http://blog.ptraining.com Tips, tricks, opinions, and information for business computer users Sun, 05 Oct 2008 01:55:27 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en 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 ... http://blog.ptraining.com/2008/08/why-vista-is-universally-hated-and-other-training-truths/ In earlier versions of Word, you were easily able to suppress the blank lines in a mail merge. In Word 2007, it does not seem to automatically do this. Say for example, you have a data file with Address 1, Address 2, and Address 3. When you add the fields ... http://blog.ptraining.com/2008/01/supressing-blank-lines-in-a-word-2007-mail-merge/ 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 ... http://blog.ptraining.com/2007/05/permanently-remove-tracked-changes-and-comments-from-a-word-2007-document/ 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: Click the Office button. Select New, ... http://blog.ptraining.com/2007/05/create-and-publish-blog-postings-from-word-2007/ 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 ... http://blog.ptraining.com/2007/05/file-formats-new-vs-old/ 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 ... http://blog.ptraining.com/2007/05/save-files-as-pdfs-in-office-2007/ If you are working with a formula that may refer to a blank cell or otherwise generate an error message, you can use a combination of the IF-THEN-ELSE and the ISERROR function to handle the #DIV/0! or other error messages that may appear. The IF-THEN-ELSE has 3 parts: the condition, the ... http://blog.ptraining.com/2007/01/hiding-the-div0-message/ A snippet is a chunk of code that you can store in Dreamweaver to reuse later. Snippets can include HTML, JavaScript, ASP, JSP, etc. For example, let's say you need to add several graphics to your Web site, and each graphic is in a two-cell table with ... http://blog.ptraining.com/2006/07/using-code-snippets-in-dreamweaver/ PowerPoint 2003 comes with several design templates that you can use to add an artistic design to your slides. If you want a wider variety of designs from which to choose, consider downloading additional design templates from Microsoft's web site. If you want a more unique design for your presentation, ... http://blog.ptraining.com/2006/03/create-a-design-template-in-powerpoint-2003/ Most of you probably know about the Extend box in Excel, even if you don't know its name. The Extend box is the little square at the bottom right corner of the current cell or range. When you put your cursor on it, the cursor changes to a small black ... http://blog.ptraining.com/2006/02/supercharged-copying-and-pasting-using-the-extend-box-in-excel/