Computer Group Notes

The following notes relate to Windows XP

Hints, Tips and Dodges

General

1. Have you ever “lost” your pointer?

Go into Start, Control Panel, Printers and other Hardware, Mouse. Click the “Pointer Options” tab and tick the box marked “Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key”, click OK. Now when you press the CTRL key you will get a “beam” indicating the location of the pointer.

2. Change the information that is displayed on a file search

My Computer

View

Choose details

Select the information that you want to display and the order in which it is displayed

These details will show when you choose the “Details” view option

3. When you download pictures from your digital camera, they do not have a meaningful name. If you have a group of pictures that have a common theme (say 50 pictures of your 2006 holiday) and you don’t want to rename them all individually all you have to do is highlight them all and then right click and rename and enter (say) “2006 holiday” they will be named “2006 holiday(1) through to 2006 holiday(50). If you highlight the files from the bottom up then the first file will be numbered (1).

4. If you receive an e-mail telling you about a new virus check this site first to make sure that the message is genuine and not a scam. http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/invitation.asp

Microsoft Outlook

1. To make a backup of Microsoft Outlook or Outlook 2003

Click File, Import/Export, choose “Export to a file”, click Next, choose Personal Folder file (.pst), click Next, highlight Personal Folders and make sure that the “include sub folders” box is ticked, click Next, choose where you want to save you details and click finish. The system will put all of your folders, including contacts as well as your mail folders, into one single file. This file can then be copied to a CD or anywhere you like.

2. To recover your files in the event of a disaster

Click File, Import/Export, choose “Import from another program or file”, click Next, scroll down until you see “personal folder file (.pst) and highlight that option, click Next, find your backup file, click Next and the system will restore all of your files and folders.

3. To customise your e-mail messages

As well as setting rules in Microsoft Outlook or Outlook 2003 which can apply to all folders you can set specific formatting rules to individual folders so that they stand out.

Microsoft Outlook:

Go into the particular folder that you want to customise (you can have different settings for each folder), select View, Current View, Customise current view, “Automatic formatting”.

Outlook 2003:

Go into the particular folder that you want to customise (you can have different settings for each folder), select View, Arrange by, Custom, Automatic formatting.

Then choose a font and/or a colour for selected types of messages. If you want to make a new rule just click the “Add” button. You can set different colours for messages from specific people, or messages with attachments, or almost any definition that you can think of.

4. To find everything pertaining to a particular contact (Microsoft outlook)

Go into the contact and click the “Activities” tab. You will then get a list of all the messages to and from that person and the folder where the message is stored.

5. If you get a message to say that an e-mail with an attachment has not been sent when you disconnect, check your antivirus settings. If you are sure that you have good antivirus software and that it is updated regularly, you don’t need to have your outgoing messages scanned for viruses. Microsoft Outlook thinks that a message with an attachment has gone when in reality it is still being scanned by you antivirus software, so you can be fooled into disconnecting the line too soon.

6. You can set your e-mail to delete or leave messages on your ISP server after they have been downloaded to your machine. In Microsoft Outlook go into Tools, E-mail Accounts, Vie or change existing account, change, More settings and then Advanced. Here you can tick the box to leave the messages on the server and you can also select a number of days before they are deleted.

Powerpoint

1. You can set up a “pen” so that as you are giving your presentation you can draw on the slide. Go into Tools and Options and make sure that the box marked “Popup menu on right mouse click” is ticked. Before giving the presentation start the slide show and then right click and choose the “pen” option and the pen colour. Now as you present each slide you can use your mouse as a pen to mark anything significant. The marks will be deleted when you move on to the next slide or you can erase them by pressing the “E” button. When using this option you will have to advance your slide by using the “Return” button or the forward arrow.

You can pre-set the pen colour by going into “Slideshow” and “Set up show”

Powerpoint 2003 allows for different types of pen and does not erase automatically when you move on to the next slide.

