BlogOffice

A Question

Do any of you currently use Office XP on a Pocket PC? Are you happy with it? Are there challenges/pitfalls? I'm considering adding Pocket PC coverage to the next edition of Faster Smarter Office XP but I'm not sure how much of a need there is. If you're a Pocket PC user, I'd love it if you'd drop me a note and let me know what you think of your experience and what you'd change if you could. Thanks! :) k

Welcome to the Blogosphere!

This doesn't have anything to do with Office XP (directly, anyway), but PBS is airing "A Trip to the Blogosphere," covering the wide world of weblogs. Looks very cool. Of course, the show isn't playing on my local PBS station (*stamps foot*), but maybe it is on yours. Here's the link: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/mediamatters/index.html. I guess I'll have to be content with the web site. *sigh*

Thanks to Big Pink Cookie for bringing it to my attention!

Emailing Invoices

Matt is the Best Contractor in the world. He's the handyguy I wished I'd found 10 years ago, when I lived in a 125-year-old farmhouse in the middle of a popcorn field in Indiana. :) But right now he's helping me fix up my Broad Ripple bungalow (wanna see a picture?) to get it ready to sell. Yesterday we were talking about his business and he complained that he hadn't been able to figure out how to email invoices because clients could simply change the amounts if they get an attached doc via email (not that his clients would do that, of course). This morning I thought I'd figure it out...so here you go:

You can protect, but not totally lock, a Word document. The best method for securing data and keeping people from changing information is to create your invoice with all the bells, whistles, and logos you want; then choose Tools > Protect Document. In the dialog box that appears, click Comments. This doesn't totally keep people from making changes but it does limit their changes to comments only. None of the existing data on the sheet can be changed.

And if you really want to clamp down, enter a password; then give the password only to those folks you want to be able to add comments to the invoice. (Of course, if you do that, you'll have to remember the password, which might be more hassle than it's worth, depending on how good you are at remembering things.) Happy weekend, everyone! :) k

Phantom Phriends

I've noticed Outlook doing something strange lately. I type the last name of a contact in the To: line and Outlook recognizes the person and displays the rest of the name in the tip tag just below where I'm typing. That's not the strange part. I press Enter and Outlook enters the person's name in the line as usual. The funky part comes while I'm typing the body of the message. For some reason, an extra first name appears mysteriously in the To: line. For example, if I type "Murray" in the To: line, Outlook displays "Murray, Chris" and I press Enter. His email address is entered in the To: line and everything looks fine. Then I type the message and go to click Send, but now the To: line says "Murray, Chris; Chris" and that second "Chris" will hang up the message. I don't know why this is happening, but displaying the Contact Properties and changing the Display Name to "Chris Murray" instead of "Murray, Chris" seems to help. I'll keep you posted (literally). Have a good day! :) k

Back in the Saddle

Okay, I've floated along on the Happy New Year vibes long enough. Time to get back to work. :)

Labels have been floating around in my brain all morning. Address labels, CD labels, name tag labels. Are you familiar with the huge selection of label-like items you can quick print using Word's Envelopes and Labels feature? Sure, I'd used it to print off a quick envelop or a stray label before, but this morning I discovered a jackpot of items: address labels, tent cards, CD front, spine, and back labels, business cards...the list goes on and on. To check it out for yourself, choose Tools > Letters and Mailings > Envelopes and Labels. Click the Labels tab and scroll through the lengthy list. It's worth at least a small "wow" (in lowercase letters).

Two quick tips, though: If you want to create a label using a specific font, style, and color, type the text in the current document and format it the way you want it before you choose the Tools menu and the string of commands. Word will place the selected text in the Label window. Also, if you want to add a label style or create your own, click Options in the Labels tab and then click New Label at the bottom of the Label Options dialog box. You can then type the specs for your new label, name it, click OK, and you're in business. Cya! :) k