Great for sending extra large files not able to be emailed - the recipient receives a link to download what you have sent.

Brisbane - David at Dictating City Centre - (07) 3831-5100

Melbourne - Russell at Dictation Solutions - (03) 9662-4864

Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 file formats.

However, in the meantime, I thought I’d share a very handy tip - especially since so many of us are still using MS Office 2003 but more and more are using MS Office 2007 (which has some amazing features which I am looking forward to sharing with you).

If you are still using MS Office 2000 or 2003 but someone has sent you a PowerPoint presentation (.pptx), MS Word document (.docx) or Excel document using 2007, just click here and download the Compatibility Pack and you will have no trouble in viewing these documents.

So, for people using MS Office 2007, you don’t have to save your document “down” to a previous version for others not using 2007 to view it.  Perhaps you could include this link when emailing a document to someone who is not using 2007 and ask them to download the Pack.  Anyone creating a document using MS Office 2000 or 2003 (if you are using a previous version, sorry - but you really need to upgrade), people using 2007 will have no trouble viewing your documents.

The only downside when opening up a document prepared in Excel 2007 and if you are using Excel 2003, is that it might not look exactly as it does if you are viewing the document in Excel 2007.  For example, Excel 2007 has some brilliant new colour schemes that do not seem to convert in 2003.  So, if you want someone to see exactly what it is you have prepared in Excel 2007, perhaps send them a PDF of the document.

May I preface this computer tip by saying that email addresses are private and confidential. I get so annoyed when I receive emails addressed to a cast of thousands containing my email address. When you receive an email addressed to several people and the email addresses appear in the To field, it is a breach of everyone’s privacy. This is how some spammers get email addresses. They just copy these addresses into their database and voila! You are now receiving junk emails that you have not authorised.

If you are sending emails (or jokes) to several people, you really need to use the Bcc field. Bcc stands for Blind Carbon Copy (not Brisbane City Council in this instance). This means that whoever you send an email to (their address appears in the To field) cannot see who the other recipients are because their email addresses are hidden from view (as they are in the Bcc field).

To actually find this field, go to a New Mail Message and do one of the following:

• If you are using Word as your e-mail editor, on the toolbar, click the drop-down arrow to the right of the Options button, and click Bcc.

• If you are not using Word as your e-mail editor, on the View menu, click Bcc Field.

All new e-mail messages now display the Bcc address box!

If you read our last Computer Talk email and followed the handy computer tips, you would have discovered your Quick Launch Bar and how to use Windows Explorer. In this edition, we will talk about how to customise MS Word (2003) to make it work better for you. As I said in the previous email, before you begin working with MS Word, you really have to “customise” it to death. These are some of the standard things I change on everyone’s computer.
Go to Tools>Options and click on -

The View Tab

• Untick Smart Tags. Does anyone really ever use this feature?
• Under Field Shading make sure that Always is selected from the down arrow. This means that if you ever get a document template with “fields” in it (we prepare all our document templates with fields), you will be able to see the fields which will be shaded, and press F11 to go from field to field and type.

The General Tab

• Untick Allow starting in Reading Layout. Reading Layout is when you get two big pages on your screen when you open up a Word document….very annoying!

• Tick Mail as attachment. This means that you can email a document from MS Word. Open up a Word document, go to File>Send to>Mail Recipient (as Attachment). It will then send the document from your email program as an attachment. It’s just a quicker alternative for sending documents as opposed to going to your Email program, opening up a new message, finding the relevant document (or picture) on your computer and then attaching it.

Untick Automatically create drawing canvas when inserting Autoshapes…another really annoying feature in my opinion .

The Edit Tab

• Untick Prompt to Update style

AND VERY IMPORTANTLY

• Untick Keep track of formatting. When we discuss Styles later on this year, you will see the benefit of disabling this function, but if you are already using Styles end up with a thousand different miscellaneous styles that you will never use, it is because this option is ticked. By keeping this option ticked makes your Style Gallery look messy.

Okay…you buy a new computer with all the typical Microsoft applications on it. You open up Word. Should you just start typing straight away? NO! Should you assume that the way your computer looks and works is how it has to stay? NO!

I honestly believe that before you start using Word or any of the other applications, you should customise pretty much everything…to death! As there are quite a few things to customise, I will start with a couple, and then in my next instalment (which I hope you won’t have to wait 4 weeks for…apologies), I will give you some more tips.

This is what I do before I even start using my computer and what I get my clients to do in our one-one-one computer tuition sessions.

1. Discover your Quick Launch Bar

Right click on the bottom tool bar to the right of the Start Button (normally, that’s the big button on the left with the word Start on it…sorry, but some people don’t know where their Start button is), and select Properties. Then select untick Lock the taskbar and tick Show Quick Launch. While you are there, you should probably select Group similar taskbar buttons as this will mean that all your Word documents will sit together and all your internet pages will sit together etc. Try it to see what I mean.

