Computer Information

A MS Word 2003 Joke to Play

Oh, no! It looks like I might need better reading glasses. The words seem to be dancing around in front of my eyes!

It’s April Fool’s Day! There are a LOT of jokes that you can play with a computer. Here is one of my favorites that works with MS Word 2003 (not version 2007). Before you play your prank, however, be certain that your intended target has a good sense of humor and is not working under any critical deadlines.

Wait until your target has left their computer unattended for a few minutes. Open MS Word 2003 and pull up a document that they use often, or the last document that they were working on if it’s a work in progress (check under File, then the document listed at the bottom as number 1). Use Ctrl-a keys to select all of the document, or triple-click in the left margin, then choose Format, Font. Click on the last tab, Text Effects, then choose Shimmer, OK. Save the file.

When your target returns to their document, the text will be shifting back and forth, and might lead them to believe that it’s time to get their vision checked. After they’ve rubbed their eyes a couple of minutes, ‘fess up, and set their document back to normal by going through the same steps, except that you should choose (none) at the top of the Text Effects menu, OK.

Happy April Fool’s Day!

Save a File Name Fast

There’s a little trick you can use to save some time when you’re going to save a file that you’re working on. If you’ve already typed the name that you want to use somewhere in your document, you can copy and then paste it in.

Select the text first by dragging over it or using another selection method. For this example, we’re selecting the text Mad Dog’s Party Ideas.

Choose Edit, Copy or one of the other four ways that you can use to copy.

Choose File, Save or File, Save As (the first time that you are saving a file, it doesn’t matter which one you use).

Click on the location that you want to save it in, if it isn’t the default location (the one that the computer gives you).

If the default name that your program shows in the File name text box is NOT highlighted, you need to select it. Click in the white area of your File name text box to the right of the default name, then hold down your left mouse button and drag back over the name so that it is selected. If you start your dragging to the far right side of the text, you will never end up with just part of your text selected.

You will not need to delete the selected text, because pasting over it will replace it.

Hold down your Ctrl key on your keyboard and tap the v key, and the name that you selected to use will be pasted to the File name text box. Click on the Save button or tap your Enter key to save.

(Note: Clicking your right mouse button and selecting Paste from the menu that appears only works some of the time, but this method works every time).

Note: If you’re used to letting the program that you’re using create a name, you may have noticed that it will generally stop wherever there is punctuation. This method fixes that problem, easily including commas, apostrophes, hyphens, etc. Do be aware, however that there are certain symbols that cannot be used in a file name, like colons, question marks, diagonal slashes, and others.

Note: Remember to save often, to prevent your work being lost unexpectedly through unexpected problems like power outages, toddlers you find the power on/off button on your power supply attractive, or gremlins.

SlideRocket

I saw this product out on the Internet, and thought it was worth sharing. SlideRocket was featured at the Under the Radar conference in Mountain View, and won several prizes there. From what it appears, SlideRocket has some wonderful transitional effects, and the ability to incorporate weblinks and multimedia pretty easily. SlideRocket is currently in beta mode, which means that it isn’t quite ready for market yet, but it is on its way. This presentation software appears to be something worth looking into if you have a job where you use presentations often. Their website includes a demo on the home page at:

http://www.sliderocket.com

They also have a blog that includes a video with presentation tips on this page:

SlideRocket Blog Page

I don’t have information on how much it will cost, or when it will be ready for mass market, but I was impressed with their demo, and if you create a lot of presentations in your job, you might find it pretty worthwhile. Even if you don’t, you might enjoy their demo and the presentation tips video on their blog page. Before you ask, let me say that I don’t have any connection with this company at all, but I do like to share interesting things that I run across. If you have any comments, click the comments link and post them.

Creating a Text Shadow Macro and Toolbar Button in Word

Create a toolbar button in Word 2003 that will let you shadow the text you’ve selected.

I like the 3D emphasis that the shadow effect has and I use it on my titles often. In the Tools, Customize area of Word, it lets you drag additional formatting buttons to your toolbar, but they didn’t include the shadow button among them. So I decided to create a macro to let you apply shadowing to text with one click of a new toolbar button.

