Tip of the Week

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Tech Tip #22--Space and Grammar Check & Photo Album

Old Favorite

Checking spacing between sentences

In Word 2003 you can set your spelling and grammar check to automatically check that you have one space after ending punctuation, or two spaces. The default is set to not check the spaces at all. Here's how you set it:

	Select TOOLS from the menu bar.
	Choose OPTIONS.
	Click the SPELLING & GRAMMAR tab.
	Click the SETTINGS button.
	Then set the Spaces required between sentences to either 1 or 2 depending on your preference.
	Then OK back out.

If you have it set to two spaces and you only type one, the green line (indicating a grammatical error) will show up in that place and when you do a spelling and grammar check, it will suggest that you add another space.

There are several other Grammar rules that you can set Word to check or not check. Look through the list and customize it to suit your preferences.

New Favorite

PowerPoint Photo Album

We used to download a Photo Album add-in with earlier versions of PowerPoint, but now with Office 2003 it is included in the program for us to use.

If you have several pictures that you would like to put into a PowerPoint presentation quickly, then here's how you do it:

Open PowerPoint.

Click File.

Then New

In the sidebar to the right, choose Photo Album.

Click the button to select where you will insert your pictures from (i.e., File/Disk).

Browse to find the location of the pictures you want to add.

To select more than one you can...

	Hold shift and click the first picture and then the last picture you want. It will highlight those and everything between them.
	Hold the Ctrl key and click each picture that you want to select.

Then click Insert.

You can choose your picture layout (fit to slide, with title, 2 or 4 per slide, etc.).

You can even choose to make all the pictures black and white.

If you insert a text box, that will create a slide with just a text box on it.

You may choose to use the arrow button to change the order of your slides.

Then click Create.

Now your slide show has been created!

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Tech Tip #23--Clipart in Word & Saving Space for Document Requirements

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Clipart in Word

Sometimes when you insert clipart or other graphics in Word it will put the clipart on a line all by itself or move the text around and leave lots of space around the graphic. It also keeps the clipart on one side of the document and doesn't let you move it around in the text.

To take care of this situation, follow these steps below:

	Double click on the picture
	Select the Layout Tab at the top of that window
	Then select Square or one of the other options that are shown.

What this does is format the picture to allow text to fit around it. So you can move the picture throughout the document and the text will fit around the square that the picture is in.

If you know that you always want your pictures to be inserted using the Square layout instead of the Inline with text layout, you can set that as a default:

	Click Tools
	Then Options
	Select the Edit tab
	Click the drop down below Insert/paste pictures as:
	Choose the layout you prefer.
	Click OK

Now your pictures will be inserted in your preferred layout every time you insert. But you can always change that layout again by following the directions above.

New Favorite

Saving Space for Document Requirements

I was just sitting here trying to decide what my next 'new' tip should be when I received an email from Jennifer Pack, SMS Math teacher. She is working on her National Board Certifications and was getting frustrated with the size constraints and Word was making things harder for her. When she ended started a new paragraph at the bottom of a page, Word wanted to start that paragraph on a new page. That can quickly eat away at your space. Here are a few tips I gave her that may help you or your students when space restrictions are tight.

This will show you where your margins are so you can stay aware of how much further you have on a page.

	Go to Tools
	Options
	View Tab
	Then check Text Boundaries
	OK

To make lines stay at the bottom of a previous page instead of going to the next page:

	Highlight the entire document
	Choose Format
	Select Paragraph
	Choose the Line and Page Breaks tab
	Uncheck Window/Orphan Control

Changing fonts and margins is sometimes a solution for space constraints, but in some cases the margins and the font are already specified.

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Tech Tip #24--Keyboard Shortcuts & Font Keyboard shortcuts

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Keyboard shortcuts

This tip is for those of us who like shortcuts. These are things you can do by clicking the mouse a few times, or you can do them quickly with a couple of key strokes. Some of you may not find them useful, if not, keep on doing it the way you've been doing it! I've tried to put the ones I use most often at the top of the list.

Windows Program Key Combinations

	CTRL+A: Select all the items in the current window
	CTRL+C: Copy
	CTRL+X: Cut
	CTRL+V: Paste
	CTRL+Z: Undo
	CTRL+B: Bold
	CTRL+U: Underline
	CTRL+I: Italic
	CTRL+SHIFT+>: Makes the font larger
	CTRL+SHIFT+<: Makes the font smaller
	CTRL+ESC: Open Start menu
	ALT+TAB: Switch between open programs
	ALT+F4: Quit program
	SHIFT+DELETE: Delete item permanently

Dialog Box Keyboard Commands

	TAB: Move to the next field in the dialog box
	SHIFT+TAB: Move to the previous field in the dialog box
	SPACEBAR: If the current field is a button, this clicks the button. If the current field is a check box, this toggles the check box. If the current field is an option, this selects the option.
	ENTER: Equivalent to clicking the selected button (the button with the outline)
	ESC: Equivalent to clicking the Cancel button
	ALT+underlined letter in dialog box item: Move to the corresponding item

To Copy a File

Press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the file to another folder.

