PC Tricks, Tips and

Techniques for Work

IT Department
New Haven, CT
 Table of Contents
What Difference Does It Make ? A True Story..............................................................................6
The Tricks, Tips and Techniques that Make You Fast....................................................................7

Selecting Text, Lines,

Paragraphs, Documents ....8
Selecting a Section,
Paragraph, Entire
Document...........................8
Selecting More than One
thing at a Time...................8
Navigation through Documents.....................................................................................................13

Shortcuts in Office
programs. ........................14
More shortcuts in Office
programs. ........................19
Other Keyboard Shortcuts 19
Word’s F4 key...................20
 The Help Command – The
Most Important Command
of All ...............................24
The Key With The Windows
Logo ..............................27
Logo Plus E - The Explorer
Window ...........................28
Hide Windows – Go to
Blank Desktop .................34
See The Documents Side By
Side...................................34
Web Tricks.....................................................................................................................................35

Enlarge The Text On Any

Web Page..........................35
Searching Techniques ......35
Find web pages that have.......................................................................................................36
But don't show pages that have..............................................................................................36
Need more tools?...................................................................................................................36
Scroll Down Web Page.....36
Google to do math............36
Google Converts Units Of
Measurement And
Currency. .........................37
Going to a Web Address...38
Using The Right Mouse
Button...............................39
Going Back to Previous
Work ................................40
Switch From One Open
Program To The Next.......43
Sending Photos In Email,
Inserting pictures in
Documents .......................43
How to Empty the Recycle
Bin.....................................45
How to Empty Trash in
Groupwise.........................46
Sign In and Save to the NH
Network Everyday............47
To Continue Working On
What You Were Working On
Yesterday..........................47
Searching for a Document
..........................................48
Finding a File to Attach....51
Retrieving and Saving
Attached files....................54
Auto Correct.....................56
 Auto-Sort in Excel – The
Most Useful Tip in All of
Excel..................................61
Copying from Word to Excel.................................................................................................63
Autofitting the Columns........................................................................................................63
Filtering the Data and Getting a List of What You Want......................................................63

Converting Text to a Table

..........................................65
How to Make a Template. 66
Copy The Template To Your
Desktop.............................71
Alternate Method ..................................................................................................................72

Creating a Shortcut for any

file in My Computer or
Windows Explorer. ..........73
Poof ! Auto Text !..............74
What Difference Does It Make ? A True Story
A business school teacher who taught computer applications wanted to know what it was like to
work in a real life office. She had a friend who ran a temp agency. She asked her friend to get
her a temp job in an office. She told her friend not to say anything about her background and her
computer skills.
She got her assignment to substitute for a secretary who was on vacation. When she got to the
office, the boss laid out all the work for her. It was typical office work - Writing letters, copying
information from one set of documents to another, creating some financial tables in Excel, mail
merging, etc. He told her it not to rush. He said he figured it would take a couple of days.
She was done in two hours. She said she did not want to make the vacationing secretary look too
bad so she puttered around the rest of the day.
At the end if the day, the boss was amazed and pleased.
This is not far fetched. There are some Word and Excel etc “tricks” that can save hours. There
are also thousands of tricks that can save only five seconds here and ten seconds there…..But it
adds up to hours.
Below are some of the “tricks.”

The Tricks, Tips and Techniques that Make You Fast

Microsoft Office is designed for saving time and wasted effort. The majority of workers use five to ten
percent of its power. It isn’t the worker’s fault. PC training is not offered in most schools. Ironically,
most of the time is taken up learning things that will never be used (like algebra.) Somehow it is assumed
that workers will “pick it up on their own.” Self learning does occur, but it happens slowly and
haphazardly even with people who are very smart. For example, when teaching a one day, six hour Excel
course, I had a very smart lady whom I thought was a lost cause. She resented her company sending her
and her fellow workers to a six hour waste of time

The first thing out of her mouth was, ”I have been using Excel for four years and I doubt if you can teach
me anything that I don't already know.”

I explained to her that in a basic beginner’s course like I was teaching, she would find that statement to be
partly true. But I explained to her that it was very likely that there were some often overlooked features
that might save her hours of work.
She said, ”If you can teach me ONE thing that saves me hours, that will make the whole day
worth it.”
I said, ”Let me know if hit anything that makes it worth it.”
As I went through the basics of imputing data, she sulked.
Then after that about every half hour she piped up,” Wow ! I didn’t even know about that
feature. Okay, that makes this day worth it.”
Okay, so some of this stuff you will know and some you will not. Some if the tricks, you will
think are to much trouble to bother learning. Some are shortcuts that save a second her and a
second there. Remember those seconds add up.
But read on for the sake of learning what you don't know.
Selecting Text, Lines, Paragraphs, Documents

You can double-click a word to highlight and select it

almost anywhere – in a document, e-mail or Web
page. While the word is highlighted, click on the
right mouse button. A drop down menu will appear. .
The list of available commands will drop down.

Selecting a Section, Paragraph, Entire Document

Move the cursor to the left hand margin as shown in picture below.

When it is exactly at the left side, it appears as an arrow.

Click Once Selects the line opposite arrow

Click Twice Selects the paragraph opposite cursor

Click Three times Selects the entire document

Drag Arrow Down Selects all lines of text in its path to the right

Selecting More than One thing at a Time

Sometimes you want to do something, that is perform the same action on more than thing one at
a time. You may want to delete or format more than word.
Look at the following example from an student essay turned in to a teacher:

Suppose your teacher decides he/she wants

the words Great Depression to be italicized.
You figure I will have to go through the
whole essay and highlight every occurrence
of the words, “Great Depression’” and hit
the Italics button in the toolbar as shown
below (along with the Bold, and Underline
buttons.)

But no. Not !

Just highlight all the instances of the words and hit the italics button once. Nice theory….
So you highlight the first one. Then you highlight the second.
What ! When you highlight the second the first is UN-highlighted. Bummer. You say to
yourself, ”There should be a way to highlight more than on thing at a time.
A Side Note
When you start saying ”There
should be a way to…..” you are on
your way to becoming a computer
expert. Because when you say that
and look for the better way, you will
usually find it.
Not surprisingly, there is a way.
Highlight the first instance of the words
Hold down CTRL and highlight the
second instance of the words
Hold down CTRL and highlight the third
instance of the words
And so on until all are highlighted
The hit the italics button once.

Navigation through Documents

The next section has shortcut keys.
Why shortcut keys ? - Because often when typing in a document, you waste a great deal of time
talking your hands and your attention off the keyboard and onto the mouse. Researchers have
done studies on which is faster -

Mouse for most functions versus Keyboard with minimal mouse

usage.

and the keyboard always wins by far.

Often keyboard shortcuts do things super fast in a way that a mouse can not do. For example.
Open the file,” 22-Charts.xls.”
Highlight the data. Hit the F11 key. Want to race a mouse in that ?
So keep your mind open to shortcut keys. You may have to print out a lust and hang it up for
easy reference at first but once you learn the short cuts, you will be fast.
Don’t waste your time moving the cursor with the arrow keys or clicking from place to place all
the time with the mouse.
• Hold down CTRL and hit the Right Arrow key. The cursor move from word to the next
word.
• Hold down CTRL and hit the left arrow key. The cursor moves forward or backward one
word at a time.
 • Hold down CTRL and hit the Home key. The cursor moves to the beginning of the
document .
• Hold down CTRL and hit the End key. The cursor moves to the end of the document
• Hold down CTRL and hit the Delete key. The next word after the cursor is deleted.
• Hit the HOME key. The cursor moves to the beginning of the line
• Hit the END key. The cursor moves to the end of the line
Below is the above in table format. (I converted the text above to a table. How to convert text to
a table is explained later.)

Shortcuts in Office programs.

HOLD DOWN And Hit the KEY RESULT

CTRL hit the right Arrow
key
CTRL hit the left Arrow key Cursor move from word to the previous word.
CTRL hit the Home key Cursor moves to the beginning of the document .
CTRL hit the End key Cursor moves to the end of the document
CTRL hit the Delete key. The next word after the cursor is deleted.
HOME key. Cursor moves to the beginning of the line
END key Cursor moves to the end of the line
Windows Key letter M Minimizes all Windows and shows the desktop
(Notice that tables present information more clearly !)
Using Charts in Excel to Present Information Very Clearly.

Open the document,” PC Tips - Charts.xls”

You see data in Excel:

Highlight all cells B2 - E7 (The cells I shaded on

yellow.)
Hit the chart wizard icon. You see:
Choose Column chart

Where it says,"Series in,"Choose “columns” so that in

the chart, expenses appear on the bottom, and the
months on the right.
Hit "Next."

Go through the steps

Type a title, "Expenses."
Click the option, "As new sheet."
Type a SHEET title, "Expenses."

You see the finished product.

If you are printing in black and white, the red bar and the black bar will look alike. You will
have to assign patterns instead of colors to distinguish one bar from another
Right click on the blue bar in the chart and hit Format Data Series
You see:

Click Fill Effects

Click on the Pattern Tab

Choose a pattern (like checked) that will stand out.

Choose a dark Foreground color

Click OK and OK again. When you are finished, you will see different patterns assigned to each
month:
More shortcuts in Office programs.
These also work in most other programs.
These commands are easy to remember because the commands consist of two parts. The first
part is to hold down the CTRL key.
The second part is –while holding down CTRL – hit a letter key. The easy part is that the letter
you hit is often the first letter of the command (Copy begins with “C” so CTRL C stands for
Copy.) There are exceptions as noted below. (CTRL C is COPY so they could not use Ctrl C
for Cut so they used “CTRL X” for Cut.)

