Hello Again and OOOH My, it's August, I have been enjoying summer in the Colorado Rockies and hope your summer has been good as well. So following the laid back attitude, I thought I would discuss a feature that is so "laid back" you don't really have to do anything except look.
I am always suprised as to what people don't see in the application window, usually due to their focus being on a specific area of the screen/window and not really "looking around" to just see what's happening in the window as they are working with the application. When I point out specific things that are happening or things that are just there to see (if you look at it) to someone during a training/consulting session, commonly they remark "has that always been there?!" And of course they are suprised to hear YES and as a matter of fact in some cases "this feature has been in many prior versions."
A classic example of this is the Autocalculate feature of Excel; this is not new and has been a feature of Excel for quite a while.
In a workbook for example select a range of cells containing values. Look at the right section of the Status Bar (the bar at the bottom of the Excel window), you should see Sum= and the sum of the values in the Range. In Excel 2007/2010 (as well as earlier vesions) right click the Status Bar and you will be presented a shortcut menu with many options as what to show in the Status Bar. Notice the second segment from the bottom is a list of 6 functions which can be turned on/off. Which ever of the 6 functions you turn on, the results will be in the Status Bar upon selecting a range of data. Notice there is a Count function that will apply to Text data. As per above, I find many people even after working for years in Excel never knew about this feature and never saw it because they just never looked to see.
So now I guess we can call this a 'quick look' feature now that we know to look. "I see said the blind man..."
Have fun in the meantime until next time! Joel
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Printing in Excel
Hello To All, Already June! It's been awhile since I've blogged, sorry for the hiatus...
A common issue in Excel is knowing how to control a multi-paged print job. How many times upon printing a worksheet you may have one or more pages "filled up" with part of the print range, but end up with one page that has one or two columns of data on it or one page that has one or two rows of data on it? Wouldn't it be nice to get the one or two columns or rows onto a previous page and save a page or more?
Of course there are several ways to control what data prints, and the number of pages for the print job in Excel. One of the easies ways I have found to control the print job is to work with Page Break Preview and Scale to Fit options.
First of all, in regards to the issue about having a page(s) with just a few columns or rows of data: In Excel there have 2 views (2007 and later added another view called Page Layout) Normal and Page Break Preview. In 2007, there are view option buttons in the status bar on the lower right of the window. Click the Page Break Preview button (read the message that comes up). Now you can click and drag the page break lines and define where the page breaks occur in you print range. Dragging a page break to the edge of the print area will eliminate the page break and of course a page in the print job.
Otherwise one can define the print job using Scale to Fit options in the Page Layout Ribbon in 2007. The print job in Excel is defined as so many pages Wide (width) by so many pages Tall (height) and an associated Scale, the default settings, are "Automatic" for Width and Height and 100% for Scale. You can force the print job to a given number of pages Wide and Tall by setting these options, the scaling with be automatically adjusted. With a combination of Page Break Preview and changing the Scale to Fit options, you can easily see how the print job will occur. To get the print job back to default, Width and Height should be "Automatic" and 100% for scale.
A common issue in Excel is knowing how to control a multi-paged print job. How many times upon printing a worksheet you may have one or more pages "filled up" with part of the print range, but end up with one page that has one or two columns of data on it or one page that has one or two rows of data on it? Wouldn't it be nice to get the one or two columns or rows onto a previous page and save a page or more?
Of course there are several ways to control what data prints, and the number of pages for the print job in Excel. One of the easies ways I have found to control the print job is to work with Page Break Preview and Scale to Fit options.
First of all, in regards to the issue about having a page(s) with just a few columns or rows of data: In Excel there have 2 views (2007 and later added another view called Page Layout) Normal and Page Break Preview. In 2007, there are view option buttons in the status bar on the lower right of the window. Click the Page Break Preview button (read the message that comes up). Now you can click and drag the page break lines and define where the page breaks occur in you print range. Dragging a page break to the edge of the print area will eliminate the page break and of course a page in the print job.
Otherwise one can define the print job using Scale to Fit options in the Page Layout Ribbon in 2007. The print job in Excel is defined as so many pages Wide (width) by so many pages Tall (height) and an associated Scale, the default settings, are "Automatic" for Width and Height and 100% for Scale. You can force the print job to a given number of pages Wide and Tall by setting these options, the scaling with be automatically adjusted. With a combination of Page Break Preview and changing the Scale to Fit options, you can easily see how the print job will occur. To get the print job back to default, Width and Height should be "Automatic" and 100% for scale.
