Carol Bratt

If you find that you have difficulty when trying to formulate a function in MS Excel, you are not alone. A lot of folks fall into this trap; you can sometimes feel as if you are in a maze when you start to figure out which arguments are necessary to ... formulate your functions and it can be mind-bending at times. There is a way to demystify this for you and help you along so that you can actually see the arguments necessary to complete your function. Follow the steps below to learn more:As an example, if you are using the PMT function to calculate a loan payment: Start your function as you ... (view more)

Frustrated with the print area that Excel lays out for you? It can be too little or too much information right? Well I say let's make our own print area -- it's very easy to do! Yep, I thought you would like to hear that. Follow the steps below to ... learn how: Highlight the cells that you would like to print. You will now proceed to the Print dialog window by either clicking on File | Print or using the shortcut CTRL | P. Once you have accessed the Print dialog window, under Print what, you will click on Selection, which is the range of cells that you had previously highlighted. Click on OK. ... (view more)

It is so frustrating after you create your table, have it all formatted the way you want it and have keyed in all your text and then you decide you want to key in text above the table. Ever have that experience? I bet more than a few of you have. ... You certainly don't want to start over from scratch! Well you might not believe it but I am going to tell you the simplest way ever to get that blank space above your table so you can key in any sort of text you like leading into your table. Follow the steps below to learn how: Click in the upper left cell of your table. If there is text in that cell ... (view more)

You may or may not have noticed the customize button on the right-hand side of your Outlook Today page, but it is there and if you use it, it is so much easier than searching throughout all the different menus! You all know that I am all about ... saving time and keystrokes! Take a look at the upper right-hand side of the Outlook Today window. See it? Didn't even notice it before did you? Go ahead and click the Customize Outlook Today button to begin. You will immediately see a list of choices. You are now free to make your own decisions regarding which message folders to report, the number of ... (view more)

If you have recently upgraded to Office 2007 you may be in a quandary as to where the shortcuts are located. If you are anything like me, you are absolutely lost without them. I am here to show you how to retrieve those shortcuts that have always ... been so helpful to you. Follow the steps below: Click on Office Button | Customize or right-click on the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) and select Customize Quick Access Toolbar. Now that you know where to find it, the rest is pretty intuitive. There are some changes because you are now looking at commands that are based in groups on the ribbon where ... (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)

A reader recently wrote to ask "Once a table of contents has been created, can you change the page numbers appearing on the right side of the TO?" I am assuming that the reader is talking about an automatically generated Table of Contents (TOC). And ... if that is the case, the answer is yes, absolutely! The caveat is that you have to know how to create an automatically generated TOC in order to update it when you add more text. You can generate a table of contents using Word's built-in styles, such as Heading 1, 2, and 3, or by creating and using your own custom styles. If you have a document ... (view more)

In my last article I discussed building a table of contents using custom styles. This article will show you how to build on that information. As you continue to edit your document and add headings, you'll periodically need to update the table of ... contents. As noted in the preceding section, the table of contents is a field, meaning that Word created it for you based on the styles in your document. Word gives you four ways to update a table of contents, so choose the method that works best for you: Shortcut menu. Alternate-click anywhere in the table of contents and choose Update Field from the ... (view more)

Someone recently told me that she really enjoyed creating presentations for her company training sessions, but she really wished there was a way to truly emphasize a graphic, chart, text, etc. to make it really stand out on the screen when she is ... teaching. She was surprised and delighted when I told her that I could show her a way to make an object grow right before the eyes of her students! Follow the steps below so that you can incorporate this into your next presentation: Select the object you would like to optimize and emphasize. In the Slide Show menu, click on Custom Animation. Click on ... (view more)

A subscriber recently wrote me inquiring about having the number color in Excel change when there is a certain value result. There are two ways to color numbers in MS Excel based on certain criteria: Custom formatting for a number with criteria ... Conditional Formatting Your options for coloring a number in MS Excel are not limited to displaying negative number values in red. You can also color positive and/or negative numbers in any color you like. There is a limit to the colors however. There are only eight to choose from and the aren't really easy to read either. Follow the steps below: To ... (view more)