Tip of the Week

Tech Tip #1--Autosignature and Hiding Outlook when minimized
 

Old Favorite How to add an autosignature to every email that you write (see mine below for an example). Many times I have received an email from a teacher asking for help and, without digging, I don't know where that teacher is located.  Sharing your contact information can be as easy as adding it to every outgoing email, and you only have to set it up once. Open Outlook Choose Tools Then Options Select the Mail Format tab at the top of the window. Click the Signatures button at the bottom  Choose New Enter a name for the signature Click Next Type in the signature that you want to show up in your email Then Finish, OK and OK again. You might want to send yourself an email as a practice run to see if it shows up and looks the way you want it to. You can always go back in and edit it.

New Favorite (for those who want to move beyond the basics) How to hide Outlook when it's minimized so that it's still running, but not cluttering up your task bar I came across this one on accident when I updated my Outlook to 2003 last year and at first it was a nuisance, but now I can't live without it. If you are a multi-tasker and want your task bar to be less cluttered, there is a way that you can hide Outlook even when it's still opened.  You will still see the little pop-up notifications of new email from the system tray (if you have it set to do that) and your email will still be open, just running behind the scenes. All you do is simply: Open Outlook Right click the Outlook icon in the system tray (lower right hand corner where the clock is) Choose Hide When Minimized Now you should have a neater task bar!  :)

Tech Tip #2--Showing FCPS recipient first & Converting Text to Tables
 

Old Favorite How to show only the Fayette Co. recipients when addressing an email in Outlook. When you get ready to send an email and you click on TO, do you see the Global Address List first? If you want to change it, you can! Here's how: Open Outlook Select Tools from the menu bar Then choose Address Book In the new window, choose Tools from the menu bar Then choose Options You will then see a new window with Show this address list first. At the top where it says Show this address list first: select the Recipients under Fayette. Now give it a test drive. Open a new message and click the TO button. What do you see? One thing you can remember is that for anyone who works in Fayette County (or any school in KY) all you have to do is type their name (overstreet, kim) in the TO section and it will find them. You separate two names with a semi-colon. And if you want to make sure you have the right person, you can click the check names button (on the toolbar ). When it's underlined, you know you've got a valid address.

New Favorite (for those who want to move beyond the basics) Did you know that you can have Word automatically create a table from text? For example: Copy the Preamble of the Constitution (http://www.law.emory.edu/FEDERAL/usconst.html). Paste it into a Word document.    Highlight the text. Choose Table from the menu bar. Choose Convert -> Text to Table. Set the table up with 1 column and leave it to separate at commas. Click OK Now you can add 2 more columns to the right of the first and have your students insert a clipart picture in one column to represent that statement and rewrite each statement in today's language in the third column. This can be tailored to many other subjects.  Or there just may be a time when you need a paragraph converted to a table.

Old Favorite Sending a blind email. If you have need to cc someone on an email that you are sending, but you don't want others receiving the email to know that this other person will be getting it to, you can BCC them. BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy. This also comes in handy when you are emailing class news out to parents, but you don't want all of the parent's email addresses showing for everyone to see. Put them all in the BCC field Here's how: Open the message that you want to send. Click on View Click on BCC Field (you may have to expand the menu to see it--do this by either waiting a few seconds, or clicking on the arrows at the bottom of the menu.) **If you still don't see it look below. Then type the name of the secret recipients in the BCC field. **If Word is set as your email editor, you won't see the BCC field under view.  You will need to click on the arrow next to the Options button on your tool bar and check BCC there. The question I've had before when doing this was that if someone were to reply to all, would it go to the people that were BCC'ed? And the answer is no. Your recipients can only reply to you and those who are in the TO or CC field, but not to anyone who was Blind Carbon Copied.

New Favorite Making your test keys a little easier. Thanks to Robert Fryman at Winburn Middle School for this tip.  It's easy and very useful! "If you are preparing a test that is short answer, multiple choice, or fill in the blank, you can "answer" the test after you type it. Once your test is complete, change the font color of the answers to white. The answers will not print. You may now save the test. When you want to print a Key for the test, you just "edit", then "select all", change the font color to black, then print. When you close the document, it will ask you if you want to save the changes. Select "no" and it will keep it in it's original state with the "invisible" answers. I have used this and it allows using one document for a test as opposed to having one document for the test and one for the key." Now why didn't I think of that?!  :)  Thanks Robert!

 

 

Old Favorite Attaching a file to an email message Want to be able to send out that homework sheet to a parent of a student that's missed school? This week's tip is how to attach a document or file to an email message. Open the email message. Click on the paper clip on the toolbar or if that isn't there click Insert then File Then look for the place where the file is saved. Highlight the document and then click Insert. Once it's inserted, you will see the icon in the email message. Then you can type a message or send the email.

