dialog box

We've been asked about this issue several times by different subscribers: "Hi Infopackets team, I have been using Windows 8 and, for the most part, I like it. But one feature I really dislike is the lock screen. Talk about a time waster. Can you ... help me get rid of it once and for all? Thanks for your great information over the years, Gerald H." My Response: Gerald, I completely understand why you would get annoyed with Windows 8's lock screen. Meet Windows 8's Lock Screen If you're not familiar with it, the lock screen is enabled after a Windows 8 PC is awoken from sleep mode. The lock screen ... (view more)

Using fill effects in MS PowerPoint can give your presentation some razzle dazzle! I usually use this on my first slide, especially when creating a picture album. To use one of the fill effects options in MS PowerPoint, follow the steps below: Click ... on Format | Background. Click the drop-down list and then click Fill Effects. When the dialog box appears, you can select from four possible background types. To apply a gradient background, follow the steps below: Click the Gradient tab. The Fill Effects dialog box now includes the options that are available for applying a gradient background. ... (view more)

When applying formatting to a single word or the random phrase I usually will do it manually, but we all know that I am the queen of saving time and keystrokes and so, if I have lots of changes to make in a document, you can bet that I will be doing ... it in the quickest manner possible. It simply is not efficient to keep manually repeating the formatting process. Fortunately, there is a key combination that will greatly simplify this and I am going to share it with you! The key combination is CTRL + Y. This key combination remembers the last set of formats applied. By set, I mean multiple ... (view more)

My son-in-law came to me recently with a problem he was experiencing in MS Excel. He is a director in his company and is charged with keeping track of his employees' time. He wanted to be able to display a negative time in his MS Excel spreadsheet. ... I have to tell you -- I had a time figuring out this one. After doing some research and digging around a bit, I found that the easiest solution to this problem is to simply change the date system used by the workbook. I agree that it sounds a bit strange, but it works. The default date system for Windows versions of MS Excel is 1900 and if you are ... (view more)

There may come a time when you would like to rename an AutoText entry for one reason or another, but how to do this? Well, there are a couple of ways to do this. Follow the steps below to learn how: Insert the AutoText entry in a document. Select ... the information that you inserted. Create a new AutoText entry using the new name. Delete the old AuoText entry. As I said, there are a couple of ways to do this and it only applies to a version of MS Word prior to version 2007. You can follow the steps below for that method: Start the Organizer. Make sure the AutoText tab is selected. Use the drop- ... (view more)

In my last article, we talked about generating a table of contents and updating it. What if you don't want to use Word's built-in heading styles for a table of contents? Perhaps you have created your own styles, such as OutlineLevel1, OutlineLevel2, ... or OutlineLevel3, and you wish to use these styles in the table of contents. You can use a combination of built-in and user-defined styles when generating the table of contents. Generate A Table of Contents Using Custom Styles Open a document that has been formatted with customized styles. Place the insertion point in the document where you want ... (view more)

Sometimes you create a great PowerPoint presentation and just wish you had the expertise to convert it to HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) so that you can put it on your Web page. It doesn't require a whole lot of expertise. Follow the steps below ... to learn how: Launch MS PowerPoint if it is not already open. Open the PowerPoint presentation you would like to convert to HTML. Put all finishing touches on the slides and notes area if you have speaker notes. From the File menu, select Save as Web Page. Click Publish in the center of the dialog box. In the Publish as Web Page dialog box, make the ... (view more)

Recently a reader wrote to me about Multiple Footnotes with the same reference. Her question was: "I know how to do footnotes ... (view more)

You can use the ruler in Word to easily set tabs exactly where you need them, which is what I almost always use. It may be easier sometimes though, to use the Tabs dialog box if you find that you need to set leader tabs, which you cannot apply on ... the ruler. Suppose you need to set two left tab stops at 1.5" and 3.5" from the left margin and a right leader tab stop 5" from the left margin. I will show you how to set them all at one time! Follow the steps below: Position your cursor where you want the tabs to be set. Click Format | Tabs. In Word 2007, click Page Layout tab | ... (view more)

You can add, remove and otherwise customize your Office application toolbar. Toolbar buttons usually perform some action (e.g. underline text) or execute a macro. They can do a whole lot more than that too, such as open a Web page! Follow the steps ... below to learn how to do this: On your toolbar, click on Tools | Customize to display the Customize dialog box. Select the Commands tab. Click and drag one of the commands to your toolbar. It doesn't matter which one you drag -- it can be any one of them because it is only going to be a placeholder for now. For our purposes, just drag the first one ... (view more)