2. Before starting a slideshow, make sure that you have set the options correctly. Go into “Slideshow” and choose “Slide transition”. If you are going to control your slides manually make sure you have unticked the box that advances the slide after a certain time otherwise you may find your slide progressing before you are ready.

Word

1. If you type an incorrectly spelt word you don’t have to click on the Spelling checker all you need to do is right click somewhere within the word and you will be given spelling suggestions. Word 2003 will give synonyms as well as spelling suggestions.

2. To find an alternative for a correctly spelt word, right-click on the word and select “Synonyms”. If you are using Word 2003 then you need to select “Lookup” for synonyms.

3. If you have inserted a table into the start of a “word” document and then want to add a line above

Click into the first cell and press “return” this will add a line above. To include a “return” within the cell first enter a character and then press “return”, then delete the character.

4. If you have a scroll wheel on your mouse try holding down the CTRL button and then use the scroll button to zoom in and out on Word documents or Excel spreadsheets. It saves having to go to the zoom button on the tool bar.

5. When using the Drawing tool bar and selecting rectangle or circle you can draw a rectangle or elipse. If you want a perfect square or circle, hold down the SHIFT key and you will get a perfectly proportioned shape.

6. If you have created a document with more than one size of font and want to reduce or increase the size of the whole document, you don’t have to select each piece of text and choose another font. Click Tools, Customise and Format and then scroll down until you find the “Grow font by 1 point” and “Shrink font by 1 point” drag these on to your Formatting tool bar. Now you can select all of the document text and click the appropriate “A” symbol and the font sizes will adjust automatically.

7. To select a large chunk of text click at the beginning of the text then use the scroll bar to scroll down to the end of your selection, hold down the SHIFT key and then click the mouse and all of the selected text will be highlighted.

8. If you use a particular symbol on a regular basis then allocate a short-cut key. Click Insert, Symbol then choose your symbol, click the “Shortcut Key” box, then click into the “Press new shortcut key” and press the key that you want to use as a short cut – usually one of the function keys, then click “close” and “insert” now whenever you press that function key you will get the required symbol.

9. Did you know that if you press the CTRL button together with the Backspace button you will delete the whole word and not just a single character

Excel

1. If you want to see headings on a spreadsheet that is quite long, click on the row below the headings and then click on Window, Freeze Panes. Now when you scroll down the sheet the headings will stay on the screen. You can do the same thing with columns.

2. To have your headings print on every page of a multi-page document just go into File, Page setup then click on the “Sheet” tab and enter the row numbers and/or columns that you want to be repeated on each page of the document.

3. If you have a particularly large spreadsheet and want to look at sections that are far apart, you can create a “Split”. Click on the cell where you want to split the sheet and select “Window” and then “Split”. Now you can scroll though either section independently.

4. To tidy-up a spreadsheet that has words that have been entered in mixed upper and lower case just make a formula in another cell that says =Upper(A1) or =LOWER(A1), or Proper(A1), where A1 is the cell with the incorrect casing.

5. To create a row or column of numbers or dates that all you need to do is enter the first two numbers/dates and then highlight the two cells and click on the little square on the bottom right (known as the “fill handle”) and drag the cells down the required number of rows. To include the days of the week or months you only have to enter the first day/month

6. A quick way to see the total of a list of numbers is to highlight the list and then look at the status bar at the bottom of your spreadsheet. If the status bar is not showing click on View and make sure the “Status Bar” is ticked.

7. You can work out the Roman Numerals for a number by entering =ROMAN(number,0) in a cell. The number can be any number. The 0 will give you the common Roman numeral combination. You have up to five different combinations by using the numbers 0 through to 4.

	Top of page
	Home \| The U3A \| Interest Groups \| U3AMeetings \| Interest Group Meetings News & Information \| Sheila’s Events \| Links

	Web Organiser: Molly Milner
	Page last updated: 23 June 2009