While holding down CTRL Key Hit the

To
following key
CTRL+C Copy.
Cut. You X it out (cut it) (CTRL C is COPY so they
CTRL+X
used “X” for Cut.)
Paste. (CTRL P is PRINT so they used “V” for
CTRL+V
Paste.)
Undo. (CTRL U is UNDERLINE so they used “Z”
CTRL+Z
for UNDO.)
CTRL F Find a word, etc.
CTRL H Find a word and replace it with another word
CTRL S Save (Hit this often in case of a PC crash.)
Move the cursor (insertion point) to the beginning of
CTRL+RIGHT ARROW
the next word.
Move the insertion point to the beginning of the
CTRL+LEFT ARROW
previous word.
Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next
CTRL+DOWN ARROW
paragraph.
Move the insertion point to the beginning of the
CTRL+UP ARROW
previous paragraph.
CTRL+SHIFT with any of the arrow keys Highlight a block of text.
CTRL+A Selects all of the document
CTRL+F4 Close the active document.

Other Keyboard Shortcuts

ALT+F4 Close the active program

CTRL+ESC Display the Start menu.
Cancel the current task. (Often used for mistakes – Is a
ESC
‘get me out of this!’ command
ALT+TAB Switch between open items. (For example if you have
 WORD and EXCEL open, it would switch between
them.)
ALT + Underlined letter in a command Carry out the corresponding command. (Alt F gets you
name on an open menu the File menu in Word, then hit P to print)
Refresh the active window (Useful for the internet to
F5
see changes.)
Select file or folder and hit Delete a file or folder permanently without placing the
SHIFT+DELETE item in the Recycle Bin. Be careful with this one.
Display the Address bar list in My Computer or
F4
Windows Explorer.
SHIFT+F10 Display the shortcut menu for the selected item.
ALT+ESC Cycle through items in the order they were opened.
Refresh the active window (Useful for the internet to
F5
see changes.)
Highlight text. Hold down CTRL while Drag and Copy selected item (text or even a file) to a
dragging item. This makes a copy of new location. (Let go of mouse key first, the CTRL at
text. end of this command.)
CTRL+SHIFT while dragging an item Create shortcut to selected item.
Hold down SHIFT and press one of the Select text in the direction the arrow travels within a
arrow keys or Page Down Key document.

Word’s F4 key
A key that could save you a lot of time while using Word is the F4 key (In Excel, the “CTRL Y”
keys do the same thing.)
F4 means, “Repeat the last action that I just did.”
Consider an example below. Take a look at the table after this paragraph. When I did the table
below, I typed the whole left column in CAPS.
So should I re-type it No !
1 VALLEY ST Westville
1 VICTORY DR Westville
1 VISTA TER Westville
1 WATERFRONT ST East Shore
1 WAYFARER ST Westville
1 WEST PARK AV Beaver Hill
1 WESTERLEIGH RD Westville
1 WESTMINSTER ST East Shore
1 WHALLEY AV Beaver Hill
1 WHITNEY AV Downtown
I highlighted the first item that I wanted to change to Title Case (first letter only capitalized.)
Then I hit Format – Change Case.

After I hit Format – Change Case, the box to the right appeared. I clicked the Title Case option
and hit OK.
So the words VALLEY ST changed to Valley St. Then I highlighted the second entry but
instead of hitting Format – Change Case, I hit F4. It repeated the last thing I did and changed
the case for me. Try it !
Open, “Using F4 to Repeat Last Action.doc.” Then change the text in the first cell to Title Case.
Highlight the next cell. Hit the F4 key. The text changed to Title Case as in your last command,
right ?. F4 means “Repeat last command.”
There are two keys that are helpful when you have a dialogue box open. You look at the choices
and are confused. Look at the dialogue boc you get when you hit Format – Paragraph.
Believe it or not, there are a lot if useful features in
the box if you only knew what all the choices were
for.

You need Help!

So while the box is open, hit F1.

You see the following:
Suppose you want to know about paragraph spacing - Click on Indents and spacing, and scroll
down. You see:

The following is a list of shortcut keys that can be used in a dialogue box.
Press the Key To
Carry out the command for the active option or button. You don’t have to click
Enter
OK
Display Help anytime. When you are in a specific dialogue box, it gives you
F1
help in that dialogue box
The Help Command – The Most Important Command of All
You can learn to do anything in any program. Just ask for HELP by pressing the F1 key or
hitting HELP in the menu.
Let’s say I am in a document and I am writing about the neighborhood, ”Beaver Hills.”
Someone says “It isn’t ‘Beaver Hills.’ It is, ‘Beaver Hill.’ (no s in Hill.)
I say, “Damn…. I have to read the twenty page and search for the word “Hills” and replace it
with “Hill” ?”
The proof reader says, ”No –Just use the “Replace” command.
I think, “Duh?” but I say, “Oh, of course - I forgot about that. Right ..… Thanks.”
And then when no one is looking, I use HELP !
I hit HELP in the menu, then Microsoft Office Word Help. I see the following.

In the “Search for:” box (shown on next page), WORD will let you type what you want help for.
I typed in replace (as shown below) and hit enter.

I scrolled down to Find and Replace text or other items.

I see the box

I click on “Replace Text.”
The instructions are enumerated.

On the Edit menu, click Replace.

1. In the Find what box, I enter the text that I want to search for - “Hills”.
2. In the Replace with box, I enter the replacement text - Hill.
3. Click Find Next, Replace, or Replace All.

