Success Guide to Taking Microsoft Office to the Next Level

[Quick note: This was originally written for SuccessMagazine.com, before the magazine's ownership changed. While this should be an accurate overview, it is not legal or professional advice and should not be taken as such. Additionally, the associated images have, unfortunately, been lost.]

Introduction

Strapped for time and resources, most small business owners don’t get past the basics of using Microsoft’s Office applications. If you’re in that boat, then read on—this guide will tell you how to take Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook to the next level.

Ever wonder why some Word docs look so much more polished than yours? Struggling with presenting complex financial data in a simple way using Excel? Need to create PowerPoint presentations that SELL? Or maybe you just need help taking control of your Outlook inbox?

“People will only learn a program to the point where they’re comfortable. They don’t take it further,” says Marsha Egan, Outlook and e-mail productivity expert. That tendency often means workers understand the basics of common applications—such as Microsoft’s Office suite—but don’t know details of the program, which often include functions that could save time and aggravation if only they had a bit more knowledge.

In this Guide, we’ll show you tricks the experts use to add WOW to documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and show you how to shave precious mintues off the time you spend going through your inbox.

Time-saving Tricks for Microsoft Word

Word is the most common program for word processing and document creation. Though the program is widely used, we reveal the lesser-known shortcuts and tips that can really save you time in the long run.

Save Time and Get Professional-looking Results with Styles

“Styles are the biggest Word feature people don’t learn to use, because they look intimidating,” says Dian D. Chapman, an official Microsoft MVP and owner of MouseTrax Computing Solutions. Styles let you design the look of a document—the colors, fonts, and sizes of everything from main text to headings and footers—and save them. The advantages of using styles to format your documents, rather than changing individual elements each time they appear in a document, is that styles can be reused in multiple documents with only a few keystrokes—and if your boss asks for a tweak to a document (such as removing the italics and using bold on headings instead) it can be done quickly and applied to all similar elements, without having to make individual changes.

To begin using styles, go to Format→Style. After you change elements and your style looks just right, choose “Apply.” Now you can use this saved style throughout not only the current document, but in any Word document you create afterward.

More Quick Formatting Tricks

For times when you want to change the look of your text, but you don’t feel the need to keep the formatting for future uses and tweaking, Chapman has several more shortcuts to offer. First is the repeat key. If you’ve used a command (such as italics or color change) and wish to apply it to other areas of text, you can use the repeat key, F4, or use ctrl + y.

If the formatting of your text requires more than one command, thus making the repeat less functional, you can use the Format Painter. This option is a button on the toolbar that looks like a paintbrush. To use it, select text that already is formatted in a way you like and wish to use elsewhere, then click the paintbrush button. (You will see that your cursor now looks like a paintbrush.) Select the text you wish reformat and the new style will be applied.

Changing Text Size, Fast

One of the most common formatting changes users make in Word is changing text size. Chapman recommends memorizing several short keystrokes, which will automatically grow or shrink highlighted text.

The first keystroke sequence changes text size by increments (10pt, 12pt, 14pt, etc.). Use ctrl + shift + > (the greater than key, the same as a comma) to increase text size; to shrink incrementally use, ctrl + shift + < (less than, the same key as the period).

If you wish to change your text size by point, rather than increment, Chapman recommends this second keystroke sequence: ctrl + [ to increase and ctrl + ] to shrink text size. (Mac users: substitute the apple key for ctrl.)

Rulers Rule

“People don’t realize what you can do with Word’s rulers,” Chapman notes. Many people do not even keep the rulers in the documents turned on. (If you don’t see a scale at the top and left of your documents, yours are off—to turn them back on, go to view → ruler.) The first thing most people miss is the ruler “hot button.” If you click at the top edge of the ruler, it’s a shortcut to the Margins/Layout menu.

Perhaps more importantly, the ruler is also the quickest way to change and set margins in your document. In the horizontal ruler at the top of your page, the grey area at the left ends with three buttons very close together: a triangle on top pointing down; a triangle beneath that, pointing up; and a small rectangle at the bottom.

These three miniature buttons all control different margins. The top triangle is the First Line Indent; if you want to change the indent at the beginning of your paragraphs, click and drag it to the width you wish to use. The bottom triangle is Hanging Indent: if you want the lines of your paragraph below the first moved in or out, click and drag it to the width you desire. The rectangle is the Left Indent: it changes the left margin of the entire paragraph. There is also a triangle at the right side of the ruler, which controls the right margin.

On the vertical ruler at the left side, you can control the top and bottom alignments of the page. To move the alignment down or up, click on the line between the grey and white areas and drag it to your desired location. If you know you need to move it to a specific place, such leaving 1.35 inches of white at the top of the sheet to print on stationary, you can click with both the left and right mouse buttons and drag. This will show you an exact ruler. (Mac users: hold down your “option” key and click.)

