Technology's getting smarter :)

Well, as you can probably imagine, I've been up to my eyeballs in Office 2010 for some time now. I love the new features--very smart, very flexible, and they make your work look better faster than ever before. I was always a big fan of the Ribbon (love the open, artsy changes) but this Office puts it a little more under our control. Nice. Plus a number of the features bring some big-impact effects directly into my favorite apps, which is a great perk and timesaver. If you've been on the fence about upgrading from Office 2003, take a close look when the public beta becomes available--the features here are smart, flexible, and freeing. (No kidding--I'm all about working on the fly so I can have free time when I want it.) :)

In the meantime, be sure to visit these blogs from the in-house folks at Microsoft. There's lots of good info on new features, both background and how-to:

• Microsoft Office 2010 Engineering (not as boring as it sounds)
  
• Word team blog
  
• Excel team blog
  
• Powerpoint team blog
  
• Publisher team blog
  
• Outlook team blog
  
• OneNote blog from David Rasmussen (tired yet? lol!)
  
• SharePoint Workspace team blog
  
• Access team blog
  
• Office Web Apps (oh yes they are!)

Enjoy the links and get a glimpse at the beta as soon as you can. It's worth a good solid test drive and a few trips around the block.

Wake up your folders!

I am working on something that is just too fun and creative for the boring folders I usually have littered all over my desktop for easy access. I know, I know--don't lecture me. :)

I decided to change out the folder icon to reflect something a little more lively. The project is called Kids Love the Earth, so I went looking for some kind of Earth image (and found one). Here's the process, in case you want to shake up your own ho-hum folders and make things a bit more interesting:

1. Right-click the folder you want to change.
2. Click Properties.
3. In the Properties box, click the Customize tab.
4. Click the Change Icon button toward the bottom of the box.
5. Scroll through the oh-so-colorful selection (much nicer than that boring folder icon, isn't it?) and choose the one you want.
6. Click Apply and then OK.

Now you're creativity is really going to ramp up. Be ready! :)

Where'd the styles go?

Have you ever started working on a new document (or one a colleague sent you), only to discover that some of the styles usually in the Styles gallery are missing? This is a simple fix--they are really still there, but they're hiding. Display them by following these steps:

1. Click the small extender button in the lower right corner of the Styles group (on the Home tab).

2. Click the Manage Styles button (the button on the far right at the bottom of the Styles palette).

3. In the Manage Styles dialog box, click the style you want to display, and click the Show button (toward the bottom of the dialog box), and click OK.

The style is now in the Styles gallery and will show up like normal for you when you need it. :)

Office 14 wish list item #23

It's possible that I'm a bit of a pushover, but I really do love Office 2007. I've worked with Office since Word was DOS-based (no kidding--and at the time I thought the Windows version would never catch on!) and Office 2007 really does live up to a lot of the promise we heard about when it first came out of the blocks.

But. I've been working on a presentation this morning (something I enjoy doing but don't get the chance very often) and I'm almost done, but the chart legend on a new custom chart I created is giving me fits. For all the easy, find-what-you-need context-driven features in Office 2007, the text controls for charts need to be welcomed into the new, inclusive Office UI. I'd rather not have to select each individual element and go through a different text process for changing and applying custom formats.

To get the kind of font change you want in the legend, for example, you have to right-click the text item (there's no Legend Text choice in the Format Legend dialog box, for some reason), choose Font, and then make your choices from an imposter Font dialog box. The whole thing just seems weird to me. And it wouldn't let me select all the legend items at once--I had to do it one at a time.

Yes, it may seem like small potatoes, but the process is clunky and counter-intuitive, and I just spent way too much time trying to get the chart legend to look the way I want (and now, complaining about it. LOL!)

Leaning into the next is an important part of human progress, though, so I guess it's time well spent. :)

Special projects call for special fonts

I'm working on something really fun right now and wanted a special look for a couple of elements, and Word's regular fonts--while fine for most things--just weren't doing it for me. It's been a while since I added any new fonts to my system, so I had to remember how to find what I needed and install the fonts so they'd be available in Word. Here's a quick refresher in case it's not something you do often, either:

1. Find and download the font(s) you want to add.
   
   Note: With just a little searching online this morning I found Fontspace, which has thousands of free fonts of all different types.
   
   
2. Unzip the font file to whatever folder you'd like. (Just make sure you can find them when it's time to install.)
   
   
3. Display the Control Panel and go to the Fonts window. In Windows XP SP2, it's easier to find Fonts by using Classic View; in Vista, just type Fonts in the search box and you're there.
   
   
4. Click File and choose Install New Font.
   
   
5. In the Add Fonts dialog box, navigate to the folder where you saved the files when you unzipped them, click the fonts you want to install in the List of Fonts (in the top portion of the dialog box), and click OK.
   

Windows installs the fonts and then takes you back to the Fonts window. Close it and go take a look in Word. Yup, they're there.

Simple, right? Enjoy your new look! It's spring, after all. :)

Sorting a list

I'm working on some web content for our new site and wanted to alphabetize a simple article list on a page in Word 2007. No biggie, right? After looking through all the tabs on the ribbon, I realized that in order to alphabetize the 12-item list, I'd have to first convert the list to a table, use the Sort command (in the Layout area of Table Tools contextual tab) to sort the list, and then convert the list back to text again. I know, it's a lot of trouble for a simple alphabetical list. But just in case it's helpful, here are the steps:

1. Type and then highlight the list.
   
2. Click the Insert tab and click Convert Text to Table.
   
3. When the Convert Text to Table dialog box appears, click OK.
   
4. In the Table Tools tab, click Layout.
   
5. In the Data group, click Sort.
   
6. In the Sort dialog box, click OK. This alphabetizes the list.
   
7. In the Data group, click Convert to Text and click OK.

There you have it--your alphabetized list. Much better than having your coworkers look at you strangely while you sing the ABCs in your office, right? :)

3-Minute Quick Guide to Creating a Glossary in Word 2007

Good morning, and happy March! I hope wherever you are in the world, the changing of the seasons brings you beauty and refreshment. Here in the U.S. we are looking forward to spring!

Verissimo in Portugal wrote recently to ask how to create a glossary for a long Word project, and I put together this quick guide (3-Minute Quick Guide for Creating a Glossary in Word 2007), thinking it might be helpful for others as well. A well-developed (and consistent) glossary is one of the marks of a well-produced project, and having a glossary you can update easily and automatically (with just a little format editing at the end) can make your good document really stand out.

Download the PDF: Right-click here and choose Save Target As to download the PDF to your computer.

If you have a question or process you'd like to see covered in a 3-Minute Quick Guide, I'll do my best. Drop me a note.