Excel has a nifty feature called Goal Seeker. If you have a particular dollar amount you want to arrive at by changing one variable (for instance, how much money can I borrow at 7% interest for 60 months in order to have a $350 monthly car payment), Goal Seeker can help you find the answer.

Using the car example above, we'll create a payment formula (Don't know how? Check out my prior blog on it: http://us.deskdemon.com/dnet/blog.php?user=msmarieh&blogentry_id=766). With your cells already filled in for the PMT formula, choose Data Ribbon - What If Analysis - Goal Seek (Tools-Goal Seek in 2003). Set cell D1 (Goal Seek always works on a cell with a formula in it) to value -$350 by changing cell C1 (our total amount borrowed). Goal Seek will then change the cell to the correct amount (in this case borrowing $17675.70 at 7% interest would give you a $350 monthly payment).

Excel has an additional feature called Scenarios which allow you to change more than one element of the formula. Choose Data - What If Analysis - Scenario Manager (Tools-Scenarios in 2003) - Add (to create a new one). Give your scenario a name. I suggest something descriptive, like interest rate changed to 6.5%. Select which cell will be the changing cell (for example A1 - the interest rate), put in the revised amount (.05416666 for 1/12 of 6.5% for instance). Note that you can select more than one cell by holding down your control button or clicking and dragging. Excel will ask you what each cell's value should be. It will then come up with an answer that matches your differences. Scenarios are essentially "what if's". What if I got a lower interest rate and took a loan for a longer period of time? What if I borrowed more, but paid it back faster? What if our company increased it's revenues by 10% and lowered expenses by 5% across the board next year?

Lots to play with for these Excel features. Take a moment to poke around with them!

Does your boss have you add outside dates to his or her calendar? Say for example they have a subscription to the Metropolitan Opera or season's tickets to all Chicago Bears games. It's kind of a pain to manually enter all those dates, isn't it?

Well if you have Outlook 2007 or later (and some other calendar programs too), you may be able to take advantage of functionality that allows you to sync up with those calendars by using internet calendars, if they are available (and a LOT of them are!).

Internet calendars come in two flavors. One version is static (just like printing out the page - if the game gets cancelled, the calendar won't reflect it). The other version is dynamic - game time gets changed from 3:00 to 4:00; the calendar automatically updates to reflect it.

Guess what else? You can actually publish your own calendar so that other people can subscribe to it! How about publishing your family calendar with birthdays and anniversaries to your family around the country?

Here's a page that gives an overview of this nifty new feature in Outlook 2007:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA101673251033.aspx

Here's a page that gives you step by step instructions for how to do it:
http://www.ehow.com/how_2058421_add-internet-calendar-outlook-2007.html

OK, you're sold and dying to try it out for yourself?

Start here!

http://icalshare.com/index.php - This website has over 1500 shared calendars - everything from theater performances to professional sports to concert venues. Check it out! Plus, it doesn't just work with Outlook 2007. It actually works with a number of other programs as long as they support the iCal format.

These days, no one has a guaranteed job. Even the safest of positions is at risk in a poor economy. Sometimes a boss changes and the new boss's working style just doesn't mesh with yours. There's any number of reasons why your job may be eliminated, whether you deserve it or not. Why not start preparing for a job search before you need to? It's not as crazy as it might sound.

If you lost your job today, what would be the first five things you would do? Well, after going home, and crying your eyes out and pouting, kicking, screaming, etc. for a day or two, you would have to knuckle down for a job search. 

But here's a thought... How about if you start working on some of these steps BEFORE you lose your job? Let's take a look at them individually and see what we can do.

1) File for unemployment (for U.S. folks, no idea how that works internationally) - OK, obviously you are not going to file for unemployment before you lose your job, but how about visiting your state's unemployment office and reading up on the process and your rights? That way if anything did happen, you'll already know what you need to do to get this done. Play through a scenario in your head of what would happen if someone walked you into an office right now and told you that you were fired. What questions would you ask? What kind of negotiating would you try to do? There may be things that you can negotiate (like payment of COBRA benefits, extension of severance package, reimbursement of professional expenses or outplacement services, etc.) , but if you are sitting there shell shocked because you are caught completely off guard, you are not likely to offer any kind of suggestions.

