WINDOWS Magazine. 2,501 Tips. The content of this file is Copyright © 1997 CMP Media Inc. and is the property of CMP Media, Inc. This material is not freeware or shareware. It may not be resold for compensation of any kind or redistributed in print or electronically or by any other means without prior written permission from CMP Media, Inc. If you have any questions about these terms, or would like information about licensing materials from Windows Magazine, please contact: psilverm@cmp.com, or write to: Paul Silverman Attn: TIPS (REQUIRED) WINDOWS Magazine One Jericho Plaza, 3rd Floor Jericho, NY 11753 Applications -- From communications to word processing these tips help you work smarter and faster. Tax Software Kiplinger TaxCut Deluxe Multimedia Window Watch By default, TaxCut displays a window (such as a tax form or report) as a full screen. If you'd rather have smaller, overlapping windows, select Edit/Options and uncheck the option under Screen Control. Click on OK. Function Follows Form If you've entered a number on one form but don't see it carried over onto a related form, choose Tools/Recalculate. TaxCut will redo the math and display the updated results on all forms. Now See Here Take advantage of expert tax advice. Select the Q&A tab, and at the bottom of the screen, click on Index of Audio/Video. Then choose a topic from the list to start an audio/video explanation. Get a Jump on Things Use the context-sensitive Jump feature to move directly to any form with information related to the calculated field in which the cursor is positioned. Press Ctrl+J or select Forms/Jump to Related. Choose the form you'd like to view from the list. When you're done, press Ctrl+E to return to the original form, or select Forms/Previous Form. The Question Is ... In any Forms window, click on the question mark icon to access Help, Navigation and Tools buttons. Take a Memo You don't have to leave TaxCut to make notes. Press Ctrl+M or select Tools/Memo Pad, jot your note and click on OK. Next time you open Memo Pad, you'll see the note, which you can modify or expand as needed. Just Your Type By default, TaxCut displays text on forms or worksheets in 9-point Arial regular. You can choose smaller type to see more of the form on screen, or larger type to make it more legible. Select Edit/Options, click on Form Fonts, choose the desired type style and click on OK. My Savior Make TaxCut save your work automatically. Select File/AutoSave and set the desired interval, then click on OK. You can enter 0 to disable this feature, but we don't recommend it. Speed Up Printing Use Text mode to speed printing or prevent out-of-memory messages from your printer. Choose the Print tab, click on Standard Forms and then on Print Tax Return. Check Text Mode and click on Print. Find It Fast Use the Rapid Find feature to locate the specific form and line on which you enter certain information. Open the Forms menu and choose Rapid Find, or select the Forms tab and click on the Rapid Find button on the right. Choose the desired topic and click on OK. TaxCut will ask if you want to go to the form or the Q&A. If you select Tax Form, you'll jump to the relevant form and line. Lost and Found If you accidentally delete your data file, restore it from the automatic backup TaxCut makes every time you save the original return. In Windows Explorer, find the TAXCUT96/BACKUP folder. Choose the file you want to restore and change the extension from BAK to P96. Click on the filename, and copy it by holding the Ctrl key while dragging the file to the TAXCUT96 folder. In TaxCut, select File/Open and choose the file from the list. Accentuate the Tentative When working with estimated figures-if you haven't gotten your W-2 form, for example-it's wise to mark them so you remember to go back and enter the real numbers. With the cursor in the entry field, select Edit/Mark Entry Tentative, then choose OK. The figure will be marked with an asterisk when you move the cursor out of that field, but calculations will proceed as usual. To unmark the entry, put the cursor in the field and choose Edit/Unmark Entry Tentative. Microsoft Money 97 A Moving Experience If you enter a transaction in the wrong account, right-click on it and click on Move to Account. Choose the correct account and click on OK. Do It Right To correct an error in a transaction that you've already entered in the register, right-click on the transaction in the register, choose Edit and then modify the information in the form at the bottom of the screen. Click on Enter, and the register information will be corrected. Pluses and Minuses When you mistakenly enter a check as a deposit, the amount is added to your account rather than deducted. To fix this, right-click on the register entry, click on Edit and, in the form below, insert a minus sign before the amount. Click on Enter, and the amount will then show up as a payment. Play the Angles When you're in a register for one account and would like to move to another account, click on the inverted triangle before the account name and choose another account. One Good Tip Deserves Another When the Tip of the Day pops up, right-click and choose Next Tip to view another. You can repeat this as many times as you'd like. Terms of Address You can include the payee's address on printed checks. Right-click on the transaction in the register, choose Go to Payee, then enter the information in the designated fields. Click on Back to return to the register, or Go To and a destination. Mouse Maneuver Hold the mouse pointer over an area of a chart, and information about what it represents will appear. Chart Your Course Right-click on a chart and choose Zoom to enlarge it. Click on Back to return to the previous screen. Charts-Bar None Don't like pie-charts, that is? Right-click on the chart and select a different chart type to see the data represented as a line or bar chart. Be Calculating From any Amount field, you can pop up a calculator by clicking on the Down arrow next to it or pressing Alt+Down arrow. Or just type a numeral and then press any function key (like + or -), and it will pop up. Get a Date From any Date field, click on the Down arrow next to it to pop up a calendar. Select a date on the calendar to enter it in the Date field. Transaction Tracking When entering a new transaction in the register, right-click on the payee or amount and choose Previous Amounts. You'll see details on the past five transactions involving that payee, including the category if you've entered that information. Use this to avoid paying a bill twice or entering duplicate transactions. Instant Recall Have a transaction that's identical or similar to one you've already entered? Save time by entering the payee's name or the amount, then right-click on either field and choose Previous Amounts. The past five transactions will appear. Choose the one you'd like to repeat, and that information will appear in the new transaction. You can edit as needed. Secret Stuff Enter information that's for your eyes only on online bill payments or printer checks by enclosing it in curly brackets { } in the Payee field. Time Trip Right-click in the Date field and choose Yesterday, Today or Tomorrow. One Step Forward-Or Back Type a plus sign in the Number or Date fields to advance by one, based on the last figure entered. A minus sign takes you back one. Get a Different View Toggle back and forth between a detailed view of the register and top-line-only by pressing Ctrl+T. Peachtree Complete Accounting Font Flair To change the font of every object on a form, drag the mouse down all row descriptors (the buttons on the left side of the form) to turn all buttons dark gray, then click the mouse on an area of the form where there are no objects. From the pop-up menu select Font and make your selection from the list. Logo Logic Add a logo to your invoices and checks. In Forms Design, click on the Pic button on the toolbar. Move your cursor over the area where you want the art object (logo) placed. Type the filename of the picture in the dialog box. Peachtree allows bitmap objects, so select the appropriate BMP file and click on OK. Keeping Count To quickly determine how many inventory items or customers are in your database, select Help/File Statistics. The information is displayed in the Number of Records column. Inventory Clones To use one inventory item as a template for a new item, display the inventory item you want to copy using the Maintain Inventory Items window. Replace the existing item ID with a new item ID. When you click on the Save button, the new ID is saved with the old information, including the