If you're an IU community member and go to IUWare to download Microsoft apps, you will not find Microsoft Visio.
Visio is a Microsoft desktop application geared for building informational, structured graphics, like diagrams, flowcharts, hierarchy structures, and so on. Since those terms may not mean a whole lot to you, let's look at some examples of things you might create in Visio:
In Microsoft Excel 2007 when you convert a range of data into a table, you will have access to some great features. You can summarize data in a column simply by clicking a button. In addition, you can create structured formulas within a table without creating range names. Since the table will have a name, you can refer to the data within the table by using the table name and/or the column headers.
When working with a Style Set, you might experience unexpected results when you press the Enter key. Style properties include a specific "Style for following paragraph." This means that each style is automatically set up to be followed by a specific style.
In the default Office 2007 Style Set, the Headings are followed by the Normal style.
But what if you wanted your Heading 1 to be followed by a Heading 2? You could manually change the Style to Heading 2, or you could modify the properties of Heading 1 so that it is automatically followed by Heading 2.
Modifying a Style
To begin modifying the Heading 1 style, in the Style Gallery, right-click the Heading 1 style. From the drop-down menu, choose Modify.
The Modify Styles dialog box opens. One of the properties of Heading 1 is "Style for following paragraph." This property is currently set to Normal.
The "Style for following paragraph" can be changed by clicking the drop-down arrow and choosing the style you want to follow Heading 1. In our case, this is Heading 2. Click OK to close the dialog box.
After making that change, when we type a Heading 1 and press Enter, the next paragraph will be a Heading 2. We made no change to Heading 2, so it will still be followed by Normal.
Users of Microsoft Office can take advantage of STEPS workshops on Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and Access. However, these workshops are all taught in Office 2007 for Windows; and Office for the Macintosh (both the 2004 and 2008 versions) have a significantly different interface. Don’t worry though - users of Office 2008 for the Mac can find the training they need in Office 2008 through lynda.com. From now until December 20, 2009, students, faculty and staff in the IU community receive FREE access to lynda.com. (For more information and a link to lynda.com training, visit http://ittraining.iu.edu)
For users already familiar with Office for Mac, one tutorial on Lynda gives a comprehensive look at just the new features in the 2008 suite. Other topics of training include essential training for Word, PowerPoint and Excel as well as Entourage, the personal information manager. For a more detailed listing of titles included in the Word, Excel and PowerPoint tutorials in the lynda.com site read the rest of this article.
In Word 2007, Styles and Themes play a much more prominent role. Styles have been placed in the middle of the Home tab of the Ribbon and Themes are hard to miss on the Page Layout tab. At first glance, it may be difficult to see the differences between the two features. They both greatly affect the document. However, Styles and Themes have been designed to work together and have different purposes.
Styles are a predefined combination of text and paragraph attributes which include font, size and line spacing, as well as indents, alignment, borders and shading. Styles can be used to quickly and consistently format a document. Styles are also necessary for some advanced work in Word, including outlines, tables of contents, and document maps.
Themes control the overall colors, fonts, and effects that are used in a document. Each theme has twelve colors and two fonts. Theme effects determine how effects are applied to your charts, SmartArt graphics, shapes, and pictures. (Themes are available throughout Microsoft Office 2007 so it is possible to create consistent documents, presentations, and spreadsheets.)
What it boils down to is this: The Theme gives Word 12 colors and 2 fonts to work with and the Style determines exactly how the colors and fonts are used. Or, in other words, the Theme is the list of ingredients and the Style is the recipe. (more...)
Conditional formatting can be a great tool to enhance the data in your spreadsheet. There are several options for formatting a cell given the value of that particular cell. But what if you want to format multiple cells in a row based upon the value of one of more other cells? Well, that's not so straightforward!
Let's suppose that we have an Excel spreadsheet containing student data, but we want to be able to look down the list and quickly view all freshmen who are female chemistry majors:
Have you ever needed to chart noncontiguous dates in Excel? Often, Excel will attempt to fill in the missing pieces of the series.
This example shows the total number of items sold on a weekly basis:
If we select the data and create a column chart, it looks like this:
Excel has attempted to fill in some of the missing dates; However, because of the size of the chart, Excel is just showing the even numbered dates.
Combination charts can be used to highlight different types of information in a single chart. Using a combination of a column chart and a line chart can give a more specific visual representation of the data and help to make data easier to understand. Combination charts are particularly helpful when the values of the data vary greatly or when you are working with mixed types of data.
Interested in seeing some of the new features in Microsoft Office 2010? Check out this article on the Lifehacker blog containing some introductory videos from the Microsoft Office team:
Microsoft Office 2010 in Videos
You can also check out this user's videos on YouTube for more:
The release of Office 2010 isn't for a while yet, but Microsoft is being quite social with the changes being made.
Stay tuned to this blog and our website for information about training opportunities when Office 2010 gets released to the general public.
Enjoy!
When using the Address Block or Greeting Line features of Mail Merge, the fields have to be specific.
• For the Name fields, you may use either “First Name,” “FName,” or even simply “First” to cause Word to recognize that the data in the field is associated with a first name. The same varieties apply to the Last Name field.
• Use the full words “Address,” “City,” and “State.” Abbreviations of these words are not recognized by Word. However, “Zip” is recognized for “Zip Code.”
In a perfect world, everyone would be aware of, and follow, these naming conventions. However, you may have a data source which uses different field names. In these cases, the Address Block and Greeting Line features may not work as expected. If this happens, you can tell Word exactly which fields should be used and where they should be placed.
(more...)
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