I hit CTRL HOME to go to the beginning of the document. I can click in Edit – Replace (or use
the Keyboard shortcut CTRL H.) As shown below, I am going to search for Hills and replace it
with Hill.

When I hit ENTER or click on the Find Next command, Word finds the first mistake. I click on
the Replace command

When I hit Replace, Word changes the entry to Hill and goes to the next mistake. Don’t hit
Replace All. There may be a case where the word Hills appears where you don’t want to change
it. So go through the process carefully.
Again, I could write a book about Find and Replace. It is a powerful and useful feature. See the
separate document," Advanced Find and Replace,” if you want to learn more.

I will give you some clues to set yourself in an exploration Try hitting More in the Find and
Replace dialogue box.

Now you see you can search for anything.

See separate document for more.

The Key With The Windows Logo 

You can open the Start menu by tapping the key with the
Windows logo on it. The key looks like this - 
Logo Plus E - The Explorer Window

If you want to see your files or folders, hold down the Windows logo key and while holding
down the key, hit the “E” key. You will see the (as shown below.

The window is similar to “My Computer” window but the more you use it, the more you will see
that it us more useful than the “My Computer” window (shown below.)
Hide Windows – Go to Blank Desktop

To go to your desktop, you can hide all windows, revealing only what’s on the computer
desktop, with one keystroke:
Hit the Windows key () and “D” simultaneously.
That’s great when you want to open something from the desktop examine or to open something
you’ve just downloaded to the desktop. Press the Windows key and “D” keys again to return to
what you were doing.

See The Documents Side By Side

When you are working on rewriting a WORD or EXCEL document, you can see two documents
at the same time. Just open the other document and in the menu, hit Compare Side by Side with
other document.
You will see the documents side by side. You can copy and paste text, even drag text etc from
one document to another.

To close the other document, hit Windows, Close Side by Side

You can adjust the size and position of any window on your computer. Drag the top strip to
move it; drag any edge to resize it.
Web Tricks
Enlarge The Text On Any Web Page.
You can enlarge the text on any Web page. In Windows Explorer, hit View – Text Size Medium
(or whatever desired size)

Searching Techniques
When you’re searching for something on the Web, let’s say in Google, click on Advanced
Search and get the following:
Find web pages that have...
all these words:

this exact wording or phrase: tip

one or more of these words: OR OR tip

But don't show pages that have...

any of these unwanted words: tip

Need more tools?

Results per page:

Language:

File type:

Search within a site or domain:

(e.g. youtube.com, .edu)
If you were searching for dryers but not clothes dryers or alternate energy but not nuclear energy,
you will get better results.

Scroll Down Web Page

You can tap the Space bar to scroll down on a Web page one screen at a time. Hold down the
Shift key and tap the Space bar to scroll down on a Web page one screen at a time.

Google to do math
You can use Google to do math for you. Just type the equation, like .06* 335,000+1000=, and hit
Enter.
As in Excel,
+ means plus
- means minus,
* means “times” and
/ means “divided by.”
As in Algebra, parentheses mean you want what is in parentheses to be calculated first. The
order of operations is the same as Algebra. Algebra will first do:
1. all operations that lie inside parentheses.
2. do any work with exponents or radicals (22)
3. Working from left to right, do all multiplication and division.
4. Finally, working from left to right, do all addition and subtraction.
For example, you have $11,236 in the bank. You are going to spend $1,236 dollars foe a HDTV.
You want to know how much interest you will get on the remaining $10,000 for 1 year at 5
percent. So you type into the Google search bar the following

Google shows you the way your formula is mathematically interpreted :

Google does the multiplication
first and then the subtraction.
You wanted $11236 minis $1236
which is $10,000. Then you
want 5% of $10,000 (which is
$50.) …Not $11,174.20.

Google Converts Units Of Measurement And Currency.

Google also converts units-of-measurement and currency. For example type “miles in 5
kilometers,” or “inches in 5.12 cm,.” Click Search to see the answer.
Going to a Web Address
You don’t have to type “http://www” into your Web browser. Just type the name of the site such
as bloomberg.com” You will get something like the screen below. From there you can go the
Bloomberg site.
Or leave out the “com” Try typing FHA in the address bar.)

You will get something like this:

Using The Right Mouse Button

If you can’t find some obvious command,
like Delete or Format in a document or
program, try clicking using the right mouse
button. When you highlight something,
click on the right mouse button. A drop
down menu will appear. . The list of
available commands will drop down.
(“CUT” will delete it.)
Notice that the commands that drop down are related to what you right click on. As shown, if
you right click on a table , you will get a list of commands related to a table

Going Back to Previous Work

Many times you continue work from the day before. There are two easy ways to get back to
recent work.
One way is to hit Start Recent Documents as shown below:

The second way is to open the application you were using

and click File Open.
You see the dialogue box to the right. Notice that it shows
all recently opened files at the end of the drop down men.
You will in all likelihood see the file you were working on
yesterday. Just click on the file name and open it.
The third way us particularly useful of you have only a vague idea if the names of the documents
you worked on yesterday.

