Carol Bratt

If you use MS Word to create newsletters, marketing copy, or other printable documents that include images, there's one picture-editing tool that can make the difference between publishing an image that works and one that merely takes up space: the ... Crop tool. For instance, instead of publishing an image that shows a very small person in the middle of a lot of wasted space, you can use the Crop tool to zoom in on the important part of the image. You can practice using the Crop tool and see how it works: Launch MS Word. Copy a graphic image from a Web page and paste it into Word, or insert an ... (view more)

You don't have to be a spreadsheet wizard to create eye-catching "trend charts" in MS Word. If you can create a Word table, you can use Microsoft Graph Chart to create a visually appealing chart based on that table. First, you need a table with at ... least two rows. In the first row, enter descriptive labels for your data. In the rest of the rows, enter the data you want to chart. If you prefer, you can enter row-level text labels in the leftmost column of your table. If you do, the charting tool will ignore the first cell in the top-level corner of the table. Once you have a table, it takes ... (view more)

When you select anywhere inside a paragraph, Word's ruler bar shows the tab settings for that paragraph. If you select multiple paragraphs, however, the tabs on the ruler bar may be grayed out. This occurs when the paragraphs have different tab ... settings. In almost any case, an option that is grayed-out infers that the "option" (whatever it may be) is unavailable. With a grayed-out tab, however, that is not the case. One way to set consistent tabs for multiple paragraphs is to select [highlight] the paragraphs and then use the Format | Tabs command from the main menu. To do so: Double-click ... (view more)

Microsoft Outlook provides a new feature in versions 2000 and forward that allows you to color-code items that meet certain criteria. Using this feature you can identify a set of items without having to group or sort them. In fact, Outlook does it ... all for you! First you have to assign a common Category code to each contact you wish to assign to a color group, and then you can apply a color to that category group. To assign categories to your contacts: Launch MS Outlook. In the Contacts folder on the Tools menu, click Organize. In the Organizer, click Using Views, and then click to select by ... (view more)

From the earliest times of counting on our fingers and toes, to the use of the abacus to desktop calculators -- working with numbers has come a long way. And what's more: you can ramp up your Windows XP calculator with Microsoft Calculator Plus, and ... run applications your old pocket calculator never dreamed of. Best of all, this utility offered from Microsoft is absolutely free! The Calculator applet that comes with Windows XP is basically the same as the one that came with Windows 3.0. If you've always wanted an updated Calculator applet with some more advanced features, you owe it to ... (view more)

You're almost at the end of drafting your document when you realize that you used the registration symbol (®) throughout, instead of the copyright symbol (©). You would think you could simply go to Edit | Find and replace all instances of the ® sy ...mbol with the © symbol; unfortunately, it's not that easy. The problem is that when the Find And Replace dialog box is open, Word's menus and toolbars are unavailable, making it difficult to find and replace symbols in your document. And, you cannot use Insert | Symbol to enter the actual symbols in the Find What: text box. If a symbol has a shortcut ...ref="/news/1078/find-and-replace-special-character-symbols-ms-word" class="more-link">view more)

Do you copy and paste a lot of information from the web? If you do, then you probably know that it can be a real hassle to always click Edit -> Paste Special (when necessary) when using an MS Office application. So why not just put that Paste ... Special in a sub-menu? To do so: Launch any MS Office Application (MS Word, MS Excel, MS Frontpage, etc). Right-click any menu or toolbar and select Customize. Select the Commands tab on the Customize dialog. Select New Menu from the Categories list. 'New Menu' will appear in the Commands list on the right. Click and Drag it to the target menu, where ... (view more)

Recently, Dennis asked me: " I've just finished reading your previous article, ' Disable Custom Dictionary in MS Word ', and was wondering: how can I edit my own custom dictionary? I ask this because at one time I ran spell check on a document and ... accidentally added a misspelled word to my custom dictionary. I wanted to remove the misspelled word from the dictionary, but couldn't figure out how to do it. Can you suggest anything? " Carol's response: Absolutely! To remove words from your custom dictionaries: Launch MS Word. Go to Tools | Options | Spelling & Grammar; on the Tools ... (view more)

If you create PowerPoint presentations on a regular basis, you undoubtedly write in point-form. To 'spruce up' the presentation, PowerPoint allows you to insert graphics and symbols for each point. One great way to save time inserting these symbols ... is to simply add an icon to the toolbar. To do so: Launch PowerPoint Click Tools menu | Customize | Commands; scroll down the list on the left and click on Insert. Scroll down the list on the right until you see an Omega symbol (such as an upside down horseshoe). Click and drag this symbol onto any toolbar you like. Click Close. Then next time you ... (view more)

By default, MS Excel will display large numbers in cells using the scientific notation format. For example, if you were to place the number "1231231231234" into a cell, the resulting display would be "1.23123E+12" as soon as the Enter key was ... pressed. Even if you increased the cell width to accommodate 12 characters, Excel will still display the number in scientific notation. Thankfully, there's a way to display numbers in a format other than scientific notation! The trick is to reformat the cell properties. Here's how to do it: Select the cells that will hold the larger ... (view more)