New Favorite Inserting comments into Word electronically Did you know that you can attach comments to a students' paper electronically that they can read, but that will not print out?  Here's how: Open the document. Highlight a passage on which you wish to comment. Choose Insert from the menu bar. Select Comment. Type in the comment you want to make. Once you have added comments, they will show up in the margin of the electronic version, but not in a print out.  Also after the first comment is made, the Reviewing Toolbar will show up so students may choose to reject/delete comments once they have made their revisions. This is a great tool for ePals to help revise written pieces.

Old Favorite Organizing your email with color Would you like to know (without opening) which of your many emails were being sent just to you and nobody else? (If it's sent just to you, then there's a good chance somebody is waiting on you to respond. If it's sent to lots of people, they may or may not be waiting on you for a response.) If so, there is a way to mark those emails with color. Messages that are sent where you are the only recipient can be shown in RED (or any color you choose) while messages that go to more than one person are shown in BLACK. Here's how to do it: In your Outlook Inbox, select Tools from the Menu Select Organize Choose the "Using Colors" link on the left side of the menu. The second bullet says: Show messages sent only to me in ..." Click on the drop down arrow and choose a color. Then click the "turn on" button. Close the Organize window by clicking on the X. The messages sent only to you should now appear in the color you chose. You can also mark emails from a certain sender with color as well. It works with addresses within and outside of the state email network. Here's how: Select Tools Choose Organize Choose the "Using Colors" link on the left side of the menu. The first bullet says: Color messages from or sent to (select "from" in the drop down box) Then in the next space, type the person's name (last name, then a comma, then a space, then their first name. Ex. Overstreet, Kim) Then select the color Next, click on the "Apply color" button You should then get a message next to that button that says "Done!" Check your Inbox and see if it worked. If the person is not in your Contacts list, then you can actually type in their email address in the spot for the name. If you've received at least one message from them that you still have, you can select that message and it will automatically insert their name. It works either way. Have fun playing with colors and managing your time in email better.

New Favorite AutoSummarize in Word Did you know that Word will automatically summarize a document?  Here's how it works: Open a document Select Tools Then AutoSummarize You'll see options to show the summary within the document ("highlight key points"), put the summary at the head of the document, create a separate document with the summary, or hide the document except for the summary. Teachers need to know about this options, since your students probably already know.

Old Favorite Sorting by and Adding Fields in Outlook Thanks to Kathy Jackson at EJHMS for reminding me to send out this useful tip! Usually email is set up to sort by the date/time it is received. But occasionally a stray click may change the way your email is sorted. Do you want to know how to get it back to the way it used to be? Here's how! If you click on the field title (i.e. From, Subject, Received) at the top of your email list it will sort by that field. For example, if you want to sort by who it's from, click on the From field. If you want to sort by Subject click on that. And if you want to sort by how it's received (the default) click on the Received field heading. You may have to click twice because it can sort by ascending date or descending date. What if one of those fields is missing? Perhaps a stray click took away the From field so that you no longer see who your mail is from. Right click on the other field headings (Subject and Received in this case). Go to Field Chooser and click. Scroll until you find the missing Field (in this case From). You may need to click the drop down menu and choose All Mail Fields. Click and drag it up to the Field bar where you want it to be. When you drop it, it will return. I usually want to see when people have requested a read receipt on their email, so I've added that field to my inbox by following the directions above and choosing All Mail Fields from the drop down and then dragging over the Receipt Requested Field.

New Favorite Email Sound Notifications Thanks to Seth Switzer at Booker T Washington Academy for asking for this tip! You can set your email to automatically sound (or remove the sound if it bothers you).  Here's how. Click Start Choose Control panel Double click Sounds and Audio Devices Select the Sounds tab Scroll under Program events to find and highlight New Mail Notification Choose your sound Click OK You can change the sounds for other events that occur on your computer here as well.

Old Favorite Recovering deleted email Have you ever deleted items and cleaned out the deleted folder only to wish you could get it back?  If you don't wait too long, you can!  Here's how: In Outlook, open your deleted items folder. On the Tools menu, click Recover Deleted Items. Click the item you want to recover. To select multiple items, click the first item, and then hold down CTRL and click additional items. Click the Recover Selected Items button. The items will be returned to your Deleted Items folder, and then you can move them to other folders. Some items may no longer be recoverable if it is past the amount of time that deleted items can be stored on the server.

New Favorite Editing and Saving Webpages I've often seen teachers print out a webpage and use the printed copy with their students.  Often when printing a webpage though, you get a lot of extra content that you don't want or you may have formatting issues where the entire page won't print.  Here's a way that you can solve that. In Internet Explorer 6 you can edit and save a webpage in Word, Excel, or, if you have it, FrontPage.  Here's how: Open IE and find the page you want.  On your tool bar, you will have a button that will have the Word, Excel or FrontPage symbol.  Click on the arrow next to it and choose which program you want to use to edit the page. Make the changes you want.  Delete or add content, etc. Then save the page in your documents.  Now when you print it you will have just what you want.