The Advantages of Using Shortcuts

Chapman notes that there are two kinds of Word users: “mousers,” those who use the mouse to open menus and select options; and those who memorize keystrokes and shortcuts, such as the ones presented above. Though it’s a matter of comfort and what you are accustomed to, she strongly recommends that all users memorize at least the basic keystroke shortcuts and begin using them. To see a complete list of these shortcuts, open Word’s “Help” menu (F1) and do a search for “shortcuts.” It will come up with a long list—there’s no need to memorize all (there are hundreds), but knowing the ones you use the most often (open, save, print, copy, paste, italics, and bold, for example) will save time in the long run.

Another big reason to memorize shortcuts now has to do with the release of Word 2007: the menus that have been in every previous version (File, Edit, View, etc) are all gone, replaced in the updated software by a new “Ribbon” that features commands. The design of the Ribbon does not resemble the previous menus, so people who use their mouse for all or most formatting may find themselves lost, and taking a longer time to acclimate to the new program. However, according to Chapman, the keystrokes have all remained the same. So although file → open is gone, ctrl + O still works. Knowing these shortcuts will make your eventual transition to the new Word version much smoother.

Doing More with Excel

Microsoft Excel is the software program most businesses use to create spreadsheets and track data. If you’ve ever worked with spreadsheets on paper, it’s a snap to pick up the basics of Excel, but the application is even more powerful than it appears at first glance. Here are the features experts say are often overlooked, but can make your data more useful and your charts and presentations really pop.

The Power of Pivot Tables

“People may be intimidated by pivot tables,” says Bill Jelen, an Excel specialist and author of Excel for Marketing Managers, “but they’re Excel’s most powerful feature.” Pivot tables automatically create subtotals and totals of data from Excel spreadsheets. In this chart, a school has tracked its inventory of books by subject, including how many new books, how many it has thrown out, and how many remain at the end of each semester.

By creating a pivot table of this information, the data can be presented like this with just a few keystrokes and in about two minutes: [missing image]

Rather than simply containing numbers, this dynamic chart displays the totals by semester and then by subject. It’s also possible to rearrange this data (for example, sorting first by subject and then by semester, or displaying only one of the three years reported) simply by dragging and dropping columns.

To get started, highlight the data you want to include in your pivot table. In older versions of the program, go to data → pivot table to begin the pivot table wizard; in Excel 2007, the most recent release of the program, go to insert → pivot table.

You’ll see something like this: [missing image]

To create our example, we dragged and dropped Year to the section that says “Drop Column Fields Here” and we dropped Subject and Semester onto the section that says “Drop Row Fields Here.” Next, we dragged and dropped New Books, Old Books, and Destroyed into the inner section that is labeled “Drop Data Fields Here” and presto! We had a professional-looking (and useful) view of our data that could have taken hours to prepare without this handy feature. (To delete colums and rows you don’t want, simply select tthe data, right click, and select Hide.) As you can see, the data on destroyed books is not displayed in our pivot table example; we filtered it out by clicking the arrow next to the Data heading, and unchecking the box next to “Destroyed.” That’s a perfect example of how easy it is to create new views of your data using pivot tables.

Keep in mind that even if you delete your pivot table, the underlying data is still intact, especially if you create your pivot tables in a new document. This makes pivot tables painless to experiment with; even if your table doesn’t work the way you expected, you can simply delete it without touching the original data. In essence, the pivot table is just a “View” of the data, but not the data itself. It takes some time to become comfortable with pivot table creation, but in the long run it can save you hours of time and greatly aid in data analysis.

Pivot tables can also be used to create quick summaries and charts, in as little as six clicks. To do this, first make sure every column of data has a heading and there are no blank spaces. Then select one data cell and, in older versions of Excel, go to data → pivot table → chart report. In Excel 2007, go to insert → pivot table. Then click “Finish.”

We spent all of 60 seconds making the chart above using the data from the previous examples; if you have the time, you can customize the look and feel of your pivot charts to give them a more artistic and polished look. (Editor’s note: the box showing the Subject key was moved after the image was converted for the web so that it would fit onto this page. In the actual chart, it appears to the right of the data field.)

Fill Columns with a Double Click

When adding the same value to multiple rows in a column, especially if you’re filling so many rows you find yourself scrolling down for several screens, most people select the column and scroll down, using the fill handle (the little square at the bottom-right of a highlighted data cell). By grabbing the fill handle and pulling down, you automatically repeat the contents of the first cell into all the others you select. The problem with this method is that as you pull down, selecting, the screen scrolls faster and faster, making it easy to scroll past your intended end point—and you’ll probably do the same thing on the way back up. Jelen refers to this as the “fill handle dance.”