Skills You’ll Learn:

• Creating a macro
• Editing a macro
• Customizing a macro button

My TeacherTube video on Creating and Editing a Word Macro

Entering Basic Formulas and Some Sum Function Tricks

I’ve posted a TeacherTube video that shows you how to enter basic formulas in Excel, using cell addresses (because it’s easy to change their content to get new answers).

It also has a few tricks for using Excel’s Sum function. Enjoy!
Excel Formulas, and Sum Function Tricks

MS Word: Find Synonyms

When you know what you want to say but can’t think of the exact word you want, have Word help you find it. Follow these steps: Right-click the word you want to change. A shortcut menu appears. Point at Synonyms, and select the suggested word you want to use. If none of the words are what you had in mind, select Thesaurus. A task pane appears on the right. If the word can be interpreted in more than one way, alternate words will appear under categories. If there aren’t any suggestions, change the tense of a word to get more word suggestions (use think instead of thinking, for instance). Type in the new word and click the green arrow to get your new suggested words. Pointing at a suggested word will make a down arrow appear next to it. Click on that down arrow, then select Insert to replace your original word with that word.

You can also find synonyms for phrases. For example, to find a substitute for cool as a cucumber select the phrase, right-click that phrase, and follow the steps above.

Note: If the word you want to replace is flagged for a spelling or grammatical error, you must fix that first before the Synonyms option will appear in the shortcut menu.

Burn CDs with Roxio or Windows Explorer

Burn CDs with Roxio or Windows Explorer. This presentation shows you how. Click on the link to this Google’s Presentation and then click View published presentation in a new window to start the slideshow in a larger window. Use the Enter or PgDn keys to move forward and the PgUp key to move back in the slideshow.

Link to my Burn CDs presentation

So you were in a hurry and clicked on the wrong toolbar button. What do you do now?
Listen to the podcast to find out.

Toolbar Button Trick Podcast

TeacherTube

There’s a great resource on the Internet for both teachers and students. It’s called TeacherTube, and you can find it here:
http://www.teachertube.com
Check it out now!

MS Word Selecting and Moving Text Shortcuts

Knowing how to select text quickly is very important, because many commands begin by selecting the text that you want to effect. Remember: You’ve got to select what you want to effect!

Some of these selection tips involve clicking in the left margin area of the document. The best way to do this is to be in Print Layout view (View, Print Layout). That will give you a large left margin to use. (It’s also the best way view to use to see what will actually be printed when you want to print your document.)

• Ctrl, Home moves the cursor to the top of the document.
• Ctrl, End moves the cursor to the bottom of the document.
• Press the Home key to go to the start of a line; press the End key to go to the end of a line.
• Page Up moves up one screen.
• Page Down moves down one screen.
• The direction keys will move one space (or row) in their direction.
• Clicking once on a word lets you edit the word at that point.
• Double-clicking a word will select the entire word.
• Triple-clicking a word will select the paragraph containing the word.
• Holding down the Ctrl key while clicking on a word will select an entire sentence.
• Clicking once in the left margin will select a line.
• Double-clicking in the left margin will select a paragraph.
  Triple-clicking in the left margin will select the entire document.
• Holding down the Ctrl key and pressing a left arrow or right direction arrow will jump one word. Keep holding down the Ctrl key and you can jump over several words as you keep tapping the direction arrow. Holding down the Shift key at the same time will let you select them at the same time.
• Hold down your Ctrl key and you can select non-contiguous text. (That’s text that’s not touching).
• To select a large section of text, click once where you want to start your selection, scroll to where you want to end your selection, hold down the Shift key, then click where you want the selection to end.
• Note: If you need to adjust the selection a little, don’t start over! Instead, hold down on the Shift key as you use the direction keys to add or subtract to your selection.

Tip: Hold down the Shift key while moving, to select text at the same time, or while you are using navigating keys (like Ctrl End), as well.

I made a song about highlighting (selectiing) large amounts of text. You can hear it at my podcast website: http://www.gcast.com/u/spooferkd