2) Update your resume - You can certainly do this right now. In fact, I encourage you to update your resume at least annually and preferably more often. If you have nothing new to add (training, an award, a new certification, etc.) that should be a red flag to you that you are stagnating. It's a heck of a lot easier to update your resume when the information is fresh in your mind (Do you REALLY remember awards and honors that you were given 3-4-5 years ago if you haven't updated your resume in the 10 years you worked at your company?) and when you are not in an emotional "oh my god I just lost my job and I need to find a new job this minute!!!" mood. Worst case scenario, if you don't need to look for a new job, look how much better prepared you are for your next performance review!

3) Create/Update your online profiles - Do this right now!!! Start NOW getting a profile set up on appropriate social networking sites, like LinkedIn. You can do one on facebook and twitter, but those sites generally have a more personal feel. Once you have your professional profile set up, be sure to post regular updates about your professional life (i.e. studying for Word 2010 certification exam, attending my IAAP Division Annual Meeting this weekend, etc.). Why??? Because it will keep your name in the mind of your contacts and let them know about your ongoing professional development. It will help them to feel like they are getting to know you better and know your skills. If they know you better, they will feel more comfortable (and inclined) to keep an eye out for a job for you when the time comes. (See my article in the May 2011 AdminAdvantage for more tips about Social Media and Your Career.)

4) Tell your friends so they can keep an eye out for jobs for you - The  important thing to do with this step is to build your network BEFORE you need it! I can't tell you how many posts I see of people saying, I lost my job - should I join a professional association? Well yes you should, but face it, nobody knows you and they aren't likely to go out of their way for you if they don't know you. Start NOW working on committees, attending meetings, and building professional friendships that you can use as references and call on for assistance later.

5) Start checking out monster.com and other job searching websites and your local newspaper - You should do this NOW!!! Why? Because it helps you to keep on top of employment trends that you should be aware of. If you see that there are a lot of requests for a certain software package or a certain certification, you can take steps NOW to get it so you are prepared in the future if you need it. You certainly wouldn't want to be trying to cram in a new certification before an interview after just losing your job, after all. This may also end up coming in handy at your present job.

I don't think you need to be paranoid and convinced that your job is in imminent danger. But I think it is smart to do what you can to lay the groundwork for the worst case scenario. If it never comes to pass, you've just picked up some new friends and a little information that may help in your next performance review.  If it does come to pass, won't you be glad you've done so much prep work?

In case anyone is interested in pursuing Microsoft Office 2010 certification, I thought you might like the background information.

What it is:

The Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) program is a certification program for Microsoft Office 2010. Certification exams are available in Word (core and expert), Excel (core and expert), PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, Sharepoint and Windows. Microsoft created it and utilizes Certiport (www.certiport.com) as their official partner to oversee the testing process.

Office 2007 was initially administered under Microsoft Certified Administrative Specialist (MCAS), but later the name was changed back to Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS). Office 2003 was administered under the name Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) program. Office 97/2000 was administered under the name Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) program.

How it works / Cost:

There are testing centers located throughout the US with different days/hours, etc. Cost generally runs about $75-100 with the testing center allowed to set the cost. Some charge a proctoring fee. Vouchers for the tests are available through www.certiport.com (the official site) and through various resellers (where you can often find the vouchers cheaper, including a free retake option if you don't pass). 

You call the testing center, make an appointment and show up. You'll sit at a computer that has a simulated version of Office 2010 running on it. You are allowed one hour and you cannot use Help. Most exams have roughly 30 questions.  Each question may (and usually does) have several parts. You will immediately receive a score to know if you passed or not and a (not very helpful) summary will print out to tell you your score and areas missed. If you pass, a nice frameable certificate will also be mailed to you. When you pass one test, you are a Microsoft Office Specialist. When you pass four tests (Word expert, Excel expert, Powerpoint, and either Outlook or Access), you are a Master Level Microsoft Office Specialist. The certifications never expire and don't need to be renewed, but they are only valid on the version of Office that you tested.

