If you have your dialog boxes set to Preview, which displays a picture of the selected file in the right pane, you may notice that it sometimes takes a moment to load the image. This can be cumbersome when working with PowerPoint because presentations often contain images on the first slide. Not to mention you may work with large multimedia files that you store in a single location. Every time you open the Insert File, Insert Picture, Open, or Save As dialog boxes (to name a few), you have to wait while the first file in the directory displays.

You can avoid this wait time and still take advantage of the Preview mode by creating a "dummy file". All you have to do is create a blank slide and save it with a name like 1presentation.ppt. If you place a 1 in front of the filename, the file appears first in the directory. Now, when you open a dialog box, the Preview only takes a second to load. You'll want to place this file in every directory folder you use frequently when working in PowerPoint.

ZD Tips

Have you ever wanted to slightly adjust the size of some text? For instance, suppose you create a heading and decide it needs to be just a tiny bit larger. If you want, you can make the change by highlighting the text and selecting the desired point size from the Font Size dropdown list on the Formatting toolbar. However, a quicker way is to simply highlight the text and press the [Ctrl] and ] keys until the text is large enough. Each time you press this key combination, Word will enlarge the text by one point. To make the text smaller, highlight it and press the [Ctrl] and [ keys until the text is the size you want.

Kerry Gregory

When developing Excel VBA applications, you might need to prompt the user for a range. To do this, you can use the following VBA procedure:

Sub SelectRange()
    Dim UserRange As Range
    Set UserRange = Application.InputBox( _
        prompt:="Please input or select a range", Type:=8)
    UserRange.Font.Bold = True
End Sub

It displays a dialog box that contains a text box in which the user can type the address of a range. The user can also highlight that range in the worksheet, and the text box will automatically display the address of the highlighted range. When the user clicks OK, the procedure assigns the range object to the variable UserRange. At that point, you can use that variable to modify the range the user selected. For instance, the last statement in the procedure assigns bold formatting to the selected range.

The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Many times, you may want to alphabetize data using two fields instead of one. For example, in a Rolodex-style database, you might want to sort by either company name or a contact's last name. If the CompanyName field is blank, then you want Access to use the contact's last name in its place. To accomplish this dual sort, you create an extra query field specifically to provide the custom sort, then use the NZ function to replace the contents of one field for null values in another.

To see how this works, in the Database Window, select the Queries tab, then click New. When Access displays the Add Table dialog box, choose the table you want to sort from the list, then click Add. After Access adds the table to the QBE, click Close. Next, drag down all the fields you want to display in your form, including the two separate fields you want to alphabetize. Now, insert a new column on the left side of the QBE grid. In the Field cell, enter the expression

NZ([CompanyName],[LastName])

Finally, select Ascending for this column's Sort option. When you run the query, if CompanyName is null, the NZ() function uses the contents in LastName instead.

ZD Tips

To quickly create a multi-field primary key, while in the table's Design View, press and hold the [Ctrl] key and click each field that you want to make up the primary key. As you select each field, Access highlights it. Next, choose Edit/Primary Key from the menu bar, or click the Primary Key button on the toolbar... and voila! Access creates the composite primary key in the blink of an eye.

ZD Journal

You may often want to remove the navigation buttons from an Access form but still display the current record number. To provide this feature, you can use VBA to place the form's CurrentRecord value in an unbound text box, and then update the value during the Current event. To utilize this property, add an unbound text box to your form in Design view. Then, in the form's Current event module, add the following code:

MyTextBox = Me.CurrentRecord

where MyTextBox is the name of the control that displays the record number. Now, when you navigate from record to record, the MyTextBox control will update automatically to reflect the current number.

ZD Tips

In addition to the photographic images that are installed automatically with Office 97, the Office 97 CD-ROM comes equipped with hundreds of additional free photographic images that you can use in your PowerPoint presentations and other Office documents. However, these images are saved in JPEG format (*.JPG), so you must have the appropriate filter installed on your system in order to use them. To access these images, insert the Office 97 CD-ROM into your CD-ROM drive and navigate to the Clipart\Photos folder for Office 97's collection of sample photographs. You can either insert these photographs into your Office document directly from the CD-ROM, or you can copy them to your hard drive for future use.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

If you're using Outlook 98 and you've customized the view by adding more columns, you can see the information in your view more clearly and without the columns being crowded if you add a horizontal scroll bar. For example, if you would like to add the scroll bar to the Last Seven Days view of your Inbox, select Inbox from the Outlook Bar. Next select View/Current View/Last Seven Days. Now, select View/ Current View/Customize Current View.... In the View Summary dialog box, click Other Settings... to display the Other Settings dialog box. In the top section, Column Headings, de-select the Automatic Column Sizing check box and click OK. Click OK in the View Summary dialog box. The current view will now have a horizontal scroll bar.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Do you wish you could create a dropdown list for a particular cell so you can select from it instead of typing in data? You can... and you don't need to create a macro to do it.

First, type the list of valid entries in a single column. (This list must be on the same sheet as the cell that will contain the dropdown list. If you need to, place the list in an unused column and hide the column later.) Select the cell or cells that will contain your dropdown list. Choose Data/Validation, and select the Settings tab. From the Allow dropdown list, select List. In the Source box, select or enter the range address of the list items in your sheet. Make sure the In-cell dropdown box is selected. Then click OK.

ZD Tips

Use Access 97's new Auto Quick Info to help you remember the proper syntax and functions arguments. Access 97 will automatically display the function with all its arguments. Simply type the function name followed by a space or open parenthesis.

