By Senior Instructor on 11/16/2007 2:20 PM

Let’s say you have a column of data that you want to change into a row, or you have a row of data that you want to change into a column. Moving the data manually, one item at a time, would be very time consuming. To save time, you can use the Paste Special command to quickly transpose data from columns to rows and vice versa.

• Select the data range you would like to transpose.
• Copy the data to the clipboard by clicking Edit > Copy from the menu.
• Select a destination cell for your data, then click Edit > Paste Special from the menu.
• In the Paste Special dialog, check Transpose, and then click OK.

By Senior Instructor on 11/16/2007 2:16 PM

One of the most time consuming activities in Access involves positioning and aligning controls on a form. Try the following example to create a Macro that provides simple shortcut keys for aligning controls.

• Create a new Macro and save it with the name AutoKeys. Make the Macro Name column visible by clicking View > Macro Names on the menu.
• In the first row of the Macro Name column, enter ^L (i.e. a caret and an L.) The caret refers to the Ctrl key in Access. In the Action column, choose the RunCommand action.
• Next, click the Action Argument Command for the RunCommand action, and choose the command AlignLeft.
• Proceed back to the the second row of the macro. Enter ^R under Macro Name, and choose RunCommand for the Action. Choose & ... Read More »

By Senior Instructor on 11/9/2007 10:56 AM

Did you know that you can quickly create bulleted slides by in your PowerPoint presentation from an outline in Word? PowerPoint interprets the style information in a Word outline. Each item in the outline formatted with the Heading 1 style creates a new slide (with a slide title) in the presentation. Outline items formatted with the other heading styles (Heading 2 through Heading 6) generate bulleted lists in the presentation.

Once you have formatted your outline in Word (use Outline View) and saved the document, there are several ways to generate the presentation.

To create a new presentation from the outline, click File > Open from the menu in PowerPoint. In the File Open dialog, choose All Outlines from the Files of Type dropdown. Finally, select the Word file and click the Open button.

OR

In Word, click File ... Read More »

By Senior Instructor on 11/9/2007 10:24 AM

Did you know you can create a photo album in PowerPoint?

• Click Insert > Picture > New Photo Album... from the menu to open the Photo Album dialog.
• In the Photo Album dialog, click the File/Disk button to add pictures from your computer or the Scanner/Camera button to download images from your camera.
• The Photo Album dialog allows you to arrange your pictures, format your pictures and create an album layout.
• Click the Create button to generate your photo album.

By Senior Instructor on 10/31/2007 8:51 AM

To change font size for selected text in Word, try this handy keyboard shortcut.

If the Formatting toolbar is displayed, select the text, then press Ctrl+Shift+P to select the Font Size control on the toolbar. Type the number for the font size you want to use, then press Enter.

If the Formatting toolbar is not displayed, pressing Ctrl+Shift+P will open the Font dialog box, then select the Size control. Once again, type the number for the font size you want to use and press Enter.

By Senior Instructor on 10/31/2007 8:43 AM

Two little-known Excel functions, LARGE and SMALL, allow you to quickly and easily find number relationships when dealing with a large list of numbers.

The LARGE function will return the nth largest number in a list. Let's say you have a list of test scores in cells A1 through A10. You can find the third-best (largest) score by typing =LARGE(A1:A10,3).

The SMALL function finds the nth smallest number in a list. Therefore, =SMALL(A1:A10,4) would find the fourth smallest score in the same range.

By Senior Instructor on 10/30/2007 12:30 PM

After creating a new macro in Word, I usually require a document with sample text that I can use to test the macro. I found that one way to accomplish this is to use the rand() function in Word. This function prints the sentence The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog as many times as you need it to. (BTY - This is an example of a "pangram"- a sentence or phrase that uses all the letters of the alphabet at least once.)

To generate the text, open a new blank document and then type =rand(p,s), where p is the number of paragraphs you need and s is the number of sentences per paragraph. Then press Enter. Word will automatically create the text. (The autocorrect while typing option must be active for this feature to work.)

By Senior Instructor on 10/29/2007 8:13 AM

A frequent question to our instructors is how to separate first and last names in a column in Excel. Although this can be accomplished using text functions, a simpler way is to use the text to column command.

To begin, enter four names into cells A1 though A4. Next, select column A. Then select Data > Text to Columns… from the menu to start the Convert Text to Columns Wizard.

• In Step 1, leave Delimited selected and click Next.
• In Step 2, check the box next to Space under delimiters, then click Next.
• In Step 3, select each individual column in the Data Preview area and change the Column data format to Text. Click Finish.

The first names should be in column A while the last names are in column B. This command will also work with middle initials and multiple middle names, as long as you have a space separating each name.

By Senior Instructor on 10/24/2007 9:19 AM

When you use the Number data type for a field in a table, Access automatically assigns zero ( 0 ) to the field's Default Value property. But what if you would like your table to display a blank cell rather than a zero if the number field is left empty?

Try the following:

• Open the table in Design view and select the field with the number data type.
• Select the Default Value property for the number field.
• Change the Default Value property from 0 to Null.
• Save the table.

By Senior Instructor on 10/24/2007 8:58 AM

Select the text, then use the keyboard shortcut Shift + F3 to toggle between Title Case, UPPERCASE and lowercase.