Preparing For the Test / Cost of Study Materials:

If you know the programs generally well and just want to specifically study for the purpose of passing the exam, get the study guides (roughly $25-30 each on amazon):

MOS 2010 Study Guide for Microsoft Word (core), Excel (core), PowerPoint, and Outlook
http://tinyurl.com/cykdt5x

MOS 2010 Study Guide for Microsoft Word Expert, Excel Expert, Access, and SharePoint
http://tinyurl.com/cs5levy

They give you very succinct instructions on how to pass the tests based on the published guidelines of what is on each test (basically in the format of: To do this: 1) Click Here. 2) Choose that. 3) Click OK.)

If you don't know the programs well, I would buy books that are individual by program. The Microsoft Press Step by Step Series has usually been a good set, though I haven't looked at the 2010 versions specifically. 

IAAP offers an Options Technology program which is computer software training, with (I believe) separate modules for each test. This program includes a voucher with purchase. I have not reviewed this program, so I have no opinion on how effective it is. I also don't know if it focuses on teaching you the software or preparing you for the test (those can be two very different focuses, you know).

More information is available at:
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/office.aspx

The official program information is available at:
http://www.certiport.com

Hope this helps people that are considering pursuing the certification. If you have any other questions, post them in the comments and I will try to answer them there as well.

I have been doing some self study recently to prepare to take the Microsoft Office 2010 certification exams. As part of that, I am exploring new features that are offered in this version and I have found some AWESOME things to share with you!

1) Recover Unsaved Documents - I can't imagine there is anyone out there who hasn't done this at least once. You spend a long time typing up a nice brand new document, only to accidentally click NO when you are prompted to save it at the end. In prior versions, you were completely out of luck and had no recourse for any kind of recovery. Enter Office 2010! When you reopen the program, on the File tab under Recent, look in the bottom right corner. You will see a folder icon that says Recover unsaved document/worksheet/etc (different in different Office programs). Click that and it will show you the unsaved files you had for the last four days. Waaa hoo! Microsoft claims in its help file that this can work on previously saved files too. Basically you have to make sure that AutoSave is turned on with the option to Save Last Autosaved Version If I Don't Save Changes checked (find these options in File-Options-Save). In order for that to work, you need to have had the file open long enough for an Autosave to kick in and even then, you'll only get your changes back to the last time it AutoSaved. Still it's worth a shot, so take a moment to select that option right now.

2) Photo Album - PowerPoint 2010 has added a very nifty new feature called Photo Album. You can find it on the Insert tab. It allows you to enter multiple pictures and it will arrange them on the slides for you. Decide you want 2 pictures per page, no problem, PowerPoint reformats them all for you. Change your mind - want 4 pictures per page? Zip, it's done by changing the drop down on the photo album window. Want to have a text box next to each image? You can add them easily from the photo album page. While you are in the photo album window, note that you can - on the fly - rotate images, crop them, change the order, etc. You can also access the photo album (for editing after you have inserted it) by right mouse clicking your slides on the left hand navigation pane. Really cool new feature!

3) Remove Backgrounds in Photographs - Office 2010 has added the ability to remove background images in pictures. You just click the part of the picture you want removed, and voila! Instant white space.

4) Insert Screen Shots - Previously if you wanted to add a screen shot, you would press Alt-Prt Scrn and then paste the screen shot where you wanted it. Office 2010 has automated that step. Click on Insert - Screen Shot and you will get a drop down pane with thumbnails of all the windows you have open. Click the one you want and a screen capture picture is pasted into your document. Bam!

5) Customize the Ribbon - One of the biggest frustrations I had with Office 2007 was the inability to customize the ribbons. Office 2010 has fixed that little problem, thank goodness. Just right mouse click on your ribbon (note it can be context sensitive, so it won't show if you right mouse click on top of your styles for instance), choose Customize The Ribbon and get to customizing (including creating your own tabs on the ribbon)! Easy peasy!

Lot of NICE things have been added in Microsoft Office 2010. If anyone is thinking of upgrading from 2003, do yourself a favor and go straight to 2010!!!

As a speaker, I often find it extremely useful to be able to transfer my PowerPoint presentations with my speaker's notes to Word. This generates a nice neat table which I can edit and is so much easier to work with than PowerPoint's notes view.

This option is available in 2003 (File - Send To - Microsoft Word) and 2007 (Office Button - Publish - Create Handouts in Microsoft Word).