Bill of Materials (but not Quantity on Hand). Accounting for Disk Space Once you've set up your company, you can reclaim up to 8MB of disk space. Look for the IMAGE directory under the \PEACHW directory (the default installation directory). The BMP images there are used only during New Company Setup and may be deleted. Warning: If you delete these files, you'll have to reinstall the program to create a new company. A Remote Possibility If your company enters data at multiple locations, use import/export to consolidate the data. Designate one location as the "host"and all others as "remote"sites. Remote locations can export daily information and transfer the files via modem or ftp to the host location. From there you can use the File/Import command to consolidate the information. Unbalanced Balance Sheet To add page breaks to balance sheets (or other financial statements) and keep key information on the same page, go into the Design mode of Financial Statements and position the mouse on the Text/Body box where you want the page break. Right-click, select Properties from the pop-up menu and place a check in the box that appears next to "Page break after printing text." In the Beginning ... You can enter beginning balances for customers, employees, vendors, inventory items and accounts at any time. But what you enter is for historical purposes only--it doesn't affect your general ledger. Turn on a Time On the pop-up calendar that's available at most Date fields, use the Page Up key to move back a month and Page Down to move forward a month. If you also hold down the Ctrl key, you'll move in yearly increments. Don't Fill in the Blanks To print checks and invoices correctly, leave the check or invoice number fields blank. Peachtree will take care of the sequential numbers. Otherwise, the program will think the check or invoice was already issued and will print Duplicate on it. To Tab or to Enter Peachtree Complete Accounting lets you use either the Tab key or the Enter key to move to the next field. To back up, use either Shift+Enter or Shift+Tab. QuickBooks Pro 4.0 Get to the Bottom of Things Press Ctrl+End when viewing a register to quickly jump to the bottom of it. From there you can enter a new transaction. Put Your Accounts in Order Rearrange the accounts in your Chart of Accounts quickly by opening the Chart of Accounts and clicking on the diamond next to the account you would like to move. The cursor then turns into a four-headed arrow that you can use to drag an account to another location. Keep a Close Eye on Cash Track all cash you spend by creating an Other Current Asset account called Cash. When you spend cash, enter the expense in your Cash account register. Micromanage Money Create subaccounts to give you more detail about your business' accounts. For example, create an Electricity subaccount for your Utility Expense account so you can specifically track how much money you're spending on electricity. Cash Register QuickBooks keeps a register of all changes to every asset and liability account you have. To see this register, highlight the account within the Chart of Accounts and click on Use Register at the bottom of the Chart of Accounts window. Sorting Out Accounts When you create account numbers less than 1000, be sure to use a leading zero in the number so it will sort in the proper order. For instance, account number 300 should be created as 0300 so that it sorts properly and appears before account number 1000. Read the Unclassifieds If you use classes and want to find all unclassified income or expenses, run a Profit and Loss report by class for all dates. The second-to-last column lists all "unclassified"income and expenses. When you double-click on each non-zero amount, you'll see the detail of the original transaction. Discounts Count You should take early-payment discounts whenever they're offered. If you pay within 10 days and take the 2-percent discount, the savings on your money can add up over a year's time. Check out the Business Library to find out more ways to add to your bottom line. Reality Checks When you don't want QuickBooks to fill in all the information on a check automatically, select Preferences/Data Entry and turn off the "Automatically recall last transaction for this name"option. The Dates They Are A-Changin' Change the date of any transaction without retyping it. Highlight the date and use the + or - keys to scroll through later or earlier dates. Copycat Companies If you want to use the same customized Chart of Accounts (or other lists) to set up several companies, just export the lists after you've customized them. Then you can import them into the new companies. Trash the Splash You can hide QuickBooks' initial splash screen by adding a line to your QBW.INI file. Under the [MISC] section, add the line: DisableSplash=Y. Money Spent Is Money Earned Tracking reimbursable expenses as income (instead of as a reduction to your expense) is easy. Select Preferences/Sales/Invoicing and click on "Track reimbursed expenses as income." Quicken 6 Wave a Red Flag Set an alert to warn you when you're approaching your credit limit. From within your credit card register, click on Edit Account and enter your credit limit. Click on Done. Then open View/Register Options/Miscellaneous and check Alert. Enter an amount that provides a comfortable buffer and click on OK. Quicken will watch your balance and warn you when you're near or over your credit limit. Drop the Drop-Downs You can decide how much (or how little) you'd like QuickFill to do. For example, if you find it distracting to see drop-down menus listing previous entries every time you move to a new field, turn them off. Go to Edit/Options/Register/QuickFill, and check or clear options to suit your preferences. New Views Quicken now lets you customize your register to organize entries in various ways: by date, check number, amount and so on. Open the View menu and see which suits you best. Explore Register Options to customize the order of columns, colors, fonts and more. Back to Basics Get back to New User Setup by selecting File/New while holding down Ctrl+Shift. It's an easy way to start a new account or revisit the overview of features and functions. Click on Help on the overview's last screen to get more detail on each topic; use the live links to get to related info in a flash. Take a Rosy View of Things Brighten up your financial picture with a new hue. Right-click anywhere in the QuickTabs column, choose Color Schemes and pick the palette you prefer. Get a Quick Fix From the register, right-click on a payee and you'll get a dialog box that includes an entry "Payments made to ...." Click on it for a summary of how much you've forked over to that company or person. Similarly, right-click on a category-such as clothing or vacations-and you can find out how much you've spent on that category. All Net, All the Time Quicken will automatically connect you to the Internet to download stock prices and update Quicken Live features, and then disconnect when you're done. If you'd like to stay online after you've downloaded, exit Quicken, back up the QUICKEN.INI file in your Windows directory (to something like QUICKEN.BAK) and use Notepad to edit the INI file. In the section called [Internet] add =True after Stay_connected, so it reads Stay_connected=True. Save your change and exit Notepad. (This will not affect online banking.) Don't Forget! Click the tiny To Do icon at the bottom right of the screen to jump to the Reminders dialog box, where you can view-and establish-reminders for making online payments, printing checks and so forth. A Fitting Solution Tired of reports that span many pages? With a report open, go to File/Print Report and check "Fit to one page wide." While you're there, try changing the orientation from landscape to portrait, and get a sneak peek at the result by clicking on the Preview button. The Bottom Line When you click in a field for dollar amounts, you'll see a tiny calculator icon. Click on it once to open it, then play the numbers game using your mouse or your keyboard's numeric keypad. You can also pop up a monthly calendar by clicking on the miniature icon in the Date field of the register. Check It Out You can either choose the check number (Next Check Num) from the drop-down list (if you have the QuickFill feature enabled) or type just the first numeral, and Quicken will automatically complete it for you. Add Icons Add icons to the toolbar for frequent transactions. Memorize the transaction, then choose Edit/Options/Iconbar. Select New from the Customize Iconbar dialog box. In the Icon Action list, select "Use