16 December 2013

How to sharpen up your document skills

The popular document editors that we use are a great deal more versatile than we give them credit for. They have loads of powerful features that you probably don't use. ET explains, how to move beyond just typing out a document.

14 Power tips to help master Microsoft Office WORD


1. By default, a lot of autocorrect options are built into Word. If you need complete control over what you type, you can switch off all autocorrect items in Word Options > Proofing > Autocorrect options.

2. Select a portion of text and press Shift + F3 to quickly cycle through uppercase (all caps), sentence case or lowercase text
3. On the top left is the Quick Access Toolbar, which normally has save, undo, redo buttons. Click the little triangle next to it and you can add more buttons that you frequently use. If something that you use often is in one of the other tabs, click 'More Commands' to add a button.

4. If you often copy and paste text from elsewhere, you probably get frustrated when the formatting does not match. To change how Word pastes text, go to Word Options > Advanced > Cut, copy, paste options.

5. If you have PowerPoint 2010, you don't need to carry a separate laser pointer while making a presentation. During a slide show, simply press Ctrl on the keyboard and move your cursor to turn it into a laser pointer.

6. You can use any shape as a container for an image of your choice. Go to the insert tab and insert any shape you want. Then right click on the shape, click 'Format Shape', click Picture or texture file and select the image you want to place inside it.

7. Before making a presentation, it's a good idea to rehearse it. Go to the Slide Show tab and click 'Rehearse Timings'. The program can then help you keep time - displaying the amount of time you spent on each slide and in total.

8. In PowerPoint 2007 onwards, you can set a password to prevent anyone from making any changes to your slides - especially useful if you need to distribute your presentation but don't want any unauthorised alterations. While saving the presentation for the first time, click Tools and then General Options. Then, enter a password in the 'Password to Modify' field. Now, if someone opens the presentation and they don't have the password, they can only open a Read-Only copy. In the Save As dialog, saving the entire presentation as a set of images or a PDF will also work.

9. To allow for wider viewing, you can save your presentation as an HTML file. Click Save As and choose 'Single file web page' - this can then be opened using a regular web browser, even if the recipient does not have Power-Point installed.

10. If you're using PowerPoint on a MAC, try a free add-on called Omni Dazzle from www.omnigroup. com. It lets you highlight certain sections of the slide easily.

11. Get Excel to read aloud what you type into a cell by using Text to Speech (could be useful for the visually impaired). On the top left of the screen, next to the Save, Undo and Redo buttons is a triangle that opens Quick Access Toolbar settings. Click More Commands, Customize and select 'All Commands' from the drop down list. Scroll down to the 'Speak Cells' command and add it. Now if you click this button on the Quick Access Toolbar, Excel will read the contents of the cell aloud.

12. Let's say you want to type the same text into the same cell in different sheets. Press and hold the Ctrl key and select all the sheets (sheet 1, sheet 2 and so on). Then type anything into a cell - you'll see that the same text has been placed into all the sheets you selected.

13. When working on large sheets, you may want to enter today's date/time into a cell. Simply press Ctrl + ; to insert the current date and Shift + Ctrl + ; to insert the current time.

14. To switch the orientation of a table after you have typed out all the values, select and copy all the cells, then right click on an empty space and click Paste Special — select the option called Transpose. The rows will become columns and vice versa.


  Mobile Apps KINGSOFT OFFICE


Use your choice of fonts on the app with the Cloud Fonts Service. Upload the font from a PC to the cloud and it will be synced to your phone You can open and switch between multiple documents using the 'File Tabs' icon on the top bar.

The popular Aldiko Book Reader Android supports epub and PDF fmats and allows you to sort books via tags. It displays mobile device

Kingsoft Office file manager supports cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Docs and Box.net). You can access files stored on the cloud directly

You can share text notes from a PC directly to the Kingsoft Office app on your smartphone wirelessly using the free Kingsoft Clip app for Android

 POLARIS


You can change the size, colour, font, effect, background color, and style of a single word during editing by tapping the wrench icon on the top bar You can do basic enhancements for inserted images within the app using the image 'property' box

Similar to Kingsoft, Polaris lets you add cloud storage services like Google Drive, Box.net & webDAV to access and edit document

Files of a particular format can be viewed in the file manager by tapping the four squares icon in the home screen and selecting view by type

Create a list of favourite documents by tapping the star icon next to document name. Favourites can be quickly accessed from the home screen

DOCUMENTS TO GO


Use the Documents To Go desktop app to sync files between your PC and Android/iOS device. The desktop app automatically merges updated files You can synchronize the mobile app with multiple desktop computers using the desktop app

Documents To Go has a built-in Shake to undo/redo feature. Instead of using the keyboard, shake the device to undo/redo the editing

To view Slide Notes in a presentation tap the 'More' icon on the toolbar & select 'Notes'. To hide them, slide the top of the note to the bottom

You can set the amount of storage space alloted for saving documents downloaded from cloud storage in the app's account settings

GOOGLE DRIVE


Drive comes with built-in support to create forms, surveys and polls. These can be shared with others or embedded on a blog, forum or website

All document revisions are automatically saved. To view various versions of any document, go to File > See Revision History

In Gmail, go to settings > Labs. Search and activate the Google Docs Preview add-on — this will enable previews of documents within Gmail

ZOHO DOCS


Connect your Dropbox storage with Zoho Docs to sync existing documents. You can choose which Dropbox folders will be synced with Zoho

If you have multiple headings in a word document, you can create a Table of contents for reference. Go to Insert > Table of contents to add one

You can embed a Zoho spreadsheet directly in a website. Select Publish Menu > Embed in Website/Blog & copy the HTML snippet to use it on a website


Source | Economic Times | 11 December 2013