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| July 1, 2011

Animate a Table in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

In PowerPoint, when you’re working with SmartArt or Charts, you have the ability to animate different parts of the graphic. For example, you can bring in a chart’s series one at a time. Tables are another story. A table comes in all at once. But there are things you can do if you want to “fill” your table a bit at a time. There are a few ways of accomplishing this, some being a lot of work. I’m going to look at a pretty simple method. Continue Reading »

| June 15, 2011

WordArt in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

WordArt in various Microsoft products has been around for a while. In case you’re wondering, it let you apply various (non-standard) formatting to text that was not available otherwise. It was nice, but limited, and a bit cumbersome. Starting with PowerPoint 2007, you could apply effects to any text on your slide. Let’s take a look. Continue Reading »

| June 9, 2011

Adding a Background Graphic to a Microsoft Excel 2010 Chart

Creating charts in Excel 2010 is pretty straightforward. Select your data, choose your chart type, and presto, you have a basic chart. While the three tabs you see after you create that chart might seem a bit overwhelming, they give you a whole lot of flexibility for getting your chart the way you want. Let’s take a look at adding a background graphic to the chart. Continue Reading »

| May 18, 2011

Gridlines, Nudge, and Guides in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

You may not be aware of it, but PowerPoint offers a couple of nifty little tools to help you position objects on your slides. Gridlines and Guides allow you to precisely place all of you various objects (titles, text boxes, graphics, etc.). Just a note, when you’re using these tools, it’s useful to have the Ruler turned on (on the View tab, in the Show group, check Ruler). Continue Reading »

| May 12, 2011

Close Window Button in Microsoft Word 2010

I recently had a question about the window control buttons (Minimize, Restore, Close) that seem to be missing in Word 2010 documents. In truth, I never really paid much attention to their absence. I thought it was too easy to accidently hit the Close application button by mistake, so I never got into the habit of working with them. While it’s not really obvious what setting to change, you can display the buttons if you like using them.
Continue Reading »

| May 5, 2011

Bookmarks in Microsoft Word 2010

If you regularly use a browser (like now, for instance) you’re probably very familiar with the concept of setting bookmarks in your browser. It’s a quick way of getting where you want to go. When you’re working with Word documents, you can also set bookmarks within your document. This is especially useful when you’re working with long documents and want to be able to quickly return to a specific location in your document. Continue Reading »

| March 1, 2011

Building Blocks in Microsoft Word 2010

If you’ve ever inserted one of the prefab Word elements into your document (Header, Footer, Cover Page, etc.), you’ve been using something called a Building Block. A nice thing about Building Blocks is that they maintain a common theme, i.e. there’s a Cubicles Cover Page, Header, Textbox, and so on. What you may not be aware of is that you can create your own Building Blocks. Let’s take a look at the basics of using a Building Block. Continue Reading »

| February 3, 2011

Saving Time with AutoCorrect in Microsoft Word 2010

Unless you’re the most accurate typist ever, you’ve probably noticed that Word automatically fixes some of your “creative” spellings. For example, type “teh” and Word’s AutoCorrect function will change it to “the”. I, for one, find it very helpful. What you may not be aware of is that you can also add typing shortcuts for phrases you regularly use. Continue Reading »