Hit Start Search as shown:

Click on the type of document you are looking for.

Click on all files and folders if you are unsure.

I hit Documents (word processing, spreadsheet, etc.)

You could click in all the advanced portions by clicking the right
pointing triangles

Then type in what you do know about the document like the date modified, or size. You could
click Within the last week and specify which drive to search. In this case, I changed the drive to
search to the bgormley H drive

The PC found four files

Switch From One Open Program To The Next
You can switch from one open program to the next by pressing Alt+Tab (Windows) A small
box will appear on the desktop. By repeatedly hitting Alt+Tab, the PC will show you which
program you will go to when you let go of Alt+Tab

Sending Photos In Email, Inserting pictures in Documents

You sometimes can’t send someone more than a couple of full-size digital photos as an e-mail
attachments. Some files are too big (as measured in the computer space they take up), and the
photos will fail to reach the recipient.. You can easily compress a picture without a fancy photo
program.
• Open the picture with Microsoft Picture Manager

• To do this, find the picture. Then right click on the picture Go to Open With and click
on Choose Program. Scroll to Microsoft Picture Manager and . click it.

• Click the box that says “Always use this program to open this type of file
 (From then on, you can just double click the picture and it will open in Microsoft Picture
Manager.)

You can compress a picture by hitting Edit Pictures at top in the menu and then Compress
Picture.

You will see that the picture was reduced in size from 1.34 Mb (million bytes) to 273 KB
(thousand bytes.) You see following:
 • Document compresses the least.

• Web page compresses somewhat.

• Email compresses the most.

You can also fix a bad picture by hitting Edit Picture and choosing the appropriate category, such
as Brightness and Contrast. Try it -It is easy to figure out how to use the program. (By the way,
the red eye removal tool is the easiest of any photo program.)

How to Empty the Recycle Bin

When you delete files, they are not actually deleted. They are moved to the “Recycle Bin” on
the desktop. Just deleting something doesn’t free up space in your PC. Deleting puts it into the
Recycle Bin. You then have to empty the Trash or Recycle Bin. To do that, right click on the
Recycle Bin in your desktop and hit Empty Recycle Bin

If you are absolutely sure you want to delete a file and do not want to put it un the Recycle Bin,
select the file or folder and hit SHIFT+DELETE. Be careful with this one. I taught this trick to
a friend. He called up about three weeks later and said, ”Ya know that Shift Delete thing you
showed me - How do you get a file back after you delete it using that method?”
I said, “You don’t. There is no way to get it back unless you want to go to the internet and
download an Undelete tool.”

How to Empty Trash in Groupwise

When you delete mail in Groupwise, the emails are not actually deleted. They are moved to the
“Trash” file. (See below.) They continue to take up space on the mail server.
Note: If you have not emptied trash in a long time , it may take a long time (perhaps even a few
minutes.)
• Open Groupwise

• Right click on Trash

• With the left mouse button Empty Trash

See the picture below.
Sign In and Save to the NH Network Everyday
Make sure you sign in and save to the New Haven network everyday. Your PC has been
configured to save everything you create to the network PC in 200 Orange Street. The IT staff
backs up everything on tape. Do not save anything to your hard drive. The hard drive can fail
and all your work would be gone. I remember after a person’s hard drive failed, the person
saving to his hard drive asked,” How do you get it back?”
The answer left his mouth hanging open. “You can’t get it back.”
On the other hand, I remember many who experienced a PC hard drive crash. They asked, ”Did
I lose all of my files?”
I asked, ”Do you save to your H drive in the network?”
If the answer was “Yes,” I said,” Your files are safe on the server. All we have to do is repair is
set up a new PC and you can go back to your files on the network like nothing ever happened.”

To Continue Working On What You Were Working On Yesterday

When you come into work and want to continue working on what you were working on
yesterday, for instance –I am currently working in a document called “PC Tips” - So I hit the
Start button and then Go to My Recent Documents and click on the name of the document I want
to open.
Searching for a Document
If you can’t find a document and you can Hit Start
Search. In the screen that pops up, click in the type of
document you want to search for.
In this case, we will search for PC Tips. Since it is a
WORD document, we click on, ”Documents, word
processing, spreadsheets, etc)

Put in part of the file name. At that point, you could start the search and get the following:

You can see that it found 3

copies. (Because it is a good idea
to back up what you write, I had
saved it to the network drive and
to my C: drive.)
If you did not even know the name of the document, you could search for the document by
searching for some unique words that were in the document. The PC opens up every document
and searches for whatever words you specify.
You can Hit Start Search. In the screen that pops up, click on the type of document you want to
search for.
In this case, we will again search for PC Tips. Since it is a WORD document, we click on,
”Documents, word processing, spreadsheets, etc)
We notice it has a choice for advanced options. Pretend you do not know
the name of the file, but you remember or see on the hard copy that it has
the words “again search” in the document. Because the PC has to do a lot
of searching, it is a good idea to give it more clues to go on. It would be
good to tell the PC to look only in the H hard drive (the network drive)
So I click on “Bgormley on Police FS.(H)” I can even, in this case, specify that it was modified
in the last week., thus speeding up the search
Then I hit “Search”