The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

When using Microsoft Graph to produce charts in your presentations, there are several ways to modify the chart's data. To move, copy, insert, or delete data, you usually have to display the datasheet. However, if you're working with a 2-D chart, there's a quick way to change the numbers. Simply click the bar that you want to change the data number for twice. Do NOT double-click. After you click twice on the selected bar, a Series Point handle (shaded box) appears on the top center of the bar. Drag the handle up or down to change the number the bar marker represents. If you open the data sheet, you'll notice that PowerPoint resets the figure in the corresponding data column and row to reflect the size of the new bar marker. This technique also works for 2-D column and pie charts.

Inside Microsoft Office 97

When you start Outlook 98, the Outlook Today folder opens by default. However, if you find that you usually work in a folder other than Outlook Today, such as the Calendar or Contacts folder, you might consider changing Outlook's default folder to the folder that you use most often. To change the folder that opens when you start Outlook, first choose Options from the Tools menu. Click the Other tab in the Options dialog box, then click the Advanced Options button in the Other tab's General area. In the General Settings area of the Advanced Settings dialog box, select the folder of your choice from the Startup In This Folder dropdown list. Click OK once to close the Advanced Options dialog box and once more to close the Options dialog box. The next time Outlook starts, it will open the folder that you selected.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

You can quickly change the color scheme of several slides in your presentation without having to change it for all of them. To do so, switch to the Slide Sorter View and while holding the Shift key down click on each slide that you wish to modify. Next, choose Format/Slide Color Scheme from the main menu and make all of your changes. When you are satisfied with your new scheme, click Apply to effect the changes to selected slides only.

ZD Journal's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

You can change the default number of worksheets in a workbook in Excel. From the Tools menu select Options and then click the General tab. Use the sheets in New Workbook text box to specify the new default number of sheets. The number of sheets can range from 1 to 255.

The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Some users find Word's I-beam-shaped insertion point rather difficult to see. It's so slender that it can easily blend in with surrounding text, especially on laptop computers, which tend to have small screens and low resolution. Luckily, you can change the insertion point from its default I-beam shape to a "splat" symbol, which resembles a four-leaf clover. To do so, simply press [Ctrl][Alt][+] (using the numeric keypad). When you do, the insertion point changes to the easy-to-see "splat" symbol. To return to the default I-beam insertion point, press [Esc].

ZD Tips

When you've opened multiple documents or spreadsheets in Word or Excel and it comes time to close them all, do you select File/Close from the menu bar to close each file individually? Or do you simply exit the application to close all files, only to find that you need to start it again the next time you need to use it? To quickly close all open Word or Excel files simultaneously without closing the application, hold down the [Shift] key, then select File/Close All from the menu bar. When you hold down the [Shift] key, the Close All command replaces the Close command on the File menu.

ZD Journal

It's not uncommon to be working in more than one Microsoft Word 97 document or Microsoft Excel 97 spreadsheet at a time. And when you're through working with these, there's a way to close them all up at once, rather than wasting time closing each one individually. Here's how:

1) Hold down the SHIFT key and pull down the File menu.
2) Where the Close command normally appears, you'll see the Close All command.
3) Click Close All.
4) As usual, you will be prompted to save any changes to documents before they're closed.

Voila! Complete closure. For more info see:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/office/assistance/Ofclsall.asp

Microsoft Web Builder

Summary: This tip describes how to programmatically convert Word 97 documents to HTML files. (2 printed pages)

This tip describes how to programmatically convert Microsoft® Word 97 documents to HTML files. It's possible to come up with some quick-and-dirty code to do this by referring to the HTML member of the FileConverters collection, or by using the Save As HTML (File menu) command while recording a macro. However, both of these temporary solutions rely on settings that vary from machine to machine. You can't successfully port the code to a second machine without finding the values specific to the new environment and using these values to edit your code accordingly. To find a portable HTML conversion solution, you need code that loops through the FileConverters collection looking for the right converter. When the converter is found, use it as the value of the FileFormat argument of the SaveAs method, and exit the loop. The following procedure does just that.

Sub HTMLSave()
' This procedure steps through the FileConverters collection
' looking for the HTML converter, and then converts the current file.

    Dim wrdConverter As FileConverter
    Dim strMessage As String
    Dim strPath As String

    'Get a name and location for the converted file.
    strMessage = "Enter a path and file name for the converted file."
    strPath = InputBox(strMessage)

    For Each wrdConverter In Word.FileConverters
        'If found, Save As, then exit the loop.
        If wrdConverter.ClassName = "HTML" Then
            ActiveDocument.SaveAs _
                FileName:=strPath, _
                FileFormat:=wrdConverter.SaveFormat
            Exit For
        End If
    Next wrdConverter
End Sub

Understand that there are limitations to any automated conversion. Note that if you use this solution:

- Tables, fonts, and paragraph formatting are converted faithfully.

- Graphic files are exported appropriately to the new HTML doc.

- AutoShapes and WordArt are not converted.

- Tabs are either ignored or converted to spaces (with no way to predict which will happen).

John Clarkson

Certain Office 97 menu commands and toolbar buttons contain submenus in the form of dropdown lists or palettes, which you can turn into floating toolbars for easy access. At the top of each submenu, you'll see a thick border; if you position the pointer directly over this border, it changes color, and the ToolTip "Drag To Make This Menu Float" appears. Drag the submenu to any location within the application window. When you do, the submenu or dropdown list becomes a floating toolbar, which you can position and customize as you would an ordinary toolbar.