It’s an easy problem to avoid with a little known shortcut. To fill in all consecutive blanks in your column with the value of the cell you’ve selected, simply double click the fill handle. It drops in the contents automatically and in moments.

Create a Chart with One Keystroke Another powerful tool for Excel users is the ability to easily create charts of data. The chart wizard will walk you through this in four easy steps…but if you’ve gotten used to the function, you don’t need all the help. Rather than open the wizard, hit F11. This will create a chart automatically. A bonus of Excel 2007 is you can now use this method to create a chart as part of your current document, by hitting alt + F11.

Customizing Charts

Once you’ve created a chart, it can be customized in a number of ways that take it a step above the standard template. This can help create a unique presentation, strengthen a key point, or simply provide a cleaner look.

But as your data changes, your charts will change, and you may find yourself frequently going back to re-customize. To speed this process up, highlight the formatted row next to your new data. A blue outline will appear around it with a small blue square in the bottom-right corner. Click this square and drag it over to include the new data. When you release, the data will have changed and there will be a small pop-up menu underneath. From that, select “Fill format only.” Your data will be in tact, with the customizations added.

Learning Excel 2007

As with all new software releases, it may take a while for Excel users to get used to the new version of the product; all of the menus and toolbars have been rearranged, which means users of the old version will need to become accustomed to the new setup.

Frustrating as this may seem, Excel 2007 has several advantages over the older versions that make upgrading worth the trouble. Jelen says that for him, the most important new feature is the ability to work with more data: instead of 65,000 rows, you now have the ability to create up to 1.1 million. The new version also makes pivot tables and charts easier to create, gives more options for sorting and displaying data, and includes a status bar that can show information, such as the sum or average of selected cells.

Jelen strongly recommends that every business upgrade to the new version, but not during a busy period. “It can be a frustrating few days,” he says of the time span it takes to adjust to the redesigned program. To speed the process, he has created an “Exel 2007 Tipcard” which maps the old menus to the new.

This chart, as well as many other resources and tools for Excel users, can be found at Bill Jelen’s website, http://www.mrexcel.com/.

Outlook: E-mail and Beyond

E-mail expert Marsha Egan discovered that 70% of offices use Outlook to send and receive e-mail. Though this is Outlook’s main function, the program can do much more. Here she shares the program’s organizational features most users haven’t yet discovered.

Reading Messages

E-mail has become a more-than-daily, often tedious chore for business people, which wastes time if not carefully handled. One way to shave precious seconds off the time you spend managing your inbox , especially if you have an older or slower computer, is to avoid opening e-mail messages in a new window to read them. Instead, you have two options, the reading pane or autopreview.

To access the reading pane, go to view → reading pane. It opens a window within your inbox (either at the right or bottom) where your message will be displayed when you click once on the subject line. Within the pane, you can read your e-mail and decide what to do with it, without taking the time to double click and open it in a new window.

Similarly, autopreview (found under view → autopreview) causes Outlook to display the first three lines of every e-mail you receive. Marsha Egan recommends using either the reading pane or autopreview but not both, since that would be redundant.

Voting Buttons

This feature of Outlook—only available if you are using Exchange Server—is rarely used, but a great way to save time, according to Egan. If you find yourself sending out an e-mail and expecting a yes or no answer in response, this function will add a button the recipient can click to automatically send their response to you.

To insert voting buttons, go to options → options → voting → tracking options and check “use voting buttons.” This gives you three options: “approve/reject”, “yes/no” or “yes/no/maybe.” Also, create a folder for responses and make sure to click “Save sent message to:” and select that folder.

The recipient will be able to click one of the buttons to generate an automatic response. You’ll be able to see the responses in the folder you selected above.

Delivery Options

Egan recommends exploring two of Outlook’s special “Delivery Options.”

The first is to request a “read receipt” for your e-mail. This option generates an automatic response to you, which will tell you when the e-mail has been opened or autopreviewed. To do this, go to message → voting → message tracking → request a read receipt. E-mail etiquette requires that you use this option only for truly important correspondence.

The second delivery option is good for any time you find yourself writing an e-mail on someone else’s behalf, for instance, if you often send e-mail on to others for your boss or partner. Often, people skimming the e-mail will end up confused and send replies to you. It’s easy to solve this problem by designating someone else’s e-mail address as the reply-to address. This is found under options → delivery options → have replies sent to…, which, when checked, will allow you to fill in someone else’s e-mail address. If the recipient clicks the “Reply” button, the correct “To” e-mail address will automatically be used, taking you out of the loop.

