Ever wanted to fully expand office menus

Open an Office program.

Click the Tools menu, and then click Customize.

On the Options tab, select the Always show full menus check box.

Click Close.

How to tell if a Word Document has Track changes enabled

The easiest way to tell if a Word document has track changes enabled is to look at the status bar at the bottom of the Word document and see if TRK is in black or grey.

If its Black as in the picture below its ENABLED.

If its Greyed out then Track changes is NOT enabled.

Ever sent an email and wish you could change it?

Well this wont allow you to change it but it will delay the message being sent giving you time to change it. The below procedure will create an Outlook rule delaying the sending of an email after you click send allowing you to open and edit the email from the Outbox.

To do this open the Rules and Alert wizard from the Tools menu in Outlook (ALT+T followed by ALT+L)  Then select New Rule and Start from a Blank Rule.  Select Check Message after Sending

Click Next and Select “on this machine only” and click next



Now click on “defer delivery by a number of minutes”. 



You will now need to select the number of minutes to delay the message delivery by to do this click on the “ number of” underlined text this will display a popup allowing you to choose the number of minutes delay you wish.



On the next screen it will allow you to choose any exceptions.  In the case below i have not set any.



On the last screen give the rule a name and then switch it on.  All email you send from Outlook will be delayed by the number of minutes you have chosen.  This will not effect any email from Webmail or another PC its a local rule and will only work on the PC / Laptop you set on.

How to forward muliple emails in Outlook

To forward multiple emails at once highlight all the items you wish to forward and then click on the Forward button on the toolbar.

All the selected items will then be added to a new email ready for you to enter a subject and recipient.

 

Swapping Word documents easily and quickly

If you have multiple word documents open there is an easy way to swap between them. 

If you hold down CTRL and then press F6 it will rotate the open documents allowing you to get to the one you need quickly and easily.

Adding Dates into Powerpoint presentations easily.

To add a date is very easily in Powerpoint just select the text box where you want the date to appear and the press ALT + SHIFT + D altogether.

 

Highlight the date format you wish to display and then click on OK.  If you want the date to automatically update when the PPT is opened tick the “Update Automatically”

Your text box will then show the date in the format requested.

 

Easy….

 

 

 

RSS Reader in Outlook 2002 / 2003

Whilst Outlook 2007 has a nice RSS reader Outlook 2003 doesn't but now there is a FREE plug-in. RSS Popper is completely FREE and allows you to download and keep updated with RSS feeds directly to your mailbox. RSS Popper is downloadable from http://www.paradisoft.com/rsspopper/rsspopper.asp Below are some screenshots..   
     

It has many options including time between refresh / folder location / Disable refresh whilst offline.

How to reboot a Blackberry without removing the battery

Ever needed to reboot a Blackberry device and find removing the blackberry battery tricky well you can do it with the keyboard instead

Press ALT + Right aA + Del
When screen is white do it again (Alt+ Right aA + Del)

This will do a full reset if you just want to do a soft reboot then just do the process once. It will take a few minutes to reboot after it has been reset.

Trend Micro Office scan Icon’s

If your company uses Trend Micro’s office scan you might find the below useful it explains all the possible icons that can be displayed.  Very useful.

Thanks goes to the NC State University

Word – How to Print multiple pages on a sheet of Paper

This is a simple quick way to print multiple pages on a single sheet to paper.

Open your Word Document and then click on File and Print (CTRL+P) then change the “Scale to Paper Size” to the paper you will be printing on.

And then change the Pages per sheet to the qty of pages you wish to be printed on one page.

 

And then printed Document will be then have 2 pages per sheet.

Outlook Calendar – Group Schedules

 
Group schedules is something that is not commonly used it allows you to setup a group of people and then check their schedule / setup a meeting or email that group.

It differs from a distribution group because a distribution group normally includes a group of team in a team with this you could create a group for a project where it contains members of multiple teams.

To setup a group go to your calendar and then the Group Schedule button on the tool bar



The group schedules box will then appear

Click New, You will then be able to start adding members on the left hand side as you would normally when checking a schedule. 

 


Once all added you can change the view from Day to Week is required and then use the pull down box “New Meeting” to select the action the following actions are available.

 

 

To exit click “Save and Close”

When you next open Group Schedules you will automatically see your groups which you can highlight and then click Open.

Outlook Keyboard Shortcuts

Below is a list of Outlook keyboard shortcuts which can make Outlook much quicker and easier to use.