To Create a Shortcut

Press and hold down CTRL+SHIFT while you drag a file to the desktop or a folder.

New Favorite

Changing Font with Keyboard Shortcuts

To select the Font Drop Down List quickly you can:

	Hold Ctrl and Shift down and hit F.
	Then you will be able to use the up or down arrow keys to scroll through the fonts until you find the one you want then hit Enter.
	Or if you know what you want, you can start typing the name of the font. When the name shows up in the box, you can hit Enter.

To select the Font Size Drop Down quickly you can:

	Hold Ctrl and Shift down and hit P.
	Then you will be able to use the up or down arrow keys to scroll through the numbers until you find the size you want then hit Enter.
	Or type the size you want the font to be and hit Enter.

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Old Favorite

Changing the homepage and organizing links in IE

When you open Internet Explorer, do you have a web page coming up first that you wish you could change? Here's how you do it:

	Open Internet Explorer
	Navigate to the page you want to use as your home page
	Choose Tools from the menu bar
	Then select Internet Options
	You will see a box that is labeled Home page
	In that box, click the button that says Use Current.
	That will set the page you are currently on to be your home page.
	Just click OK and you are done.

Have you saved so many links in your Favorites in Internet Explorer that you can never find the ones you want? You can organize these into folders that will make finding the ones you want easier.

	Open Internet Explorer.
	Select Favorites from the menu bar.
	Click Organize Favorites.
	Now you can create folders for the different types of sites you have saved (i.e. light and sound, space, chemistry, earthquakes, etc.) by clicking the Create Folder button.
	Then drag the links on top of the folder they should go into.
	Now whenever you save a new site, you will click Favorites.
	Then Add to Favorites.
	Then to see all your folders, click the Create in button.
	Double click on the folder you want to save that link in and then click OK.

New Favorite

How many undos can I make?

Have you ever wondered how far back you can go in undoing mistakes in the programs you use? Here's the answer:

Access	1 *
Excel	16 *
FrontPage	30 **
Outlook	unlimited
PowerPoint	150 ***
Publisher	20 **
Word	unlimited

* You can change the number of undos in some of these programs by editing your registry, but I wouldn't recommend that for the average user. You can really mess things up if you mess up your registry.

** FrontPage and Publisher allow you to do multiple undos at one time by clicking on the dropdown arrow next to the undo arrow.

*** The default in PowerPoint is set to 20, some would recommend that you cut back on the number of undos because if it's too high it uses more memory and can confuse PowerPoint. You can do this easily in PowerPoint by going to Tools -> Options -> Edit tab -> changing the Maximum number of undos. (You can also increase it up to 150 here if you need more than 20.)

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Tech Tip #26--Freezing Rows, Printing Headers in Excel & AutoFit in PowerPoint

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Freezing Rows, Printing Headers in Excel

Have you ever created a chart or table in Excel and you want the first row with the header information (like Name, Address, Phone number, etc.) to stay visible while you scroll through the pages and pages of entries in your spreadsheet? This is easily done by freezing the row(s).

	Open Excel
	Enter your column headings in the appropriate row.
	Highlight the row below the one your want to freeze by clicking on the row heading number.
	Select Window from the menu bar
	Choose Freeze Panes
	Now as you scroll through the document, that row should remain visible at the top.
	If you want to unfreeze the panes, you just select Unfreeze Panes in the Window menu.

Now what if you want that row to print at the top of every page? That won't happen if you just freeze the panes as we did above, but you can do this easily by doing the following.

	Select File
	Choose Page Setup
	Click the Sheet tab
	Where it says "Rows to Repeat at the Top" choose the button in the right side of that box
	The window will shrink and you will be able to scroll to find the row you want to repeat and then select that row(s) (by clicking on the row heading number)
	You will see that row description turn up in the box and you will need to click the button on the right side of that box again.
	Then click OK

Now when you print, that row will print at the top of every page.

These same directions can be followed to select Columns to freeze or repeat in printing.

New Favorite

AutoFit in PowerPoint

In PowerPoint 2003 if you type more text than will fit in the box, it will automatically resize the text to be smaller and fit to the box. When this happens, the AutoFit Options button appears.

If you click on the button, you can choose to continue the text you are typing on a new slide.

You can also choose to split the text into two text columns.

To turn it off temporarily click the AutoFit Options button and then choose Stop Fitting Text to This Placeholder.

To turn it off permanently:

	Choose Tools
	AutoCorrect Options
	Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab
	Then uncheck the AutoFit title text and body text boxes.

