Office XP Tips
Courtesy of Microsoft Corporation

As the dust from the holiday season settles, many people find themselves exploring the possibilities of their new Office XP systems. While we certainly expect folks to be taking full advantage of this product already, some tips and tricks directly from the software designers should be very useful. Whether allowing people to do things they didn't know were possible or making everyday tasks that much more simple and quick, we believe some useful tips and tricks will be appreciated.

Create rich-media PowerPoint presentations with Microsoft Producer   New!
Microsoft Producer, a free add-on for Microsoft PowerPoint 2002, helps you capture, synchronize, and publish audio, video, slides, and images-resulting in engaging rich-media presentations viewable on demand in a Web browser. More specifically, Microsoft Producer allows you to import audio and video and synchronize them with your PowerPoint slides, change layouts of your presentation to maximize the video and audio output, publish your presentation to the Web for quick and easy sharing, and much much more. Please visit the Microsoft Web site for for more information and to download Microsoft Producer.

Add pictures to charts in Excel   New!
Make your Excel charts more visually compelling by using pictures. You can add pictures to the chart area, data markers, and more. For example, you can use a picture of a house and stack one on top of the other to represent home sales. Here's how.

Click the area of the chart that you want to add the picture to (e.g. bar, column, chart background, etc.).
Then, right-click on the area you selected and choose Format Chart Area (or Format whatever section of the chart you selected). Then, select the Fill Effects button and click the Picture tab. To choose a picture, click Select Picture, and browse to the picture you want. On the Picture Tab select the options you want.

Add a Map to Your Word Document Using MapPoint   New!
Quickly insert a map of any address directly into a Word document or an Outlook e-mail message. Word 2002 and Outlook 20002 currently offer an Address smart tag that helps you map an address on Expedia.com, but Microsoft MapPoint 2002 extends these capabilities by enabling you to insert a map into your document and then manipulate it right from within the document. Here's how.

1. Install Microsoft MapPoint 2002, if not already installed.
2. Open up a blank Word document or an existing document that contains an address.
3. Type in an address.
4. Hover the mouse cursor over the address.
5. When the smart tag appears, click on it and select Insert MapPoint Map.

If you don't have a copy of MapPoint--but you are connected to the Web--click Display Map to display a map of the address on Expedia.com.

Create a Digital Photo Album Using PowerPoint 2002   New!
Do you have pictures that are sitting around in shoeboxes or are cluttering up your hard drive? Now you can organize your pictures into a digital photo album using PowerPoint 2002, and then share them with friends and family. Here's how.

In PowerPoint 2002, select Insert then Picture, and then New Photo Album. In the Photo Album dialog box, you can choose to add pictures from your hard disk or a peripheral device, such as a scanner or digital camera. To add pictures from a file or from a disk, select File/Disk under Insert picture. Then, browse to the folder or disk that has the pictures you want to include in your photo album and select the picture you want, then click Insert. Repeat for as many pictures as you want to add (you can also hold down the CTRL key and select multiple pictures at once). Click Create.

Cut PowerPoint and Word Graphics Down to Size   New!
We all know what happens when we add clip art, photos, or other images to a PowerPoint presentation or Word document: It can get pretty large. But PowerPoint 2002 and Word 2002 make it easy to compress these images in just a few simple steps.

1. Select the picture you want to compress.
2. On the Picture toolbar (which should appear if the picture is selected; if not, go to the View menu and select Toolbars and then Picture), click the Compress Pictures button.
3. To compress all pictures in the presentation, click All pictures in the document.
4.. Under the change resolution section, choose how you plan on using your presentation (Web/Screen or Print).
5. To further reduce file size, select the Delete cropped areas of pictures check box.
6. Click OK. (Note that if you compress pictures or delete the cropped areas, you won't be able to restore your pictures to their original resolution or size).

Create a Menu of Most-Used Commands   New!
No matter how you work with Office XP, you can make it work even better for you. Word 2002, Excel 2002, PowerPoint 2002 , and Outlook 2002 all give you the option to create a custom menu of the commands you use most.  Here's how:

1. On the Tools menu of one of these Office XP applications, click Customize, and then select the Commands tab.
2. In the Categories box, click New Menu, and then drag New Menu from the Commands box to the location on the menu bar or toolbar where you want it displayed.
3. Right-click the new menu, and then give it whatever name you want by typing in the Name box on the shortcut menu. Then, press ENTER.
4. To add a command to your new menu, select a category from Categories box, and then drag a command from the Commands box to your custom menu.

Create Your Own Custom Word 2002 Templates   New!
If you don't like the default font used in Word, you can change it and create a template of your favorite font styles and sizes instead: It's nearly as easy as creating a new document. For example, you can create a document template in which Comic Sans, not Arial, is the default font. Here's how.

