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Create small images with ease |
Sometimes you need Powerpoint images with
lots of detail. This can be difficult if your image is
small, e.g. a logo.
The way round this is simply to create the image at
a large size and then resize it. You still get the detail you
need but without all the hassle.
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| Add watermark
chart markers to your charts |
Poorly designed charts can be boring and
fail to give you their messages. If you want to
something fresh, try adding watermark chart markers that match
any background image you use.
Start by finding an image to use as a background image
and insert the image into
PowerPoint and resize it to fill your slide. Create a chart
with large 2-D columns. Make a copy of your background image and
paste it onto your slide. Change your image to a watermark by
clicking the Image Control button on the Picture toolbar.
You
can use the More Brightness and Less Brightness buttons to adjust
the image to your liking. Finally, use the Crop tool
to adjust the size of your image so it covers one of your chart
markers. To create the rest of your watermark chart
markers, paste the image again and follow the same process. |
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| Create a PowerPoint presentation
from an existing outline |
You can create a PowerPoint presentation from a meeting
agenda or other type of outline created in a word processing
program without copying and pasting information from the
outline into PowerPoint. PowerPoint can automatically import
information from different types of file including documents created
with a word processing program.
To import an outline into PowerPoint,
first select File/Open from PowerPoint's menu bar. In the Open dialog
box, choose All Outlines from the Files Of Type dropdown list and you will see in the Open dialog
box a list of all of the files that PowerPoint can import as a
presentation outline. Navigate to the directory location where the
file you want to import is stored. Select the file and click on
Open. PowerPoint will open the file in Outline view and
create a new slide for each main heading in your outline. The way PowerPoint
assigns heading levels automatically to
slides will depending on the word processing program and the outline structure
you used.
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| Setting defaults for AutoShapes in PowerPoint |
If you want your Autoshapes to have a consistent look-and-feel, you can
set the fill colour, line colour, line style or shadow attributes as AutoShape defaults.
This means that each AutoShape you create will use these attributes automatically .
To do this, select an AutoShape for which
you want to set default
attributes. Next, click the Draw button
on the Drawing toolbar and choose Set AutoShape Defaults. Each shape you create will use these
same attributes, even if you change these attributes for another AutoShape. |
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| Drag clip art into your PowerPoint presentations |
It can be a bit tedious when you add several clip art images to a presentation
by selecting the image and then choosing Insert Clip for each image. However, there is an easier way
by dragging the image to your presentation.
Open the Insert ClipArt dialog box by clicking the Insert
Clip Art button and navigate to the image and drag it into your open presentation. This way
not only do you insert the image, but you also control where it's placed on the slide. |
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| Animating individual pie pieces in PowerPoint |
PowerPoint's Chart Effects feature in the Custom Animation dialog box
allows you to animate pie charts. However, this feature does not allow you to
animate individual pieces of a chart and its related text.
If you want to
animate the individual pieces of a pie chart, first create a chart and choose Ungroup
from the Draw menu. This separates each pie segment into several pieces depending
on how many sides there are to each 3-D pie piece. Select all the pieces that constitute
the make-up of a pie segment by clicking the individual pieces while holding down the
Shift-key and then click on Group option from the Draw menu.
Do this to group each individual
pie segment. Once all the pieces of your chart are grouped, you can edit the options in the Timing
area of the Custom Animation dialog box to animate your chart. Since each pie segment is its
own group, you can choose the exact order that you want each piece to appear.
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Adjusting text height without losing width in PowerPoint |
If you need to create a title with lots of text, it can be difficult to
fit the text onto a PowerPoint slide without losing height
as PowerPoint
does not have a feature to let you adjust the spacing of your text. However, there is
a work-around.
Open a blank slide and enter your text using a large font size,
making
sure your text does not run off the edge of the slide. Save this slide as a JPEG File
Interchange and insert that file as a picture.
Once you place the slide in PowerPoint,
you can use the Crop tool to adjust its bounding box and then use the bounding box to
resize your text. This way you can get the look you want by manipulating your text like
a clip art image. |
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| Using the Pen tool during PowerPoint slide shows |
| If you want to use the Pen tool during your slide show to draw on a slide,
use the Ctrl-P keys to access the Pen tool. Click your mouse and drag to use the Pen tool
to draw during your slide show. To erase everything you've drawn, press the E key. |
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MS EXCEL TIPS
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Remove the underline from an Excel hyperlink when printing |
When you print a worksheet containing cells
formatted as hyperlinks
(such as www.4-consulting.com), the
entries in those cells appear as underlined text on the
printed report. If you do not want this result, it's
easy to change the format of the
cell.
First, select the cell with the hyperlink by using
the keyboard arrow keys rather than your
mouse - this prevents you from activating the hyperlink.
Use the Ctrl-U keys to remove the
underline. It's generally best not to change the
colour of the hyperlink but, if you feel you must, use the Font Color dropdown list on the Formatting toolbar. If you plan to make
several formatting changes such removing the underline, changing the font and colour of the
text, right-click on the cell with the hyperlink and choose Format Cells. Then use the
Format Cells dialog box to make your changes. |
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| Rounding numbers to a specific multiple |
Many readers will be familiar with Excel's ROUND function
which allows you to round a number of specific number of
decimal places or to powers of ten.
