The Microsoft Office Standard Toolbar has buttons for New file and Open file but it doesn’t include a Close file button, which would be very handy to use when you want to close a document, worksheet or presentation, but you don’t want to exit the program.

First of all, open MS PowerPoint 2003. Point at the blank area NEXT to the Standard or Formatting toolbar and tap your right mouse button to pull up a toolbar menu. Select Customize at the bottom of the menu.

Select the Commands tab. With File selected as a Category on the left side, look under the Commands on the right side. Select the Close command with your right mouse button and drag it up to the Standard Toolbar. Drop it to the right of the Open button (as you drag the button, you’ll see a little plus sign and when you move the mouse cursor to the proper place, you’ll see an I bar showing up in the toolbar). When you let go, the Close button icon will appear. Note: If you put it in the wrong place, just drag it where you want it to go. Now click on the Close button on the Customize dialog box. Now you can easily close PowerPoint presentations. You can exit the program.

Now open up MS Word 2003. Repeat the same steps, then exit the program.

Now open up MS Excel 2003. Follow the same steps as before. Notice that when you have the Customize dialog box open in Excel, there is only a word that says Close instead of a Close button. Drag it up next to the Open button on the Standard Toolbar, anyway. After the word Close appears on the toolbar, point at it and select Default Style. The Close button image will appear. Close the dialog box. You can exit the program.

Now, whenever you have saved your work (if you haven’t saved your work, it will prompt you to do so), you can close your files in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint with one click.

By the way, you can also use these steps to add other button functions that are useful to you, too.

This tip is short, but sweet. You already know that scrolling your mouse wheel up and down will move your document, worksheet, or presentation up and down.

If you hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard while you do it, you will change the magnification of your screen. Hold down the Ctrl key and scroll up to enlarge your screen and scroll down to reduce its size.

Windows Vista

Windows Task Manager has Performance and Networking dynamic graphs, that show you your computer’s CPU and network activity. They also show your CPU history and the amount of network traffic. (You can see this in Windows XP, too.)

You can get to these graphs by pointing your mouse cursor at a blank area of your taskbar at the bottom of your screen. You will see a menu appear. Click your right mouse button and select Task Manager. Then click on the Performance tab. You will see the performance graphs appear. As you watch, you’ll see your computer’s activity being charted.

The main use of these is to help you troubleshoot problems for your computer

To return the graph to normal size, double-click it again.

Clicking on the Resource Monitor button will give you even more information. Click on the CPU, Disk, Network, and Memory bars to expand them to see what is affecting any of these areas. You can also click on any of the help areas at the bottom to get help to create reports on your computer’s performance.

The Format Painter button is a handy little tool that can quickly copy formats for text and shapes, to other text or objects. It’s located on the Standard Toolbar in MS Office 2003 and earlier editions. In MS Office 2007, it’s on the left side of the ribbon, in the Clipboard area.

In Excel, click on the cell where the text is formatted the way you want it. Click on the Format Painter button. (Your cursor turns into a plus sign with a paintbrush next to it). Then click on the cell that has the text that you want to change. It should instantly change to match the formatting that was in the first cell. If you want to change the text in multiple cells, see the Quick Tip down below.

In MS Word, have you ever had a section of text suddenly look different from the rest? The cause might be that the section of text has been switched back to the default settings that are MS Word’s default settings, or it could be a computer glitch. You might also want to change text that you’ve pasted in your document from somewhere else. To fix this, select some text that has the proper formatting, by dragging your cursor over it. (Don’t worry about selecting entire words or phrases – ANY text will do). Click on the Format Painter button. (Your cursor turns into an I bar with a paintbrush next to it.) Then drag over the text that you want formatted the same way (note – if you drag over additional text that already has the correct formatting on it, that text will not change, so don’t worry about being precise).

This works in PowerPoint the same way, too.

Quick Tip: If you double-click on the Format Painter button, it will keep the selected formatting on, so you can change multiple selections of text or objects. Just click once again on it when you are finished, to turn it off.

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