome and displays pretty flowers is quaint, but it won’t grab anyone’s attention as they enter the room, and it certainly won’t keep anyone’s interest while they wait.

You can get their attention from the moment they walk through the door with an introductory presentation that introduces you and/or your presentation’s purpose. Now, you might think that you need two separate presentations, but you don’t. You can save the introductory presentation as a part of the main presentation. The key is to hide the slides in the main presentation. That way, your audience sees only the introductory slides. Later, when you’re ready to begin the presentation, you click a button that links to the first slide in the main presentation. Even though you hid the slide, PowerPoint will still display it, and then continue to display the remaining hidden slides in the main presentation.

Setting it up

It doesn’t matter where you place the introductory slides within the main presentation. At the beginning makes sense, but it isn’t necessary. Use as many introductory slides as needed, but keep it to a minimum. Two to five slides is usually adequate. The point is to present material that will interest the audience and enhance your program. (The example presentation is simple on purpose so as not to distract from the technique.)

Add the introductory slides to your presentation file and then save it. In Slide Sorter view, complete the following steps to distinguish between the two sets of slides:

Figure A

PowerPoint generic cialis buy online will automatically advance slides during the introduction.

1. Deselect the On Mouse Click option.
2. Choose Set Up Show from the Slide Show menu. In PowerPoint 2007, click the Slide Show tab and click Set Up Slide Show.
3. Select the Loop Continuously Until Esc option (Figure B). Make sure the Using Timings, If Present option is also selected, then click OK.

Figure B

Tell PowerPoint to loop continuously.

Now you’re ready to add the button that links the introductory presentation to the main presentation. You’ll click this button to stop the introductory message and begin the main show. To add a linking button to the introductory presentation, do the following:

1. With the last slide in the introductory presentation current in Normal view, choose AutoShapes from the Drawing toolbar. Then, choose Action Buttons. In PowerPoint 2007, you’ll find the Shapes group on the Insert tab.
2. Choose Action Button from the Shapes drop-down list.
3. Add an AutoShape to the slide.
4. With the button selected, choose Action Settings from the Slide Show menu. In PowerPoint 2007, choose Action on the Insert tab.
5. In the Action Settings dialog box, display the Hyperlink To option’s drop-down list and select Slide. (Thumb down to find the right option and do not accidentally choose Next Slide; doing so will take you to the next slide in the mini presentation.)
6. In the Hyperlink To Slide dialog box, select the first slide in the main presentation, as shown in Figure C.

Figure C

Select the first slide in the main presentation.

1. Click OK twice.

Most likely, you’ll want to make the linking button invisible, although doing so isn’t necessary. It’s up to you. To make the button invisible, do the following:

1. Double-click the button. In PowerPoint 2007, click the Format tab and then click the dialog box button in the Shape Styles group.
2. In the Format AutoShape dialog box, drag the Transparency Slider on the Color and Lines tab to 100% (Figure D). In PowerPoint 2007, use the Color pane.

Figure D

By changing the button’s Transparency property, you render it invisible.

If you want the flexibility of starting the main presentation from any slide in the introductory presentation, copy the button to the Clipboard and then paste it onto each slide in the intro presentation. The button will retain the same hyperlink and formats. Just be sure to paste the button to the same general area of each slide so you can remember where it is (if it’s invisible).

The presentation still isn’t ready for the split slideshow. To get the desired effect, you must hide the slides in the main presentation. Just select all the slides in the main presentation in Slide Sorter view and choose Hide Slide from the Slide Show menu. In PowerPoint 2007, click Hide Slide on the Slide Show tab.

Running the presentation

Run the presentation as you would any other. Press [F5] and PowerPoint will display the first slide in the introductory presentation, and then the next. When PowerPoint reaches the last slide in the introductory presentation, it will encounter the first hidden slide in the main presentation. It will then display the first slide in the introductory presentation again.

When you’re ready to begin the main presentation, click the Action button and PowerPoint will immediately display the first slide in the main presentation. At the end of the main presentation, PowerPoint will display the first slide in the introductory presentation. You’ll probably want to add a final slide that let’s you know you’re at the end. That way, you won’t inadvertently click that last slide and start the intro all over again.

Show’s on!

You can keep your audience mildly entertained or grab their interest early on with a short introductory presentation. Just let the slides automatically loop until you’re ready to begin the main presentation.

Here are the basics steps involved in setting up an invoice using a Word template — along with a sample template you can download and customize.

When it comes to performing calculations in a Word document, we tend to think of embedding or linking an Excel worksheet — but this can be overkill. Sometimes, a better approach is simply to insert a table in a document and perform the calculations in it. Word tables have a number of applications: staffing rotas, timetables, pricing charts, quotations, and the one I use most, invoices.

It’s easy to create an invoice that includes your business details, contact information, and logo, along with a table that itemizes the costs, parts, and labor; automatically calculates the totals and taxes; and presents a total amount payable. You can even include Fill-in fields to automatically prompt for customer information. Once you set up this invoice framework, save the blank form as a template, and you’re in business.

To generate an invoice, you just create a new document using the template, fill in the customer information, and enter the invoice amounts in the table. You can then update the fields that calculate tax and totals and print the invoice. To help you get started, I’ve created a sample invoice template that you can customize to fit your needs. Let’s look first at some template-building basics; then, I’ll explain how to modify and use my sample template.

Laying out the heading

The first step in building an invoice template is to design the heading you want to use for it. Once you’ve created a heading, save it so you can use it for other marketing material, such as flyers, price lists, and announcements.

AutoText tip

One convenient way to preserve an element such as a heading is to save it as AutoText. Just select the items that make up your heading and press [Alt][F3]. When Word presents the Create AutoText dialog box, enter a name and click OK. Then, whenever you need to insert the heading in a document, just position the insertion point marker where you want the heading to appear and type the AutoText name. By default, Word will offer to auto-complete the name, and you can press [Enter] to insert the heading. If this feature is turned off, just type the AutoText name and press [F3].

Creating the body of the document

Think about the wording you’re going to use in your invoice. Be careful not to fall into grammatical errors that can make you and your business look unprofessional. In my template, I used an automatic Date field so that each invoice I create from the template will be correctly dated.

Planning and inserting the table

When you’re ready to add the table to your template, display the Tables And Borders toolbar. As with the other toolbars available in Word, you can switch on this one from View | Toolbars. Most of the table options can be reached from this toolbar.

Decide how many rows and columns you need in your table. You can always insert extra rows, but it is nice to start out with something you don’t need to alter too much. Once you have planned the layout, click on the Insert generic cialis 10mg Table button. You will see a dialog box where you can select the number of columns and rows in your new table.

Entering the calculations

Look at the Tables And Borders toolbar. There’s a funny symbol at the bottom-right. This is the AutoSum button. By clicking in an empty cell below a column that will contain values, you can use this button to perform simple addition. When you click AutoSum, Word will insert the function { =SUM(ABOVE) }.

Should you wish to add a calculation for sales tax or VAT (UK), insert a formula field. First, click in the next cell down and choose Field from the Insert menu. Then, click the Formula button and enter a multiplication expression. For instance, to apply a 4 percent sales tax, enter the formula =B6*1.04 , as shown in Figure A.

Figure A

The formula multiplies the total, which, in this example, is in cell B6, by 1.04. You can alter this formula for use in your locality by changing the figure after the * symbol. For example, to apply the UK rate of sales tax (VAT, or Value Added Tax) of 15 percent, your formula would be =B6*1.15.

The cells in a Word table work in the same way as those of an Excel worksheet. The drawback is that the table does not display column and row labels. Remember that the columns are represented by letters, from left to right: A,B,C, etc. The rows are numbered from the top down. Figure B shows a table with those labels superimposed, to help you visualize this layout.

Figure B

Saving the template

When you save your invoice document, remember to save it as a Word template, with a .dot file extension. (Go to File | Save As and choose Document Template (*.dot) from the Save As Type drop-down list.) This will make it available from the File | New command.

Modifying the sample template

To put my sample invoice template to work, first open it and replace the heading and company information with your own. (To open the template for editing instead of creating a new document, you’ll need to right-click on it and choose Open.)

You might find it useful to work with field codes displayed so that you don’t accidentally delete any fields. You can toggle the display on and off for the entire document by pressing [Alt][F9]. Figure C shows the sample template with field codes displayed. Notice the Fill-in fields that prompt for an invoice number and customer information. Nice to have, but not essential when you create your own template.

Figure C

You may need to alter the calculation to reflect your own rate of tax, as discussed earlier. You may also want to modify the Fill-in field prompts to ask for different customer data. For instance, you might prompt for town, county, and post code rather than city, state, and zip code. With field codes displayed, simply edit the text that appears in quote marks within the Fill-in fields.

After you’ve modified the template, save it in the desired folder. If you want it to be listed with other templates when you create a new document, be sure to place it in your default location for templates.

Putting the sample template to work

When you want to raise an invoice for your personal services, open a new document using this template, fill in the customer information at the prompts, and enter the appropriate invoice charges. Select the table and press [F9] to update your calculations. Then, save and print the document and send it to your client. You can also copy the data into reminder letters, should your client fail to settle an account promptly.

DNS is the manageable way to resolve computer names to IP addresses, yet Windows admins usually use host files because they always work. But when you need to make a change to a bunch of host entries, where do you start?

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It can be risky to use the Windows host file (which is located at C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) for default installations if you need to make a change to a large number of systems with a local entry. Fortunately, there are a few ways to change these entries.

For example, look at a simple host file entry:

Imagine that the DHCP-122 host is frequently generic cheap cialis used and many systems have a host entry with that IP address. As the system becomes more important, it is moved to another network and a static IP address. Assuming there is a resolution mechanism, the task is to replace the entry with a hashed out entry, as shown below:

Let’s also assume that we don’t want to remove the other entries in the file. This change comments out the entry and puts the new IP address in place. In the event that DNS or another mechanism cannot resolve the address, we can easily flip this entry for access.

To accomplish this task for a large number of systems, there are a few ways of going about it. One tool that I came across recently is Advanced Find and Replace, where a text file of paths can be loaded for a large find and replace task. The text file would contain entries like this:

Advanced Find and Replace can then go through all of those paths and make the requested change if the text string exists in the file. This task can also be accomplished with a stream editing tool like Sed for Windows.

Another way to address easy short name resolution without the nightmarish management of host files is to migrate to Windows Server 2008’s DNS engine and use the GlobalNames zone — although the host files would need to be removed for the DNS results to work.

Whatever tool you use to modify the entry, make sure you do not add a file extension to the hosts file — the file will not function correctly with an extension. In general, you should stay away from using host files; however, certain situations warrant their use, and the manageability issues will soon follow.