However, sometimes,
you may sometimes need to round to specific multiples. For instance,
if your business suppliers lengths of pipe that is only
sold in fixed lengths of (say) 20 metres. When a
customer requires a
fractional amount of a length of pipe, you can use the
CEILING function to round up the number of lengths of product
to be supplied. As an example, if a customer
needs 30 metres of pipe, your formula needs to round up to the next appropriate
increment, i.e. 40.
The CEILING
function takes the form:
CEILING(number, significance)
CEILING always rounds away from zero. However, the function rounds in multiples of
whatever value is specified by the significance argument. To illustrate how this function
can solve our existing problem, let's assume that the length of
pipe ordered is stored in
cell C2. To calculate the cost based on the required minimum that must be purchased, you
would determine the length being ordered using the following formula:
=CEILING(C2,20)
If the value in C2 is 44, the CEILING function rounds the value 44 up to
60. If you change
the value in cell C2 to 61, you'll see the required length that must be purchased jumps to
the next multiple, 80. If you specify a value that already is a multiple of 20, no rounding
change is made to the value.
The value used for the significance argument can
also be a decimal value. For example, you can round up to .5 multiples with a formula
like so:
=CEILING(123.3,.5)
Note: both the number and the
significance arguments must be of the same sign.
The corollary of the CEILING function's
is the FLOOR function. The FLOOR function always rounds down toward
zero in a specified multiple. Otherwise, the behaviour and rules that apply to the CEILING
function apply to FLOOR as well. |
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| Quickly navigate print previewed Excel files |
It's always worth using Excel's Print Preview
to check that the document you're about to print looks
right. However, navigating round the previewed
document can be tedious. Depending on the length of
the document, you may find it easier to navigate the Print Preview window using shortcut
keys.
Most people will know that you can use the PageUp, PageDown and direction arrows
to move around the current page when a document is zoomed in.
You can also hold
down the Ctrl-key while using the direction arrows to jump to the edge of the document
that corresponds to the direction arrow. Holding down Ctrl-PageUp and
Ctrl-Page-Down lets you horizontally scroll in increments.
When the worksheet preview is
zoomed out, Ctrl-LeftArrow and Ctrl-UpArrow cause the preview to jump to the first
page of the document, while Ctrl-RightArrow and Ctrl-Down Arrow move you to the
last page. |
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| Merge values in Excel without
using =CONCATENATE |
If you've ever needed to combine data from two or more cells, you may
have used the CONCATENATE function. For instance, if cells A1 and B1 respectively
contain the values "1234" and "ABC", you'd use the formula:
=CONCATENATE(A1,B1)
to produce the result "1234ABC".
The same answer can be achieved using the ampersand
symbol (&). Simply replace the previous formula with the following:
=A1&B1 |
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| Copy Excel data validation rules to other cells |
Having set up validation rules for data
entry cells in an Excel model, it's quite common to want
the same rules to operate in other cells or worksheet.
It's easy to do this without re-creating all the rules
by copying to the clipboard a
range containing the cells that already have validation rules.
Right-click on the first cell in the target range where you want to apply the rules.
From the shortcut menu, select Paste Special. When the Paste Special dialog box appears,
select the Validation option and click OK. |
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| Prevent users from viewing Excel formulas |
If you produce an Excel spreadsheet to be
issued to outsiders, you'll often want to protect the worksheet cells that contain formulas so that
they won't be damaged if users accidentally type in cells they aren't supposed to.
By default, users can still see the formula contained in a protected cell by selecting
the cell and looking in the Formula Bar.
If you want to prevent users from reading your
formulas, you can hide them so that they don't appear in the Formula Bar
by using on of Excel's formatting cells features.
Before you apply your worksheet protection, select the cells you want to hide from the Formula Bar. Then, choose Format/Cells from
the menu bar. Next, click on the Protection tab and select the Hidden check box.
If you want to ensure that changes cannot be made in the cells, ensure that the Locked check box is
also selected. Click OK to close the Format Cells dialog box.
Finally, choose
Tools/Protection/Protect Sheet from the menu bar, ensure that the Contents check box is
selected, and click OK. |
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| Create multiple sums in Excel at once |
If you need to create a series of =SUM formulae, such as at the foot of
multiple columns or at the ends of multiple rows, you do
not have to enter each formula separately.
Instead, select the appropriate range of cells and click the AutoSum button on the Standard
toolbar. |
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| Format additional list items automatically |
It's likely that you'll have added an item to a list that has already
been formatted only to find that you have then to format the new item to match the others.
However, Excel can format the new item automatically using the Extended Formats And Formulas
option.
This feature will only work if at least three of the preceding five rows must have the same
format. For example, if you have five items listed in cells A2
through A6, format them any way you like. In cell A7, type a
new item for the list. When you press [Enter], the new item is
formatted to match the preceding items.
This feature also copies down a formula if the preceding rows
contain the same formula. For example, suppose you have several
rows of data in columns B through G with column H containing a
formula at the end of each row. When you add a new row data to
the bottom of the list and press [Enter] for the last item of data,
the formula will be filled in the last cell for that row.
To turn this option on or off, choose Tools/Options from the menu
bar and click on the Edit tab. On the right side of the dialog box,
either select or deselect the Extend List Formats And Formulas
check box.
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Sandy
Pratt
is a director of 4-consulting,
click
here to view his profile. |