A window pops up that gives you the options of Notes Next To Slides, Blank Lines Next To Slides (similar to the commonly used handouts view), Notes Below Slides (similar to printing notes in PowerPoint), Blank Lines Below Slides, and Outline Only. A little thumbnail image shows you what it will look like.

In addition, you have the option to Paste the slides or Paste Link the slides. Pasting will insert the slides into Word as a PowerPoint Object (which means you can doubleclick on them to edit them in a mini powerpoint window). Paste Link means that if you change the text in PowerPoint, the slides are automatically updated in Word when you next open the file (note the usual cautions of this doesn't apply via email unless you are also mailing the PPT file, etc.). Make your selections and click OK. If you have a very large PowerPoint file, it may take a while to generate the Word document. Be patient.

See the end of this posting for a HUGE tip on how to reduce the size of your final Word document.

Word then opens and creates a table with a column for the slide number, a column with a picture of the slide, a column for notes. Your boss may like having the slide numbers (in which case, using the hint at the end, copy and paste the slides into the same column as the slide numbers all at the same time, then you can delete one column. When it's for myself, I usually delete the slide number column and just number the pages. By doing this, I can then widen out the third column of note text.

Using the Outline Only feature allows you to bring only your PowerPoint text into a Word document. I often use this option to generate take home documents with more details added about what we covered.

You can edit everything in the Word document.

One huge suggestion: If you are "done" with the slides, go through the Word document, cut each slide individually, then click Home Ribbon-Paste-Paste Special and paste it as a picture so that it becomes a picture instead of a PowerPoint object. (I've yet to find a more efficient way to do them all at once - if you know of a way, please let me know!)  If you don't do this, your Word document could be a gazillion megs file (i.e. 30 MB files are not uncommon). When you are done pasting all the slides (this is actually very quick to do), then click on the Format Ribbon after you select a picture, Compress Pictures, Options and select Print/Screen/Email as appropriate for how much you would like to reduce the size of the pictures, then click OK, and OK a second time to apply the compression to all pictures in the document (do not select compress only selected pictures unless you really only want the selected picture to be compressed). These steps will reduce the size of your file dramatically.

Hope you and your boss find this feature helpful. :)

Excel, of course, has gazillions of mathematical formulas. Some you probably use regularly (like sum, count, etc.), but others you may not use quite as much. Some, of course you'll never use unless you are an engineer, mathematician, or scientist. One of the formulas that is fairly useful is payment formulas. This allows you to fill in various blanks and come up with a formula for payments. Say you want to buy a car for instance. If you know how much the interest rate is and the value of the car, you can plug in different term lengths (48 months, 60 months) to compare monthly payment options.

To set up a payment formula, you create cells for each of the formula parts, as needed.

Here are the parts of this formula explained:
 
Rate: This is the annual interest rate, divided by 12. (see note below)

Nper: Number of payments

NOTE: The number of payments should match the payment period of the interest rate. So for instance, I broke the interest rate down into a monthly component (divided by 12), and therefore, I want my number of payments to be the number of months, so I will put in 60 months instead of 5 years. If I were going to make one payment a year for the next five years, I would have the left the rate as an annual rate and put 5 in the number of payments. Make sense how those are linked?

PV: Present Value - This is the amount of money you are borrowing.

FV: Future Value - This is any expected value you might have left at the end of the loan. This would come into play with a lease or a mortgage balloon payment. If it is blank, Excel will assume it is zero.

Type of Payment: (Optional) This field is optional, but it uses a 1 to reflect if the payment is at the beginning of the period or a 0 (or blank) if the payment is at the end of the period. I never use it myself.

Payment: This is where the formula goes and it will show the payment (monthly in my example) that will result from that combination of interest rate, number of payments, and amount borrowed.

A2=rate
B2=number of payments
C2=present value
D2=future value
E2 would be type of payment (I left this out)
 

The formula in cell E2 or F2 would be:
=PMT(A2,B2,C2,D2)

Excel has additional features that greatly expand formulas to allow you to play with the numbers to see how they affect the outcome. Those include Goal Seeker and What If Analyses (Scenarios). I may write some future blog posts on how to use these functions, as they are pretty cool and useful. In the meantime, I encourage you to look them up if you are not familiar with them. You might be surprised at how helpful they are.