Old Favorite Dividing a Column in Excel Have you ever gotten a spreadsheet from someone where the first and last names were in the same column and you needed them in separate columns?  There is an easy way to divide these without having to go to each cell and change it.  Here's how: Insert a blank column to the right of the one you are dividing. Highlight the column where the names are in the spreadsheet. Select Data from the menu bar. Choose Text to Columns. Make sure Delimited is selected and click NEXT. If the names are entered with just a space between then check only SPACE; if they are separated by a comma and a space, then check both COMMA and SPACE. Click NEXT. Then FINISH. If you have 3 names given on some (i.e. Joe Bob Smith) then you will have some cleaning up to do, but it's still a lot quicker than doing them all manually. Here's another way my friend Paula found that she likes better.  http://www.cpearson.com/excel/FirstLast.htm

New Favorite Using Clips Online Are you aware that by having Microsoft Office on your machine you also have access to an extremely large collection of clip art, animations, and photographs at no extra charge?  It's Microsoft's Clip Art on Office Online. To use it, you simply start to insert clip art as you typically would. Then, depending on what version of Office you have, you will click on a link that will take you to Clip art on Office Online. Once there, you can search or browse through the thousands of clips available. When you find one you like, you can put it in your "basket" by checking the box under it. Once you have found all that you want, click the download link and follow the directions on the screen. These pictures would be stored on your hard drive and indexed in your clip gallery so that when you do a search you will see what is available. It's even easy to search by style if you want your clipart to look similar.  It's a great resource.  Check it out!

Old Favorite Inserting the current date into Word When typing a document in Word, you can quickly insert the current date by pressing ALT + SHIFT + D. Unfortunately, this quick and easy tip only works for Word and not Outlook, Excel or Publisher. If you save the document and open it on a different date, the date will automatically change. This is great for a form letter that you send often so that you don't have to remember to change the date every time.

New Favorite Finding and Replacing Text Quickly Have you ever finished a long document and realized after 20 pages that you have used one word when you should have used another?  In many of the Microsoft Office programs, including Word, Excel and FrontPage, you are able to quickly find and replace text. To replace text, choose Edit from the menu bar. Then select Replace. In the Find What field, type the word that you have used. In the Replace With field, type what you should have used.  You may also just leave it blank and it will replace with nothing, removing all traces of the word you want to delete. Then you can choose to either replace them all at once or check each one by replacing one at a time. Another place I've used this is when I'm trying to meet a page max and I'm running low on space.  I will Find all the double spaces I do after ending punctuation and replace them with single spaces.

Old Favorite Changing all CAPS to lowercase It happens all the time--a student types a portfolio piece in ALL CAPS and they need to change it. Well, here's how you can change it without having to retype it. There are two ways to do it: With the mouse: Highlight all. Format Menu--> Change Case Select Sentence Case. With the keyboard: Press Ctrl + A (Select All) Press Shift + F3 until you get the look you want. This toggles between several options (all caps, all lower case, or sentence case)

New Favorite Changing Desktop Settings Has someone changed the colors and settings of you desktop?  Here's how you can change it back. Right Click on your Desktop Click on Properties Then choose the Appearance tab Use the down arrows to change the windows and buttons or color scheme You can also change the size of the font on your icons and windows in this same place. If you'd like to change your background: Right Click on your Desktop Click on Properties Then choose the Background tab Scroll through the selections or browse to find your own To the right there is a down arrow with the options of Center, Tile, and Stretch.

Old Favorite Cleaning out your email box Today's tip deals with keeping your email inbox cleaned out. (You can find other helpful email hints on our intranet page at http://intranet.fcps.net/EdTechnology/email.asp) Have you received a message from the System Administrator telling you that your inbox has exceeded it's size limit? If so there are a couple of quick easy ways to make more room. First make sure that you don't have any messages with really large attachments. (Hint: you can sort messages by size just by clicking on the size heading in your inbox.) Check the Sent Items folder. Highlight and delete any items in there that you don't need. You may highlight several things at once, by clicking on the first item, holding the shift key down and then clicking on the last item. That will highlight everything in between. You may highlight several things (but not everything) by holding the Ctrl key down while you click. This allows you to leave a few items unselected. Now that you've deleted the Sent Items, you will need to empty your Deleted Items folder before things are freed up. You can do this by Right-Clicking on the Deleted Items folder and choosing Empty Deleted Items. If you have lots of messages that you want to keep, but they are taking up too much room, you can create personal folders for yourself that will allow you to save messages on your hard drive so that they won't take up room on the server.

New Favorite Setting up Personal Folders Here are the directions for setting up personal folders in Outlook 2003. Open Outlook Click on Tools on the menu bar Choose Options Select the Mail Setup tab Click the Data Files button. Click the Add button Highlight Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst) Click OK Find a location to save the file (i.e., My Documents, or your server location) Give the file a name that you will recognize so you will be able to find it if needed (and so you won't accidentally delete it). Click OK Then OK again. Then Close Then OK Now you should see Personal Folders at the bottom of your Folder list in Outlook.  You can drag folders that you've put in your Inbox down to this new location.  Since these folders are not in your Inbox anymore, they won't count toward your email space allotment.