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It’s the one feature I use with a great deal of regularity – Paste Special. Interestingly enough, I talk about it in just about every Microsoft Office course. (That’s it for the shameless plugs. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.)

When I’m copying formatted data from anywhere – the ‘net, Word, email…anywhere, when I paste that data into Word, instead of just hitting the “Paste” command, I use “Paste Special.” This allows me to strip all of the formatting from the copied text before pasting it into the new location. It saves a ton of editing time.

Try it. I think you’ll like it.

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In Excel 2007, there’s a great NEW feature – Sorting and Filtering Data by Color! In previous versions of Excel, we’ve had access to three features in particular that help analyze data:

• Sorting
• Filtering
• Conditionally Formatting

Each of these is a great feature all by itself in helping you to see visually data trends and hot spots. But, with the newly enhanced sorting and filtering in Excel 2007, now you can see trends and hot spots based on formatting, such as:

• Cell color
• Font color

And, because the conditional formatting feature has been greatly enhanced, Excel 2007 completely opens up the sorting and filtering views. You could spend an entire day just exploring these improvements.

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Sure, you can sort your text, if it’s in a table; but can you sort your paragraph text? Believe it or not, the two procedures are nearly identical. Take the following list, for example:

Watermelon
Bananas
Grapefruit
Apples
Oranges
Grapes
Pineapple

This list is clearly not listed in alphabetical order. To let Word sort this list (so you don’t have to), first highlight the list and then, click the Sort command located in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.

For a simple list like our example, just click OK. Your list takes on the newly sorted appearance shown below:

Apples
Bananas
Grapefruit
Grapes
Oranges
Pineapple
Watermelon

p.s. – If you’re using Office 2003, you can find the same Sort dialog box under the Table menu (Table: Sort).

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By far the BEST (okay, one of the best) shortcuts in Excel is the one related to AutoSum. AutoSum is the most common formula used in Excel to automatically calculate a range of numbers. And, it has a handy, related AutoSum command on the Ribbon. But, there’s an even faster shortcut for AutoSum —> ALT+ =.

Deanna

PS – In my opinion, the BEST shortcut in Excel is F11. What does F11 do? If you don’t know, open Excel, highlight a range of numbers and press F11. …very cool!

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In every class I’ve taught for the past ten years, someone ALWAYS asks me for a list of keyboard shortcuts. You would have thought I would have taken the hint long ago, but I’ve finally found the time to create a full list of keyboard shortcuts for each of the main Office programs including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. What’s more, these shortcuts are not version specific, meaning they’ll work in 2003 and 2007.

On each of the keyboard shortcut sheets that I’ve created, there is one section called, “That Office Girl’s Favorites…” The shortcut keys listed under this section are the ones I use nearly daily and those are the shortcuts I’m posting here for Microsoft Word.

Repeat F4
Save CTRL+S
Page Break CTRL+ENTER
Center Align CTRL+E
Double Space CTRL+2
Go To F5
Font Dialog Box CTRL+D
Undo CTRL+Z
Select a Column ALT+DRAG
Thesaurus SHIFT+F7
Tab in a Table CTRL+TAB
Previous Location SHIFT+F5

Just be sure to spend all of the time you’ll be saving after implementing these shortcuts wisely!

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Many people use hyperlinks every day ? on the Internet. We click a link and quickly (well, quickly is a relative term based on the speed of your Internet connection) we ?jump? to a new web page, document or preaddressed email.

You can create similar links in your Word documents. Your Word links can jump you to a web page or other document. Before you can create your new links, it’s helpful to know the prefix that goes with each link type. Consider the following:

Prefix Link Type
http:// Web Page
file:// Document
mailto:// E-Mail

To enter any hyperlink into a Word document, simply select the text you want your reader to be able to click, then click the Hyperlink command on the Insert tab (in Word 2007) or click the Insert Hyperlink button on the Standard Toolbar (in Word 2003). This opens the Hyperlink dialog box.

Once in the Hyperlink dialog box, you can choose which type of hyperlink you want to insert. For web pages, click Existing File or Web Page, then either select the document name (for files) or type the web page address in the Address box (for web pages). In link to an e-mail, choose E-mail Address, then type the recipient’s e-mail address.

That’s all there is to it!

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Last week, while teaching a PowerPoint class, one student raised an excellent question?related to Excel. In fact, such a great question, that I thought I?d post both the question and the answer here for all to benefit.

“I have an Excel Line Chart with two lines. I?d like one line to appear as normal while the other line appears rounded. (See example below)

Essentially, within the chart, you need to select the ?data series? that you want have a ?smoothed effect.? This means, you need to select the chart by clicking it (In 2003, you?ll need to activate an embedded chart by double-clicking it). Then, you?ll want to select just the one line, or ?data series? that you want to smooth. Next, right-click the selected data series (or line) and choose ?Format Data Series? from the shortcut menu.In the Format Dialog Box, you?re looking for the line style options. This is where you?ll find line weight, line color, etc. Once you find these settings, look for a checkbox that says ?Smoothed Line.? That?s the box you want to check.You may also need to increase the weight of the line to acheive a more believable smoothed effect, like the one in the sample shown above.

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Over and over again, students in my classes ask for a list of keyboard shortcuts and I?ve never seen the need to write them out. I mean, [CTRL]+B for Bold, and [CTRL]+I for Italic? Easy, right? In fact, most Microsoft Office users know those standard formatting and text editing shortcuts.

But, I did find a few keyboard shortcuts that ?WOW? students in every Excel class.

AutoSum [ALT] + =
Copy Data Above [CTRL] + ? (apostrophe)
Create a Chart F11
Display a Drop-Down List [ALT] + Down Arrow Key
Insert Current Date [CTRL] + ;
Increment a Single Number [CTRL] + Drag AutoFill Handle
Insert a Line Break in a Cell [ALT] + [ENTER]
Move One Worksheet Tab (right) [CTRL] + Page Down
Move One Worksheet Tab (left) [CTRL] + Page Up

I hope you enjoy these shortcuts. There are, of course, hundreds of additional keyboard shortcuts, but these few will definitely enhance your Excel productivity.

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