Sure enough, the PC found it

Finding a File to Attach
If you want to attach a file to an e-mail, the fastest way to find the file is to use the SORT by
detail feature in the selection dialogue box. Suppose I want to attach a copy of PC Tips to
someone. I create a blank email and hit ATTACH

I could scroll through the list if files and search for PC Tips, but wait - PC Tips was a recently
created file. If I make the Attach File dialogue box show me details like “Time Created” I can
get the latest file at the top of the list fast.
To do this, you have to get the dialogue box and tell it to show you Details
 Click down
triangle and then
Details

After clinking Details, the dialogues box shows the list of files in four columns :
File Name Size Type Date Modified [with Time]

Click in the
triangle to see the
Date Modified
column
Scroll over and click in the Date Modified gray box.

Click in the Date

Modified gray box. Old
files go to the top

After clicking, the least recent (oldest) files will appear. Click again and the most recent file will
appear.

Most recent
file at top

Click triangle to
scroll left and
double click on
file name at top

Then hit OK and you are done.

Retrieving and Saving Attached files
If you get an e-mail from someone with an attached file, you can save it to you PC. The best
way of doing this is to right-click on the file and choose the SAVE AS command .
As shown below, you will see a choice of commands drop down. Point and click on SAVE AS.
Your PC will not know WHERE you want to save the file so you may get something like the
screen below. Notice below that the PC is listing an inappropriate file folder to save to

To tell the computer where to

save the file, you have to
click on the down triangle to
the right of the SAVE IN
box.

When you do this the

computer shows you a choice
of file folders to save to.
You may want to save to the
H drive (shown above as Bgormley in Police FS\Vol1\Users’[H]. So point and click on the H
drive file folder with your name. Then click in the folder on the H drive that you want to save to.
 The PC will save the file to the
folder you specified. with

Then close out of mail and open the

file with the appropriate
SAVE IN program. The easiest way is to
double click the file. In most
situations, the PC will know
which program to open it with. If the
file is as pictured on the previous
page, a WORD file, then open it
with word.
You can tell it is a WORD file because it has a big blue W. If it is an EXCEL file, it has a green
X as shown below so you would have to open it with EXCEL.

Auto Correct

Use Auto Correct to save time - lots of time

Suppose yoi (or you) always seem to hit the “I” key instead of the “o” key.
Try it. Type yoi
You notice that a red line appears underneath the misspelling. Don’t correct it manually.
Use autocorrect.
To do this, you put your cursor in the word.
Then RIGHT click in the word. You will see the following.
Auto Correct gives you a choice of corrections. Your first impulse is to click on the second entry
above, that is “you.” DON’T

Go down to the entry “AutoCorrect” And click on “AutoCorrect

Then select the AutoCorrect entry “you”

What is the difference you ask ? Why bother ?

The answer is – By using AutoCorrect, you put the correct spelling in WORD’s AutoCorrect
dictionary.
So what.
I’ll tell you what. - From that moment on, anytime you spell “you” with an “I’ at the end, the
word will correct itself.
Do you want proof ?
I will now, on the line below, type a “y” an “o” and an “i”
You
“You” appeared above because when I typed a “y” an “o” and an “i” - Right before my eyes in a
flash, the misspelling corrected itself.
Every time you add a word to your spell dictionary, you are building up your own list of words
you use and misspell. That might not seem to make a difference because there are about a
million words in the English language BUT there are roughly only one or two thousand
commonly used words. It gets to the point where you can just type fast and make mistakes, and
– no big deal – the mistakes correct themselves !
One interesting thing is that Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, put words in the dictionary for
you. If you don’t believe me, try typing “c”, ”n”, ”a” and hit the spacebar. It will autocorrect
itself to “can.”
Here - I’ll try typing “c”, ”n”, ”a” Here I go - can - It corrected itself.
If you go to the WORD menu, and click on Tools then Autocorrect Options, as shown below,
you will see a partial list of the words that are already in WORD.
In the case if C N A, I had C N A insurance and had to write them a letter. I had to delete the
entry from Microsoft’s auto correct list. When you get to the dialogue box below,
scroll to C N A
select C N A
and hit delete
(The only way I could type C N A was to put a space between the letters because on this PC. O
did not delete the entry C N A and if I type the three letters, it will change to “can.”

There are some limitations though.

Sometimes Word will not be able to guess the

right word as shown below

If the word you misspell had the wrong first

letter, WORD usually can’t figure out the
correct word as shown below. WORD is not very good at guessing the first letters of words.
Here is an example:
However, there is a way to force an entry into the dictionary. Look at what WORD came up
with:

You would think that WORD would know that “giid” is good spelled wrong.
So you can force the correction unto WORD’s dictionary.
First double-click the word

Then hit Tools - Autocorrect – Autocorrect Options

When you click Autocorrect Options, you see that “good” is already entered un the Replace box
(because you highlighted it.)