You've used Find and Replace in Microsoft Word. You probably think it's so easy that you know it inside and out. You type one thing and replace it with something else, what more is there to learn? Well how about when you are trying to find things that might not all be the same? What do you do then? You play with some of the lesser used advanced features of Find & Replace, that's what! Here's just a few, but there's plenty more where these came from.

Smart Art is a feature that was introduced to Microsoft Office in the 2002/2003 version, but it was expanded and beefed up (hmmm momentary distraction - is the phrase "beefed up" offensive to vegetarians?) in the Office 2007 version (yes Office - it's in Word, Excel and Powerpoint). Let me just tell you right now that this is not only one of THE *coolest* features ever in Microsoft Office, it's also one of the most fun to play with. Just take my word for it and take three minutes RIGHT NOW to check it out, if you haven't played with it before. You'll be glad you did. :)

Think back... to the dark ages... and for some of you, it may have been just yesterday... when your boss asked you to put together a simple diagram - perhaps a flow chart or whatever, where you have four or five boxes, each with a word in each box, maybe arrows pointing from one box to the next. Easy peasy, right? Then remember how your boss always came back and either asked for one more box to be added in the middle or one box removed. Remember how you had to manually resize all the text when you resized the boxes? Remember how you had to manually resize and move the boxes to accommodate changes? Remember having to flip all the arrows by hand when your boss decided to reverse the flow? Remember how excited you were when you learned how to select more than one box at a time and move things as a group cause every little tip helped save you at least a little bit of time for this project that sometimes took hours?

Welcome to the Age of Enlightenment, otherwise known as Smart Art. In Office 2003, the button is located on your drawing toolbar - you'll just have to poke around and play with it and know that 2003 can do most of what I am about to say. The rest of these instructions are based on Office 2007.

Click the Insert Ribbon, then the Smart Art button.  A window pops up offering you all kinds of graphics (like organization chart style, relationships, pyramids, cycles, etc.). Each one of those options on the left shows different graphics on the right hand side. Pick one you like. For purposes of illustration, scroll down and pick the first graphic under Cycles (five circles with arrows connecting them). Like magic, a graphic pops up in your window with five windows and arrows connecting them. On the left hand side is a window with a bulleted list. If you don't see that bulleted list, just left mouse click on the two triangles in the middle of the left hand side of the graphic or click Text Pane on the Design Ribbon. 

1. Type Apple as the first bullet. See how Apple gets added to the first circle.
2. Type Watermelon as the second circle. Note how the text automatically resizes itself in the circles to match each other with the longer word.
3. Delete the third bullet. Note how one of the circles gets deleted, so you now have four circles instead of five, and notice how the text resized itself slightly larger to allow for this.
4. Delete the third bullet again. Note how another circle gets deleted, so you now have three circles instead of four and notice how the text resized itself slightly larger to allow for this.
5. Hit enter, and see how a new blank bullet is added and a new circle is added back to bring us back to four circles. Type Lemon for this bullet and Lime in the last bullet.
6. Look up at your ribbon bars and you will see that new ribbon bars were added for Design and Format (as long as you are clicked on your Smart Art diagram). Note that you have buttons on the Design ribbon that allow you to add a shape before after your current circle (you can also do this by just pressing enter in the bulleted list).

Boss decided to reverse the order of the boxes? Woo hoo! The right to left button acts as a toggle to reverse or restore the order.

You'll see a group of buttons in the Layout palette. Click on the double triangle button at the bottom and all the cycles options become available. You can move your mouse over each graphic to get a preview in your document of how it will look (note that sometimes it doesn't look the way you would expect, sometimes you have to play with them a bit).

But wait, your boss comes back and says let's do this as a table format instead. You'll remember the dark ages briefly and cringe in pain. Oh yes, I well remember, selecting those boxes, deleting them, drawing new circles or triangles or whatever and basically starting over. Now? Ha! I laugh in the face of starting over. Instead I just click More Layouts at the bottom of the Layouts group of graphics. It brings up that original list of Smart Art diagrams and I can choose the first graphic under List. Voila, my round circles are converted to text box tables going across the page instead.

