Ignore the auto complete suggestions for the current date(Word XP, 2003)

            The moment you write the current year, Word will give you the date. You can ignore this suggestion altogether.

            Open the menu command “Tools | AutoCorrect Options” to change this mode. Open the tab “Auto Text” in the next dialog and disable the option “Show AutoComplete Suggestions”. Confirm using “OK”. In any case, 2003 onwards Word has done away with the AutoText option for Suggestions of AutoComplete.

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Use word processing for publishing content in blogs(Word 2007, 2010)

               You write new articles for a blog now and then. For this, most of the times you first type in the article in Microsoft word and then step by step copy it on to the form given on the relevant website.
               The standard Word supports direct publishing of an article onto a blog. For this, you will first need to set up the necessary access data and then begin writing a new blog article using the suitable template of your choice. For this, you just need to have a blog set up. You can do this via services such as Wordpress, Blogger, etc..

                Now, go to Word and follow the path “File | New”. Select the option “Blog Post” from the available templates and then right-click on “Create”. A new window will open, wherein you will get a dialog for registration. Here, click on “Register now”. In the next step, select the name of the blog service you signed up for, for example, “WordPress” in the combination field and click on “Next”.
               You will now be provided with a link in the next dialog. Edit the entry for “Blog Post URL” in such a way that it will be displayed as your own blog. Just make sure that the suffix “xmlrpc. php” remains unchanged, otherwise the registration would fail. You will also need to add the login data in the “User name” and “Password” fields. Next, activate the option to “Save password” and confirm this step by clocking on “OK”.
                In case an error message pops up check the spellings in the access data as well as the exact form of the URL. In addition to this, the access over the API must also be stated in the blog. Now, you can simply write and save the blog article in the same way as you would save a Word document. You can directly publish the article on to the blog by clicking the “Publish” button available in the “Blog Post” tab. You can even manage the blogs over “Manage Accounts” tab when you want to manage more blogs. You can even edit the already published articles comfortably over the “Open existing” option.
Note: It may so happen that Word cannot be accessed at all times when there are changes at the server end at the blog providers or updates in Word. At the moment there isn’t any general solution found for this problem. In such a case you can switch to a special blog editor like say Windows Live Writer.

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Delete appointments prior to a specific date in one go(Outlook 2010)

             You want to remove all the appointments prior to a specific date from your personal “Calendar” in order to make some space in the Outlook PST database (Personal store).

              All the appointments that are set prior to a specific date can be deleted quickly and when displayed in a tabular format. It displays only the appointments and does not give out the days, weeks and months individually. For this you first need to activate the calendar by clicking on the “Calendar” tab from the Navigation field. Then go to the “View” tab, click on the “Change view” button and select the entry “List” in the following menu.
               Now the next step is to sort the displayed appointments in accordance with the beginning or end period. Check whether Outlook has correctly sorted the appointments in a descending chronological order and if necessary click one more time on the column heading till it is arranged in a correct order. Now, look out for the first entry of the date in the list where you would want to delete the appointments prior to this date and mark it. Then keeping the “Shift” button pressed mark the last entry. All the appointments in between the first and the last selected entries will be automatically selected when the shift button is kept pressed during the selection.
             Now, delete these appointments by pressing the [Delete] button. With this, Outlook automatically moves the deleted appointments to the folder “Deleted Items”. You can still restore the deleted appointments if this folder is not emptied.

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Underline text passages in Word in a different color(Word XP, 2003, 2010)

              If you want to underline text in Word, the text editing uses the same color for it as the text. But you want to underline the text in a different color.

              Select the text passages to be underlined and open the menu command “Format | Font” and then select the desired format in the “Underline” combination field. With “Only words”, you can determine that Word only underlines the words from the selection without spaces. All other types, underline the entire selection including the spaces. In that, you can select from various underlining types. As soon as you make a selection different from “(none)”, Word activates the “Color” combination box to the right. Select the color that Word is supposed to use for underlining. Confirm your selection with “OK”. However, the changed formatting only applies to the currently selected text passage. If you subsequently underline other text passages with [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[U] or with the button in the toolbar, the text editing again uses the color of the text.