a specific memorized transaction," then click on OK. When Quicken displays the "Assign memorized transaction to icon" window, select your memorized transaction from the drop-down list. In the Target Account drop-down list, select the account in which you usually enter this transaction. Click on OK and Done. Play It Safe Always back up your data periodically to a floppy disk or other media. Select File/Backup and choose the backup drive and file to be copied. Give the backup file a unique name or Quicken will overwrite the current data file when you restore files, and you'll lose data added since the backup was created. Get Your Backup Quicken will prompt you to back up your data every third time you exit. If you'd like more frequent reminders (or none at all), edit the QUICKEN.INI file in your Windows directory. Exit Quicken and make a backup of that INI file. Using Notepad, find the line AutoBackup=3. Change the 3 to 0 to turn this feature off; change it to 1 to see a prompt every time you exit. A Hot Date Press the following keys to change the date in the register as indicated: •+ Next day •- Previous day •t Today's date •m First day of month displayed; press a second time to get first day of previous month •h Last day of month displayed; press a second time to get last day of next month •y First day of year displayed; press a second time to get first day of previous year •r Last day of year displayed; press a second time to get last day of next year Emergency 911 If disaster strikes and you've been lax about backing up, all may not be lost. Quicken automatically makes a backup copy of your data every seven days and places it in a BACKUP directory. If you can open the backup file, copy it to the directory where you ordinarily keep your data. You may be missing some recent data, but you won't have to start from scratch. Invisible Ink To add a memo to a check without printing the information, enclose it in curly brackets { } on the Payee line. An Interesting Point When paying off credit cards, it makes sense to pay the ones with the highest interest rates first. Enter the interest rate in the Description field when creating the account. When you're making payments, choose Lists/Account and find the highest interest rate in the Description column. Let that be your guide. TurboTax Deluxe Read It! Take a few minutes to peruse the Read1040 file, which contains late-breaking information. In Windows 95, go to Start/Programs/TurboTax 1996/Read1040. If you're using Windows 3.x, open Program Manager, open the TurboTax program and double-click on the Read1040 icon. First Things First Transfer data from last year's tax return before importing financial data from Quicken or another program. Use the Import command only once for each file you're importing. Transfer Trick Tax forms have changed somewhat since last year, so if you're transferring data from your 1995 return, check this Help file topic: "Transferring data from last year's forms: situations to watch for." Look Before You Leap Before importing information from Quicken, print a Tax Schedule Report from that program. This will help you ensure your Quicken data is assigned to the correct tax forms and lines. TaxLink Import When you're ready to import data by going to File/TaxLink, close all other applications-except Quicken. Import-ant News Want to find imported data in your tax return? Look for the green text on your tax forms. You can also click on Tools/My Tax Data and look for Import in the right-hand column. If it says Transfer, that means you transferred the data from your 1995 return. If the column is blank, you entered this data manually. Speed Things Up If TurboTax isn't running fast enough, close down other programs to free up some RAM. Don't forget about background apps like fax software and screen savers. Out with the Old If you want to change data you imported from your financial software, delete it from the return, adjust it in your financial program and then reimport the corrected information. To delete imported data, go to the Forms view, choose File/Remove Imported Data and click on Yes. Note: This won't delete data you transferred from last year's tax return. The Color of Money Identify entries by text color. Data entered manually is blue, while entries calculated by TurboTax are black. Errors and entries that override a calculated value are red. Entries you mark as estimated are red italic. Entries for which you created a supporting details list are purple. Data transferred from last year's tax return is aqua. Data imported from Quicken or another financial software package is green. Size Things Up In Forms view, you can enlarge and reduce the size of forms. Select Forms/Magnify and choose the desired percentage. Fit Page will show all text within the window. Drive Time If a document won't print or prints with text in the wrong fields, and you've turned off Print Manager, that means the printer driver is not accepting the TurboTax routine properly. You need a printer driver that's more compatible with TurboTax. Check the printer manual for help or get updated drivers from the printer vendor's Web site. This Is Only a Test A few weeks before your taxes are due, try printing a test page from your tax return. That way, if you encounter printing problems, you have time to solve them. Stumped? Get Help If you're working on a form and have a question about a particular entry, right-click on the field and choose Guide Me. You'll jump to the EasyStep section for the specific item. To return to the form, click on Forms/Go to Forms. Get Around Speed through a form by pressing Ctrl+Home to go to the first line of the form and Ctrl+End for the last line. Refresh Your Memory To see what you've entered in your return thus far, choose Tools/My Tax Data. If you're not sure how to interpret an entry, select it and click on Interview to open the EasyStep interview topic for that entry. Go Straight to the Source To view the source for data in a calculated field, click on the magnifying glass to the left. You can also click on Help/Data Sources, then choose a specific form. On Second Thought ... If you've overridden a calculated value provided by TurboTax, but think better of it, choose Edit/Cancel Override. TurboTax will update the field with the proper calculated value. Coping with Leftovers If you've finished the Interview but you still have receipts, income or expenses you weren't asked about, click on Help/Tax Help and search for the appropriate item. Error Check To pinpoint errors, in Forms view, select Forms/Form Errors to display a list of errors or omissions. Click on an error message to open the form and enter correct information in the highlighted field. Run Form Errors again to make sure you've caught them all. You can also search a specific tax form for errors or missing data by pressing F7 repeatedly. Check It Twice Before you call it quits, compare this year's return to last year's to spot possible irregularities. If you used the Transfer option, go to the Forms view, choose Tools/History Report and view the Tax History Worksheet. If you didn't use the Transfer option, refer to a hard copy of last year's return. Don't Trip Up If you file your form electronically, do not use the Override feature, and don't enter zeros in blank fields. TurboTax for Business Use the Right Mouse You can access most of TurboTax's program functions simply by clicking on the right mouse button. Step by Step Use the EasyStep feature to streamline the interview process and save time completing your return. The program uses your answers to determine which tax forms and sections of those forms must be completed. EasyStep also offers information about tax regulations and provides definitions of key tax terms along the way. Links to the Ledger TurboTax's TaxLink feature lets you import your Quicken or QuickBooks data into your tax return. Use this feature to review the accuracy of your data before importing it into your return. State of the Union You can purchase, then download, your state tax forms from the TurboTax Web site (http://www.intuit.com/turbotax/) and quickly transfer data from your federal return to the state return. Same Time, Next Year If you used TurboTax last year, save time by transferring data from last year's return to this year's using the new Transfer Report. After transferring the information, you can review it and delete what no longer applies to the current tax year. So Far, So Good? At any point in the program, you can see a summary of your tax return. The pop-up window displays key figures (such as total income, Section 179 deductions and how much you've