Notice that giid is already an entry under Replace. All you have to do is type in the correct
spelling and hit ADD. Then hit OK. – The word is in the dictionary !

There is more to know about Auto-Correct but we have to stop somewhere short of writing a
book. Play with it.
Take a look at the Autocorrect Options when you hit Tools - Autocorrect – Autocorrect Options.

Auto-Sort in Excel – The Most Useful Tip in All of Excel

When you have a list in Word and you want to sort it in Excel, use this method.
First, you have to get the data into Excel
Look at the WORD list below. Let us say, for example, you might like to eliminate all items and
see only one type of item such as:
• A list of computer equipment and CPU Types but you only want to see the Compaq DP
2000’s
• A list of computer equipment, but you only want to see the monitors.
• A list of lots but you only want to see the Buildable lots
• A list of fees but you only want to see the overdue fees
• A list of people but you only want to see people with incomes be;ow the poverty line
You can do this easily in Excel in miliseconds.
Here is the sample data:
RM Monitor
Name # CPU Type CPU S/N type
Compaq DP 6734BK72Q9 Compaq
B of I 308 2000 91 P50
Compaq DP 6734BK72Q8 Compaq
B of I 342 2000 68 V70
Compaq DP 6742BPL4S04 Compaq
B of YAPC 362 4000 6 V70
Compaq DP
Beaver Hill 362 2000 23NLB87 IBM 8515
Compaq DP Compaq
Compu-Color, MIS 301 2000 23MYM54 V70
Compaq 7543HNA605 Compaq
Compu-Color, MIS 411 Prolinea 70 P50
Compaq DP 6643HVX6T3 NEC
Compu-Color, MIS 411 2000 24 Multisync
Compaq
Compu-Color, MIS 367 IBM PS/1 23MW953 P50
Compaq DP 6734BK72Q7 Compaq
Compu-Color, MIS 10 2000 51 V70
Compaq Compaq
Record Room 311 Prolinea 235N58Y P50
Compaq DP 6734BK72Q6 Compaq
Detention 370 2000 88 V70
Bohannon, Lynell 308 Compaq DP 6734BK72Q9 Compaq
 2000 91 P50
Compaq DP 6734BK72Q8 Compaq
Record Room 342 2000 68 V70
Compaq DP 6742BPL4S04 Compaq
Detention 362 4000 6 V70
Compaq DP
Chicarelli, Amanda 362 2000 23NLB87 IBM 8515
Compaq Compaq
Detention 400 Prolinea 8681179 P50
Compaq DP Compaq
Cummings, Shanon 301 2000 23MYM54 V70
Compaq 7543HNA605 Compaq
Record Room 411 Prolinea 70 P50
Compaq DP 6643HVX6T3 NEC
Detention 411 2000 24 Multisync
Compaq
Feeley, Kate 367 IBM PS/1 23MW953 P50
Compaq DP 6734BK72Q7 Compaq
Record Room 10 2000 51 V70
Compaq Compaq
Kenyhercz Jr, John 311 Prolinea 235N58Y P50
Compaq DP 6734BK72Q6 Compaq
Liriano, Manuel 370 2000 88 V70
Compaq DP 6734BK72Q9 Compaq
Natal, Lillian 308 2000 91 P50
Compaq DP 6734BK72Q8 Compaq
Newby, Elizabeth 342 2000 68 V70
Compaq DP 6742BPL4S04 Compaq
O'Brien, Dylan 362 4000 6 V70
Compaq DP
Ohara, Eileen P 362 2000 23NLB87 IBM 8515
Compaq Compaq
Oyola, Maribel 400 Prolinea 8681179 P50
Compaq DP 6702HVT3R0 Compaq
Remy, Ralph 311 2000 88 V70
Compaq DP 6702HVT3R0 Compaq
Rivera, Luis 157 2000 55 V70
Compaq DP 6702HVT3Q9 Compaq
Schietinger, Ana 157 2000 75 V70
Compaq DP 6702HVT3R1 Compaq
Tubman, Natasha 157 2000 83 V70
Compaq DP 6702HVT3R5 Compaq
Vega, Nilda 157 2000 02 V70
Compaq 6610HXS4Q0 Compaq
Zucker, Jonas 200 Prolinea 86 151

Your aim is to sort the data below so that the list shows only people with:
1) Compaq DP 2000’s
 2) Equipment in Room 157
3) Compaq V70 Monitors
4) B of I computers

Copying from Word to Excel

Open the document, ”WORD Data to Move to Excel.”
Highlight the whole table in WORD below.
Got Copy
Open Excel.
Put the cursor in A3
Hit Paste

Autofitting the Columns

As shown in the picture below, move the cursor in the gray area that shows Column A, B, C, etc
until you get a black down arrow.
Hold down the left mouse button and drag across from A to E, highlighting the columns.

Double click in the little line between A and B in the gray area.
That autofits the columns wide enough to be readable

Filtering the Data and Getting a List of What You Want

Open the file,” 9-Auto-sort-XL.xls. Follow the directions below.

Highlight the first row from Name to
Monitor type as shown at right.
Hit Data Filter Auto Filter in the menu
First click on the down arrow to the
right of CPU Type.
From the drop down list, click on
Compaq DP 2000.