Bossie comes back and raves about the new layout, except that he really doesn't care for the color scheme. Oh ye of little faith... See the button called color scheme? Just click and you can see the Live Preview of colors as you move your mouse over the various options. Want it to look even a little bit fancier but still subtle? Move your mouse over the Smart Art Styles buttons and you'll see changes in shading, 3D effects and more. And again, click on the double triangle button and you'll see all the options at once.

The Format ribbon will give you more control over things like the font effects and borders, as well as things like wrapping document text around your diagram.

One last tip. Don't like the final size of the diagram? It's a picture! You can click and drag along the dots on the edges just like any other object in Office.

Play around. I think you will agree that Smart Art is one of the..

Coolest. Things. EVER!

Isn't it wonderful when our colleagues want to help us? Can you just imagine the joy of being able to delegate a little data entry to a co-worker? Come on, visualize it with me... That big pile of forms magically disappearing as the data is all entered in by someone else's capable hands... Ahhhh isn't that nice? Well... of course it is, until... you view the data that has been entered afterwards and you see IL, ILL, Illinois, Ilinios, etc. and you realize that it really wasn't so helpful now that you have to go through and manually edit every error... Sigh... another bubble burst.

But wait, it doesn't have to be that way. There are some steps you can take to encourage consistency with data entry. One of the starting points is setting a few validation rules.

Data validation allows you to set limits on what information can be entered into a cell. For example, you could impose a maximum dollar limit that someone is permitted to charge or you could insist that it be a whole number. Then when someone enters an incorrect amount, it would have an error message (which you can customize) pop up to tell you that it is not acceptable or it could even stop that data entry person dead in their tracks until they bring the data up to your standards. In addition, validation allows you to enter a prompt to help the user put something in the cell.

Validation is particularly useful if you are going to have someone else (or multiple people) filling in information on a spreadsheet and you want to make sure that they cannot enter something that isn't at least reasonably close to what you want.

First step, select your cells where you want to apply the data validation rule.

Let's say you want to limit your State column to a two letter abbreviation. You can do that clicking the column heading (the letter in the grey box at the top of your column), then Data - Validation. In the Allow: field, click the drop down and choose Text Length. Change the Data: field to Equal To. Type in 2 for the length. You could at this point click OK and it would apply that rule to the cells you have selected, but first, let's look at the other tabs.

The Input Message tab gives you a check box to show the input message when a cell is selected. You enter a title and an input message. Go ahead. Put a little something in there to test it. This will create a small comment on the screen that will come up when somebody clicks on a cell that has data validation applied.

The final tab is Error Alert. Again you get that check box to show the error alert after invalide data is entered. There are three styles:  Stop, Warning, Information. Each style gives you a title and message, which become a pop up window when the information is entered incorrectly.

Stop does just what it says: It stops the data enterer from inputting that data in the cell until they fix it to what you requested.
Warning prompts the data enterer with a message and asks for a Yes or No to Continue.
Information simply tells the data enterer something about the data (for instance, Expenses over $25 require a receipt.)

All that will work nicely to force someone entering data to use the two letter abbreviation for states. But wait, if you REALLY want to get fancy, you could enter on your spreadsheet all fifty states, and then in the Allow: field on the first Data Validation window, choose List from the drop down. Then you can click in the Source field, click and drag to select all those cells where you typed the states. That way, they will get a drop down list of all the states where they can choose the correct state.  That really ensures that it will be more accurate.

Check out data validation rules. I bet they will validate my theory that Excel is a pretty awesome program!

There are lots of shortcuts in Word. You are probably familiar with a few of these, but I doubt if you know them all. Note that many of these tricks actually work in one way or another in other Office programs (I'll explore some of those in a future blog posting).  Do you know any I have missed? Post them in the comments so everyone can see them!

In/On Your Text

• Single clicking your mouse places your cursor at a specific insertion point.
• Double clicking your mouse will select a word.
• Triple clicking your mouse will select a paragraph.

With Cursor in the Left Hand White Margin (changes to right pointing arrow)

• Single clicking will select the line of text (not sentence, line). Click and drag to select multiple lines of text.
• Double clicking will select the paragraph of text.
• Triple clicking will select an entire document (or else press Ctrl-A for All).