overpaid or still owe Uncle Sam). Select Tools/Tax Summary or press Ctrl+T to see this information. Inside Info from the Pros For money-saving pointers, tap into TurboTax for Business' online resources--such as J.K. Lasser's Tax Deductions for Small Business and Tax Savvy for Small Business, IRS publications and video tax advice from experts. Personal Business You can use TurboTax for Business to prepare both your business (Schedule C) and personal taxes. When you're installing the program and it asks what forms you want to fill out, select "1040 federal tax return."This version is nearly identical to the personal version except that it offers additional help for the sole proprietor. Four Quarters Make It Whole For help filing quarterly taxes, use the Interview or Forms mode to determine your estimated taxes for the coming year. TurboTax for Business will print the 1040ES forms that you must include with your quarterly payments. If It's Not April 14 ... You don't have to complete your return in one sitting. Stop at any time, and the next time you start up the program, TurboTax will open where you left off. Form Follows Function To print a new form, select Forms/Open a Form, scroll to the form you want (such as W4), open it and print it. Play It Again, Sam If you want to view one of TurboTax's helpful videos but don't remember where it was in the program, go to Video Library in the online help for a list of all the video topics. Click on the one you want and the program will automatically play it. End of the Affair To uninstall TurboTax programs, use the icon in the program group or, within the program itself, click on the Planning tab, scroll to the end and select Uninstall TurboTax. Business Software Lotus Notes Something Old, Something New To display the number of unread documents in a database--a good way to tell if documents have been added since your last visit--select View/Show Unread. The number of unread documents will appear in the database icon. Stack the Odds Organize replica icons by selecting Desktop/View and checking Stack Replica Icons. Click on the arrow in the upper-right corner of an icon (which indicates stacking) and you'll see a box listing all the replicas, with the active replica checked. Click on a replica name to make it the active one. Take Forward Action Forward documents to other users without going into e-mail. With a document open, select Actions/Forward from the Notes menu to generate a memo with the document as the body. Then click on the Send button. What a Pane The Preview Pane, while useful for viewing the contents of a document without opening it, is invisible when you open a database. To activate it quickly, just drag the bottom border of the desktop screen upward. Movin' On Up Get a grip on the new menus in R4. Select Help/Release 3 Menu Finder, choose an R3 option from the drop-down menus and the equivalent R4 command appears in the yellow box. Get Special Treatment If your Notes administrator has designated any important databases as "Special," you can add the icon to your desktop with just a few clicks. Select File/Database/Open Special; select a database name to invoke a brief description of the database in the yellow help box. Click on OK and the database icon appears on your desktop. Serve Refreshments Do deleted documents still appear in the document view, while some new mail doesn't appear in your inbox? Choose View/Refresh or click the circular arrow in the top-left corner of the view pane. Accept a Helping Hand Good database managers and designers often create a How To Help document. If one exists, you can get to it by selecting Help/Using This Document. Roadside Assistance Get help even when you're on the road by installing Help Lite. Located in HELPLT4.NSF, it contains the same type of information as the Help Database (HELP4.NSF), minus some documents and the Visual Index view to save on disk space. Sight Unseen Print documents without opening them. From the view containing the document(s), click on the column to the left of the document(s), choose File/Print or press Ctrl+P, click on Printer, select a printer, click on All, then Print selected documents and finally OK. It's 'About' Time Click on the About button to see if you added the right database to your workspace. If the designer provided the database with an About help document, it'll appear in the dialog box. Get Personal Find out if a database accepts private folders by selecting the database and choosing File/Database/Access Control. If the Create personal folders/view option is checked, you can store folders in the database. No Fear If your workspace is cluttered with databases, blow away the ones you don't use by selecting them and hitting the Delete key. Although the icons are removed from your desktop, they remain on the server (so you can recover any you've blasted by mistake). Color Your World Add color to tabs in the Notes workspace by double-clicking a tab and selecting Tabs in the Workspace Properties dialog. Click on the down arrow in the field Tab color and select a color. Frank Footers Use explicit headers and footers--such as title or page numbers--on your printouts. Select Edit/Properties, click on the Properties for drop-down arrow and select either Database (if the header or footer will be used for all documents) or Document (for selected documents). Click on the Printer tab and select Header and/or footer. Use the icons and dialog boxes to compose the headers and footers. View to a Print Did you know you can print a view without printing all the documents in the view? With a database open, go to the view you want, select File/Print, go to View options, select Print View and click on OK. Be Selective Here's how to hide documents you don't need: Click on the column before each document you want. Now select View/Show Selected Only to see a view with just those documents. Missing Out? Make sure you haven't overlooked an important document by checking View/Show/Unread Only. Disable View/Show/Unread Only to see the documents again. Scenic Route Use the Visual Index to get an overview of R4's help database. Click on Visual Index in the View pane to find icons of topics. Click on an icon to bring up a detailed interactive graphic. For example, the Desktop graphic has balloons with question marks pointing to areas on the graphic. Click on a balloon to get help on a specific area. Assume the Position Position the Preview pane in the bottom right, at the bottom or on the right of your desktop. Select View/Arrange Preview, and choose the location. Microsoft Project Say 'Goodbye' to the Cell Within a table, pressing the Delete key deletes the entire task. To delete only the contents of the active cell, press Ctrl+Delete, or choose Edit/Clear/Contents. Repeat Feats For tasks performed on a regular basis, activate the table and select Insert/Insert Recurring Task. In the Recurring Task Information dialog box choose the task frequency and click on OK. A summary task is inserted as well as a subordinate task for each occurrence. Access to Custom Reports Take advantage of Microsoft Access to create custom reports from Project. Save your Project file as an Access database by selecting Tools/Multiple Projects and choosing the Save to Database option. Time Out To display the Gantt chart timescale relative to the Start or Finish time of the project (rather than actual dates), select Format/Timescale, and on the Timescale tab, adjust the Major Scale. Holiday Hero The following simple macro helps you set multi-day holidays, such as Thanksgiving breaks. In a module (use the View/Module Editor command), add the following code: Sub SetHolidays Dim StartHoliday, EndHoliday StartHoliday = InputBox ("Enter the holiday start date:") EndHoliday = InputBox ("Enter the holiday end date:") ActiveProject.BaseCalendars ("Standard").Period(StartHoliday, EndHoliday).Working = False End Sub To run the module, select Tools/Macros, choose SetHolidays and click on the Run button. Enter Work, Not Units You can enter work (e.g., 24h) in the Units field of the Resource Assignment window and Project will calculate the appropriate units required to complete the task. It All Depends The best way to make task dependencies other than finish-to-start (FS) is to begin by establishing the FS relationship. Then double-click on the link line in the Gantt Chart view. In the Task Dependency window, you can easily modify the type of dependency. Column Capers In a Gantt chart, double-click on the right edge of a column header to make the column adjust to best fit the information. To hide the column, drag the column border to the left until the column