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Highlight the active cell in Microsoft Excel(Excel XP, 2003, 2007, 2010)

              It is often difficult in large tables to find the active selected cell. You want to configure Excel in a way that this cell always and automatically stands out from the rest of the sheet.

              When working on large tables, it becomes difficult to find the active cell. To solve this problem you can download a free add-in named RowLiner, which can be downloaded from http://www.cpearson.com/excel/rowliner.htm. Double click on the file to install it. Once installed, it can be accessed form the “Add-ins” tab from the menu bar. Once activated, it will highlight your active cell. To change its settings, click “RowLiner” in the “Add-ins” tab and select the “RowLiner Setup”. Here you have different options for rows and columns, as to where these are shown and how they should appear. To the right, you can control the structure of the active cell. Then confirm the configuration with “OK”. However, the “Undo” function is not available in active RowLiner. In case of extensive entries, you should deactivate RowLiner temporarily. For that, click “RowLiner” in the “Add-Ins” tab and deactivate the “Draw Lines” option.

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Export contacts / data easily and quickly(Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010)

              You want to export your contacts from Outlook to Excel or to another program for editing.

              Outlook allows you to export your data that includes contacts, data, calendar etc. For this, click on “File” command and then select the “Import and Export”. In the “Import and Export” wizard you will find the “Export in file” option. Select that and click on “Next”. Now select the data format, e.g. “Microsoft Excel 97-2003” or “Commaseparated values (Windows)”. After clicking “Next”, select the Outlook folder to be exported, e.g. “Contacts” and again click “Next”. Now determine the target file. Then start the action by clicking “Next” and “Finish”. Your data will be successfully exported.

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Look for certain elements specifically in large documents(Word 2003, 2007, 2010)

              Every now and then, you look for the next table or the next footnote in larger files. For that, you either have to go through the trouble of advanced search for formatting or special formatting.
              Word has a highly efficient special search option that is hardly known to many people. The icon for which is very inconspicuous and is placed right below the scrollbar, in the form of a circle icon with two double arrows above and below it.

              First click the circle icon and select what you are looking for in the dialog that pops up. From here you can quickly access the “Go to” and “Search”, options. While with the help of the other icons, you can specifically search for graphics, tables, fields, footnotes or endnotes. Furthermore, you can search for editing or comments in the text, and browse through the contents section by section or page by page.
              After selecting the mode, you can now search forward or backward for the next suitable element in the document using the respective double arrow icons. The navigation also functions with the keyboard with the [Ctrl] key pressed using the scroll keys. This type of browsing between sections, pages, graphics or other elements allows for a very efficient navigation, especially when working on larger documents.

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Visualize cell values with conditional formatting(Excel 2007, 2010)

              When making reports in Excel, you may wish to highlight certain cell values by using visual aids in the worksheet.

              Select the cells whose values you want to support visually and click “Conditional Formatting” in the “Home” tab. Here, you can select from several predefined formats. These include ‘Highlight Cell Rules’, ‘Top/Bottom Rules’, ‘Data Bars’, ‘Color Scales’ and ‘Icon Sets’. Under ‘Highlight Cell Rules’, you have the option to highlight data that is greater, lesser, equal to, or between the specified values. Apart from this, you can also highlight according to text, date and duplicate values. The ‘Top/Bottom Rules’ allow you to highlight the top ten, bottom ten, above average, bottom average and even top/bottom ten based on percentage.
               For representing the data in a more appealing way, you can even make use of the ‘Data Bars’, Color Scales’ and the ‘Icon Sets’. With the help of the ‘Data Bars’ you can make use of colored data bar within the cell. Here the length of the data bar corresponds with the cell value. So higher the value, longer will be the bar. You can also make use of the ‘Color Scales’ that displays two or three color gradients in the range of the cells, where the shade represents the value. Alternatively you can make use of the various icons from the ‘Icon Sets’ to represent cell data visually.