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Tech Tip #27--Calendar Meetings and Reminders & Voting Buttons in Email

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Outlook Calendar Meetings and Reminders

You can not only put meetings on your calendar in Outlook, but you can send the appointment to others and set a reminder for everyone who accepts the invitation. Here's how:

Open your Outlook calendar.

Choose File

New

If you choose Appointment that will just be for your calendar. If you choose Meeting Request, you will be able to invite others to attend.

Enter the date and time and if you want a reminder, be sure to check that box and put the amount of time before the meeting that you want the reminder to happen.

Enter the people you want to send the meeting request to. You can choose these the same as you would address an email. You can even choose a distribution list (like your entire staff).

In the large space toward the bottom, you can enter a message if you need to explain the meeting (or put in an agenda).

If it has a recurring time (i.e. First Tues. or every Mon.) click the Recurrence button to enter that information.

Then click Send.

For the reminder to show up for others you invite, they will have to open the request when they get it in their email and click the Accept button. That will add it to their calendar and prompt the reminder when it's time.

New Favorite

Voting Buttons in Outlook Email

You can send an email to other Outlook users that will allow for the recipients to vote by using buttons. And it will track the results of the votes for you.

	Open a message
	Click on Options (on your toolbar)
	check the box for Use Voting Buttons
	Select the buttons they have from the list, or type in your own, separating with a semicolon
	If you want to save the message in somewhere other than sent messages, change that. That's where the responses will show up.
	Then type your message and send the email.
	Now you can go into sent message (or wherever you saved the message) and when you open your sent message, you will see a tab at the top that says Tracking. You will see the results as people vote, there.

This is a quick and easy way to find out if your team wants to meet before school or after school. Or if they want chocolate or vanilla ice cream at the meeting. :)

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Tech Tip #28--Folders in Email & Disable Error Reporting

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Folders in Email

There are a couple of ways you can set up folders to organize your email.

The most common way is to set up folders in your inbox. The advantage of this is that you can get to them through webmail since it is on the server. But the disadvantage is that it still takes up server space, so if you are getting a lot of messages from the System Administrator about the size of your mailbox, this won't help you.

	Open Outlook
	Click on Inbox in the folder list once to highlight it.
	Then go to File
	New Folder
	Type in the name and then you will have the new folder.
	You can now drag email over from the right to the appropriate folder on the left and drop it.

Another type of folders you can set up are Personal Folders. The advantage is that these folders would be saved on your hard drive or in your users folder on your school's server so that it wouldn't take up space in your email server. That means no messages from the System Administrator. The disadvantage is that you wouldn't be able to get to them wherever you access your webmail.

	Select Tools from the menu bar
	Click Options
	Choose the Mail Setup tab
	Click Data Files
	Click Add
	Choose Office Outlook Personal Folders
	Click OK
	Select the location (hard drive or server) where you want to save the folders and name the file
	OK
	OK again
	Close
	OK

Now you should see Personal Folders at the bottom of your folder list. If you click the plus next to it, you will see a Deleted Items trash can and then you can start setting up folders in the Personal Folders following the directions above. (Just be sure to select Personal Folders before you create the folder so that it goes in the right place.)

Setting up your email to send messages you receive directly to a folder, is a tip for another day, but if you want to try and figure it out on your own, click the Organize button on your toolbar and see if you can get it.

New Favorite

Disable Error Reporting

When a program crashes in Windows, do you get an annoying message that asks if you want to report the problem to Microsoft? Would you like to get rid of those? Here's how you can do that.

	Click Start
	Right click My Computer
	Choose Properties
	Select the Advanced tab
	Click Error Reporting
	Choose Disable error reporting
	Click OK
	OK again

Now you won't be annoyed by the message anymore (only the crash). :)

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Tech Tip #29--Making Screen Shots and Changing File Associations

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Making Screen Shots

This a great way to include pictures of a screen (screen shots) in your documents.

	If you are working with multiple windows, click the one you want to make an image of to make that window active.
	Press ALT+PRINT SCREEN to copy an image of the current window.
	To paste the image into a document, click the Edit menu in that document, and then click Paste.
	You can also take a screen shot of your entire screen by pressing PRINT SCREEN.
	Now you can use the picture toolbar to crop the picture or set the layout properties.

This tip works in Excel, FrontPage, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, and Word.

New Favorite

Changing File Associations

File types become associated with programs in Windows. For example, whenever you receive a .doc file in email, your computer probably knows that you want it to open in Word. However, sometimes files may get associated with the wrong program. If your .jpg files always want to open in Paint and you want them to open in Photoshop, or if your .txt files always open in Notepad and you want them to open in Word, here is how you can change that.