width is zero. To display a hidden column, place the cursor to the right of the column separator bar, click on and drag the bar to the right. Disappearing Act You can't filter the PERT chart to eliminate summary tasks; you can format PERT boxes to white text and white borders so they'll be invisible. Unconstrained Dates To remove a date constraint from a task, select the task and click on the Information button. On the Advanced tab, change the Constrain Field Type field to As Soon as Possible, then click on OK. This removes the date constraint and allows the task to be scheduled based on the dependencies rather than on a date that may have been accidentally entered. Tie Tasks Together Link tasks in separate project fileswith the Paste Link command. Select the Finish field of the first task and select Edit/Copy. Switch to another task in a different project, and select the Start field of that task, then choose Edit/Paste Special/Paste Link. This is not a dependency link, but a DDE link between two fields that will update the contents of the second field whenever the values in the first are changed. Project Play Create two 10-day tasks. Place the cursor in the Finish field of the first and click on the Copy button. Place the cursor in the Start field of the second task and select Edit/Paste Special/Paste Link. Place the cursor on the Finish field of the second task and click on the Copy button. Place the cursor on the Start field of the first task, then select Paste Special/Paste Link and watch the tasks "walk" across the chart. Delete one of the tasks to stop the animation. GroupWise Get a Better View Get a WPWin 6.1 Systems Compatibility Corporation viewer for GroupWise 4.0a/4.1 by downloading VIEW61.EXE from ftp://ftp.novell.com. At that site, file GWSCC1.EXE contains viewers for Mac PowerPoint 4.0 files, Quattro Pro 6.0 files and Mac Word 6.0 files under GroupWise 4.1 and 4.1a Windows Clients. Get a Patch to Fix Problems Do GroupWise 4.1a custom messages or custom commands fail? Does MAPI GPF? Is calendar printing orientation sometimes wrong? Do you get only the first page of a multisheet TIFF or spreadsheet printout if you're viewing the original during printing? If so, try applying the GWUSC1.EXE patch available at ftp://ftp.novell.com if you use GroupWise via LAN. If you use the remote client instead, apply patch GWUSR1.EXE. Patch Upon Patch If you've already applied the GWUSC1.EXE patch to your GroupWise 4.1a LAN client, try applying GWUSC2.EXE if you experience other problems, such as with Macintosh file attachments and DOS 8.3 standard filenames; a locking problem when printing multiple files with WPWIN; a GPF when scrolling down a Busy Search list; a GPF or computer restart when logging on to Windows 95 as a different user while running a Shared Code program; Address Book names displayed incorrectly when scrolling; disappearing minimize and maximize buttons while recording macros; messages and attachments that don't clean up correctly; a GPF when opening an attachment from a send dialog; or a GPF when the mouse pointer is moved across a macro-button bar. If these dilemmas happen on a remote client, apply patch GWUSR2.EXE, provided you've used patch GWUSR1.EXE. Load Faster You can load modules of WPWin when Windows 3.x first starts up, speeding start-up of the full WPWin application. Add PIF files for WPCDLL.EXE (for 5.x) or MFWIN20.EXE (for 6.x or POWin) in the StartUp group under Program Manager. Make the working directory for the PIFs the shared code directory. Adjust for Time Zones Since GroupWise stores appointments relative to Greenwich Mean Time, your appointments can be fouled up if your Administrator sets the Time Zone or daylight-savings time to begin and end after you've already scheduled items. Currently, the best solution is to reschedule your appointments. Join Up Subscribing to a list server is great for learning how to get the most out of GroupWise. Send an e-mail with the one-line message Subscribe NGW followed by your first and last name to listproc@tribble.uvsc.edu. You will receive a confirmation e-mail and some instructions. Once you are a member, any mail you address to ngw@tribble.uvsc.edu will reach all your fellow subscribers. Get Help Online If you need information, visit Novell's Web site (http://www.novell.com), ftp server (ftp://ftp.novell.com) or their gopher list of patches at gopher://gopher.novell.com/11/pub/updates. Additionally, GroupWise patches are at ftp://ftp.wordperfect.com. Enhance the Experience Novell has released an Enhancement Pack for its software that you might want to consider purchasing. It provides useful features such as automatically adding your signature file to the bottom of GroupWise messages. A Sign from Above Even if you don't have Novell's Enhancement Pack, you can append your signature file to outgoing messages. Create a custom view with the view editor (VEWIN) and replace the Send button with a macro button. A macro will sign your message before sending it. Full of It GroupWise sometimes generates erroneous disk-full messages, usually due to incorrect rights/permissions or files without owners on Netware volumes. If you get such a message, have your administrator check for those problems. To find files without owners in the current directory, administrators can use the NDIR /OW LE * command. To search subdirectories use: NDIR /OW LE * /SUB. Too Attached In Office 4.0 and GroupWise 4.1, mail attachments are sometimes never deleted--even when the sender and all recipients have deleted the message. To see if this is happening, look in the Offiles directory and see if it grows unusually large after each day. If the size keeps going up, ask your administrator to run the Ofcheck utility to clean things up. That's Simply Unacceptable Have you been sending messages to folks who swear they never got them, even though your software shows otherwise? They may have established a rule that accepts mail messages instead of appointment requests. Accepted items are hidden by default, but to test for the problem you can "unhide" them by opening the Inbox, selecting View/Filter, checking the box next to Not Accepted and clicking on OK. If the missing messages now show up in the Inbox, hunt and alter the unwanted rule so that it applies only to appointments. Forward March If you're out of the office, you can have GroupWise automatically forward your internal e-mail messages to another GroupWise user. Write a rule that "delegates" new messages. The recipient will receive your mail embedded in a mail message automatically sent for you. Special Delivery Have GroupWare Instant Experts, Tech Tips and App Notes e-mailed or faxed you by sending e-mail to Novell at public@novell.com. To receive a list of available documents via e-mail, the body of your message to Novell should be GET 1; to have the list faxed, the first line of the body should be FORWARD 1 and the second line TO FAX: Firstname Lastname@your_number. To order specific documents on the list, insert the appropriate number after the GET or FORWARD command. For example, to receive the Instant Expert Guide #716 by e-mail, the first line of your e-mail should read GET 716. Universal Truth GroupWise apps can use both Novell and Universal Naming Conventions (UNC) anywhere a path and filename can be entered. GroupWise users are probably already familiar with the syntax for NNC (server\volume:directory\filename); the UNC is: \\server\volume\directory\filename. Look Before You Run Don't run the LAN Server app on your client machine RUNSLAPP (which enforces the license limits for other apps) unless your administrator has installed the required shared code on a network drive that is always mapped to all workstations. If not, Windows may give you an Undefined Link error message or a Segment Load Failure error message after WPWin 6.0a is closed for the first time. Don't Hit the Breaking Point In WFWG 3.1, certain virtual device drivers can use up too many of your network software's callback breakpoints, especially when running GroupWise. That can cause a crash or produce false Out of Memory errors. Avoid the problem by increasing the maximum breakpoint value (MaxBPs=value) specified in the [386Enh] section of the SYSTEM.INI file until the errors cease. Learn more about the MaxBPs setting from the Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.1 Resource Kit. Hacking the Writing Tools The Speller, Thesaurus and Grammatik writing tools behave according to settings in the WTAPI.INI file, which you can tweak provided you have write access to it and can find the file. Its default location is Windows directory. If the file