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Automatically extend the list of safe senders(Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010)

               When you write a message to a person, Outlook should enter this recipient automatically in the list of safe senders in order to relieve them of the maintenance of this list.

               You can direct Outlook to gather all the recipients of your message in the list of a certain sender. For this, go to "Tools | options" in the 2003, 2007 version. Under the “Preference” tab click on “Junk e-mail”. In case of Outlook 2010, mark the “Junk e-mail” folder in the navigation bar on the left side of the application. Click a received message classified as junk-e-mail and open the command “Junk e-mail | Junk e-mail options” in the context menu.
                 In both the versions, select the "Safe Sender" tab and check the box next to “Automatically add people I e-mail to the safe sender list" and confirm your selection with “OK”.

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Avoid large distances between separate paragraphs(Outlook 2010)

              The recipients always receive the e-mails written by you with large distances between separate paragraphs
              The problem arises while drafting a message in the HTML format and is connected with the coding of Outlook. If you want to insert a line break while writing a message in HTML format and use [Enter] for it, the communication software does not use the tag of HTML which represents a normal line break. Outlook interprets [Enter] as paragraph change and hence uses the subsequent tag for HTML paragraphs. That results in a larger distance between separate paragraphs. Then if you want to insert one more empty line, two
tags follow consecutively and the distance between both the paragraphs goes on increasing. Hence, avoid the [Enter] key while writing a message and use the key combination [Shift]+[Enter] instead which indeed creates a line break.
Note: You can follow the same procedure for Word. If you use the so called “hard return” in text processing, i.e. [Enter], the cursor jumps to the next paragraph while the [Shift]+[Enter], termed as “soft” return, creates a simple line break within a paragraph.

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Automatically convert e-mails as schedules or tasks(Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010)

                You receive orders or arrange schedules via e-mail. Then you transfer this information manually to the calendar or define a task for the same. This can be done in a simpler way. The transfer is possible in Outlook via Drag&Drop from e-mails to Calendar. Select the relevant e-mail from the list, then right click and drag it to ‘Calendar’ or ‘Task’ option on the left hand side navigation area. Then release the right key. Outlook will show you a context menu. Here select the desired action. For instance if you select the option ‘Copy here as Appointment with Attachment’ then while your e-mail will remain unchanged in the inbox, you will get all the contents including attachment in a newly created schedule. Here you can edit, make changes before saving it.

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Stop auto suggestions in Word(Word XP, 2003)

             As soon as you type the current year, Word replaces it with the current date. However, you do not want to accept this suggestion.

             In order to change, open the menu command "Tools | AutoCorrect Options". Click on the tab “Auto text” and deactivate the option “Show AutoComplete Suggestions” and confirm with “OK”.

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Automatically display page breaks in Excel(Excel 2003, 2007, 2010)

                You would like to control the page breaks regularly for a printable configuration of tables and so you are looking for an option to turn on the page break display.

                In Excel you can easily view the page breaks by selecting the Page Break Preview option. You can also change to normal view again and see the dotted markings of the paging there. However, it remains only so long as the worksheet is open. Once you reopen the worksheet you will have to redo the Page Break Preview in order to see the page breaks. You can easily automate the Page Break Preview option with the help of a simple Macro.
               Open the relevant workbook and then VBA editor with the key combination [Alt] + [F11]. Now search the open file to the upper left in the project explorer and find “This workbook” in the structure below it.
               Open the related code window on it with a double click. If the code frame is no prepared yet, open via the upper combination fields “Workbook” and “Open”. Then enter the code as under:

Private Sub Workbook _ Open()
Dim i As Integer
For i = 1 To ThisWorkbook.
Sheets.Count
Sheets(i).
DisplayAutomaticPageBreaks =
True
Next i
End Sub

Save the macro and close the workbook. Make sure that the Macros are active for the workbook, when you open the file next time the sheets will automatically have the page breaks. If you have added new sheets you will have to save the workbook and reopen them to see the changes. If the preview is not required later, remove the Macro from the workbook.