ZD Tips

For those who deal with highly confidential information, privacy can become a major concern. You can save your work from prying eyes by creating a shortcut key that will activate your screensaver immediately. To do so you must first create a shortcut to your current screensaver on your desktop. Right-click on your desktop and select New/Shortcut. Next, click on the Browse button and under the Files of type list select All Files. Locate the .SCR file in the WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder that corresponds to your current screen saver and click Open. Finally, click on the Next button, accept the default name for the shortcut, and click Finish. In order to create a keyboard shortcut, right-click the screen saver icon on your desktop, select Properties and click the Shortcut tab. Place your cursor in the Shortcut key text box and type the letter that you would like associated with this shortcut. Windows 95 will automatically place a [Ctrl] + [Alt] in front of the letter. Finally, select the Apply button and then the OK button. You may now immediately activate your screen saver at any time by using the keyboard shortcut or by double clicking on the shortcut on your desktop.

ZD Journal's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Microsoft Excel 97

As you probably know, you can use Excel's fill handle to create a handful of series, such as the days of the week or the months of the year. However, you can also add custom series, such as clothing sizes (Small, Medium, Large, X-Large) or expense categories (Sales and Marketing, Research and Development, General and Administrative, Nonrecurring Items).

To create a custom series, simply select Tools\Options, and click the Custom Lists tab. Next, in the Custom Lists box, select the New List option. Then, in the List Entries list box, type each item in the series in the order you want it to appear. Press [Enter] after each item. When the list is done, click Add, and then click OK.

If the series you want to create already exists in a range of a worksheet, you can save time by importing the series. To do this, select the range containing the entries. Select Tools\Options to open the Options dialog box and click the Custom Lists tab. Click the Import button. Excel will copy the items from the selected range into the list box. To complete the series, click the Add button, then click OK. Thereafter, you can use the fill handle to enter the custom series by entering the first item in the list into a cell and then using the fill handle to create the rest of the series.

ZD Tips

You can easily create flowcharts or other connected object schemes using PowerPoint's Connectors feature. PowerPoint's Connectors feature enables you to connect AutoShapes, text boxes, WordArt, clip art--even OLE objects. To do so, first insert, modify, and position at least two drawing or OLE objects as you want them to appear on your slide. Next, display the Drawing toolbar (if it isn't displayed already) by right-clicking on any open toolbar and selecting Drawing from the resulting shortcut menu. To connect two objects, choose AutoShapes/Connectors from the Drawing toolbar. Select the connector tool you'd like to use, then position the pointer over one of the objects you'd like to connect. When you do, the pointer changes to a connector icon, and the object's connector handles are displayed in blue. Place the pointer over the connector handle you'd like to connect from, then click the mouse button once. Now, place the pointer over the connector handle of the object you'd like to connect to, then click the mouse button again. When you do, PowerPoint inserts a connector line between the objects' connector handles. If you decide that you'd like to rearrange the location of the connected objects, simply drag them to the desired location--the connectors stay in place and adjust their path accordingly.

ZD Tips

Excel 97's HYPERLINK() function allows you to create hyperlinks you can use to navigate around your workbooks. For instance, the function

=HYPERLINK("[C:FinanceBudget.xls]Sheet1!E9","Jan Actuals")

returns a hyperlink that displays the underlined text Jan Actuals in blue. When you click the hyperlink, Excel opens the workbook Budget.xls stored in the C:Finance directory and activates cell E9 in Sheet1.

As with most functions, HYPERLINK() accepts cell references as its arguments. For instance, you could create the above hyperlink by entering the strings

[C:FinanceBudget.xls]Sheet1!E9

and

Jan Actuals

in cells A9 and A10, respectively, and entering the function

=HYPERLINK(A9,A10)

in any other cell. Using cell references is helpful when you frequently need to change a hyperlink's path.

You can even navigate to workbooks on the Web. For instance, you could use this sample function

=HYPERLINK("[http://www.zdjournals.com/forecast/Rates.xls","Get interest rates")

to open a workbook named Rates.xls that's located in the Forecast directory at the fictitious Internet site www.zdjournals.com.

ZD Tips

Do you frequently launch applications by double-clicking shortcuts stored on your desktop? If you want to launch one of your desktop shortcuts while you have a number of open windows, you're faced with the meticulous task of minimizing them all in order to access the the desktop shortcut's icon. However, you can quickly launch desktop shortcuts without accessing the desktop by assigning them shortcut keystrokes. To do so, right-click the desktop shortcut icon to which you want to create a shortcut keystroke. Select Properties from the resulting shortcut menu, then click the Shortcut tab. Click in the Shortcut Key text box and type any letter. When you do, Windows automatically combines the [Ctrl][Alt] keystroke with the letter you typed. For example, if you type N in the Shortcut Key text box, Windows automatically assigns the shortcut key [Ctrl][Alt][N] to the desktop shortcut. When you've finished, click OK to close the desktop shortcut's property sheet. Now, whenever you want to launch the desktop shortcut, just press the shortcut key [Ctrl][Alt][letter] and it launches automatically. This technique isn't limited to desktop shortcuts--you can assign shortcut keys to any shortcut file on your system.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

You can customize the Outlook Today view in Outlook 98 to suit your individual preferences.There are three standard customizations that are available to you:

Startup option--select the checkbox for When Starting, Go Directly to Outlook Today if you would like to have Outlook Today to be the displayed view when Outlook 98 is opened.

