|
Change the Outlook calendar background
colour |
| If you do not like
Outlook's default yellow colour in calendars you can
change the colour by choosing Tools/Options/Calendar
Options. Select a new colour from the Background Color
dropdown list and click OK twice.
The background colour is displayed in
the Day/Week/Month and Work Week views but only applies
to your work week hours. Night and weekend hours will
have a darker version of the background colour. |
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|
Change the Working
Hours in the Calendar |
| By default, Outlook sets the calendar's
working hours as 9:00 am to 5:00 pm from Monday to
Friday. If you need to change these times to fit your
own business, you can do so by choosing Tools/Options
from the menu bar and click Calendar Options. Select the
days of the week you work and change the Start Time and
End Time to suit your needs. |
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|
Check the Membership of an Email Distribution List |
| If you ever want to know to know who is
included in a distribution list before sending a
message, you can do so by creating a new message.
Click on the File/New/Mail Message from the main menu.
On the message form, click the To button and select the
address list containing the distribution list you want
to check. Next, select the distribution list name and
click the Properties button. The names of the people
included in the list are displayed in the Members box. |
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|
Create Signatures for Your Emails |
| You can create different signatures for
different types of email, e.g. new business messages,
replies to email or personal messages.
To create a custom signature, select
Tools/Options from the menu bar and click on the Mail
Format tab. In the Signature panel, click Signature
Picker and the Signature Picker dialog box opens with an
empty signature box. Click the New button to open the
Create New Signature dialog box and enter a suitable
name for your new signature - you can use letters,
spaces or numbers - in the A Name For Your New Signature
text box. Check that the option button Start With A
Blank Signature is selected and click Next. In the
Signature Text text box, type the text you require for
this signature. To format the new text, select the
text and use the Font and Paragraph buttons to add
character and paragraph formatting. Click Finish and
click OK to close the Signature Picker dialog box.
This tip will not work if you have
Microsoft Word selected to edit your email messages; the
Signature Picker will not be available.
To have Outlook automatically insert a
particular signature in all new messages, on the Mail
Format property sheet, in the Signature panel, select
the name of the signature you want to insert from the
Use This Signature By Default dropdown list. When you
create a new mail message, the signature is
automatically added to the bottom of the message. |
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|
Sending an Email to Several Contacts |
| Most people send an email message to
several contacts by opening the new
message form, then opening the address book and adding
the contacts to the To: line. This involves lots of
mouse clicks
A simpler way is to select the
contacts first from the Contacts pane then drag the
selection to your Inbox. Outlook opens a message form
and inserts the email addresses of the selected contacts
automatically. |
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|
Using HTML for Better
Looking Email |
| You can use the HTML
message format and email stationery to add a nice
background to your messages. To do this, choose
Tools/Options from the menu bar and click on the Mail
Format tab. Make sure HTML is the selected mail format.
Make sure that Use Microsoft Word To Edit E-mail
Messages check box is not ticked. Click the Stationary
Picker button and, in the Stationery Picker dialog box,
select a stationery then click OK twice. Now create a
new message and your stationery is changed to the one
you selected. |
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|
Create a Contact from an Outlook Email |
| You can create a contact form from an
email that you received by opening an email from the
person for whom you want to make a contact item.
Right-click on the contact's name after the From: field.
In the shortcut menu that appears, choose Add To
Contacts. A new contact form opens with the email
address already filled in for you. |
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|
Create a Contact from
an Outlook Email (method 2) |
| In this method, the
message remains closed. Use the
right mouse button to drag the message
from the Inbox to the Contacts folder in the Folder
List.
When the shortcut menu appears, select Copy Here As Contact With
Text. Outlook will not only fill in the Name and Email
Address fields but also copies the body of the message into the text box at the bottom of
the contact form. Thus, you can store the body of the message as a note along with
that contact's other
information.
If you always want to include the
message text in the contact form, you can use the left
mouse button to drag the message
to the Contacts folder. When you do, you will not see the shortcut menu but the new contact
form will be filled in and the
message included as text.
The shortcut menu also gives you the choice to Copy Here As Contact With
Shortcut, Copy Here As Contact With Attachment, and Move Here As Contact With
Attachment. |
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MS EXCEL TIPS
|
|
Add automatic date and time stamps to
printouts
|
| It is good practice to
include the date when an Excel report is produced as it
helps you understand the context of the data in the
report. It is a simple process to add the time and
date that a printout was created to the worksheet's
header or footer section. To do so, choose View/Header
And Footer from the menu bar. Then, click the Custom Header or Custom Footer button. Click in
the section text box for the page where you want to
position the date and/or time. Click the Date button,
press [spacebar], and/or click the Time button. You can also type the following codes
directly into the section text box:
&[Date] &[Time]
Finally, click OK in all of the open
dialog boxes. |
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|
Add a Command to a Menu |
| It is easy to customise
your menus by adding your own commands. You start by
selecting the toolbar that contains the menu to which you want to add a command. Then open the Tools menu, choose
Customize and then click on the Commands tab. In the Categories list box, you should click on the category for the command.