	Open Windows Explorer (right click your Start button and choose Explore)
	Select Tools
	Choose Folder Options
	Click File types tab
	Scroll through the list find the extension you want and click once to highlight it.
	Click the Change button at the bottom
	Then scroll through the list of programs and find the one you want to use.
	You may check the box that says "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file."
	Then OK your way out.

Thanks to Neva Christensen, TRT at Morton, for asking this question and to Jeff Jones, TRT, for reminding me again how to do it. Now that it's on my tips list, I will stop bugging you, Jeff.

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Tech Tip #30--Excel Tips & Transparent Backgrounds

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Excel Tips

How can I change the font size, color, etc for the whole page?

	To highlight the entire worksheet, click the corner of the headings (directly above the 1 and to the left of the A)
	Then you can either change the font on the formatting toolbar or ...
	Choose FORMAT
	Then CELLS
	Then select the FONT tab and you can make the changes there.

How can I outlines cells or make the grid print?

	Highlight the cell(s) you want the lines around
	Select the arrow next to the borders button on the formatting toolbar.
	You will see this menu drop down with choices for the different types of lines you can put around the cell.

How can I uniformly change the width of columns or height of cells?

	Highlight the columns (by clicking on the letter headings and dragging) or rows (by clicking on the number headings and dragging) that you want to change
	Then adjust the width or height of one column or row by clicking and dragging on the line that separates the headings.
	When you have finished adjusting that one column or row, it will adjust all of the highlighted rows to the same size.

How can I adjust all columns to fit the contents of the cells?

	Highlight the entire sheet (or just the columns you want to adjust)
	Double-click on the line that separates the column headings
	This will automatically adjust the selected columns to fit the contents of that column.

New Favorite

Transparent Background in Pictures

Have you ever inserted a picture into a PowerPoint show or web page where there was a colored background, only to find that the picture had a white box around it? Here's how to get rid of the white box and make the background transparent.

	After you have inserted the picture, click once on the picture to select it (and get the handles on the corners).
	With the picture selected you should see the picture toolbar. (If not, go to View, Toolbars, and Picture then select your picture again.)
	Click the Transparency tool
	Click on the background color that you wish you erase.
	You may get a message about converting the image to a gif. Just say okay to it.
	Beware, that it will erase all of that color whether it's in the middle of the picture or in the background.
	Your edges may look a little rough on some pictures and if the background is not solid, it may not look good. But on many clip art pictures, this will do the trick.

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Tech Tip #31--Computer Cleanup & Aligning Objects

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Clean up your computer for the summer

Here's a list of things that you should do before you leave this school year so that you will have everything where you need it when you return.

	Open My Documents on your computer and delete anything that you don't need to keep.
	Any files that are in My Documents that you want to save for next year need to also be saved elsewhere for safety's sake. I usually would save it in my users folder on the server. (Every teacher should have one of these at each school, but they are all located in different places. If you don't have one or don't know where it is, let your STC know.)
	Space on the server may be limited, so if you are saving things in your user folder, make sure that they are things you really want to keep. If you've been using your user folder all year, you need to take this time to clean it out as well and get rid of anything that you don't need.
	You can also save things to a flash drive or pen drive or burn them to a CD if you have that capability.
	Clean out your email inbox.
	Also in email you will need to go through the Sent Items and delete all the old messages you've sent that you don't need a copy of. (**You can quickly select adjacent items by clicking on the first item, holding the shift key down and then clicking on the last item. Or to select non-adjacent items hold the Ctrl key down while you click on the items you want. Then you can delete everything that is highlighted at once.)
	Also check to be sure that your Deleted folder in your email isn't overloaded.
	If you have lots of email you want to keep, you may need to set up Personal Folders to store these somewhere other than your inbox. For directions on how to do that, you can see my tips web pages http://teach.fcps.net/trt10/tips05-06.htm#11
	I would also delete temporary files and temporary Internet files (right click on your IE icon, choose properties, then you should see a button to delete files).
	Run scan disk. To do this choose START -> PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES -> SYSTEM TOOLS -> DISK CLEANUP.
	Run disk defragmenter. These will just help your computer run more efficiently when you come back next year. To do this choose START -> PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES -> SYSTEM TOOLS -> DISK DEFRAGMENTER.
	You can also back up your computer. To do this choose START -> PROGRAMS -> ACCESSORIES -> SYSTEM TOOLS -> BACKUP.

New Favorite

Aligning objects

When you create a PowerPoint presentation, Word document, or Publisher document and you insert a picture or other object, you can quickly align those object precisely and never have to guess again.

	Insert the pictures or objects
	Use the arrow cursor to click and drag a box around both objects (If you don't have the arrow, you will need to click it on the drawing toolbar)
	Now you can click the Draw button on the drawing toolbar (in PowerPoint and Word) or click Arrange on the menu bar in Publisher.
	Then choose Align or Distribute from the menu.
	There are several choices of how to align it...play with them and find the one you like.

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