isn't there, look at the variable WTAPIPATH in the [Writing Tools] section of WIN. If the variable isn't there, your administrator has done a corporate installation, placing the variable value in a BIF file, which you might not be able to edit. WPDRAW Won't Run? If you're running the WPCNET Settings copy of WordPerfect, and WPDraw won't run, you probably don't have the WPDraw program installed in the WPWIN60 default directory. You need to use Regedit to change the server= value under the WPChart21 entry to the path where WPDRWIN.EXE is installed. Off-Load Your Dictionary Save disk space by moving your supplementary dictionary from your Windows directory to any network volume you have write access to (provided you have your administrator's permission). Talk to your administrator about adding a group called WPSpeller with a section called Settings, and an item called Default Path for Supplementary Dictionaries in the WPCNET.BIF file. The item type is ANSI string. The value can be a full path or a relative drive letter. The Supplemental Dictionary File naming convention is WxxxxxUS.SUP, where the five x's represent the hashed name based on the user name. Communications procomm plus 3.0 For a Change of Mode The Quick-Select line at the bottom of the screen allows you to quickly change terminal modes, file-transfer protocols, current connection and more with a mouse click. To move to the setup options for the item selected, use the right mouse button. One-Click Pony Metakeys are buttons that appear across the bottom of your screen. Use the Metakey editor (accessed through the Tools menu) to send commonly used text strings (such as passwords), to run scripts or even to start up other applications with the click of a button. Make a (Re)Connection When connected to BBS, use Zmodem to resume downloading files that aborted during earlier transfers. Stay Current If you regularly transfer files between primary and secondary PCs, configure the Zmodem Sender Crash Recovery Settings to Crash Recover if the file's CRCs match; otherwise overwrite. You can access these settings from the Setup/Data/Transfer Protocol menu. Make sure Zmodem is selected as the transfer protocol in the dialog box that pops up. This will ensure that both systems use the most current files. Follow the Script Use the Aspect Script Recorder (Scripts/Record) to avoid repetitive tasks every time you log onto a host computer. The recorder creates a script to automate the tasks performed while it is running. Attach the script to a dialing directory entry so it "plays" automatically when you connect. It Takes Two While in browser mode, you can launch a second version of the Procomm Plus Web Browser by right-clicking over a hyperlink and selecting Open in New Window. Safe and Secure When starting a remote control session, protect your data by turning on the Data Encryption option in Procomm Remote. When assured that the transfer medium is secure, turn this option off to speed up performance. Right-click on the Connection icon in the Remote Control window, and select Properties to enable or disable data encryption. After the Crash Be sure to turn on File Crash Recovery in your ftp settings on the Internet tab in the Setup dialog. Select Setup, Internet, FTP Options and Transfer Options. If connection problems occur while you're retrieving a file, crash recovery allows you to pick up where the transfer failed. You won't have to wait for the entire file to be resent. Get In on the Action Use the Action Bar Editor to develop your own action bar. Open the Action Bar Editor from the Tools menu, then open any action bar, and select Edit/Edit Action Bar. Move, add or replace buttons on the action bar to create your own. Once it's been created, open Action Bar on the Setup menu, find the name of the action bar you just created in the second drop-down box and check the Global check box so your action bar will be available no matter which mode you're in. WinFax Pro 7.5 In the Dark You can control the darkness level of your faxes by adjusting the WinFax printer driver properties. Click on the Win95 Start button, select Settings and click on Printers. Right-click on the WinFax icon, choose Properties and click on the Graphics tab to adjust the print settings. One Last Look Preview a fax before sending it to verify its contents or to make additions or deletions. In the Send dialog box, click on Options and choose Preview/Annotate. The Internet Option When you're sending a fax long distance, use the Internet-it's cheaper than dial-up long distance. Click on Setup, choose Internet Fax, then follow the Internet Fax Setup Wizard steps. Road Rules If you're faxing from a hotel room, use your phone card to avoid the premiums that hotels charge for long-distance calls. Click on Setup, choose Dialing, then click on the Credit Card tab. You can then choose one of the existing credit card options or create your own dialing sequence. Night Moves Delay sending a fax to take advantage of lower long-distance telephone rates. Click on the Send Fax button, select a recipient and click on Delivery. Choose Off-Peak to send the fax at a time when the rates are lower. On Location To change your dialing location, right-click on the Location indicator on the WinFax status bar and select a different location. To open the Dialing Properties dialog, double-click the Location indicator. Send Fast If you have to send a fax fast, right-click on the WinFax icon on the task bar, then click on Send Fax. This will immediately launch the WinFax Send screen. Remote Fax at Hand When you are on the road, you can still retrieve your faxes. Select Receive from the Setup menu, click on the General tab and activate the "Allow remote retrieval of faxes from my computer" function. Whenever you want to retrieve faxes using this machine, click on Receive and choose Remote Fax Retrieval. Macro Convenience Send faxes directly from Word and Excel using a couple of WinFax 7.5's built-in macros. The macros add a WinFax option to the File menu in these programs, which will launch the WinFax Send screen from within the application. The Excel macro installs automatically; to install the others, open the WinFax folder, click on the icon associated with the application and follow the instructions. Easy Comm You can receive faxes without launching the entire WinFax program by running CommBar. Coming Events You can create a saved event to use as a template for future faxes. Specify the information you want to save in the Send dialog, then click on Create Event. Under (New) Cover In many cases, you can double-click the first entry in a folder list or item list to create a new entry. For example, to create a new cover page, double-click on New Cover Page. By Default You can automatically send the default cover page with every fax. On the Setup menu, click on Program, select the General tab and enable the "Always use cover page" option. Hold Everything To temporarily stop sending faxes already in your Outbox, right-click anywhere in the Outbox folder and click on Hold All. To restart faxing, right-click on the Outbox folder and click on Release All. Drag Racing Use drag-and-drop to speed up WinFax operations. For example, to initiate a quick fax, drop the necessary cover pages, attachments or phone book recipients onto the Send Fax toolbar button. This will automatically launch the Send screen. A Few Words More To add text to a received fax, double-click on the entry in the Receive log. Open the fax in the Fax Viewer, turn on annotation and fill in the form with the Text tool. Databases FileMaker Pro 3.0 Pause that Refreshes To find the problem in a troublesome script, use the Pause/Resume step. Create a field to test for a returned value and use Paste to insert the field; follow this with Pause/Resume Script. [previous script steps] Paste ["test field"] Pause/Resume Script [] Break It Up To troubleshoot a long script, break it into smaller, logical scripts. For example, one script would locate records, the next would sort them and the third would export the sorted records. Objects and Properties In layout mode, press Ctrl and click on any layout object to set its text attributes. Troubleshooting Tips If your script doesn't run properly, one of the following could be the culprit: The script is accessing the wrong layout; the field you're trying to copy or paste isn't on the current layout; conditionals or loops are out of place; the script's Find isn't locating the expected information; or a second Find is interrupting the primary Find. It's also possible that there's a descending Sort where you really want an ascending Sort; a user's