Outlook for Organization

If you want to take advantage of Outlook’s organizational capabilities, a good place to start is by flagging e-mails with reminders. Any time an e-mail contains a date, task, or assignment you’d like to keep track of you, can go to actions → follow up → add reminder. (You can also right click the e-mail and click follow up → add reminder.) You are offered six choices of colors to flag the e-mail allowing you to create a color-coded organizational system, and then to enter a due-by date. Outlook will remind you that this e-mail requires your action on whatever date you specified.

This is only the beginning of the organization options Outlook offers. It offers a calendar (which can be shared by other computers on your network), where you can schedule tasks and meetings. With the shared calendar, you can also see other people’s appointments, and have the program seek out a time when all office members are free to schedule meetings. Furthermore, you add an e-mail onto a calendar date and time simply by dragging and dropping, causing the e-mail to pop up as a reminder at the time you’ve selected.

Outlook Dashboard

Outlook offers a “dashboard” when you first start the application, which can be customized easily. You can choose to include a week view of your calendar, a to-do or task list, and your unread e-mails, among many options. The dashboard makes it easy to transform Outlook from a simple e-mail program into an efficient way to deal with time management issues.

To get to the dashboard, click “Personal Folders” in the left pane showing your folders. (It is usually one level above your Inbox.)

Use PowerPoint to Make Your Meetings More Dynamic

Since its first release, PowerPoint has become a standard for creating and sharing important business information with clients and colleagues, but because most users aren’t aware of the more advanced features, it has also been responsible for many less-than-exciting meeting experiences. Now, with new features and capabilities, PowerPoint is more user-friendly and dynamic than ever before. Here are a few ways to use this software to make your presentations exciting and enjoyable.

Presenter View

One tool that has been in several versions of PowerPoint, though it was not well known until the newest version, is the “presenter view” which helps the person giving the presentation by showing the the slide being projected, the next several slides in the presentation, any notes the presenter has made about the current slide, and a timer to keep track of how long the slide has been on. All of this appears only on the presenter’s computer—the projection shows only the slide.

“Presenter View” will work on any computer that has the ability to use a second monitor (which includes most newer desktops and laptops). With multiple displays enabled on your machine (in Windows go to Control Panel → Display → Settings tab), go into PowerPoint and select slide show > set up show. In the “Multiple Monitors” section, set it to your second monitor and check the box for “Show Presenter View.”

Slide Master

According to Dnae Woodruff of PresentationPro.com, a company that specializes in professionally designing presentations for clients, using slide master is the single biggest step you can take to make your presentations look better. It allows you to easily and quickly apply a consistent look to every slide in your presentation. For instance, with the Slide Master you can add a logo to the top of your whole presentation and a custom footer to the bottom. This works to unify everything from the background and images to the fonts.

To use the Slide Master, go to view → master → slide master.

Background Templates

Woodruff notes that, when making over presentations for clients, the first thing she does is use the slide master to clean them up—and the second is to apply a background template. A background template is a clean image that appears as the background of all of your slides. Thousands are available online, and some are even available for free. Using a well-designed background template gives your slides a highly professional look without the cost of hiring graphic designer, and gives you and your company instant credibility.

Pictures

Adding pictures to PowerPoint is easy, and Woodruff says the program’s tools for dealing with images are more extensive than most users realize. The picture toolbar is not shown by the program’s default, leaving people unlikely to discover it, but it’s quite powerful. The picture tools allow you to crop, recolor, and change the contrast of pictures within your presentation, without needing an outside graphics program.

Turning on the toolbar is easy: view → toolbar → picture.

Linking Data from Excel

Not only can you include data from an Excel spreadsheet in your PowerPoint presentation, but you can have that data refresh itself whenever you open the presentation, ensuring that it will always be accurate, even if you change or update the spreadsheet. This is an essential feature for those users who regularly report on data that changes often, such as monthly sales data. With just a few keystrokes, you can update your presentation to reflect the current month, rather than having to recreate it before each meeting.

Here’s how to start. First, save your Excel file within the same folder that contains your presentation, to make it easier to keep them together. Then, in Excel, select the data you wish to add into your presentation and copy it, using your usual copy + paste technique. Switch to PowerPoint and the slide on which you want the data to appear. Go to edit > paste special and then paste the link in the box that appears.

Be sure that you keep your spreadsheet and presentation in the same place! If you move the spreadsheet, PowerPoint will not be able to follow the link and add in the information from Excel. Though the presentation will appear correctly otherwise, your data will not be updated. A shortcut to open and edit data in your spreadsheet is to double click the linked information in PowerPoint.

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