1. In Word 2002, select Task Pane from the View menu to display the Task Pane, if it's hidden.
2. If the New Document task pane is not visible, select it from the drop-down menu in the upper right corner of the task pane.
3. In the New Document task pane, click General Templates. This will display the Templates dialog box.
4. In the General tab, click the Blank Document icon once to select it, if it isn't already selected.
5. Under the Create New section, select Template, and then click OK. A Word template document opens.
6. In the new template, add any text and graphics you want to appear in all new documents that you base on the template, and delete any items you don't want to appear. Make the changes you want to the margin settings, page size and orientation, styles, and other formats. For example, change the font to Comic Sans.
7. On the File menu, click Save, give your template a name, and then click Close on the File menu.

Now, your new, customized template will then be available as a choice under General Templates in the New Document task pane.

Customize Grammar and Writing Style in Word 2002   New!
If you have specific grammar and style rules that you want to apply to every Word 2002 document--for example, using only one space between sentences, or a comma before the last item in a list--you can customize Word so it automatically checks these rules for you. Here's how.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.
2. Click Settings.
3. In the Writing style drop-down list box, select whether you want to customize settings for Grammar & Style, or Grammar Only.
4. In the Grammar and style options box, do one or both of following:
- Under Require, select the options you want for serial commas, punctuation within quotation marks, and number of spaces between sentences.
Under Grammar and Style, select or clear the check boxes next to the rules you want the grammar checker to check or ignore.

To restore the original rules of the selected grammar and writing style, click Reset All in the Grammar Settings dialog.

Customize Comment Text in Word 2002   New!
Changing the size and font for comments in Microsoft Word 2002 documents is easy, and you can use standard formatting commands to modify the text in comment balloons as you type. Here's how:

1. On the Format menu, click Styles and Formatting, which will open the Styles and Formatting task pane in the right margin.
2. In the task pane, under Pick formatting to apply, make sure the Comment Text entry is visible. If it is, go to step 4.
3. If the Comment Text entry is not visible, select Custom from the Show drop-down menu. Then, in the Format Settings dialog box, under Styles to be visible, click Comment Text, and then click OK.
4. Under Pick formatting to apply, right-click the Comment Text entry, and then click Modify.
5. Select any options you want.
6. To see more options, click Format, and then click the attribute that you want to change.
7. Click OK after you've changed each attribute.
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 for any additional attributes you want to change.

Modify Your Custom Dictionary in Word 2002   New!
You are probably already aware of the fact that you can add your own commonly used terms to the Word 2002 custom dictionary (such as names and acronyms). But once you add a word to the dictionary, do you know how to remove or edit it? Here's how.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Spelling & Grammar tab.
2. Click Custom Dictionaries.
3. Select the check box next to the dictionary you want to edit.
4. Click Modify.
5. Then, do one of the following:
- To add a word, type it in the Word box, and then click Add.
- To delete a word, select it in the Dictionary box, and then click Delete.
- To edit a word, select it in the Dictionary box, modify it, and then click Add. Delete the misspelled version.

Insert the Time or Date in Excel or Access
Here are a few keyboard shortcuts you can use to insert the current time and date in a Microsoft Access table or Excel spreadsheet.

Current date: CTRL+SEMICOLON
Current time: CTRL+SHIFT+ SEMICOLON
Current date and time: CTRL+ SEMICOLON then SPACE then CTRL+SHIFT+ SEMICOLON

Note: When you insert the date and time using this tip, the information remains static. To update this information automatically, you must use the TODAY and NOW functions. To learn how to do this, search for Insert the current date and time in a cell in Excel Help and then click Insert a date or time whose value is updated.

Open the Smart Tag Menu with a Keyboard Shortcut
You can save even more time with smart tags by using them along with this keyboard shortcut. When you type text that is recognized and labeled with a smart tag, a faint dotted line (the smart tag indicator) appears under the text. Using the arrow keys, move the cursor to the tagged text, and then press ALT+SHIFT+F10. Select an action from the menu of actions that appears.

Get Easy Access to Documents You Use Often
The Work menu is a great Word feature that few people know about. You can use the Work menu to keep an easily accessible list of your favorite Word files.

To add the Work menu to the menu bar or a toolbar:
1. On the Tools menu, click Customize, and then click the Commands tab.
2. In the Categories box, click Built-in Menus.
3. Click Work in the Commands box and drag it to the menu bar or displayed toolbar.

With the Work menu in place, you can add any open Word document to your list. Here are the options:

- To add the current document to the Work menu, on the Work menu, click Add to Work Menu.
- To open a document on the Work menu, on the Work menu, click the document you want to open.
- To remove a document from the Work menu, press CTRL+ALT+- (dash key). Your cursor will look like a large, bold underscore. On the Work menu, click the document you want to remove.