Using Shift/Ctrl When Selecting Text

Click once at the beginning of what you want to select. Scroll to the end, where you want to end your highlighting, but don't click yet. Hold down the Shift key and then click at the end of what you want to select. All text between those two clicking points will be selected. This is especially useful when you want to select across multiple pages, since as we all know, when you click and drag past one page, the cursor starts selecting at Mach 1 and you whiz past where you want to go, then when you try to go backwards, you whiz past where you want to backtrack... 

Want to modify your selection (like you included a few letters too many or two few)? Let go of the left mouse button. Press down the shift key, use the arrow keys to extend or reduce the selection. Please note that this works at the end of the selection of the direction you were going. In other words, if you selected left to right, holding down shift and using the arrow keys will extend or reduce the right end of the selection. If you selected right to left, holding down shift and using the arrow keys will extend or reduce the left end of the selection.

Pressing Shift-End will select all text to the right of the cursor to the end of the line.

Pressing Shift-Ctrl-End will select all text from the current location to the end of the document.

Pressing Ctrl and clicking your mouse will select an entire sentence (but only if you don't already have text highlighted for selection).

If you have selected text and you want to select additional text that is not next to the first text area, let go of the left mouse button after selecting the first set of text. Then press down the Ctrl button and click and drag the second set of text. If you want more text, let go of the left mouse button, keep holding down the Ctrl button, and then click and drag again (and so on). NOTE: If you accidentally let go of the Ctrl button and start to click and drag again, you will lose all prior selections and start from scratch.

Ctrl-left/right arrow will move your mouse by word. If you are selecting text and using the shift shortcut just mentioned, holding down the shift key and pressing Ctrl-left/right arrow will extend your selection by a word at a time in the appropriate direction.

MISCELLANEOUS:

Word has an extended mode. If you look down at the very bottom you will see a status bar that includes the letters EXT, greyed out. If you doubleclick that, it will turn black, which turns extended mode on. This makes your arrow keys act like you are holding down your mouse and clicking and dragging. It also allows you, for instance, to just press period and the computer will select all text to the next period. I find this mode a little cumbersome, but there are times when it is useful. Doubleclick the EXT to turn it off again or press ESC. (Bet you didn't realize all those little abbreviations that are greyed out actually do something, did you??? Ohhhh yessss).
 
And this is one of my personal favorites and one that never fails to get at least a couple "dang it, I didn't know I could do that - I've wasted hours deleting stuff manually in that situation" comments... To delete a tabbed column of text (or whatever) in the middle of your page, hold down the Alt key while you select with your mouse, starting at the top left of your selection.

There are even more ways to move through and select text in Word, but this should give you a pretty good start. :)
 

Sometimes you really want to keep text together in Microsoft Word, such as not wanting a phone number to wrap in the middle or not wanting a paragraph to be split. There are a variety of ways to do this, depending on what you are trying to accomplish. These instructions are for Word 2003 but all options are available in Word 2007 as well.

To keep text together with a space (for example, first name and last name), use a hard space by holding down Ctrl-Shift and pressing the Spacebar.

To keep text together with a hyphen (for example, a date or phone number), use a hard hyphen by holding down Ctrl and pressing the - (minus) button. Note, no shift!
 
To keep a paragraph together as one unit, click with your mouse inside the paragraph you want to keep together, then click Format - Paragraph. Click the Line and Page Breaks tab, then check mark the box of Keep Lines Together. This means that when a page starts getting full, Word will move the whole paragraph to the next page (versus moving the last line of the paragraph to the next page).

To keep a paragraph with the next paragraph (like a section heading with the section text), select the first paragraph that you want to keep with the next paragraph (don't forget to select the first paragraph and the blank line if you have one between the heading and the text!) and click Format - Paragraph. Then click the Line and Page Breaks Tab, and check the box for Keep With Next. This ensures that a page break won't occur in the middle of your header and text (or between paragraphs you want to keep together). I use this ALL the time, especially when doing reports or designing forms for instance, where I don't want the question to break from the answer lines across a page.

IMPORTANT HELPFUL HINT: If you are ever having trouble with a Table Cell/Row staying together even when you have the table property of Allow Rows To Split Across Pages checked, it is probably because the text inside the cell has been formatted with Keep Lines Together or Keep With Next (and this is not always on purpose).