password conflicts with the script's actions; an errant IF is producing unexpected branching; there's a Find that doesn't make any matches; or a calculation that your script requires is producing the wrong value or the wrong type of value. The Importance of Export When exporting data to a word processor, use "Format output using current layout" to preserve the formatting of number, date and time fields. Three-or More-on a Match Separating values in a match field with return characters allows you to match a single record with many different, related records. Lovely Layouts To color a part on a layout, select the tab and choose from the color palette. Shifty Selection If you select an object and press the Shift key while choosing Select All from the Edit menu, all similar objects on the layout will be selected. Clandestine Data Add an underscore to the end of a FileMaker filename (for example, INVOICE_.FP3) to make it invisible over the network. The file will still be accessible via scripts and relationships. Forbidden Fields You can prevent users from clicking into a field by setting its Field Format to bar entry. A script, however, will be able to enter the field. Shortcut to Net Apps When working in Windows 3.x, use FileMaker Pro 3.0 to create shortcuts to network databases. Create a new FileMaker Pro 3.0 file to automatically run a script using the Open step to access a specific network database. Mail of the Species To speed sending an e-mail message to everyone on a mailing list, create a FileMaker Pro 3.0 database with records for the addressees, and global fields for the subject and message. Using ScriptMaker, type in the subject and message once. Spaced Out Buttons and Boxes To add spacing and separators within a field formatted with check boxes, radio buttons or a pop-up list, add a blank line between check boxes or radio buttons in a field, and add a blank line between each value in the value list. Click Clique To select multiple entries from a pop-up menu or radio button field, press the Shift key as you click on radio buttons or make choices. Field Fashions To change a field on a layout, double-click on the layout and then use the New Field dialog box to redefine the field. Paste a Hasty Report You can quickly export a report by viewing it in Preview mode and copying the page to the Clipboard. The page's image can then be pasted into another program. Add Hues With FileMaker Pro 3.0, you can fill an entire layout part with a background color. In Layout mode, click once on the part label to select it, then choose a fill color from the palette. Pop Quiz To format a pop-up menu, right-click on a field to display Format, and choose from the various options. Lotus Approach 96 Make It Fit to Print When you're using Approach 96 to print a form created in an earlier version, some fields might not print. To solve this problem, print the form using a lower print resolution setting, such as 300dpi; or go to Design mode, select the field nearest to the field that doesn't fit and apply the Reduce Boundaries setting. Follow the Arrows You can rearrange objects on a form by dragging and dropping them. To move one or more selected objects a little at a time, use the arrow keys. The selected objects move one screen pixel in the direction determined by the arrow you press. Stack Objects Inside a Box When designing views, you can stack objects on top of each other. For example, you can place a box on-screen and drop related objects inside it. To stack objects, select the object, open the Object menu and choose Arrange. Your stacking options are Bring to Front, Send to Back, Bring Forward and Send Backward. Do That Again When entering data, you can duplicate a value from the last record you created by clicking on the field object and choosing the "Duplicate data from previous record" SmartIcon. You can also recall entries by opening the Browse menu and choosing Insert/Previous Value. A Quick Date You can save time if the date you're entering in a form is the current month and year. If there's no prior date displayed in the field object, you only have to enter the day. Approach will default to the month and year. A Database by Any Other Name ... Aliases allow you to make circular joins. You can join Database A to Database B and Database B to Database C. You can't join Database A to C, but you can join Database A to an alias of C. To create an alias in the Join dialog box, click on the database you want and select Alias. Approach displays the databases in the Join dialog box as Database C 1 and Database C 2. Safety in Numbers Approach 96 uses a TeamSecurity feature to secure your databases. TeamSecurity lets you customize privileges for a group. You can use its Require Password option to require the group to use a password for each database. X Marks the Spot Approach will sometimes let you know if there is a problem with a formula you define in a calculated field. If the OK button is inactive and the checkered flag has a red X through it, something is wrong. Check to see if you have the same number of left and right parentheses. Don't Mix Your Macros When creating a macro in the Define Macro dialog box, you can see the names of the previously defined macros by dropping down the Macro Name combo box. Keep the names different enough to reduce confusion. Work by Design You should always be in Design mode when you create or use a worksheet. Some Approach functions only work in Design mode, and you don't want to have to keep switching between Browse and Design modes. Also, you must be in Design mode if you're using a password with a worksheet. Use InfoBox to Customize Worksheets Use the InfoBox when customizing worksheets. Because the InfoBox stays on-screen until you close it, you can customize a group of cells in InfoBox, select another group in the Approach window and then customize that group in the InfoBox. To display the InfoBox click on the InfoBox icon, press Ctrl+E or choose Worksheet Properties from the Worksheet menu. Just Add Water Approach will create instant charts for you if you're working with a crosstab view. To create an instant chart from a crosstab, select that crosstab as the current view, then either click on the Chart Crosstab icon or open the Crosstab menu and choose Chart Crosstab. Beware of Disappearing Charts When modifying text in a chart using the Chart SmartIcon bar, don't try to delete a text element by using the Delete or Backspace key or using the Edit/Cut command. You will lose your entire chart if you do. The chart you're working with is always selected in its entirety. Icons of a Feather Flock Together When you're setting up your SmartIcon set, you can group icons for related operations. To separate icons into groups, drag the Spacer icon at the top of the icon list to the right of your group. Let Your Field Do the Dialing Approach's Phone Dialer lets you dial a number by selecting a field that contains a phone number and choosing Dial from the Browse or Worksheet menu. Quick Imports Approach will import a spreadsheet and convert it directly to a database. Open the File menu, select Open and select the spreadsheet file type. Approach will open the file and convert it. Map 'Em or Zap 'Em When importing an Approach file into your open file, all unmapped fields will appear as NO FIELD REFERENCE in Design mode when Show Data is turned off. With Show Data mode on, the unmapped fields are blank. Use the InfoBox to assign database fields to the unmapped fields, or delete them from the views. Boot Your Headers and Footers A header and footer appear on every page of a report. To keep them off the first page, create a title page and make it different from the rest of the report. To create a title page, switch to Design mode, open the Report menu and choose Add Title Page/Show Title Page. When you're finished working with the title page, uncheck Show Title Page to return to the main page of the report. Keep Your Label Options Open When specifying the size and shape of mailing labels, you can change the custom options in Design mode. Click on the Edit Label Options button in the mailing label InfoBox, and make your changes in the Mailing Label Assistant's Options dialog box. Microsoft Access 7.0 Compress and Clean Up Often Creating and deleting huge arrays of data will cause Access files to grow to unwieldy sizes. To compress an Access database, close all open databases and select Tools/Database Utilities/Compact Database. Choose the database you want to compress and provide a new filename for the compressed version. Getting from A to B Calling on a domain aggregate function from a function or subroutine