Tech Tips: Microsoft Excel
Don't Lose Sight of Your Row and Column Labels

As you scroll across a large spreadsheet, you often lose sight of your 
row and column labels. You may not be aware that Excel has a function 
that lets you freeze these headings in place. 

EXAMPLE - CONTACT INFORMATION SPREADSHEET:

Column A: Contains a long list of contact names, one per cell. 
(Ms. Thatcher, Mr. Gates, etc.)

Row 1: Each cell contains the name of an Information Field 
(Name, Address, Phone, Fax, etc.)

PROBLEM: As you scroll down the list of names, Row 1 and the Information 
Fields are no longer visible. As you scroll across, you eventually lose 
sight of the names. 

SOLUTION: Click on Cell B2. Go into the Window menu at the top of your 
screen and select Freeze Panes. This command freezes every row above the 
selected cell and every column to the left of it. 

In this case, it is Row 1 and Column A that are frozen. As a result, when 
you scroll across and down the rest of the sheet, these stay frozen in 
place.

GENERAL COMMANDS:

Freeze the top horizontal pane: Select the row below where you want the 
split to appear.

Freeze the left vertical pane: Select the column to the right of where 
you want the split.

Freeze both the upper and left panes: Click the cell below and to the right 
of where you want the split to appear.

Once you've selected the appropriate area, go to Window -> Freeze Panes 


UNFREEZE THE PANES: Go back to the Window menu and select "Unfreeze Panes" 

Tech Tips: Assigning Tasks in MS Outlook

Do you often ask others to perform specific tasks related to projects or other activities? Most people phone or send a simple email message. A more efficient method is to assign them the task from within Outlook. 

ASSIGNING THE TASK: 
To assign a task to someone else, click the drop-down arrow underneath the File menu, and select New, Task Request.

File -> New -> Task Request

You'll see a screen similar to the New Task screen, but with a To field, where you can specify who to assign the task to. You have numerous options, including Subject, Due and Start dates, Priority, and Status. 

RECEIVING TASK ASSIGNMENT: 
The assigned users receive a new message in their Inbox stating that a task has been assigned to them and who assigned it. The recipient can click to Accept or Decline the task. 

If the user Accepts the task, Outlook automatically adds it to their Task List.

TASK COMPLETION: 
As the person performs the task and checks it off their task list, an email is sent to the task creator regarding the task's completion. 

ADVANTAGES: 

* Both the task creator and assignee have a record of the item in their Task folders.

* You can track items according to due dates, percentage work complete, and hours spent. 

* The assignee can set reminders about due dates or other key milestones 

* You're less likely to forget tasks.

Tech Tips: Holiday Cards and Calendars in MS Publisher top

Here's a light Tech Tip for the holidays. 

Many of you may be interested in producing greeting cards or calendars 
to mark the season. A variety of programs make this easy, including Microsoft 
Publisher.

Wizards: Publisher has Wizards with a number of general themes including 
Greeting cards, Invitation cards and Calendars. Wizards appear on start-up 
or can be found by selecting File -> New.

CHOOSE THE DESIGN: In the Wizard window, selecting a general theme (eg: 
Greeting Cards). Clicking on your selection will open up a drop down list 
with categories like Holiday and Birthday (for calendars there are only 
two choices - full page or wallet size). After selecting a category you 
can scroll through a number of designs in the right hand window. 

CREATE THE PUBLICATION: 

Double Click on the design you like (click the Start Wizard button). 


This will start a typical Microsoft Wizard, asking you to select the following:

For a Card: Layout, Size and Fold (top or side), Colour scheme. You can 
also browse through and select from a list of standard greetings, such 
as wishing your friends; "Yuletide greetings and year-round good wishes."

For a Calendar: Select colour scheme, orientation (landscape or portrait) 
and decide whether the calendar is monthly (each page is a different month) 
or yearly (all months on one page). Dates are selected by clicking the 
"Change Dates" button. This reveals a dialogue box letting you enter the 
start and end month of the calendar. Some of the calendar options include 
space for pictures. A default clipart photo will be included but you can 
delete it and add in your own.

PERSONALIZATION: 

Navigation: Navigate the months of the calendar or the pages of the card 
with the numbered tabs on the bottom of the screen.

Modifying Text: Text can be added and modified the same as in any other 
Microsoft program by clicking on the area and simply typing. You can adjust 
font, colour, or any other property in essentially the same manner as you 
do in other programs.

Photos: You may want to add photos to your publication from a scanner or 
digital camera. In many cases, you will import the photo into a different 
program, such as Adobe Photoshop, alter it, save the image and import into 
Publisher. You can also pull the photo directly into Publisher from the 
scanner or camera. 

Insert Pictures: To add a picture, go to Insert -> Picture -> From File 
(or From Scanner or Camera), and browse to the appropriate one. You can 
then drag and drop the photo where you like and even resize it by clicking 
on the photo and dragging the box boundaries to the desired dimensions. 
For further photo manipulation options, use the Format menu at the top, 
or the formatting toolbar. 

PHOTO ADVICE

Scanning Resolution: Standard resolution for photo scanning is 300dpi (dots 
per inch) for a 4x6 image. If disk space is a problem, you can probably 
go as low as 200 dpi and still have decent quality images. If you want 
to make changes to the photo, such as cropping or brightening a certain 
area, you should use a good photo-editing program like Photoshop, make 
and save your changes and then import the completed photo into your card 
or calendar.

Saving: If editing the photo in a program like Photoshop, save it in that 
program's format (i.e. filename.psd) until you're ready to move it to the 
publication - this gives you more flexibility to make changes. When the 
picture is ready for the card or calendar, save it as a TIFF (filename.tif 
or filename.tiff). 

Resizing Photos: Remember that if you are blowing up an image, the quality 
decreases in proportion to the size increase. If you scan a 4x6 photo 
at 300 dpi and then blow it up to 8x12, it will only have the quality of 
a 150 dpi. You'll have to scan it at higher than normal resolution if 
you want to keep the image sharp. 

Tech Tips - Word 2000
Find Your Place 

If you are editing a long document, you may forget where you left off the 
last time it was open. With Microsoft Word documents, you can pick up 
where you left off in your last editing session because Word keeps track 
of the last three locations where you typed or edited text. 

- Press SHIFT+F5 immediately after opening the document, and the cursor 
will appear at the exact point where you last made a change. 

- To reach the previous two editing locations, press SHIFT+F5 until you 
reach the location you want. 

TECH TIPS: HANDY WINDOWS SHORTCUTS top

Use these quick keyboard shortcuts to speed up your work. They are also very handy if your mouse is malfunctioning or a program is frozen.

Ctrl C: Copy a selected item to the clipboard.
Ctrl X: Cut a selected item and send it to the clipboard.
Ctrl V: Paste a selected item from the clipboard.
Ctrl A: Select All
Ctrl N: New Document
Ctrl O: Open
Ctrl P: Print
Ctrl S: Save
Ctrl-Z: Undo
Ctrl-Y: Redo

Alt: Select top menus (File, Edit, View, etc.). Use Arrow keys and enter to navigate dropdowns.
Alt-Tab: Cycle through open applications
Alt-F4: Quit a Program
F1: Help
F12: Save As
Shift-Click: Do this at the first and last item on a list to select everything in between.
Ctrl-Click: Do this for multiple items on a list to select specific items
Ctrl-Alt-Delete: Bring up Task Manager to close programs that are frozen, not responding or unwanted.