Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks

Each month Aspect Training will publish Tips and Tricks to save you time when using Microsoft office.

Bookmark this page and check back each month for the latest Microsoft Office Tips and Tricks

Microsoft Excel

Most of us have an Microsoft Excel workbook with multiple sheets, those sheets having names we gave them to remind us of the content. Nearly every business must has a Microsoft Excel workbook where sheet names are corresponding to months, from January to December:

It dosen't take long to get to the point where you can no longer can see all the tabs in one view. Microsoft Excel provides built-in tabs navigation buttons, the next, previous, first, or last sheet, but did you know there was a way to see all the sheets and be able to click on the one you want to work on? Simply right-click the tabs navigation buttons and a floating list of all the worksheets in the Microsoft Excel workbook will appear. This is especially useful when you have given your sheets long names.

Also don't forget the keyboard shortcuts: CTRL+PageUp activates the previous sheet in your Microsoft Excel workbook, while CTRL+PageDown activates the next one.

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Office 2007 Word and other programs in the suite now use new document formats. Microsoft Word 2007 saves files in the .docx format, which is different from the .doc format used in Microsoft Word 97-2003.

The new document format in Microsoft Word 2007 can cause problems if you share documents electronically.

So, if you need to share documents with other users using earlier versions of Microsoft Word, you should consider changing the save settings. You can save your documents in a format that is compatible with earlier versions of Microsoft Word. That way, you won’t have any problems sharing documents.

  • Click the Office button
  • Click Word Options
  • Open the Save options
  • Beside Save files in this format, select Word 97-2003
  • Click OK

Microsoft Word documents will be saved in the .doc format, which is compatible with earlier versions of Microsoft Word.

Microsoft PowerPoint

If you are making interactive slide shows and want to use Macros/VBA with Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 then you need to activate the Developer menu. When Microsoft PowerPoint is first installed this feature is hidden. To enable it

  • Click on the Office Button ( Top left ).
  • Select Microsoft PowerPoint options.
  • Under the Popular Section Tick Show Developer Tab in the ribbon. Then Click OK.
  • You will now see a Developer Tab created on the Menu.

Microsoft Access

Microsoft Access databases take time to setup and develop. Because of this you offen start Microsoft Access and then have to open the last Database file you were using. If this is the case, you can set Microsoft Access to always open the last used file each time you start up Microsoft Access

  • Click on the Office Button ( Top left ).
  • Select Microsoft Access options.
  • Select The Advanced Tab
  • Check option to have Microsoft Access automatically open the last used database when Microsoft Access starts (This is found under the Advanced section).

Microsoft Outlook

You don't always want to deal with a message that needs attention right away. You can flag the message for attention using the Flag Status indicator to the right of the email in the Inbox panel.

Click on the Flag Status to turn the flag red. This also automatically adds the message to your To Do list for attention today. In either the To Do list or the Flag Status column you can right click the flag and choose a different due date for the task.

If you would also like to see a reminder, right click the flag to add a reminder for that task. Using the Flag Status ensures that everything that needs to be done is marked as such and is easy to track.

UpComing Dates

Microsoft Word Intermediate
Wednesday 15, September 2010

Microsoft PowerPoint Introduction / Intermediate
Monday 27, September 2010

Microsoft PowerPoint VBA
Wednesday 29, September 2010

Microsoft Access Advanced
Wednesday 15, September 2010

Microsoft Visio Introduction / Intermediate
Monday 20, September 2010