Amazing, isn’t it ?
You get a list of all Compaq DP
2000s. (You can print it and the
arrows won't show.)
Then hit Data Filter - Show All.
The list is restored as it was
From the drop down list in the
Monitor Type column , click on
Compaq V70.
You see only Compaq V70
Monitors.
This time, Don’t hit Data Filter -
Show All
From the drop down list in the Name
column, click on B of I.

You see only one item that meets the two criteria
Compaq V70
B of I.
Then hit Data Filter - Show All.
This can be used for simple sorting as is done is the ACCESS program.
One employee asked me to teach him Access for filtering and grouping data. I showed him how
to use Excel for simple filtering. About learning Access, he said, “Never mind, I’ll use Auto
Sort in Excel instead.”

Converting Text to a Table

Open the file, “Converting Text to a Table.doc.”

You see
Name Bob Smith
Address Oak St.
City New Haven
State Connecticut
Phone 203-453-9876

To make the above list into a table:

Make sure there is only one tab between entries.
Select all the text.
Click Table – Text to Table
Click on the Borders down triangle as shown below

Click on All Borders.

You see the following:

Name Bob Smith
Address Oak St.
City New Haven
State Connecticut
Phone 203-453-9876
How to Make a Template

A template is a blank boilerplate you can set up for use any time you need to create a document.
Many people create templates for memos. Instead of having to set up a memo every time you
write one, you create a blank and just fill in the “To” and “From, etc.
Here is what it would look like if you wrote one for LCI.
So templates are useful. But how do you create template ?
You could just go to an old memo and delete all the text and write the new memo but for reasons
to numerous to go into, it is time consuming and complicated to do it that way. Try it the right
way.
Open a WORD document and type what you want as a template such as below.
In the menu , hit FILE SAVE AS. As shown below, hit the down arrow in Save as type. Click
on Document Template (*.dot)
When you do that, as shown, you will
see that WORD changes the location
to which it saves. Notice at the top of
the dialogue box it says it is saving to
the folder,” Document Templates.”

WORD saves to the Document Template directory so that in the future when you open Word and
click on FILE – NEW, and click on “On My Computer” you see the Template you created and
can open it with one double click. Look in the next page and see what happens when you click
on File New. A new section appears on the right side
 Click On my
computer so
that WORD
will look in the
Templates
folder

So now you have created a blank template. When you need to create, for instance , a memo, all
you have to do is open the blank document and fill it out.

So how do you get the document open.

Just hit File New – On My Computer
Double click the template name

As the arrow indicates, after you hit File New, you click in On My Computer. (You want to see
NEW FILES you created “ON MY COMPUTER”)

Word looks in the Templates directory and shows you the files in the box below:
If you click on Time Off Request, you will get your Time Off Request blank template.

Copy The Template To Your Desktop

You can also copy the template to your desktop to make it easy to use. Here’s how --
Hit File New – Click “On My Computer” and get the dialogue box showing the files.
Then right click on the template and hit Create Shortcut. .
After creating the shortcut, right click in the shortcut and hit Copy. (See picture below.)
Close all windows .

Go to the desktop and paste the shortcut onto the desktop. Now the short cut is on
the desk top.
Anytime you want your template, just double click on the shortcut on the desktop and your
document opens !
Alternate Method
You could have also saved the template to some other handy place like the desktop by clicking
the Down triangle in the SAVE IN box.
To do this open the template. Hit File - Save as
Click in Desktop.

See below.
Hit Save
The shortcut will appear on your desktop with the other shortcuts
Creating a Shortcut for any file in My Computer or Windows Explorer.

If you want to see your files or folders, hold down the Windows logo key and while holding
down the key, hit the “E” key. You will see the screen below. That is Windows Explorer.

Find the file you want to create a shortcut to.

Click on the file

Right click in the file

Scroll down to and click “Desktop (create shortcut) DeskLink.”

You will see that there us a shortcut created in the desktop

Poof ! Auto Text !
Pardon the unusual title but this trick us as near to magic that Word gets.
Suppose you have a great deal of “blurbs” to type in documents. For instance, I knew of a
housing inspector who found that every time he inspected a house he had to type a paragraph
about how he found cracks in the basement floor but that they were not a serious problem. He
said, “It seems life waste more time typing the same old paragraphs over and over again.”
Let’s set up an actual auto text.
Suppose you work for Oak City Housing and you are tired of typing in and/or copying and
pasting the same old “Conflict of Interest Policy” that by law must appear in housing documents.
You are fed up and you are not going to ever type it again.
So you go to a Word document that has the policy in it.
You highlight the text.
In the menu, you click on Insert AutoText – AutoText

You see:
Autotext takes the name if the first few words of the
text but if you are really lazy , you can shorten it.
I typed Conflictz because I did not want to gice it
the name of a real word.
Now -- From here in, when I need the Conflict of Interest policy, I type conflicts and hit the F3
key at the top of the keyboard. And poof ! There it is! Five paragraphs in 10 seconds.