TIPS
COLUMNS FOR 2003
1
SEE
PREVIOUS VERSIONS OF WEBSITES. The
“Wayback Machine”, http://www.archive.org,
allows you to click into older versions of popular
websites such as Yahoo. Type in your own
website URL and you may be surprised to find yourself permanently archived – or
backed up, if you prefer to think of it that way! Try looking at the CODE site
(http://www.codechgo.com) from
2
MAKE YOUR
SCREEN SAVER A CUSTOM SLIDE SHOW IN WINDOWS XP. To display a series of pictures as your screen saver in Windws XP, right click on your Desktop, then click
Properties, Screen Saver. Now select “My
Pictures Slideshow”. Whatever is in
you’re my Pictures folder will now automatically cycle as your screen
saver. You can even save a Power Point
presentation as your screen saver. To do
this, open your Power Point file, then click File, Save As and then change the
Save As Type to GIF or JPEG. Now move the resulting GIF or JPEG images
into My Pictures, and your slide show is set up.
3
QUICKLY
CLEAN UP FORWARDED E-MAIL. If you would
like to strip out all the previous headers and “>” marks from forwarded
e-mail messages that have reached you after multiple forwardings
or replies, use the free E-mail stripper program from http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm.
1 DE-FORMAT PASTED WEBSITE MATERIAL. When you copy and paste material into an MS
Word document from a web page, the web formatting remains intact. To strip out the formatting, highlight the
selection in Word, then click Format, Styles and Formatting, Clear Formatting.
2 POWER POINT PHOTO ALBUMS. Power Point 2002 (XP version) allows you to
create photo albums which, if desired, can be formatted as full-page photos, or
displayed 2-up or 4-up on a page, with or without captions. To make an album, start Power Point, then click Insert, Picture, New Photo Album. Once the album is complete, consider saving
your Power Point file as a Power Point Show or as a Web Page.
3 AUTOMATICALLY EMPTY TEPORARY INTERNET
FILES. Every time you close your
browser, you can have Internet Explorer empty your cache of stored Temporary
Intern Files. Automatically empty tempor files ever time exit browser. Select Tools, Internet Options, Advanced Tab. Scroll
1
FIND PREVIOUS
VERSIONS OF FAVORITE PROGRAMS.
Did you ever regret that you upgraded to a new version of, say, AOL
because you liked the old one better? Go
get free copies of the older program versions at www.oldversion.com.
2
TRICKS
THAT USE THE “SHIFT” KEY.
i.
Alternate Menus: In MS Word or Excel, hold down Shift when you
click the File menu. You will see
“Close All” and “Save All”, items not usually present.
ii.
File deletions: If you hold Shift down when deleting a file
using the
iii.
Simultaneous closing of nested folders: If you are using file folders where each new
folder that is opened within the group displays together with those previously
opened, you can close them all at once.
Hold Sift as you click the
"X" to close the innermost window, and ALL the windows close
together.
iv.
Reversing direction in window toggling. If you are using Alt/Tab or Alt/Esc to cycle
through open windows, folding Shift reverses the direction of the cycling.
v.
Reversing direction in table cell, database
field, or web site field tabbing. When you use TAB to move from cell to cell in a table
or through the user fields in a web page, hold down SHIFT and you will move in
the opposite direction.
vi.
Square up object being drawn: When using the Drawing toolbar, if you hold down Shift
when drawing an object such as an AutoShape, an arrow or a circle, the object
will be constrained to only draw with horizontal and vertical dimensions the
same or, if drawing a line object, the line will only draw in perfectly
straight along any of several pre-set angles.
vii.
Select entire MS Excel row.
Shift/Spacebar.
3
TURN OFF
OR CLEAR OUT “AUTOCOMPLETES” IN YOUR BROWSER. When web browsing in IE, you get
Autocompletes (guesses from the list of your previous entries) whenever you
type into the Address bar, a Web page form or a user name or password box.
To TURN OFF AutoCompleting in
IE, click Tools, Internet Options, Content, in
Personal Information section: Autocomplete.