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Use the correct reply format in emails(Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010)

               When replying to received emails, your signature is sometimes added in an incorrect manner. You want to know why this happens and how you can resolve this problem.
               Even if you have set HTML format as the default format in the options, it is not always used. This is because when replying to and forwarding mails, Outlook by default uses the format of the received email. In case of a “Plain Text” email format, only text is reformatted along with your signature. When replying to a Plain Text email, retain the same format since the recipient might not be able to read HTML messages. You can, however, format it as HTML when forwarding. You always need to adapt the setting in such a case. For this, go to the dialog box for composing an email and then in the “Format Text” tab or the “Options” tab in Outlook 2007 and change the setting in “Format” to “HTML”.

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Send mails with an expiry date(Outlook 2007, 2010)

               You send emails with a deadline such as invitations, etc. In such cases, you want the recipient to immediately see that the deadline has been overshot if he reads the email late.

               You can assign a validity date to your emails in Outlook. However this works only if the recipient is also using Outlook. For instance, this setting would be of no use if the recipient is using Thunderbird.
              In order to send emails with a validity date, compose a new message in Outlook. Then go to the "Options” tab. In the taskbar in the “Advanced Options” field, click the small arrow icon to open the “Properties” tab. Here activate the “Message valid up to” or the “Expires After” option under Delivery Options. You can set thedate and the time in the adjacent combination fields. Then “Close” the dialog box. You can now send the email as usual.
Note: The expiry date is valid in the overview of the sent items as well. Contrary to popular belief, the content and the access to the content remain valid even after the expiry date. Only the email is shown in gray and is struck out in Outlook. You can thus see at a glance that it is no longer valid.

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Prevent undesired error messages in Excel 2007(Excel 2007 and 2010)

              You are searching for information in Excel from other table fields with Vlookup and want to adapt it. You often get error messages if the search term is not present. Here is an example for the functioning and advantages of “Vlookup”. For instance, you have a table that records names and telephone numbers. And if you include some of the names elsewhere in the sheet then you can enter the relevant number using the “Vlookup” function. “Vlookup” will search for the name accurately in the sheet. The formula used is as follows:
=VLOOKUP(H2, A1:B16, 2, FALSE) 
             Here H2 is the name, A1:B16 is the table field, 2 is the column that contains the numbers, whereas false will search for the exact corresponding name. In case of success the formula outputs the relevant number in I6 or else it will show “#N/A”. This is not an error, as it means that the name is not present in the list. If you wish to change this output to “Not Present!” for your convenience, then you can easily do so. Using “IfError”, you can change the output message to let’s say “not present!”, with the help of the following formula.
=IFERROR(VLOOKUP(H6, A1:B16, 2, FALSE), "Not Present!")

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Record the last modified date internally(Excel 2003, 2007, 2010)

             You want to keep a track of when your Excel sheet was last modified. You want Excel to insert and update the date automatically.
             As a solution for this, you need a VBA code in the working folder so that a macro automatically ensures an update. Open the relevant working folder for this and select the command"Tools → Macro →Macros”. From Excel 2007 onwards, activate the “View” tab in the taskbar and click the “Macros” icon. Now enter a macro name and click “Create” or if a macro already exists, click “Edit”. In the VBA editor, navigate to the “This working folder” entry in the upper left of the project explorer under “VBAProject" of the current file. Double click and open the relevant code window that is now ready for your entries.In the right combination field, select the “SheetChange” system procedure whereupon the relevant number of macros is added below. Add all the further rows as follows:

Private Sub Workbook _ SheetChange(ByValSh As Object, ByVal Target As Range) Application.EnableEvents = False Sh.Range("A1").Value = Date Sh.Range("A1").NumberFormat = "mm/dd/yyyy" Applications.EnableEvents = True End Sub
               The sample code is triggered on the current sheet by the result of the change. The value of the current date is then entered on the sheet in the “A1” cell. It is mandatory to switch the event processing off within the macros in this example; else, the change in the A1 cell automatically triggers the next SheetChange event. This would always lead to an endless recursions. Instead of a separate entry for every table, you can also access the document property and update it centrally in the same table. Then also specify the relevant work sheet, for instance:
Worksheet("Sheet1").Range("A1"). Value= ThisWorkbook. BuiltDocumentProperties(12)
               This command will change the A1 cell in Table1 and assigns it with the document property specified with the last change. This is the information that can be called up in the file properties under Windows. After entering the script, close the VBA editor and save the Excel file in your document folder. When calling up the sheet, ensure that the contained macros are activated; else, the security settings prevent the functioning of the macro.

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Translate documents directly from Word(Word 2003, 2007, 2010)

             You want to translate a complete German document into English without investing too much of time. You know a few online services but they are just too tedious.

             With Office, you can easily send a document to an online translation service and request machine translation. Here, you need to keep in mind that the quality of a machine translation is usually not up to the mark. It can however definitely be a good starting point for your work. Before using any online translation service, you first need to enter its Internet address to the Word Processor.
              For this, activate the research options in the task field. In the new versions, click “Research” in the “Review" tab in the ribbon. In Word 2003, go to “Tools → Research”. Then select “Research options” at the end of the task field. Then in the dialog box with the same name, click “Add Services”. Now enter the Internet address of the online translation service under “Address”, e.g. for the Microsoft Translate, http://www.microsofttranslator.com/OfficeTrans/Register.asmx. Click “Add” and a set-up for the service starts. Word is now ready for the work.
               Select the text you need to translate and click on “Research” and select the entry “Translation” under “Search for”. In “Translation”, select the source language under “From” and the target language under “To”. Here in addition to the common language such as English, German and French, you can also select other languages such as Italian, Greek, Russian and Thai. In order to translate the entire document, you can use a small white arrow with a green base near “Translate entire document” or “Send document online for translation in unencrypted format”. Confirm with “Send” in the next dialog box so that the Word Processor transfers your data via Internet. The result is displayed to you in the browser. If you have several translation services installed, you can click “Translation Options” and then specify which service the Word Processor should use for which translation.

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Automatically update the time and date(PowerPoint 2003, 2007)

              In PowerPoint, you can automatically update time and date for every slide.
              If you regularly use the same presentation, but want to keep it updated with the current time and date then you can easily do so. Instead of doing it manually, you can change the settings to auto. To configure PowerPoint so that it automatically updates the date and time, go to ‘Insert’ menu, click ‘Date and Time’. Then on the ‘Header and Footer’ dialog box that appears, click on the ‘Slide’ tab. Here ensure that the ‘Date and time’ check box is selected. Select the ‘Update automatically’ option and here from the drop-down list, select the required date and time format that you want to show in your presentation. Also, select the ‘Don't show on title slide’ check box if you do not want to display the date and time on the title slide. Finally, click on ‘Apply to All’. The date and time will be updated whenever you reload the PowerPoint document or begin a slide show.

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Display ‘&’ in the footer(Excel 2007)

             The ampersand sign (&) is a special symbol which is not printed by default.

             The ampersand sign (&) is a special symbol which is not printed by default. If you have ever tried to add an ampersand symbol in the footer, you might have also noticed that the ampersand sign disappears on print. If you need to print this symbol, you can do so with very little hassles. Open the workbook which requires to be printed, then on the status bar, click the ‘Page Layout’ option. Now place your cursor on any one of the three sections where you need to enter the "&" symbol. Now press [Shift] + [7] combination twice from your alphanumeric keypad. Notice the & sign appears twice (&&). Click outside the footer area, you will now notice the ampersand symbol in your footer.

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