CTRL+1   Displays Inbox
CTRL+2   Displays Calendar
CTRL+3   Displays Contacts
CTRL+4   Displays Tasks
CTRL+5   Displays Notes
CTRL+6   Displays Folder List
CTRL+7   Displays Outlook Shortcuts
CTRL+8   Displays Journal
CTRL+D   Deletes Selected Item
CTRL+F   Forwards an email
CTRL+N   New message
CTRL+O   Opens message
CTRL+Q   Marks item as read
CTRL+R   Reply to message
CTRL+Y   Go to Folder
CTRL+SHIFT+R   Reply to all
CTRL+SHIFT+V   Moves Selected items


I have found these very useful when needing to quickly swap between the Calendar and Email

Outlook Calendar Tips

Below are 2 Outlook Calendar tips you may not be aware of. 

How to add other countries holidays to Outlook Calendar
The adding of other countries public holiday’s.  If you are like me and work with many different countries but have problems keeping track of all the public holidays in each country then this is for you..

Open options in Outlook by clicking Tools and then Options and then select the Calendar Options under the main Preferences tab.

Next click on Add Holidays under Calendar options.


This will bring up a selection box enabling you to choose the countries which you wish to have their holiday’s displays in your calendar.




How to add a second time zone to the Outlook Calendar

If you have to arrange lots of meeting with a country in a different time zone it can sometimes be hard trying to work out what time it is in the other location.  You can add a second time zone to your calendar so you can see 2 time zones beside each other.

To do this go to Calendar Options as above and select Time Zone under Advanced Options



Click the box show additional time zone then choose a Label this can be anything and then select the second time zone you wish to be displayed.  Click OK and when you view your calendar you will see a second time zone.

PST Files and OST files

A lot of people seem to be confused by Outlook files so let me try and explain the differences.

PST Files -

These are Outlook data files which hold all your Outlook data from Contacts / Tasks /Calendar / Notes / Attachments to all your email including ALL sub folders.

By Default they are stored in the following location

Windows XP and before
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
Windows Vista
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\

Where Username is your profile name

There are 2 types of PST files
Outlook 2002 and Before and Outlook 2003 / 2007.

Outlook 2002 and Before: These have a limit of 2GB in size.  However they will start to become corrupt after 1.7GB If the PST file becomes corrupt then it will need to be repaired.

Outlook 2003 / 2007 : These have a limit of 20GB.  However whilst i have never seen a corrupt one i would not want to try and recover a 20GB PST as it would take many hours to recover so i would never suggest having a PST over 3-4GB.

If you use POPMail then you all your email is downloaded and stored into a PST file so you should backup the PST file as its your only copy of the email in Outlook.

If you use Exchange mail (Corporate email on Outlook) then only email you store in an Archive is stored in a PST file.

PST files should not be deleted unless you have checked the content is not needed as if cannot be recovered.

OST Files -

These hold an offline COPY of your Exchange Mailbox.  With Exchange email your Mailbox which contains Contacts / Tasks / Notes / Calendar / Email / Attachments resides on a Server but to enable yourself to view your mailbox offline you can setup and Offline Store (OST file).  This is a copy of your mailbox which synchronises changes in your mailbox to your OST File when you connect.   You can delete your OST and recreate it as its only a copy of your Mailbox.

OST Files are kept in the same location as PST files.

Windows XP and before
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
Windows Vista
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\

Where Username is your profile name


You can change the location where PST and OST files are stored.

How to set an Out of Office on a Blackberry

Go into Email and then press the Blackberry button and select Options from the menu.

Enter into the Email Settings

Change the “Use Out of Office Reply” from No to Yes.

This will give you a text box in which to write your Out of Office reply.  When you have written your Out of Office click on the back button and then select Save.

Your Out of Office is now set. 

NOTE: This will only work on company Blackberries and not personal ones.

Using the DOS Window

I wanted to share a couple of tips you can use to make working in DOS slightly easier.

Changing the Size of the box window

If you click on the C:\ at the top left this will display a pull menu.  From this menu select properties.

 

Then under the layout tab change both the Window Size Width and the Screen Buffer Size Width to the desired size. 

Below are an example of before and after

Before
 
After

Use previously used commands

The last 25 commands are stored in memory to use this just click F7 and it will display the last 20 commands allowing you to navigate through them selecting the one you want rather than typing it all again.

Changing the color of the DOS Window.

The color of the text and background can be easily changed using the color command.  It takes 2 parameters the first one being the color of the background the second one being the foreground (text)
Below lists the available colors.
 

Examples:
If you wanted a white background and read text you would enter color F4 and it would show the below
 

Finding your Serial Number from Windows

Ever needed to find your serial number when the sticker has fallen off?

Well its really simple to find using a DOS command.  

Open up a DOS Window and then type either of the below.

If you just need the serial number then type 

wmic bios get serialnumber

If you need the model number and serial number type 

wmic csproduct get

This will display Manufactor, Model, Serial Number.