Adjust checkmarks to add to turn off AutoCompleting. To CLEAR Forms or Passwords, click the
appropriate buttons, then OK your way back out of the dialog boxes.
To clear a SINGLE ENTRY from
an existing list, select that suggested item from the list when it comes up and
press Delete. This should do it for
you. But if not, get the ingenious
freeware from ZD, AutoWhat?
2. Use it to selectively view,
delete and even pre-load AutoComplete fields.
1
TRICKS
THAT USE THE “ALT” KEY.
i.
Close menus. ALT closes ALL your menus at once. If you are in the middle of a flyout menu, pressing
ALT will close the flyout and also all menus that were preceding it. This is true both of Windows and of
applications. By contrast, ESC closes
only ONE LEVEL of menus at a time.
ii.
Close programs. ALT/F4 closes the program you are in. This is really useful for getting rid of the
current IE window if you only need to close that one among several.
iii.
Open menus, ALT
plus the underlined letter on a menu item opens that menu. It can also press a button. For example, if you have just written an
Outlook mail, press Alt/S to send it.
iv.
Toggle through open windows and
applications. ALT/Esc and ALT/Tab
toggle through your open windows and applications.
v.
Select text vertically in MS Word. You do not need to always highlight a full
line of text in MS Word when you want just, say, the front part of several
lines. Hold Alt as you drag rightwards
with the mouse and move down several lines simultaneously. Wondrous to behold!
vi.
Move back and forth in Web and window
navigating sessions. Hold Alt and
press your left and right arrows when in IE and you will move back and forth in
your session. This same action works
when you are moving up and down in various folder windows chasing files.
vii.
Drag objects smoothly. You may notice sometimes that when you drag
clip art, or a drawn object in MS Word, PowerPoint, Visio, etc., the drag
“snaps to grid”: i.e., moves jerkily as it catches on the invisible background
grid that is there to help you position objects equivalently. Hold ALT as you drag and the movement will be
smooth.
viii.
Close your program. Use ALT/F4 or, my old favorite, ALT/Spacebar
then C.
1.
MULTIPLE-SOURCE
WEB SEARCHES. We are familiar with Orbitz and Travelocity for multiple-carrier searches for
airfares and hotels. But there are other noteworthy
sites that search across multiple vendors, suppliers, and sites, too. Examples:
i.
www.bidxs.com
– multiple auction site searches
ii.
www.pricescan.com
– multiple consumer goods searches
iii.
www.dogpile.com
– multiple search engine searches
2.
FIND PREVIOUS
VERSIONS OF FAVORITE PROGRAMS.
Did you ever regret that you upgraded to a new version of, say, AOL
because you liked the old one better? Go
get free copies of the older program versions at www.oldversion.com.
1 TRICKS THAT USE THE CTRL KEY. There
are hundreds of keyboard shortcuts that involve CTRL but here are a few of my
favorites that I think tend to be overlooked:
i.
Close your file. CTRL/F4.
ii.
Switch among several open files. CTRL/F6 In Excel, use CTRL/Tab to switch among
open files.
iii.
Switch among folders. In an open dialog box or in an Excel file, use
CTRL/PgUp and CTRL/PgDn to
switch folders.
iv.
Jump by words and paragraphs. In MS Word, use CTRL plus left- or right arrow
to jump a word at a time, and CTRL plus up or down arrow to jump a paragraph at
a time.
v.
Jump to your Inbox in Outlook. CTRL/Shift/I
vi.
Display all your Excel formulas at once. In Excel, press CTRL/~ to see every formula
on your sheet in a double-wide format.
You can print the sheet off this way.
Press CTRL/~ again to toggle back to standard view.
vii.
Select your whole MS Word document. You know about CTRL/A. Try CTRL and click in the left margin of your
document outside the typing area.
2 USE “SCRAPS”. We usually think of 4 ways to keep reusing
MS Word text:
i.
Make an
Autotext entry
ii.
Use the
Office Clipboard
iii.
Make a macro
that retypes the material
iv.
Use a
template
A
newer method is to use MS Office SCRAPS.
