Notes from the Help Desk…

This is a situation that often comes up in our Excel classes:

“I need to add data to my spreadsheet, but I want to lock the cells that contain formulas so they don’t get overwritten.”

It’s easy to Protect an entire spreadsheet from the Tools | Protection | Protect Sheet… menu item. However, this option protects all the cells in the spreadsheet.

Unless…you first unlock the cells you want to remain editable. Here’s how:

1. Select the cells you want to be editable.
2. Select Format | Cells, and click the Protection tab:



3. Clear the check from the Locked checkbox.
4. Click OK.
5. Select Tools | Protection | Protect Sheet…



6. Leave all the default items checked. (If you wish, you can add checks to any features you want users to access.) Add a password if you want to prevent a user from Unprotecting the sheet from the Tools menu.
7. Click OK.
8. Users will now be able to edit only the cells that are unlocked. If a user tries to edit a locked cell on a protected worksheet, he/she will see the following message:

Not everyone who visits your Web site can see the page. Some people with visual disabilities use screen readers to have the page read to them. For this reason, it’s important that you include alternate text with each of your images.

To add alternate text to your images:

1. Select the image.
2. Click into the Alt Text field in the Property Inspector and type a phrase that identifies or describes the image.

If you are sufficiently compulsive, you will remember to do this every time you add an image to a page.

If you tend to slack off when it comes to details like this, you can set a preference in Dreamweaver that forces you to add alternate text every time you add an image to a page.

To turn on the Image Accessibility prompt:

1. Select Edit | Preferences.
2. Select Accessibility from the Category List.
3. Add a check to the Images checkbox in the Show attributes when inserting list.
4. Click OK.
5. When you add an image to a page, Dreamweaver will display the following prompt:



The screen reader reads the information you enter in the Alternate text field. You should limit your entry to around 50 characters. For longer descriptions, consider providing a link, in the Long description field, to a file that gives more information about the image.

Linking to a named anchor lets you link to a specific place on a page.

Linking to a named anchor requires two steps: (1) Create the anchor. (2) Link to it.

To create an anchor on a page:

1. Click into the page where you want the anchor to appear.
2. From the Common category on the Insert bar, click the Named Anchor button (or select Insert | Named Anchor from the menus):



3. Dreamweaver will place an anchor icon in the document. (The icon will not be visible when the page is viewed in a browser.)

To link to a named anchor on the same page:

1. Select text or an image.
2. Click into the Link field in the Property Inspector and type the name of the anchor, preceded by the pound sign (#). The sample below links to the heading3 anchor on the same page:

To link to a named anchor on a different page:

1. Select text or an image.
2. Click into the Link field in the Property Inspector and type the name of the file followed by a pound sign (#) and the named anchor. The sample below links to the heading3 anchor on the products1.htm page:

If you often work with several docs open in Word, you’ll love this tip!

Hold down the SHIFT key when you click on the File menu. Close and Save will appear as Close All and Save All, allowing you to close or save all open files with one click!

(Note: If you select Close All, Word will still prompt you to save changes for each unsaved file.)

If you love music and computers, you probably have a lot of albums stored on your hard drive.

Here’s a cool tip that lets you show the album cover on the folder. The picture below shows some of the Tom Waits albums on my hard drive:

Windows XP has a feature that sometimes automatically puts a thumbnail of the album cover on the folder. In these cases, you don’t have to do anything! However, for some reason, Windows does not create the thumbnail automatically for every album.

To add the thumbnail of the album cover yourself:

1. First, download a jpg of the album cover. (You can do this by searching for the album on Amazon, then right-click on the picture, and save it in the folder containing the songs.)
2. In My Computer, right-click on the folder.
3. Select Properties.
4. Click the Customize tab at the top.



5. Click the Choose Picture button.
6. Select the JPG that you stored in the folder, and click the Open button.
7. Click OK.

Word lets you add a Work menu to your Menu Bar that you can use to access frequently used documents. Although few people know about this Word feature, it can be quite useful.

To add the Work menu to the menu bar:

1. Select Tools | Customize, and click the Commands tab.
2. In the list of Categories , select Built-in Menus.
3. Select Work in the Commands box and drag it to the menu bar.



4. Click Close to close the Customize dialog box.

After you add the Work menu, you can easily add any open Word document to it.

To add the current document to the Work menu:

1. Select Work | Add to Work Menu.

To open a document on the Work menu:

1. Select the the document on the Work menu.

To remove a document from the Work menu:

1. Press CTRL+ALT+- (dash key).
2. Your cursor will look like a large, bold underscore.
3. On the Work menu, click the document you want to remove.

If Word flags words that you use frequently as misspelled, such as names or acronyms, you can add them to Word’s custom dictionary by right-clicking on the Word and selecting Add to dictionary.

You can also edit the dictionary directly. This is useful if you need to remove words from the dictionary that you previously added.

To edit the custom dictionary:

1. Select Tools | Options | Spelling & Grammar.
2. Click the Custom Dictionaries button.
3. Select the check box next to the dictionary you want to edit.



4. Click the Modify button.
5. To add a word, type it in the Word box, and then click Add.



6. To delete a word, select it from the list and click Delete.

1. Select a background for your presentation based on the room’s lighting:
• In a dark room, select light text on a dark background.
• In a light room, select dark text on a light background.

2. Don’t put too much text on a slide. Use these general guidelines:
• The 6 X 6 Rule:

No more than six bulleted items per slide

No more than six words in each bulleted item

• Don’t put whole paragraphs of text on a slide; break up paragraphs into bulleted items
• Don’t use font sizes smaller than 24 points

By default, Word and Excel list the last four files you opened at the bottom of the File menu. You can increase the number of files on this list to nine by changing a program setting.

Here’s how:

1. Select Tools | Options.
2. Click the General tab.
3. Change the number in the Recently used file list to 9 entries.
4. Click OK.

Word 2002/2003 lets you select multiple noncontiguous items in a document.

Although this feature has been available in Excel for some time, it was not introduced in Word until ver. 2002, and is still available in ver. 2003.

For example, you can select the headings of two or more sections in a document, without selecting the text in between.

Here’s how:

1. Select the first item (word, sentence, heading, paragraph, etc.)
2. Hold down CTRL.
3. Select any additional items you want.