Of course you can view the print job in Print Preview (Ctrl+F2) shortcut.
If nothing else, your goal would be use the least amount of paper to have a readable print job.
Happy printing!
Take care in the meantime until next time, Joel
Friday, March 18, 2011
MS Office Formats, Styles, and Themes: The Big Picture
Hello Again:
Sorry, I know it's been a while and I'm sure you all have been anxiously waiting for the next blog...
I find many people using MS Office applications understand "font" as something to do with formatting but may not understand the concept of formatting including Styles and Themes. Thus below is my attempt to 'put things in conceptual perspective'.
In several prior blogs I have discussed certain concepts related to formatting; for me 'appearance' is my synonym, how the data or information looks.
As I see it, MS Office has 3 "levels" or hierarchy of formatting. There are the individual formats such as font, font size, font color, alignment, etc. Then there are Styles, which are several aspects of formatting predefined and used by default. In MS Office applications, the Style is called Normal (see blog Sept 2010 about Word Styles). The definition of Normal Style depends on the application. For example, in Word 2007, Normal Style uses Calibri 11 (and other formats) while Excel uses Arial 10 (and other formats) as the Style Normal.
In addition (particularly in MS Office 2007 and 2010) there is another aspect of formatting called a Theme. Themes are aspect of formatting that no only effect text but also effect the appearance of objects, such as pictures, charts, drawings, smart art, etc.
There are a set of Themes (Page Layout Ribbon) that are available in the MS Office 2007 and 2010 applications that can be applied to the document, spreadsheet, or presentation that define formatting for Colors schemes, Font schemes, and Effects schemes that are applied to the text and objects.
MS Office applications use the same set of Themes such that one can create consistency of the "look and feel" of your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
In the Themes command group there are options to choose a Theme out of the gallery such as Apex or Flow, "Office" is the default Theme. You can also customize the Theme by choosing which Colors scheme, Font scheme, and Effects scheme you want to use. Of course each of these aspects of a Theme can be customized and saved your custom Theme.
There you have it, looking into changing how things look using MS Office applications. If you can't impress them with brilliance, dazzel them with formatting. Good luck otherwise...
Take care in the meantime until next time, Joel.
Sorry, I know it's been a while and I'm sure you all have been anxiously waiting for the next blog...
I find many people using MS Office applications understand "font" as something to do with formatting but may not understand the concept of formatting including Styles and Themes. Thus below is my attempt to 'put things in conceptual perspective'.
In several prior blogs I have discussed certain concepts related to formatting; for me 'appearance' is my synonym, how the data or information looks.
As I see it, MS Office has 3 "levels" or hierarchy of formatting. There are the individual formats such as font, font size, font color, alignment, etc. Then there are Styles, which are several aspects of formatting predefined and used by default. In MS Office applications, the Style is called Normal (see blog Sept 2010 about Word Styles). The definition of Normal Style depends on the application. For example, in Word 2007, Normal Style uses Calibri 11 (and other formats) while Excel uses Arial 10 (and other formats) as the Style Normal.
In addition (particularly in MS Office 2007 and 2010) there is another aspect of formatting called a Theme. Themes are aspect of formatting that no only effect text but also effect the appearance of objects, such as pictures, charts, drawings, smart art, etc.
There are a set of Themes (Page Layout Ribbon) that are available in the MS Office 2007 and 2010 applications that can be applied to the document, spreadsheet, or presentation that define formatting for Colors schemes, Font schemes, and Effects schemes that are applied to the text and objects.
MS Office applications use the same set of Themes such that one can create consistency of the "look and feel" of your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
In the Themes command group there are options to choose a Theme out of the gallery such as Apex or Flow, "Office" is the default Theme. You can also customize the Theme by choosing which Colors scheme, Font scheme, and Effects scheme you want to use. Of course each of these aspects of a Theme can be customized and saved your custom Theme.
There you have it, looking into changing how things look using MS Office applications. If you can't impress them with brilliance, dazzel them with formatting. Good luck otherwise...
Take care in the meantime until next time, Joel.
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