select

Recently a reader wrote to me with an query about AutoComplete in MS Word. Below is the query: "To insert today's date (and/or time) in Word 2007 you are supposed to be able to type the first four characters of the month and AutoComplete will assist ... you. This does not work for me. It is like AutoComplete is not tripped in my Word 2007. Also, when I click on Insert I find nowhere to insert the date from. I have to admit I am a fish out of water with MS Word 2007." -- Mark My reply: Well Mark, you are not the only person who feels like a fish out of water with this newest version of Word but ... (view more)

A reader recently wrote to me asking me how to remove the blank page at the end of the table in her document. When you create a table that ends at the bottom margin in an MS Word document, Word will automatically insert a new blank page. This takes ... place whether you want it or not because there is a paragraph inserted by default at the end of your document. If you click on the pilcrow on your toolbar (looks like a backwards P) it will turn on the Show/Hide button, which will reveal a paragraph mark after the table. This can be very annoying, especially when you do not need an extra page. Word ... (view more)

There is little more important than your contacts in Outlook Express. Backing them up is always a good idea in case you ever decide to switch to a different e-mail client. You can do this in Outlook Express but it may involve editing your registry. ... Before you do anything to your registry, you should always back it up. If you do not and go mucking about with it and make a mistake, you could end up with a very expensive doorstop! So, before you follow the steps below, make sure that you back up your registry somewhere so that you can access it. This pertains to Outlook Express and not MS ... (view more)

You have learned in the past how to set a print area within a worksheet. This area is used to define exactly what range you want to print. Sometime later, you may want to delete this print area. To clear up any confusion, I am talking about getting ... rid of the special area designation, not the information contained within that area. Follow the steps below to clear the print area: Select Print Area from the File menu. Excel displays a submenu. Select Clear Print Area from the submenu. If you are using Excel 2007, you clear the print area following the steps below: Display the Page Setup tab of ... (view more)

You can add, remove and otherwise customize your Office application toolbar. Toolbar buttons usually perform some action (e.g. underline text) or execute a macro. They can do a whole lot more than that too, such as open a Web page! Follow the steps ... below to learn how to do this: On your toolbar, click on Tools | Customize to display the Customize dialog box. Select the Commands tab. Click and drag one of the commands to your toolbar. It doesn't matter which one you drag -- it can be any one of them because it is only going to be a placeholder for now. For our purposes, just drag the first one ... (view more)

Working with multiply sheets concurrently is how MS Excel power users create and format a complex workbook with the least amount of effort expended. Follow the steps below to make working with multiple sheet a piece of cake and you will be on your ... way to becoming a power user! Hold down the CTRL key as you click each tab top select multiple worksheets. To select a contiguous group of worksheets, click the first one in the group and then hold down the Shift key and click the last one in the group. To select all the worksheets in the current workbook, right-click any worksheet tab and choose ... (view more)

When automatic subtotals are inserted, Excel outlines the list by grouping detail rows with each associate subtotal row, and grouping subtotal rows with the grand total row. To insert subtotals and grand totals in a data list, follow the ... instructions below: Sort the data list on the field or fields by which the data should be grouped. Position the active cell within the data list. Select Data | Subtotals. The Subtotal dialog box appears. Select a field by which to group from the At each change in drop-down list. Select a calculation function from the Use function drop-down list. Select the ... (view more)

There will be some occasions when you will want to perform a sort using more than one column in MS Excel. You already know how to perform a sort using one column and now if you follow the steps below you can add a little to your Excel knowledge of ... sorting. Position the active cell anywhere within the data list. Choose Data | Sort The Sort dialog box will appear. Select the first column to sort by in the Sort by List box. Choose Ascending or Descending. The names of the columns appear if the list is designed correctly and the Header row option is selected in the My list has area of the Sort ... (view more)

It's a fact: a clean install of Windows is *always* preferable to upgrading a new version over top of a previous Windows installation. Why is this so? The answer is three words: The Windows Registry. For example: when you install and uninstall ... programs to a Windows PC, things get added to the Registry -- the 'heart' of the Windows Operating System. The Registry is a complex database that keeps track of installed programs, program preferences, user data, operating system settings, and the like. However, over time, some programs may not install or uninstall properly, and the Registry becomes ... (view more)

When you have created several drawing objects that together make up the diagram or art for your document using MS Word, you may want to align them precisely, arrange them in various layers on top of one another, or group them to be a single unit. ... The choices via the Draw menu of the Drawing toolbar make this very easy for you. To align several objects, select them, choose Draw | Align or Distribute, and specify an alignment. You align them relative to each other or relative to the page, depending on whether Relative to Page is checked at the bottom of the menu. Objects that overlap each other ... (view more)