Calendar option--use the drop down list or type in a number between 1 and 7 in the Show (input number) Days In My Calendar to have your calendar items for a specified number of days displayed.

Tasks option--select which tasks you want Outlook Today to display. There are two options for In My Task List, Show Me: feature. You can select the option button for either the Simple List or Today's Tasks. Simple List will list all of tasks and Today's Tasks will list any tasks that are due today, overdue or have no due date.

ZD Journal's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

When preparing a presentation, you can modify each individual bullet level of body text while in Slide Master View. Modifying the bullets allows you to add a little flare to your layout with minimal effort. To change the default bullet style for every slide in the presentation, click once on the Object area. Click a second time on the bullet level you want to change. Next, choose Format/Bullet... from the main menu bar to access the Bullet dialog box. Now, choose a font type from the Bullets from dropdown list. The fonts Monotype Sorts and Wingdings offer a variety of bullets you may find appropriate. Next, select a bullet from the symbol grid, choose a color, adjust the bullet size, and click OK to apply the new changes. You can then assign a different bullet for each level by repeating the above steps for each text level.

ZD Journal's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

If you enter a column of numbers in a table--and they consist of varying numbers of digits--you may want to set a decimal tab to align them. This is a very simple procedure, but it doesn't work quite like setting decimal tabs outside a table.

To decimal-align a column of numbers, start by highlighting the column. Then, click the tab icon at the end of the ruler until it changes to a decimal tab icon. Now, click on the ruler where you want the decimals to align. (If the numbers don't include a decimal point, just imagine that one exists to the right of the last digit--thats where you want to align the numbers.)

As soon as you click on the ruler to set the decimal tab, Word will align the numbers in the selected column. You don't have to insert a tab character (-) in front of each number to push it into alignment as you do outside a table. In fact, if you do enter a tab character before a number, it will throw off the alignment.

The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Hyperlinks attached to values in an Excel 97 worksheet can be useful, but if you need to delete a link later on, without tampering with the value of the cell, here's how to go about it:

1) Select the cell containing the link by selecting an adjacent cell and using the arrow keys to select the desired cell.
2) On the Edit menu, click Copy, and then on the Edit menu, click Paste Special.
3) In the Paste Special dialog box, under Paste, click Values, and then click OK.
4) Press the Enter key.

Follow these steps and the link will no longer be functional. To learn how to remove the hyperlink formatting in the cell, and for an advanced tip on creating a macro shortcut for deleting hyperlinks, visit the Web address:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/info/excel/hyperlink/

The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

PowerPoint checks your spelling as you type and indicates when you've misspelled a word. If you find this distracting and you'd rather check all your spelling after the presentation is complete, you can turn this feature off. To turn off the automatic spelling checker, Choose Tool/Options from the main menu to open the Options dialog box. Select the Spelling tab. Next deselect the Spelling option located in the Check Spelling As You Type section. Then, click OK to save your changes and exit the Options dialog box.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Are you the kind of person who likes to check their daily calendar before reading email? If so, you'd probably prefer Outlook to open the Calendar instead of the Inbox when you start Outlook.

To change the default, choose Tools/Options. Click on the Other tab and click Advanced Options. Under General Settings area, click on the Start Up In This Folder dropdown list and select Calendar. Click OK twice. The next time you restart Outlook, the Calendar will open by default instead of the Inbox.

Using these same steps, you can also change the default so Outlook opens the Contacts, Tasks, Journal, or Notes folders.

ZD Tips

Use the Drop Cap option in Word to create large capital letters for the first letter in a paragraph (Think back to children's fairy tales where almost every one began with "O" on "Once upon a time" dropping ornately into the text below). In business, you can make a powerful statement with a bold capital letter capturing the readers attention. From the Format menu, click on Drop Cap. You will have the option of choosing any font available and also if the capital letter is to be hanging into the text or in the margin.

The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Tabbing through a form can make data entry easy--until you have to reach for the mouse to click on a combo box. You can easily make a combo box drop down automatically, however, whenever it gets focus. To do so, add this code to the combo box's GotFocus event:

Private Sub cboCombo_GotFocus()
    Me![cboCombo].Dropdown
End Sub

where combo is the name of the combo box.

When the combo box drops down, you can use the arrow keys to move through the list and press [Enter] to choose the selected item in the list.

ZD Tips

If you've ever tried to edit a range reference in a formula, you know that Excel 97 color-codes the reference and puts an outline that corresponds with the color in the formula around the cells in the range. The easy way to modify this range is to begin by selecting the cell with the formula and pressing [F2]. Now, locate the color-highlighted border that is around the cells in the range. While holding the mouse button down, drag the fill handle until you've enclosed the new range and press [Enter]. Excel will now change the cell reference in the formula to the new range that you specified when you moved the color-coded border.

ZD Journal's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

"Easter eggs" -- that can be accessed only with a specific keystroke combo. Here are a couple of my favorite Office 97 Easter eggs, discovered by ComputerLife:

Word's Hidden Game
1. Open a new document
2. Type Blue
3. Select Word
4. Go to Format, then Font
5. Choose Font Style: Bold, Color: Blue
6. Type a space after the word "Blue"
7. Go to Help, then About Microsoft Word
8. Ctrl-Shift-left-click on the Word icon
9. Use Z for left flipper, M for right flipper, and Escape to exit
10. Move over Pinball Wizard!

Excel's Dizzy Flight
1. Open a new workbook
2. Press F5
3. Type X97:L97, then press Enter
4. Press the Tab key
5. Hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys
6. Click on the Chart Wizard
7. Better take your Dramamine.

The Cobb Group

When you click the Magnifier button on the Standard toolbar, you'll see your document as it will actually print. This is a great function in Word because you have the opportunity to look at your document layout to make sure everything is positioned correctly. But, what if you find something that isn't right? Well, you don't have to leave Print Preview to fix it. Simply click the Magnifier tool on the Print Preview toolbar to toggle to the editing mode. Then, make your document edits just as you would in a normal Word view. You can enter and format text, size tables, move objects, resize graphics, adjust drawings, and so on. The great advantage to making edits in Print Preview is that you see the print results immediately. When you're done, you can either print the document or switch back to a normal view.

To edit text in print preview:

1. In print preview, display the page you want to edit.
2. Click the text in the area you want to edit. Word zooms in on the area.
3. Click Magnifier. When the pointer changes from a magnifying glass to an I-beam, make your changes to the document.
4. To return to the original magnification, click Magnifier, and then click the document.

ZD Journal's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

If you've set up data validation rules in Excel, you may find that you want to apply the same validation criteria to another range, or even another workbook. Fortunately, this is very easy to do without recreating all the rules. First, select a range containing the cells that already have validation rules. Press [Ctrl]C to copy the range. Then, right-click the first cell in the range you want to apply the rules to. From the shortcut menu, select Paste Special. When the Paste Special dialog box appears, select the Validation option and then click OK.

ZD Journal

Microsoft Access

It's easy to offer your users a list of combo box items that updates itself automatically. For instance, suppose you want to fill a combo box with a list of all the reports in the active database and you want Access to update the list if you add reports to or delete reports from the database. To do so, you'd use the following code: (Our combo box name is cboReport.)

Private sub cboReport_GotFocus()
Dim db AS Database, cnt As Container, doc As Document
Dim strTemp As String, strList As String

  Set db = CurrentDB
  Set cnt = db.Containers!Reports

  For Each doc in cnt.Documents
    strTemp = doc.Name
    strList = strList & strTemp & ";"
  Next doc

  Me!cboReport.RowSource = strList

  Set db = Nothing
  Set cnt = Nothing
  Set doc = Nothing
End Sub

In addition, be sure to set the combo box's Row Source Type property to Value List.

If you want to fill the control with a list of forms instead of reports, replace the Set cnt = db.Containers!Reports statement with the statement

Set cnt = db.Containers!Forms

ZD Tips

In a table's Datasheet view, you can filter multiple selections in either of two ways. In the first method, you select one of the fields you want to filter by and click the Filter By Selection button on the toolbar. Access filters the records by that selection. Next, select the second field you want to filter by and click the button again. Access filters the records even further by this second selection. Continue to follow these steps until you've filtered by the desired number of selections.

For the second option, you use the Advanced Filter/Sort feature. To do so, select Records/Filter/Advanced Filter/Sort from the menu bar. Access displays a grid similar to the Query By Example grid. Now, drag down all the fields you want to filter by from the field list. Then, in the Criteria cells enter the values you want to filter for. When you've finished, click the Apply Filter button to see the results.

Inside Microsoft Office 97

In databases that track billing and payment transactions, you'll often want to display the number of days an invoice or other item is outstanding. To generate this value in its basic form, subtract the invoice's creation date from the current date. So, on a form or report, you could enter the following expression in a textbox's Control Source:

=DateDiff("y",[DateCreated],Date())

This expression subtracts the current date from the invoice's creation date and returns the result as the number of elapsed days. By itself, however, this expression continues to generate the days-outstanding value even when the invoice is paid or completed. To prevent this, use the modification

=Nz(DateDiff("y",[DateCreated],[DatePaidInFull]),DateDiff("y",[DateCreated],Date()))

This expression first subtracts the date in [DatePaidInFull] from [DateCreated]. If [DatePaidInFull] is null, however, then this expression also returns a null value. As a result, Access evaluates the second expression in the Nz() function and subtracts the current date from the invoice's creation date as we explained earlier.

ZD Tips

One of the most important things you can do to improve your database's performance and integrity is to regularly repair and compact it. Compacting a database reorganizes the file and lets you regain space from deleted records. The Repair option lets you fix a corrupted database, which occurs in most cases when Access closes unexpectedly before saving the database. Sometimes a database can also become corrupted without Access being aware of it. If your database behaves in strange ways, it may need to be repaired. When you repair a database, you should also compact it afterwards.

To repair the current database, select Database Utilities/Repair Database from the Tools menu. Access assumes that you want the current open database repaired and conducts the repair procedure on it. When it's finished it returns you to the Database window. Similarly, if you select the compact option while your database is open, Access compacts that database only.

To repair another file, close all databases and select the appropriate command from the Database Utilities options. Access displays the list of databases in the Repair Database dialog box. Double-click the appropriate file to start the repair process.

When you want to compact another database, or create a backup copy of the current one, close all databases, then select Compact Database from the Database Utilities menu. Choose the database that you want to compact. Then, in the Compact Database Into dialog box, select an existing database or type a new name to compact into.

ZD Journal's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

If you use many range names in your Excel spreadsheets, it can become difficult remembering exactly how each name is spelled. To avoid brain strain when you need to enter a name reference in a function or formula, you can use the Paste Name dialog box, which displays a list of all the names in the active workbook and inserts the selected name in your function or formula.

For instance, suppose you want to sum all the values in the range named JanQ4. Begin by typing =SUM(, then press [F3] to display the Paste Name dialog box. Choose JanQ4 from the list of names, click OK, and Excel will insert that name in the function. To complete the SUM() function, type a closing parenthesis and press [Enter].

The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

When you're editing a presentation in Slide view, PowerPoint offers various ways to display a particular slide. For instance, you can move forward or backward one slide at a time by clicking the Previous Slide and Next Slide buttons on the scroll bar. You can also drag the scroll bar up or down to navigate to the desired spot. But sometimes you need to jump straight to the beginning or to the end. If that's the case, press [Ctrl][Home] to jump to the first slide or [Ctrl][End] to jump to the last slide.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

PowerPoint 97

If you work in Outline view, your hands are probably on the keyboard more than on the mouse. Here are a few keyboard shortcuts you can use in Outline view to avoid using your mouse. You can use the shortcuts to promote and demote paragraphs and to move selected paragraphs up and down in Slide view too.

Promote a paragraph             Press [Alt] [Shift] and [Left arrow]

Demote a paragraph              Press [Alt] [Shift] and [Right arrow]

Select text                     Hold [Shift] and press an arrow key

Select text from the
insertion point to the
end of the line                 Hold [Shift] and press [End]

Select all the text
in the outline                  Press [Ctrl] A

Move selected paragraphs up     Press [Alt] [Shift] and [Up arrow]

Move selected paragraphs down   Press [Alt] [Shift] and [Down arrow]

Show heading level 1            Press [Alt] [Shift] and 1

Expand text below a heading     Press [Alt] [Shift] and the Plus key [+]

Collapse text below a heading   Press [Alt] [Shift] and the Minus key [-]

Show all text or headings       Press [Alt] [Shift] A

ZD Tips

On your bad mousing days, do you have trouble clicking on the Maximize button? A quick way to maximize an application window is to double-click on the title bar. (Don't double-click on the buttons, though.)

If the window is maximized and you double-click on the title bar, the window will be restored to its last size. This gives you the same result as using the Restore button in the title bar.

Kerry Gregory

A quick way to format a range as currency is to use the Currency Tool (the Currency Style button in Excel 95) which is located on the Formatting toolbar. When you click this tool, Excel assigns the selected cell the Accounting format. This format differs from Excel's Currency formats in that it lines up the currency symbols and the decimal points in a column. The alignment makes it much easier to analyze a column of values. However, when you want to format only one or a few cells as currency, the Accounting format isn't appropriate since it displays dollar signs all the way to the left of the cell. The wider the column, the more space there will be between the dollar sign and the value. A better choice might be one of the Currency formats.

Fortunately, you can modify the format the Currency Tool assigns to selected cells. To do this, first pull down the Format menu and choose the Style... option. Select the Currency option in the Style Name dropdown list, then click the Modify... button. Excel will display the familiar Format Cells dialog box. Click the Number tab (if necessary), select Currency in the Category box, and choose the desired number of decimal places and the format you want for displaying negative values. Click OK twice to return to the worksheet. Now when you click the Currency Tool, it will assign the new format to selected cells.

The Cobb Group

Are you always looking for ways to save time and increase your productivity? The Microsoft developers of Windows 95 have included tips and tricks to send you on your way. One way to access these timesaving techniques is through Help. Simply click Start/Help/Index and type in the text box. The index will drill down to a list of several types of productivity tips. You can also access some Windows 95 tips that Microsoft has contributed by clicking Start/Run and typing c:\windows\tips.txt in the Open text box.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

When you create complicated formulas, it's important to know the order in which Access will evaluate the operators. For example,

1 + 2 * 3

does not equal

(1 + 2) * 3

because multiplication operators are calculated before addition operators. By putting the parentheses around 1+2, however, we can force Access to add these two numbers first. The order Access calculates multiple operators in the same formula is as follows:

1. Exponential (10^3)

2. Division and Multiplication (left to right)

3. Addition and Subtraction (left to right)

To override this order, you can place operations inside parentheses as we did above. Access calculates these operations first.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Are you or is someone you know still using Outlook 97? The newest version of Outlook, Outlook 98, is available as a free upgrade to registered users of Outlook 97, Office 97, and Exchange Server. Outlook 98 offers a number of enhancements to Outlook 97, including a more intuitive interface, faster performance, integration of Outlook and Outlook Express, and an upgrade to Internet Explorer 4.0. To download Outlook 98, simply point your browser to:

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadDetails/outlook98detail.htm

On the other hand, if you're already a veteran user of Outlook 98, check out the Microsoft Office Update site's Outlook 98 Component Install page at:

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/outlook/addcomp/addcom.htm

This is an interactive Web site that offers the latest in Outlook 98 component updates and add-ins. When you navigate to the Web site, Outlook 98 Active Setup asks whether it's OK to determine what internet components are installed on your computer. Click Yes to continue. When you do, Active Setup determines which components are installed on your system and indicates such in the Web page's Status column. You can download as many components at a time as you like from the Outlook Component Install site; simply select the check box of each component you wish to download, then click Next. You'll then be asked to select a download site. Simply select the site that's nearest you and click Install Now to begin the download.

ZD Journal

When you think of a spreadsheet, the visual elements that are most likely to come to mind are columns, rows, cells, and gridlines. Columns, rows, and cells are the spatial elements in which you store and organize information, and gridlines are the boundaries that separate these elements from one another, making the information easy to read. Oddly enough, Excel is configured by default to not print gridlines automatically. To print the gridlines in Excel, select File/Page Setup from the menu bar. In the Page Setup dialog box, click the Sheet tab. Now, in the Print area, click the Gridlines check box to select it. Now, when you print your worksheet, the gridlines will appear.

Inside Microsoft Office 97

If you frequently use objects on your slides, you may find that it's hard to manually align or distribute the objects perfectly by dragging them around the slide. If you need to align objects, use the Align command. While holding down the [Shift] key, select the multiple objects you wish to align. Then, from the Drawing toolbar, choose Draw/Align or Distribute, and then choose the desired alignment option from the cascading menu. You can also distribute objects horizontally or vertically.

ZD Tips

Excel 97 now makes it possible for you to display a data table in a chart. Begin by accessing an existing chart or creating a chart using the Chart Wizard. After the chart is created, click on the chart and select the Chart menu from the main menu. Now, click the Chart Options?command. When the Chart Options dialog box appears, click the Data Table tab. Finally, click the Show Data Table checkbox and click OK. Now, the data table will appear below the chart.

ZD Journal's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

To quickly open a Journal entry window for a contact, drag the contact name to the Journal icon in the Outlook bar. The Journal entry will open with the contact's name already inserted. Now you can add notes, or time a phone call. This entry will automatically be placed in the Journal.

ZD Tips

Tired of Clipit, the paperclip guy (but still value having the Office Assistant)? Send him on a long vacation and replace him with any other number of optional characters. From the Main Menu, click Help and then Options. Click the Gallery tab. Using the Next button, page through your options until you find a new assistant.

The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

For one reason or another, you may find that you need to return to the first slide in your presentation while it's running in Slide Show view. To do so, you can right-click during the slide show, select Go/By Title from the resulting shortcut menu, and choose the first slide from the resulting submenu. Or, you can press [Esc] to end the slide show and return to PowerPoint, and then select Slide Show/View Show from the menu bar to restart the slide show.

However, if you're in the middle of presenting your slide show to a live audience, they'll probably find both these methods to be quite an interruption, and an eyesore to boot. Luckily, PowerPoint offers a quick, unobtrusive way to return to the first slide in your presentation during a slide show. While your slide show is displayed in Slide Show view, simply press and hold both the right and left mouse buttons for about two seconds. When you do, PowerPoint displays the first slide in your presentation.

ZD Tips

Have you ever scrolled through a large Word document and then wished you could just jump back to the last place you edited or typed in the document? Well, you can with this little known shortcut.

In Word, press [Shift]F5 to return to the last place you edited the document. When you press [Shift]F5 repeatedly, Word jumps to the last three places you have typed or edited in the document. If you are working on several open documents in Word, pressing [Shift]F5 will cycle between documents, if the last place you edited or typed was in another Word document.

Interestingly enough, Word remembers the last place you edited even after you save and close the document. This is useful when you need to reopen a document and start to work where you left off. Suppose you are working on a document on Friday and you save and close it. On Monday, open the document and press [Shift]F5 to return to the last place you edited that document.

ZD Tips

By default, Outlook's Journal creates entries whenever you send an E-mail message or create a task request, task response, meeting request, meeting cancellation, or meeting response. It also records entries when you use other Office applications. Before long, your Personal Folders file folder becomes very large. To modify the kinds of entries that the Journal makes, select Tools/Options and then choose the Preferences tab. In the Journal section, select the Journal Options button. Outlook 98 displays the Journal Options dialog box, where you can choose the types of Journal entries you want Outlook to automatically make.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Maybe you've noticed that the box that displays the name of the current view in the toolbar isn't always wide enough to display the whole name of some views. You can widen the box by using these steps:

1. Right-click on a blank space in a toolbar and select Customize. This displays the Customize Toolbars dialog box.

2. Click on the Current View combo box to select it. When it's selected you'll see a black outline on the box.

3. Point to the left or right border of the black box. The mouse changes to a vertical bar with horizontal arrows when you can resize the box.

4. Drag the box border to the width that you want the box to be.

5. Close the Customize dialog box.

Dave W.

This tip was submitted by subscriber Andy Biolchino:

I liked the tip you presented on 11/24/98, regarding creating a printer icon on the desktop for drag-and-drop printing. I've found it even more convenient to take it a step further by adding the printer to the Send To menu. Here's how to do it:

Once you've created a printer shortcut on your desktop, start Windows Explorer. Locate the printer shortcut in the Windows\Desktop folder and drag it to the Windows\SendTo folder. Now, when you want to quickly print a document without manually opening its application, you can simply right-click the file, choose Send To from the resulting shortcut menu, and select your printer. This is especially useful for printing directly from Windows Explorer when the Explorer window covers your desktop and you can't see the desktop printer icon.

Inside Microsoft Office 97

A quick way to send E-mail to a contact is to drag the contact's name from the Contacts list onto the Inbox icon in the Outlook bar. Outlook will open a new mail message form with the To field already containing the contact's E-mail address. You can use this technique to send a message to multiple recipients as well. Just select the desired contact names--you can select multiple non-adjacent names by holding down the [Ctrl] key as you click on the names--and drag the selection onto the Inbox icon.

The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Access doesn't have a text indent or margin property for its text box controls. However, you can create the appearance of a text box margin on your reports by drawing a box around the control instead of displaying field borders. To do so, first set the control's BorderStyle property to Transparent. Next, set up Access to draw a box when the report is printed. The sample code below draws a box with a 60 Twip margin around a control called TestMemo:

Private Sub Detail_Print(Cancel As Integer, PrintCount As Integer)
Dim intMargin As Integer

  intMargin = 60

  With Me.TestMemo
    Me.Line ((.Left - intMargin), (.Top - intMargin))-Step((.Width + _
      (intMargin * 2)), (.Height + (intMargin * 2))), 0, B
  End With
End Sub

Access is able to accommodate controls that have their CanGrow property set to True because we're generating the box in the Detail Print event. At this point, Access will have already calculated the final height of the control.

ZD Tips

There are often times when it's helpful to view non-adjacent code in a module. However, continually scrolling through your code can be a real headache. Fortunately, you can easily split the module window into two scrollable panes. Simply drag the split box (the small rectangle that's directly above the vertical scroll bar) to where you want the split made. To remove the split, just double-click on the split line.

ZD Tips

The Name box is the text box to the left of the Formula bar. You can use it to assign names to ranges quickly. For instance, suppose you want to define a selected range as TotalSales. Simply click in the Name box, type TotalSales, and press [Enter]. That's much easier than using the Name option on the Insert menu.

The Name box is also useful for navigating to or selecting remote ranges. Click the arrow button on the right side of the Name box to display a list of defined names. Just click the one you want to select, and Excel will take you to that cell or range. Another way to navigate to or select a cell or range is to type its literal address in the Name box and press [Enter]. For instance, to go to cell Z200 on sheet8, you'd type sheet8!Z200 in the Name box and press [Enter].

ZD Tips

If you frequently experience problems when you open or close an Office application or document, then Outlook's automatic journal entries may be to blame. By default, Outlook is configured to automatically record all Office files as journal entries. This behind-the-scenes process can cause delays when you open or close an Office application or document. Microsoft has corrected the problem with the Microsoft Office Service Release 1 (SR-1) patch. To learn more about the SR-1 patch, point your browser to

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q172/4/75.asp. However,

To turn off Outlook's automatic journal entry feature for Office applications, open Outlook and select Tools/Options from the menu bar. Click the Journal Options button on the Preferences property sheet, then clear all the check boxes in the Also Record Files From list box. When you've finished, click OK twice. This prevents Outlook from taking the time to create a journal entry every time you open or close an Office application or document.

Inside Microsoft Office 97

When you create a macro in Access 97, you'll notice that the DoMenuItem action is missing from the list of Actions. That's because it's been replaced with the RunCommand option. Previously, when you used DoMenuItem, you needed to know on which menu bar or command bar the specific command was located. Now, however, with the RunCommand action, you simply enter a single command name directly into the Action Argument field without having to search through several different lists.

In Visual Basic for Applications, you can still use the DoMenuItem method, but there's a limited number of built-in constants that represent the various commands. If a constant doesn't exist for the command you want, you must use a number in place of the constant. To get this number, you must find the command in the macro's Command Action Arguments dropdown list and count its position in the list. With the RunCommand method, you can avoid this annoying process. Just like in macros, the RunCommand method takes one argument--the command constant you want to execute--like so

RunCommand comname

where comname is the constant associated with the specific command.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Copying text boxes in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint is a snap when you combine the [Ctrl] key with the drag-and-drop technique. Simply click on the text box you want to copy to select it. Then, press and hold the [Ctrl] key while using the mouse to drag the text box by its border to the desired location. If you'd like to place the new text box directly above or beside the original, press and hold [Ctrl][Shift] while you drag. When you release the mouse button, Office duplicates the text box just as if you'd used the Copy and the Paste commands. However, BE CAREFUL: When you use this technique, be sure you don't drag the text box by one of its corner handles. If you do, Office resizes the text box rather than copying it.

ZD Journals' Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

Have you ever needed to relocate several scattered portions of text in a document? If so, you may have been thwarted by the single-item storage capacity of the Clipboard. When you click the Cut button to place the first selection on the Clipboard, then cut a second selection of text, Word will jettison the first selection. Of course, you can move the text one piece at a time, but that's not terribly efficient. Here's a more reasonable alternative: Use the Spike to move all the text at the same time.

To do this, select each portion of text you want to move and press [Ctrl][F3] to place it on the Spike. Then, position the insertion point marker in the new spot and press [Shift][Ctrl][F3]. Word will clear the contents of the Spike and insert your text selections in the order in which you spiked them.

The Cobb Group's Inside Microsoft Office 97 journal

If there are specific portions of a file that you use repeatedly in a number of different applications or other files, such as a portion of a spreadsheet, a company logo, a signature, or a boilerplate paragraph, you can save them as scraps on your Desktop for quick access. To do so, open the file you'd like to create a scrap from. Select the item you'd like to copy as a scrap, and then drag it to the Desktop. As an alternative, you can copy the item and then paste it on the Desktop. When you do, a scrap file is created, which you can now drag or copy to other documents or applications. Please not that you can use this feature only if your program supports drag-and-drop functions for OLE (Object Linking and Embedding).

Colleen Jones

As you may know, when you press the [Tab] key in a Word table, Word moves the insertion point to the next table cell rather than inserting a tab space as you might expect. To insert a tab space in a Word table cell, place the insertion point where you'd like the tab space to appear and press [Ctrl][Tab].

Valeria Hooper