Tips & Tricks-July 2002

Today's tips are for users of Microsoft Office 2000 and Office XP. Most of these tips were inspired by tips from Emazing.

Selecting Data in Excel

Often while using Excel, you want to select a range of data. Usually, you start in one corner, hold down the left mouse button and drag the cursor to the farthest corner of the data. If the spreadsheet is large, my finger slips off the mouse button or the mouse gets caught on the edge of the desk-something causes me to have to start over. If the data you want to select is contiguous, you can select it by positioning the cursor in the data, then press Ctrl, Shift and the asterisk key. The entire contiguous range will be selected. Anything not contiguous will not be selected.

Printing a Range of Data in Excel

Now if you want to print selected data, use this technique to select the range, then select File, Print Area, Set Print Area from the top menu. Then use File, Print to print the selected area. Your selection will remain as the selected area for printing until you change it.

An alternative method for printing a selected area is to select the range to be printed, then select File, Print. Click on the box under "Print What" for "Selection." Then only the selected area will print. By the way, this also works if you are trying to print a portion of a web page. Select it, then go to File, Print in the Internet Explorer menu and click the box for selection and print.

Changing Font Formats in Word

Sometimes you have to work on documents that have font formats that you don't like for one reason or another. You can change the entire document by pressing ctrl and A at the same time to select the entire document. Then you can change all the text at once. If there are areas in bold that you don't like, you can toggle the bold format on and off by press ctrl and B at the same time (this works on any selected text). To change italics, press ctrl and I. You can then apply the Normal style to the entire document. After it's done, you can go through and do your own formatiing.

Right Mouse Clicking (again)

Using the right mouse button works in Word as well as in Windows generally. For example, if you want to move a portion of text in a Word document, you can select it with the cursor and drag it to another portion of the document. If you want to copy it, you can press shift and drag it. You can also use the right mouse button as you drag the selection. A menu will pop up that allows you to move the selection to the new location, copy it or create a hyperlink.

Page Borders in Word

You can create page borders very easily in Word. Select Format, Borders and Shading from the menu. Click on the page border tab. In the middle of the page, there is a list box entitled "Art." Use the arrow to view the borders. When select a border and click on ok, the border will be applied to the entire page. Here is an example.

You might well ask how I got the picture of the document into this article. There is a way to do it in Word (and other Windows applications). Have the open Window selected, then press alt and prt scr on the key board and the window will be copied onto the clipboard. Paste the image into your document. You can resize it or move it around after it's been pasted. This is very useful for sending error messages to technical support-you don't have to write down the contents of the dialog box, just take a picture of it.

Sometimes you really don't want the entire screen. The image above was taken from an Word window, but doesn't include the menus, toolbars, etc. If I used the alt and print screen keys I would get this:

Sometimes you might want this, but suppose you only want part of the image.

I used a utility called PrintKey-Pro from WareCentral.com to create the page border example. When you press alt-prt scr, a PrintKey-Pro window pops up and allows you to crop the image and manipulate it in a myriad of ways. You can save the image to a file or paste it in the document you're working on. You can download a 30 day trial copy from www.warecentral.com or purchase the product for $19.95. I have to create a lot of documentation and this is a quick and easy way to get the screen images I need.