By selecting the Quick Launch Bar and by unlocking the Taskbar, you can clean up your desktop quite a bit. This is because you can literally drag program files, folders, and commonly used applications down to your Quick Launch bar, which means that you don’t have to go to Start>Programs>Microsoft Office>Word etc just to open Word. Also, it means that if you are working in, say, Excel, you can open up any other program with just a mouse click .

In order to put your regularly used programs and other applications on your Quick Launch bar, go to:
Start>Programs>Microsoft Office - then right click on Word (which should appear in a sub-window). A horizontal black line should appear. Drag the program and line down to your Quick Launch Bar where the black horizontal line will become a black vertical line, then lift your finger off the right click button, and it will come up with a little box that says: Copy here or Create Shortcut here. DON’T SELECT Move here. I always use Copy here.

It takes a little bit of practice to get this manoeuvre right with the right clicking and dragging etc, but once you have mastered it, you will be able to put all sort of manner of things in your Quick Launch bar including regularly viewed websites by just dragging the internet symbol to the left of the website address down to your Quick Launch bar. It’s fabulous and will make opening files and applications so much easier and quicker.

2. Windows Explorer

In my opinion, Windows Explorer is a must have addition to your Quick Launch Bar. To find Windows Explorer, go to Start>Programs>Accessories. Windows Explorer is normally about third from the bottom. Right click (as above) and drag to your Quick Launch Bar. The reason for using Windows Explorer is this - actually, there’s probably a few, but I use it for the following reason:

If you click on any of the files that sit on your desktop, it will open in the appropriate program (providing you have that program installed on your computer). However, if you are in Word, say, and you want to open a PDF document or an Excel document, and you go to File>Open and then try to find that PDF or Excel document, it will not appear, unless you click on All files, but even then, you cannot open that document, because you are in Word. By using Windows Explorer, you can see your whole computer and everything that is there. Windows Explorer is like using your desktop - anything in Windows Explorer will open in the appropriate program (again, if you have the program installed on your computer).

Please call me if you have any questions about the above.

Online Computer Support

Do you ever wish you had someone you could call when you are not sure how to do something in Word? Well, Miss-Organisation is now offering online computer support. By clicking on a link on our website, we can “hook” into your computer and show you how to solve your problem while you are sitting at your desk. Please contact admin@missorganisation.com.au for more information.

Custom Designed Templates for the Victorian Bar

Miss-Organisation has created a set of legal document templates for the Victorian Bar. If you are interested in purchasing a set of these templates, please contact us on 07 3831 5959. They can be customised to your requirements.

The templates are:
• Affidavit
• Affidavit (Federal Court)
• Standard Pleading
• Statement of Claim (Supreme Court and Federal Court)
• Memorandum
• Letter and Facsimile
A short period of training will also be provided via Remote Access. These templates are fabulous as with some of them, you only have to enter the information once and it is automatically updated throughout the document. A huge timesaver!

Have you ever noticed that when you type a hyphen in Word, it turns into a long “dash”? Well, to stop this from happening, just go to Tools>AutoCorrect Options and then click on the AutoFormat as you Type tab, and unclick Hyphens (–) with dash (—-).

Replace text as you Type

While you are in the AutoCorrect Options area, there is another little tip you might find helpful. These days, we often have to type the word ACN and Word will assume you mean “Can” and change it for you. To stop this from happening, just click on the AutoCorrect Tab in the AutoCorrect Options area and either untick “Replace text as you type”, or if you only want to disable some of the replace as you type options, select the ones you want to delete, and just click on the Delete button.

Online Computer Support

Do you ever wish you had someone you could call when you are not sure how to do something in Word? Well, Miss-Organisation is now offering online computer support. By clicking on a link on our website, we can “hook” into your computer and show you how to solve your problem while you are sitting at your desk. Please contact admin@missorganisation.com.au for more information.

Custom Designed Templates

Do you want all your documents looking fabulous and consistent? If so, please contact us for further information and ask how we can custom design your document templates for your organisation. You won’t believe how much time you can save and how much better your documents will look!

How annoying is this! When I first upgraded to Microsoft 2003, every document opened in a Reading Layout.

If this annoys you to, well this is how you disable it:

Go to Tools>Options and then click on the General Tab and untick “Allow starting in Reading Layout” on the top right of box.

Isn’t it annoying that everything you type automatically defaults to the American way of spelling?

If, when you open Word, the setting on the bottom bar of your window says English (U.S.), you will need to change the language to English (Aus).

To do this, go to Start>Control Panel>Regional and Language Settings then click on the tab that says “Languages”, and then click on the “Details” button and change the Default Input langue to English (Australia). You can also untick the two boxes under Supplemental language support if you don’t need them as this will save you about 10MB of space.

If you have a document that has already been typed and is set to the US language settings, just Select All of your document, double click on the language setting in your language bar (normally situated at the bottom of your screen and underneath your Word page), and change the language settings from the pop-up box to English (Aus).

Just a tip - but when you are preparing documents, unless you are preparing documents to be read by Americans or Canadians, please use the English/Australian way of spelling, e.g. organisation and not organization; realise and not realize etc.