In MS Word, if there is a patch of text you will need repeatedly in
multiple documents, you can Copy that patch to the clipboard, then just Paste
it onto the Desktop. The resulting
“document scrap” will stay in place indefinitely as a file. When you want it brought in to a document,
Copy it to the clipboard, then Paste into place. You can also just drag highlighted sections
out of MS Word (be sure to grab the selection from the dark middle of its body)
to the desktop if you resize Word so that it doesn’t take up the full
screen. Later you can drag the scrap back
onto an MS Word document and it pastes itself while still leaving its source on
the Desktop intact.
In Excel, you can also highlight
a range of cells, Copy to clipboard, go to your desktop (or elsewhere) and
Paste. However, when the cells are
brought back, they appear as an object over the other cells and do not
integrate back into the file the way the MS Word text does.
The scrap action in Power
Point is similar to that of Excel.
You drag an entire slide from Slide Sorter View out onto the desktop to
make the scrap, and Pasting or dragging it back in puts an object onto the
slide where you drop it.
3.
“WINDOWS
KEY” TRICKS –
i.
Toggle to Desktop and Back. WindowsKey/D. This beats the WindowsKey/M
method of minimizing because you can get back to the program you left by
toggling WindowsKey/D, without having to find that
specific program session again on your taskbar.
ii.
See System Properties without all the Control
Panel, etc., rigmarole: WindowsKey/Pause.
Will wonders never cease?
1 KEY COMBINATONS FOR FOREIGN LANGUAGE
CHARACTERS. These MS Word key
combinations produce effects needed for non-English languages. They often also work in Outlook and other
Microsoft programs. Try them:
GERMAN:
Umlaut--press
Ctrl+Shift+
FRENCH:
Grave—press
Ctrl+Grave (upper left, under Esc), let up, then press
the vowel
French
cedilla--Ctrl+comma, then c
French
circumflex--Ctrl+Shift+Caret (^), then the letter
French
e acute--Ctrl+Apostrophe, then e
SPANISH:
Tilde—press
Ctrl+Shift+Tilde, then let up, then press the letter
Inverted
exclamation mark--Alt+Ctrl+Shift+!
Inverted
question mark--Alt+Ctrl+Shift+?
Even
when these keys do not produce the accented character in a given piece of software,
such as AOL, they can usually be copied/pasted into a
file or e-mail from MS Word anyway.
2 FREE VIRTUAL LONG DISTANCE. A couple of years ago, www.dialpad.com offered free computer-to-phone “long distance”
within all 50 states of the
However, if you and another
user are willing to speak through your computer mic and to listen through your
speakers or headsets, there are at least three
easy methods for speaking for hours for free (minus whatever ISP charges you
are paying).
First, you can both log into an
existing Yahoo Group, or one that that you create yourself
(at http://groups.yahoo.com). When you click on “Chat”, you will see a
square that says “TALK” (receives your mic sound while you keep it pressed
down) and one that says “HANDS FREE” (receives mic input based on voice
activation – tends to result in jerky messages). The quality of sound is very good!
Second, both of the conversing parties can
download a free IM applet such as AOL Instant Messenger (available at www.aim.com).
Such an applet allows you to click a microphone button and achieve the
same effect as Yahoo chatting, but without the need to both be in a chat
room. The sounds are sent to each of you
via a registered IM screen name that you each set up with the applet’s parent
service.
Third, if you use Windows XP, you
probably have the Windows
XP Messenger, which allows for both voice
and video chats.
A number of companies offer free
video chatting services that depend on their servers for operation. One example is Intel’s Internet
Video Phone 2.1, which allows video dialogues. Many
other such products are available free.
3 TURN OFF YOUR BROWSER’S AUTOCOMPLETE TEMPORARILY. When you are about to enter sensitive
information onto a web page, you can prevent I.E. from storing that particular entry. Disable AutoComplete before adding the
information. Click Tools, Internet
Options, Content, AutoComplete. Uncheck
the box next to “User
names and passwords on forms”. After
you have entered your information, you can go back to the same location to turn
on AutoComplete again.