That Office Assistant

You either love it or hate it. And most of us seem to hate it. That's the Microsoft Office Assistant. How to get rid of it then? Permanently. Well, if you must take this drastic course of action without smashing your PC to pieces then this is probably the simplest way to do it. Open Windows Explorer Program Files Microsoft Office Office. Right click on the folder named Actors and re-name it something else, say Old Actors (the underscore is important). That should get rid of the Office Assistant for good, paper clip and all. To get it back just repeat the process but return it to its original name.

The Wonders Of AutoText (2)

Much as I love this feature of Microsoft Word, I appreciate that there are some aspects of it that can be annoying and that some PC users will want to turn it off or amend the way it works. For example, its automatic paragraph numbering doesn't suit everyone, so if you want to turn it off, do the following. From the Tools menu select AutoCorrect AutoFormat As You Type. Deselect the Automatic Numbered Lists and Automatic Bulleted Lists buttons.

Another thing that can be really annoying is that when you type paragraphs numbered (a), (b), etc, the third paragraph comes out as © . Or if your postcode ends in 7TH it will come out as 7^TH. If this is your problem then go to Tools AutoCorrect and click on the AutoCorrect tab and highlight and delete the entry Replace (c) with ©. Then on the AutoCorrect As You Type tab, deselect the item ‘Ordinals with Superscript.

Changing Default Settings In Microsoft Word

The default font for all versions of Word is Times New Roman, size 10. If you don't like this, and get fed up changing it every time you open a new document, you can change it permanently. It applies also to other settings, such as the zoom, or magnification, setting. Simply open a new document and select the font type and size that you prefer, and also the zoom setting, if different to the default. Then go to Font on the Format menu and click on the Default button. You will be asked to confirm the change. Click on Yes. Close Word without saving any changes, and then open it again. Your new, preferred settings should now be the default.

Selecting More Than A Screenful Of Text In Microsoft Word

You may know the problem. You're selecting a large chunk of text by pressing the left mouse button and dragging it across the screen. When you get to the bottom the document suddenly zooms up at the speed of light and you have no chance of stopping the highlighting where you want.

To overcome this, do one of the following. Select Shift + Up/Down Arrow to highlight one line at a time, or Ctrl + Shift + Up/Down Arrow to highlight one paragraph at a time, or Shift + Page Up/Down to highlight a page at a time. This is assuming, of course, that you don't own one of those expensive wheel mice which give very precise control over scrolling speed.

Typing fractions in Word 97 and 2000

Make sure your cursor is on an empty line. Then go to Insert Field Equations and Formulas. Select EQ in the right hand pane and in the text box, after the EQ entry, type ob320/f (x, y) where x and y are the numerator and denominator. The resulting fraction can then be dragged and dropped into place. For some reason this method doesn't work if the cursor is in the middle of a line of text.

Microsoft Word Disabling Auto Date

If you have the Auto Date facility on then any document you prepare that has the current date put in it will have this date changed to the current date when it is accessed later on. You may not always want this, so to change the date field to ordinary text, highlight it and it will turn gray. Then press Ctrl + Shift + F9 and it will change to ordinary text, black highlighted.

Changing Case in a Hurry in Word

Highlight the text and press Shift + F3.

Move fast in Excel

This is how to move quickly to the next or previous worksheet in your workbook. To move to the next worksheet in a workbook, press CTRL + PgDn. To move to the previous worksheet in a workbook, press CTRL + PgUp.

Controlling Ctrl+A in Word

In Microsoft Word I'm always finding new features and shortcuts. We all know (don't we?) that Ctrl + A selects all the text in the document. But what if you want to be more restrictive in your selection? Here's what to do.

Press F8 the first time to turn on this feature: Press the left mouse button and move your cursor right or left to select a single character. Now, press F8 a second time to select the entire word. Press F8 a third time to select the entire sentence. Press F8 four times to select the entire paragraph. Press F8 five times to select the entire document...

You can reverse the process by keeping the SHIFT key depressed When you don't want this feature any more press Esc.

Insert Date

To insert the date in any document, press Alt + Shift + D. Control the format from the Insert menu.

Playing with Numbers

We know that to add up a row of numbers in Excel you highlight the row and click on the SUM of the numbers in the Status Bar at the foot of the screen. But try right- clicking on the Status Bar result to display a set of extra options, including Average, Count, Count Numbers, Min and Max.

Excel Currency

You can format a cell to display a Currency format by pressing Ctrl-Shift-$

Easy Access to Documents with the Work Menu

Word 97's work menu provides easy access to documents you work on frequently. To add the work menu to your toolbar, select Customize from the Tools menu and click the Commands tab. In the Categories list, select Built-in Menus. In the Commands list, select Work and drag it into position on the menu bar. Click the Close button. Add a file by opening the file and selecting Add To Work Menu in the Work menu. To remove a file from the work menu, press Ctrl-Alt-- (Ctrl-Alt-hyphen), and the mouse pointer will change to a horizontal bar. Then select Work and click the filename to remove it.

This probably works in Word 2000 and XP as well, though I haven't checked that yet.

Office 2000 - Send Documents by E-mail

With Office 2000 you can now choose to save that Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint slide show or Word document as an HTML file which anyone can view with their Internet Browser. Here are the steps:

Create your file as you normally would in Excel or Word or PowerPoint. Then, once it's done, go to the File Menu in any of these programs and click on "Save as Web Page". This will save this file in HTML format (which is the format used to create Web Pages). Then just send this file as an attachment in your email. When the person on the other end receives it, all they have to do is double click on it and their web browser (ie: Internet Explorer, Netscape, even AOL) will open with the file displayed clearly inside for them to view. And, they don't have to be connected to the Internet to do this. Their browser will launch whether they are connected or not.