Keyboard Shortcuts

I spend the majority of my day sitting at a desk working on my PC. Over the last few years I have tried to learn ways to improve my efficiency. One of the best ways I have found is by learning keyboard shortcuts. Shortcut keys save the most time when doing work that requires you to switch from keyboard to mouse frequently. Almost every application that you use on a daily basis has shortcut keys. The majority of these applications allow you to customize what keys control what.

Since I spend all day switching between many different applications, I have found that shortcuts within Windows are the most useful for me. The shortcut I use the most is “Alt + Tab” which allows you to quickly switch between open windows. Data and access security is a big concern in any business, I have to lock my PC anytime I leave my desk. With Windows XP or newer, I can simply press the “Windows Key + L” to lock my PC. Here is a list of some that I find most useful.

“Windows Key + E” – Opens Windows Explorer

“Windows Key + R” – Opens a run command.

“Ctrl + C” – Copy

“Ctrl + X” – Cut

“Ctrl + V” – Paste

“Ctrl + Z” – Undo

Just using these few shortcuts can save time and mouse clicks. For a list of Windows shortcut keys check out this page. Windows Keyboard Shortcuts

Creating a Word Template

Creating a template in Word allows you create a document once, and re-use it many times. One type of document that I have created a template for is a memo. I had a class last year that required almost every assignment be in the form of a memo. By creating a template with Styles, I was able to open the template and simply fill in the blanks and everything would be formatted the way I wanted.

Creating a template in Word is very simple. You simply click on the Microsoft Office Button and select “Save As”. From there you select “Word Template”. You will then be presented with a save window where you can save the template where you want. You can also save your template in the “Trusted Template” folder. This is the default folder that that is presented to you when you click the Microsoft Office Button and select “Open”. If you use Macros, you can also save your template as a “Macro-Enabled Template” as seen below.

While most things that you can do with templates you can also do by opening an existing document and doing a “Save As” after making changes. Templates allow you to create easily shareable files that can be protected so only the parts of the file you want changed can be changed. Below I have attached my memo template so you can see how easy it can be to create a new memo from the template. I had to upload it as a document file as wordpress does not allow template files to be uploaded. But if you save it as a template it will work as designed. Note the styles in the document as well.

memo.doc

Using Microsoft Word Styles – Part 2

In the first part of my guide to using styles in Microsoft Word, I briefly covered the benefits of styles, and how to create a new style. In this post I will cover some of the other ways you can customize your new styles.

Once you are in the “Create New Style” window, click on the “Format” dropdown button in the bottom left corner. You will quickly find that by using the options found in this dropdown you will be able to customize your text to look and behave almost exactly the way you want. Now for a quick run through of the options that can adjusted with each of the items in the list.

Font:

Font tab:

Here you will find your typical options for formatting text. You can adjust the font, font style, size, and color.

Character Spacing Tab:

Here you can adjust the scale, spacing, and position of your font. You also have a checkbox for kerning. Kerning adjust the spacing between letters so the area between all letters is equal. It is common in certain fonts to have extra space between some letters that is especially noticeable in larger font size.

 

Paragraph:

Indents and Spacing Tab:

On this tab you will find everything you would normally find in the paragraph options window in Word. You can adjust alignment, indentation, and line spacing. I have found it especially useful to using the before and after spacing to control the spacing in my documents instead of using extra blank lines. For example, if you are creating a chapter heading style, you can set the spacing after to 18pt, and it will automatically create a blank space after the heading. This eliminates extra blank lines that can create formatting discrepancies when reformatting a document.

 

Line and Page Breaks Tab:

You set your line and page breaks here. So for your chapter heading you can select “Page break before” and you chapter will always start on a new page regardless of format changes done to your document.

 

Tabs:

You can customize your tab stop locations for each individual style here. It is really nice to have the ability to create different tab locations based on what type of text element you are working with.

 

Border:

I don’t use this one too often, but the one thing I found it really useful for is when creating a note, or tip item that has a boarder and back fill. If you are creating a long document that has many of these, you can create a style that automatically creates the boarder and shading. So instead of creating the boarder each time you want to insert a tip, you simply apply the style to the text that should be inside the box.

 

Language:

I can honestly say I have never used any options from this window. But this allows multi language documents to be formatted so the spelling and grammar tools use the correct language for the text.

 

Frame:

On this window you can customize how your text wraps around page elements such as pictures. You can also create a text frame where you can restrict the area your text can fill.

 

Numbering:

From this window you can customize how your numbered, and bulleted lists appear. You can customize how your numbered and bulleted lists look and behave. You can even import custom images to use as your bullet points. This is a great way to make these lists behave the way you want them to, as we all know numbered and bulleted lists in Word can be very aggravating.

 

Shortcut Key:

While this window will not allow you to make any customizations to your text, it does allow you to create a quick and easy way to apply your newly created style to your text. For example, you could set Word to apply your new “ChapterHeader” style every time you press “Alt + Shift + C”. If the keyboard shortcut you select is already set for something else, it will let you know where it says “Currently assigned to:”. This can allow you to continue typing without having to reach for your mouse every time you want to apply a style.

 

When you are back at the “Create New Style” window you will notice you have the option to apply this style to only this document, or any new document based on this template. Selecting the second option and creating a template allows you to use your styles you created in any document that is created from that template. This saves you time by keeping you from having to create the same style over and over. I hope to cover creating templates in a future post, so check back in the coming weeks.

 

Let me know if there is anything you would like to learn how to do with Word, or any other application or device. I will try my best to create a how to or tip to help you.

Using Microsoft Word Styles – Part 1

Taking a little extra time to use styles in Microsoft Word can save you time in the long run. In this post I’m going to give a brief introduction to styles.

Styles allow users to create custom formatted text that can be applied to portions of your document quickly and easily. By taking the time to create styles and apply them to the different elements in your document, you can easily modify the formatting of your entire document with a few simple clicks. This becomes especially useful on long documents with many different text elements. Another benefit to using styles is to help ensure consistency in formatting throughout your documents.

 

To create a new style in Word 2007, click on the small expand icon in the styles area of the ribbon tool bar.

This will open the styles window. Once this window is open, you can click on the new style icon.

You will then be presented with the style editor.

In this editor you will find your basic options for modifying your text. You will want to make sure to give your style a descriptive name. For example, “ChapterHead” for the heading style used at the beginning of each chapter, or “BibText” for your citation text. By giving your styles a descriptive name you will know exactly what the style is used for when glancing at the list.

You will then choose the “Style type” that is appropriate for your style. If your style is based on another style you can select it in the “Style based on” drop down box. This can save you time if you want a style that will change if the base style changes. The last option in the properties section allows you to specify the style the next paragraph will be. So if you have a “ChapterHead” style that will always be followed by “BodyText” you can select “BodyText” here. This is nice when you are typing a document as you simply change to “ChapterHead”, type your heading, and when you press enter Word will automatically change your style to “BodyText”.

The remaining options on this page are the same as the basic paragraph formatting options we are all used to in Word. Once you have made all the changes you want, simply click “OK”, and your new style will show up in the styles list. You can now apply this new style by selecting the text you want to apply it to (or for a paragraph style, simply make sure your cursor is in the paragraph you want to change), and click on the style name in the styles list. If you have a different style set for the following paragraph, it will also be changed.

I have only scratched the surface of styles in this post. I hope to create a few more tutorials on styles in the coming weeks that will help you to better utilize them in your documents. While it is quite cumbersome to initially create the styles, the time spent is well worth it in the long run.

Google Search Tips

I was recently doing some searching on Google, and was having some problems finding what I was looking for. In the following I will highlight some of the more useful search operators that can be used when searching on Google to help find what you need faster.

One way to narrow your search is using the advanced search feature on Google. You can get there by clicking on “advanced search” right next to the search text box. This gives you many ways to perform you search without memorizing search operators.

The following are some of the search operators that I use most when searching on Google. I find this to be quicker than using the “advanced search”. Click on the links below to see the differences in the searches.

” “
Using quotes forces Google to search for the exact phrase inside them. For example, water in the boat, and “water in the boat” return very different results. In a normal search Google removes common words like “in”, “I”, and “the”. Using quotes is one way to force Google to include those words in your search.

+
This is another way to force words to be included in your search. Your search could be something like water +in +the boat which returns a different result than above.

-
Use this to remove a word from your search. -water +in +the boat

*
This one I use a lot, this is a “wild card”, which will try any word in place of the *. “water in the *”

~
Add this to your search to include synonyms to. Searching for ~large boat will return results that include big in place of large.

site:
If you want to limit your search to a particular website, you can enter your search term followed by site:(URL). For example boat site:mnsu.edu

This is a short list of the search operators I use most. Check out the following links for more:
Google Cheat Sheet
Google Web Search Features