Notes from the Help Desk…

On some charts, you may want to plot a data series that contains different numbers on a different scale.  For example, you may want to show monthly sales figures and percentages on the same chart.  If you use the same scale for both data series, the percentages will be too small to show up on the chart.

To plot a data series on a secondary axis:

1. Create your chart.
2. Select the smaller data series by clicking the drop-down list on the Layout tab of the Chart Tools ribbon.
3. Click the Format Selection button.
4. Excel will display the Format Data Series dialog box
5. In the Series Options category, select Secondary Axis.
6. Click the Close button.
7. Excel will plot the data series on a secondary axis.

If you are a full-time web developer, you probably already use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to format and layout web pages. However, if your only design experience is creating and maintaining your company’s web site, you are probably still working with HTML. It’s time to think about changing.

CSS works with HTML to improve the appearance of your web pages. Styles can be applied to headings, images, tables, text, or any other object on a web page. If you work with styles in Microsoft Word, the concept is basically the same.

Do you remember what the Web was like back in 1994 when we were all amazed by the Louvre web site? (Remember the Mosaic browser?) Wow, we could actually see pictures on our computer that were in France! This was HTML 1.0 with no support for tables, so all Web pages were one column. Boring! Then tables came along, and all of a sudden, web pages could have more than one column, paving the way for more complicated layouts. A revolution! CSS represents another sea change in web design. Read more…

If you’re looking for an inexpensive way to train users on software (and who isn’t these days?), consider Camtasia Studio, screen recording software from TechSmith. (Price: $299)

Camtasia is easy to learn and fun to use. You simply record what’s happening on the screen as you speak the narration into a microphone. Depending on the length of the video, it’s often easier to record small chunks of your video at a time and then stitch them together during editing. When you edit the video, it’s easy to pan and zoom smoothly, so you can focus on the parts of the screen that are important. During editing, you can also add titles and transitions, edit the audio track, etc. Read more…

One of the new “Mac-like” features of Windows 7 is your Taskbar customization options. The Mac shows your icons at the bottom of the screen. As you hover over an icon, it magnifies. As far as I can tell, there isn’t a difference between an open app and a closed one in terms of appearance.

Windows 7 provides a version of that. First, there is no Quick Launch toolbar. When you drag an icon to the Taskbar, it shows up where the open icons are. The difference is that the open icons have a box around them to let you know they are open. The Word icon in the example below shows that there are three files open. When you hover over the icon, you can see each file and select the one you want.

You can make the icons smaller, which I did initially. I went back to the larger size from a combination of aging eyes and better visuals on the icons.

You can customize the Taskbar and the Start Button as you did in XP and Vista: Right-click on the button and select Properties. You can keep this behavior (combine icons, hide text), turn it off when the taskbar is full, or never use it. Initially, I turned it off and went to small icons. But I find myself liking the new look.

And while we’re at it, the Desktop Preview box at the far end of the Taskbar is kind of cool—hover over it and it makes your windows transparent so you can see your desktop—but there is a slight hesitation before it happens that is annoying. Much faster to press Windows Logo Button + D to minimize everything and Windows-D to restore it. Both of these happen instantly.

After 27 years in the business, you end up with a few observations. Ron Miller, an old friend of mine, interviewed me about Vista, Office 2007, and my observations on technical writing. All opinions expressed are my own, but I did get a chance to say some things. Take a look at the interview: http://www.daniweb.com

Track Changes is an indispensable tool in Word that lets a group of people edit a document, while Word keeps track of what changes were made to the document and who made them. However, a persistent problem in earlier versions of Word has been the difficulty in removing all tracked changes and comments from the final version of a document.

When you accept or reject changes in a final document, Word is supposed to remove all traces of tracked changes and comments. However, many users have discovered that this information is difficult to remove permanently without using a third-party program.

This task is much easier and more effective in Word 2007. To remove tracked changes and comments from a Word 2007 document:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Click Prepare and select Inspect Document.
3. The Document Inspector dialog box will appear.
4. Check the Comments, Revisions, Versions and Annotations checkbox.
5. View the inspection results.
6. Click the Remove All button next to Comments, Revisions, Versions, and Annotations.
7. Click the Close button.
8. Save your document.

Your document is now free of all of the comments and tracked changes info.

Microsoft Word 2007 lets you create blog postings and publish them directly from Word. (Actually, I’m doing it right now!) Using Word is generally easier than most blogging software, which requires users to edit HTML code.

To create a blog posting from Word:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Select New, select New blog post, and then click the Create button (lower right corner).
3. Click the Register Now button in the dialog, and then select your Blog provider from the drop-down list.
4. Enter the appropriate information into the New Blogger Account dialog box.
5. Click the Picture Options button if you want to select a picture provider from the drop-down list.
   (If you don’t use a picture provider, select None-Don’t Upload Pictures.)
6. Type your blog posting, and click the Publish button on the Ribbon to publish it to the blog. (When you publish, Word will prompt you for your Username and Password.)

By default, Office 2007 saves files in new XML-based formats. Word uses the .docx and .docm extensions. Docx files do not support macros, while docm files are macro-enabled. Presumably, this is to cut down on the number of viruses aimed at Word documents.

Similarly, Excel uses the .xlsx and .xlsm extensions, and PowerPoint uses the .pptx and .pptm extensions. Access has also changed its file format to an XML-based format, using the .accdb extension.

However, the new formats are not backward-compatible. Therefore, people using any older versions of Office will not be able to open files saved in the new formats. Since it will be some time before a majority of users have Office 2007, we recommend saving files in the old formats if you intend to distribute them to other users.
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To save an Office 2007 file in an older format:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Select Save As.
3. At the bottom of the dialog box, under Save as type:, select Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc).

Office 2007 now lets you save any document, presentation or spreadsheet as a PDF (without having to purchase Adobe Acrobat). However, you have to download a plug-in to add this functionality.

You can download the free plugin from Microsoft at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4D951911-3E7E-4AE6-B059-A2E79ED87041&displaylang=en

After you have downloaded the plug-in, to save a file as a PDF, click the Office button and select Save As | PDF or XPS.