Working Smarter: Type once, enter twice, save time
Cut way down on your keystrokes, with these Outlook tools that let you mine information that’s already in your files.
Category: Office Technology
View windows side by side
View windows side by side (such as a Word document and a Web page) by opening both. (Don’t minimize them.) Next, right-click on a vacant area of the task bar at the bottom of your screen. Then, choose "Tile Windows Vertically" or "Tile Windows Horizontally." To switch between the windows, hit Alt, Tab.
Quiz: Building presentations by the numbers
How well do you understand the general guidelines for preparing presentations? Take this quiz. And visit these web sites to find ways to improve your presentations:
Format type faster with these shortcuts
Speed text changes with the following keyboard shortcuts after you highlight the text:
Choose the best communication tool
Just because e-mail is handy doesn’t make it efficient. Indeed, three out of four people delete an e-mail before they finish reading it, a recent survey found.
Use Word to build better templates and forms
When creating a form letter or other document template, the field code feature in Word versions 97 and higher can come in handy. With dozens of field codes available, you can manage everything from inserting information that is automatically updated to creating drop-down lists that allow users to choose which information to insert.
Easy ways to turn your toolbar into a timesaver
Using the computer toolbar again and again to pull down the same functions is monotonous and stifles productivity.
Ursula Faix, of Sarasota, Fla., offers her time-saving strategies of bypassing drop-down menus so “every command I need is one click away. For me, the most important time-saving technique in Microsoft Word and Excel is to customize the toolbars,” she says.
Customize MS Word tools to check your writing
If you’re like most professionals, you use Microsoft Word every day. Take a few minutes now to customize your Word workspace by tailoring the built-in spelling and grammar checks on your computer to meet your specific needs. Here’s how:
Less is more when it comes to using PowerPoint
Thousands of people deliver Power-Point presentations each day, and most could sharpen their message if the slides were less distracting. Here are some techniques and guidelines to do that: