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Last month’s poll asked our readers…’Which TWO Microsoft Office Applications do you use the most?’  The diagram to the right (click to enlarge) shows how our readers voted.  As you can see Microsoft Office Word, Excel and Outlook were the three applications to receive the most votes, which to us isn’t surprising as the applications are commonly used worldwide due to the overall quality, simplicity and flexibilty of the software.

PowerPoint and Publisher again are commonly used pieces of software but it is rare that the ‘typical’ home user requires them for their general computer usage.  Whereas Access is a far more specialist application for those who need to create/manage a database system.

Office 2010 is set to be released in June (2010).  Many companies are doing a deal whereby you purchase Office 2007 and can download 2010 for free when it comes out so have a look around on the internet for such deals! For example…Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student from Amazon (PC)

A couple of months ago we received our copy of Office 2010, so it must be about time we start blogging about it!  Sparklines is a new Excel feature which we’ve been impressed with. Basically they’re miniature charts that fit into a single Excel cell to allow the user to view individual trends at a glance.  A feature such as this is ideal when managing money, e.g. to assess how expenditure for different items has varied over a year.

Here’s how to create Sparklines:

1. Click on the ‘Insert’ tab and locate the ‘Sparklines’ box
   
2. Next you must select the type of Sparkline you wish to use by clicking on either Line, Column or Win/Loss
3. Finally in the ‘Create Sparklines Box’ you need to select your data range and location range
   

A neat feature I’m sure you’ll all agree

So our first post on Windows 7 RC was relativly short, this one comes after a bit of use and testing and we stand by the previous title “Windows 7 RC is BRILLIANT”  we are very impressed.

If you don’t want to read on then you can take these three things away from our findings

• Speed
• Stable
• Compatible

For those with the time to read on we will explain what we are meaning by these three findings.

Speed

We have Windows 7 running on a pretty average system, Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB Memory, 160GB Hard Drive. Nothing hugely special by today’s standards but we have found it to run very nicely.

The sort of use it has got is in the list below and at no point have we found it to be slow, non-responsive or sluggish. Obviously it is a new install and this helps but still we are impressed! So it has been used for the following over the last few weeks

• Website design
• Internet / Email
• General Office work
• FTP
• Remote Support

Stable

No crashes or hanging to date! What more can we say…?

Compatability

Software / Hardware we have successfully working on the Windows 7 system is as follows:

• Dell Optiplex 360 – ok, this is actually the hardware it is running on, but still useful to know!
• T-Mobile Mobile Broadband Adaptor – this didn’t work on the Beta so we are very impressed it works now!
• Macromedia Dreamweaver MX
• Microsoft Office 2007
• Hamachi VPN
• Filezilla
• Firefox
• Crossloop
• AVG 8.5 Internet Security
• Windows Home Server Connector Software

We still have got a bit more testing before we would be happy to adopt it as a operating system for a production office machine, but I am very tempted! Roll on Final Release…

Google have recently brought out a new tool in which you can sync the items on your Microsoft Office Outlook Calendar with your Google Mail Calendar.  It is a great application which is ideal for anyone who is always on the go!  You can schedule the application to sync the calendars as often as you want.  This means that any changes you make in your Outlook Calendar will be synced to your Google Mail Calendar!  Check out the images below to compare the calendars (click on the image to make it larger)…

It is pretty easy to set up.  There is a great tutorial on the Google Website which is worth ready whilst setting up the program!  For those who knew it the application is very similar to the SBS 2003 Server Setup.

So far we’ve been really impressed!

Brandstar have recently released a brand new Software page!  The software page attempts to tackle the problem of not knowing which software is worth buying and downloading.  After all, there are so many options to choose from!  It covers a variety of both free and commercial products in the genres of Computer Security, Media, Office Applications and System Tools.

It’s worth checking out!

This week it week three of the Quick Tip Shortcut Series.  The topic for this week is Microsoft Word Shortcut Keys.  We think that it is worthwhile remembering a few of these shortcuts because they are bound to come in useful!  Please Note: Some shortcuts may not work in Word 2007.

Microsoft Word Shortcut Keys:

Ctrl + A – Select all contents of the page
Ctrl + B – Bold highlighted selection
Ctrl + C – Copy selected text
Ctrl + X – Cut selected text
Ctrl + N – Open new/blank document.
Ctrl + O – Open options
Ctrl + P – Open the print window
Ctrl + F – Open find box
Ctrl + I – Italicize highlighted selection
Ctrl + K – Insert Link
Ctrl + U – Underline highlighted selection
Ctrl + V – Paste
Ctrl + Y – Redo the last action performed
Ctrl + Z – Undo last action
Ctrl + J – Justify paragraph alignment
Ctrl + L – Align selected text to the left
Ctrl + Q – Align selected paragraph to the left
Ctrl + E – Align selected text or line to the center
Ctrl + R – Align selected text or line to the right
Ctrl + M – Indent paragraph
Ctrl + T – Hanging indent
Ctrl + D – Font options
Ctrl + Shift + F – Change Font
Ctrl + Shift + * – View or hide non printing characters
Ctrl + <– (Arrow Left) – Move one word to the left
Ctrl + –> (Arrow Right) – Move one word to the right
Ctrl + Arrow Up – Move to the beginning of the line or paragraph
Ctrl + Arrow Down – Move to the end of the paragraph
Ctrl + Del – Delete word to right of cursor
Ctrl + Backspace – Delete word left of cursor
Ctrl + End – Move cursor to end of document
Ctrl + Home – Move cursor to beginning of document
Ctrl + Space – Reset highlighted text to default font
Ctrl + Alt + 1 – Change text to heading 1
Ctrl + Alt + 2 – Change text to heading 2
Ctrl + Alt + 3 – Change text to heading 3
F1 – Open help
Shift + F3 – Change case of selected text
Shift + Insert – Paste
F7 – Spell check selected text and/or document
Shift + F7 – Activate the thesaurus
F12 – Save As
Ctrl + S – Save
Shift + F12 – Save
Alt + Shift + D – Insert current date
Alt + Shift + T – Insert current time
Ctrl + W – Close document

Next week is Shortcuts for Microsoft Excel!

Disclaimer: pctoolbox.co.uk cannot be held responsible for any problems that are caused from using the shortcuts.  All shortcuts work to the best of our knowledge.

Here are 10 top tips which we think will make you an Office 2007 formatting genius!

1. Reuse styles from an existing Word document, just click the Office button- ->New- ->New from existing format. Choose your word document and click ‘Create new’. This essentially makes a copy of the original document that you can modify to your hearts content without affecting the original.

    

2. Save a Style Set in Word. Style sets are things like font styles, font sizes, font colours, page layouts all together in one set ready to use. Just select change styles on the ‘home’ tab on the interface in Microsoft word. Click ‘Style Set’ –> ‘Save As Quick Style Set’. Then just simply name it and click ‘Save’.
3. Use Word 2007′s Pre-styled Text Box’s. Office has made some of the formatting easier for you with a selection of pre-styled text boxes. To use a pre-styled text box click insert on the fluent menu interface, click ‘Text Box’ and then choose your desired style.
4. Give your Word documents an Office Theme. All you need to do is click the ‘Page Layout’ tab on the fluent interface in your Word 2007 and click ‘Themes’. Then select your desired theme by clicking on it. Some examples are, ‘Flow’ and ‘Aspect’.
5. Change the Zoom on Excel, PowerPoint and Word with a Slide. Its now ultra easy to adjust the zoom on you Word, Excel or PowerPoint 2007 documents, all you do is slide the Zoom Bar from the bottom right hand corner of your screen.
6. Excel 2007 Page Layout View. Click the ‘View tab’ then Page LayoutView’. It is a very easy way to check what you can fit on each page when it comes to printing and also to add a header/footer.
7. Make you Excel 2007 Data into a Table. Just choose the data you wish to be made into a table. Click ‘Format As Table’ from the ‘Styles’ group of the’Home’ tab. Pick the table style you want and then Excel automatically creates and formats the table for you.
8. Create PowerPoint slides from Word 2007!? It sounds quite surreal doesn’t it! In PowerPoint 2007, select the ‘Home Tab. Click ‘New Slide’ –> and then ‘Slides from Outline’. Double-click on the Word file that you want to copy. Then select the ‘Outline tab’ on the left hand side of the screen in PowerPoint to get rid of any unwanted text.
9. Create your very own custom PowerPoint 2007 slide layout! Select the ‘View’ tab in PowerPoint 2007, then click ‘Slide Master’. Scroll down and click just below the last layout. Click ‘Insert Layout’ in the ‘Edit Master’ group which is in the ‘Slide Master’ tab. Delete any unwanted placeholders and then select ‘Insert Placeholder’. Click the ‘Office Button’ –> Save As then choose a ‘PowerPoint Template’ from the ‘Save As’ Type field.
10. Re-use slides from a SharePoint slide library. On the home tab click on the arrow beneath ‘New Slide’. Then click ‘Reuse Slides’ followed by ‘Open A Slide Library’ which is in the reuse slides area. Now double-click the SharePoint site where you saved the slides.

With all the different Office packages available, we have put together a diagram which we think will help you to make the right decision of which version is best for you! Click on the image to make it viewable!

Please let us know if you have any thoughts!