SECOND HELFUL HINT: Easiest way to check for this formatting? Click the Paragraph Marker button (looks like a backwards P on your standard toolbar, right next to the zoom drop down box). Your text will have a black box next to the beginning of the paragraph if one of these options is turned on. This view will also show you hard spaces (they look like circles instead of dots) and hard hyphens (they look like longer dashes versus a hyphen).

THIRD HELPFUL HINT: Like this formatting and want to repeat it in other places? Format Painter copies Keep with Next and Keep Lines Together formatting too!

You'll note that Widow/Orphan Control options are checked by default on the Line and Page Breaks Tab. Have you secretly always wondered what the heck that even means? Wonder no more! A widow is when you have the last line of a paragraph all by itself at the top of a page. An orphan is when you have the first line of a paragraph all by itself at the bottom of the page. Word moves a second line to be with that lone line (or moves the full paragraph if needed). I don't imagine anyone really wants to turn that option off. :)

So now, as Al Green would sing... "Let's stay together, Loving you whether, whether Times are good or bad, happy or sad..." Don't we all feel that way about Microsoft Office sometimes???

Conditional formatting is formatting (that you choose) which is applied depending on what is typed in the cell (or the results of a formula). This feature is one of the best things since sliced bread. Take my word for it and take 30 seconds to check it out!!!

For example, if you set up a budget, you could set the formatting to be red if someone exceeds their budget amount. You could also have cells highlight if they are blank but have no formatting if something is typed in the cell if you want to keep track of things that are outstanding (like invitation answers, a column for tracking signatures received, etc.).

Excel 2003

To apply conditional formatting in Excel 2003, first highlight the cells that you want to be conditional, then select Format-Conditional Formatting. Excel will ask what parameters you want to set for the cell. Cell Value or Formula is (fill in the blank: between, equal, not equal, etc.) and then choose either a cell reference (i.e. the budgeted number) or a number that you type. Then click on the Format button and choose whatever formatting you want to be applied to the cells (red, bold, whatever you choose). Click OK.

When you enter a number into that cell, if it falls inside the parameters you set up (within budget) then the text will be normal. If it falls outside (exceeds budget), it will have the formatting you chose.

You can apply up to three parameters (i.e. green color for below 90% of budget, yellow color for 91-100%, red for 101%+).

To remove the conditional formatting, select the cells that have it (or use the tip I discussed in a previous blog posting to select all cells in your worksheet that have it applied: Edit - Go To - Special - Conditional Formatting).

Excel 2007

Conditional Formatting has really been beefed up in Excel 2007 and had some really nifty stuff added. This feature is applied from the Home ribbon. When you select your cells and then click Conditional Formatting, you will soon see that there are a bunch of new options in there. Check them out!

NOTE: On all of these choices, you will see "more rules" on the submenu. This allows you to set even more options on all these various rules. You can also apply more than one set of conditional formatting at a time (i.e. data bars and icon sets together).

Highlight Cell Rules - This is where you go to set straight mathematical rules, like greater than, less than, as well as text based rules, date based rules (great for highlighting past due items), etc. Note the nifty new feature to apply conditional formatting to duplicate values in a column. How handy is that when you want to see at a glance if anything has been duplicated in a long list? :)

Top / Bottom Rules - These are designed to highlight your top or bottom "x" in a column (top 10, etc.)

Data Bars - This applies colored bars to the cells, where the length varies based on the contents, relative to each other (in other words, four cells with the values of 0,2,4,6 would have 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% bars)

Color Scales - This applies colored bars with different shades applied based on the contents, relative to each other (see above).

Icon Sets - This applies colorful icon sets to the cells, based on the contents. Some of these are really cute. Most are based on the green/yellow/red color scheme or black/grey/white.

New Rules - This brings up the same submenu as clicking More Rules on the other submenus. It allows you build a rule from scratch and tweak the settings.

Clear Rules - Go here to clear all rules from selected cells or from the whole worksheet. 

Manage Rules - Go here to clear selected rules. If you have more than one conditional formatting format applied (like the previously mentioned data bars and icon sets for instance), you can select the rules individually, reorder them, and/or delete them. You can also edit individual rules from this submenu.