Next, drag the command you want from
the Commands list box the menu on the toolbar and pause there for a moment. When
the menu displays a list of menu commands, move the mouse pointer to the place where you
want the command to appear on the menu on the toolbar and release the mouse button. |
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|
Check for Identical Cell Text Values |
| Excel ignores capitalisation when you try
to compare text values in two or more cells. While
this may not always matter, the EXACT function enables
you to check for capitalisation as well.
To see how this works, select cell A1
and enter the text value:
"4-CONSULTING EXCELLENCE"
(without the double quote marks)
Next, select cell B1 and enter the
value:
"4-Consulting Excellence"
(again without the double quote marks)
If you enter in cell D1 the following
formula =A1=B1, Excel will display a result of
TRUE because the text characters match even though the
capitalisation does not match.
If capitalisation is important, you
should use the EXACT function.
For example, entering =EXACT(A1,B1) in cell E1 returns a
result of FALSE. |
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|
Use Embedded Excel
Worksheets for Complex Calculations in Other Types of
Documents |
| You can perform simple
calculations, such as additions, cross-adds or
multiplication, in a Word table using the Table/Formula command.
If you need to perform complex
calculations an Excel worksheet is a much more powerful
and efficient alternative and you can easily embed a new Excel worksheet directly into a Word
document.
You start off by positioning the
insertion point where the new worksheet should appear. Click the Insert Microsoft Excel
Worksheet button on the Standard toolbar and then select the number of cells you want to display. Do not panic if you
don't know how many rows or columns you need as you can
always change this setting later. Word adds an embedded Excel worksheet to your document
and activates it for editing.
Next, add data to your embedded worksheet just as you would a normal Excel worksheet.
When you have finished, click anywhere in your document,
i.e. outside the embedded Excel worksheet, to resume
document editing.
To edit the embedded worksheet,
double-click on it to activate it.
To increase the number of visible
worksheet cells, double-click on the embedded worksheet to activate it for editing, and then drag any of its sizing
handles to increase its display area.
To increase the size of the embedded
worksheet without increasing the number of visible cells, click on the worksheet once to
select it. Then drag any of its sizing handles.
If you want to see the full worksheet, right-click on
top of the embedded worksheet and choose the option
Worksheet Object/Open. |
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|
Entering Numbers as Text Strings |
| You have probably
found that Excel tries to be smart by interpreting
numeric values as a date and by removing leading zeros
when you are entering codes such account or product
codes. For example, if you want a column of
product codes with values like 14-12, 11-18, and 8-2005 or data labels that describe the age ranges 1-5, 6-10
and 10-12, Excel automatically converts the codes to 14 Oct, Nov-18 and Aug-05.
Similarly, Excel converts the range labels to 5-Jan, 6-Oct and 12-Oct.
An easy way of avoiding this problem
is to precede your data with an apostrophe character
('). This causes Excel to treat the entry as text data. For example, enter '8-2099. When you complete the entry, Excel doesn't
display the apostrophe in the cell, although you can still see it in the Formula bar.
By default, Excel left-aligns the data
in the cell. because the entry is a text value. You
should not use this tip if you merely wish to left-align numeric values. Any formulas
that depend on the numeric values
could return errors or incorrect results if you do. |
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|
Edit Hyperlinks in Cells |
| It can be quite tricky to edit a
hyperlink in a cell because Excel immediately follows a
link as soon as you click on a cell containing a
hyperlink. One way of avoiding the
problem is to click in an adjoining cell and then move
to the hyperlink using the arrow keys.
A better solution is to hold down the
Ctrl key and select the hyperlink. You will now be able
to enter the new hyperlink text directly in the cell
without triggering the link. |
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|
Displaying Page Breaks |
| How often have you printed out a
worksheet only to discover that a few rows or columns
have flowed over into another page. Excel
only displays automatic page breaks after you have
printed the report or chosen Print Preview.
Although you can preview your
worksheets reports before you print, you can set Excel
to show page breaks. You start by choosing
Tools/Options from the menu bar then clicking on the
View tab. Select the Page Breaks check box in the Window
Options panel and click OK. Excel will display
automatic page breaks in your worksheets allowing you to
format your data correctly before printing. |
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|
Prevent Auto-run Macros
Running on Start-up |
| Macros that start automatically when you
open a workbook can be a real nuisance.
You can prevent auto-run macros from
running by simply holding down the Shift key when you
open a workbook. You need to keep the Shift key
pressed while you click on any warning dialog boxes that
appear during the process. |
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|
Sandy
Pratt
is a director of 4-consulting,
click
here to view his profile. |