will slow your database down to a crawl. For speed and efficiency, learn the appropriate database programming techniques and make sure you know how to use Data Access Objects in Access. Queries, Anyone? Microsoft Access 7.0 is fully 32-bit and designed to work with multiple CPUs under Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0. Try performing a query against a database of several thousand records on a dual-CPU machine running Access and compare the results with those obtained on a single-processor unit. You may find that performance increases significantly enough that you won't have to invest in a new database management system to properly exploit multiprocessor functions. Get a Proper License Customize your toolbox with OLE custom controls by dragging and dropping from the command well onto the toolbox. You should not do this unless you've properly licensed and registered the OCX you want to use. For example, you should not use an ActiveX control you've downloaded from the Internet unless it's installed correctly and licensed to run on your machine. Check Out the Previews Right-click while in Print Preview to get a grid for the number of pages to preview. It's more detailed than the list of pages available from the menu. Lose that Data To remove all instances of a piece of data from your current recordset, right-click on data in a Form/Datasheet and choose Filter Excluding Data. Easy Duping To duplicate a database object quickly without using Copy/Paste, drag and drop it within the Database window while pressing the Ctrl key. Look It Up If you've got fields in a table with redundant data, use the Table Analyzer to break out the data across two or more tables for better efficiency. The Table Analyzer works without damaging the original data table. It also generates a query that simulates the original unaltered table, so you can easily plug it into existing forms and reports. Subforms Made Easy Use the Subform/Subreport Wizard to create a subform displayed as a datasheet. To start the wizard, drag a table or query from the Database window to a form. Just verify the correct linking field and you've got a form with a subform displayed as a datasheet. Pass the Crayons Make your Visual Basic for Applications code easier to read-in Tools/Options/Module, pick different colors for different kinds of code (keywords, comments and so forth). Get a Stylish View Bring up any object in design view by pressing the Ctrl key and double-clicking in the Database window. 2 x 1 = More than 2 If response times are slowing down while you work on a networked Access database, use the new replication support in Access 7.0 to create a replicated database on another network share. This enables people to use both shares while ensuring that the databases are synchronized. Go Cycling Use the new Cycle property to determine what happens when you tab past the last field in a form. You control whether you advance to the next record or the next page, or return to the first control on the form. Ties that Bind Bind data directly to a control by clicking on the control, then dragging and dropping the desired field from the field list. Info-Gathering Keep the Debug window open after you close the Module window if you want to get "on-the-fly" answers to how particular variables are set, or to see the values of properties of given objects. Presto! Change-O! To edit the bitmap on a button, go into customize mode, right-click on the button and choose Edit Image. See It All View all the code in a module in one long continuous sheet rather than one sub at a time by selecting Tools/Options. Select the Module tab and check the "Full module view" box. Take Control of Controls Change controls on a form from one control to another by right-clicking on the control-you don't have to delete them and re-create them from scratch. Paradox 7.0 Easy Prints The easiest way to print the structure of a table is to first view the structure and save it to a table. Choose Tools/Utilities/Info Structure, select a table and choose OK. From the Structure Information dialog box, choose Save As. The default name for a saved structure is STRUCT.DB in the private directory. You can view the :PRIV:STRUCT.DB table and generate a Quick Report. Don't Sweat the Details By default, the detail table in a 1:1 relationship is read-only, so you can't modify the data inside. But you can change this by viewing the form's data model, right-clicking on the detail table and unchecking Read-Only on the pop-up menu. Save the form, and you can now edit the detail table. Order a Tab From Form Design, you can change the tab order of fields on a form by setting the Run Time property to Next Tab Stop. Choose Properties, the Run Time tab, Next Tab Stop and select the next tab stop. Keep Sight of the View In order to use the Tab or Enter key in a form's memo field, you must be in Memo View. Go there by pressing Shift+F2. If you are not in Memo View and you press Tab or Enter, the cursor will advance to the next field. How Many Shopping Days Ôtil Christmas? To calculate the number of days between two dates, you must cast the result as a Number type or the result will show as a Date type. Don't Object to These Experts You can create a new object on a form without using the Object Experts. Go to Edit/Preferences/Experts and uncheck "Run Experts when creating objects on documents." Special Imports The Text Import Expert can import a text file containing special delimiter characters. The expert asks for characters used to separate or delimit the text file. For example, if the fields in the text file are separated by tabs, move focus to the Separator field and press Ctrl+T. This prepares the field to accept a special character. Now press the Tab key, and the specification for the import will include tabs as separators. Substitute other special characters for the tab as needed. Sew on a New Button To add a custom button code to the Button Expert, edit the EXPBTNS.DB table in the PARADOX\EXPERTS\BUTTON directory. Fill in the Category Name, Action Name, Code, MethodName, DefaultLabel and DefaultBMP fields. The DefaultBMP field may stay blank. You don't have to modify any other fields. Choosy Capitals To capitalize some, but not all, fields in a report, use a calculated field with an expression that changes the field's case. For example, to change the Name field in the Customer table to uppercase, use the expression, upper([CUSTOMER,NAME]). To change the field to lowercase, replace "upper" with "lower". To change it to initial capitals, use the ObjectPAL format procedure along with the "lower" procedure. You would use: format("CC",lower([CUSTOMER.Name])). Dial 0 for White-Out To use a crosstab object in a report, you need to place it in the report header and resize the record band to 0 so there is no white space in the record band. Any crosstab placed in the record band of the report will be printed for each record in the table. Don't Be Skimpy When planning an application, don't be afraid to include too many possible fields. It's much easier to remove fields from the design than to add new ones. In Exchange for Mail In Exchange for Mail If you use Microsoft Exchange, you can see your e-mail while working in WinFax. From the Setup menu, click on Exchange, choose the General tab and select "Use Microsoft Exchange in WinFax." Similarly, you can access your WinFax logs and messages from within Microsoft Exchange by adding the WinFax service provider to your Exchange profile. In Control Panel, double-click on the Mail and Fax icon, then click on Add to include the WinFax Exchange extensions. Work Smart Approach 96's SmartIcons duplicate pull-down menu commands. To display the SmartIcon bar by default, select File/User Setup/Approach Preferences and check the SmartIcons box in the Show section of the Display page. "Free" OCXes May Not Be Free OCX software components installed by third-party programs for use in Access databases may require you to pay royalties or a licensing fee if you convert your Access database into an application. Check with manufacturers before getting yourself into hot water. Meet the Experts Paradox 7.0 includes nine new experts: Startup, Database, Table, Merge, Chart, Text Import, Field, Button and Launcher Desktop Publishing/Graphics CorelDRAW 6.0 Be Selective Even though objects are grouped, you can select a single object from within the group by holding the Ctrl+Shift keys and clicking on one object in the group. Postscript Postmortem If you are unable to edit an EPS file after importing it to CorelDRAW with the Encapsulated Postscript filter, check the status bar. If the status bar reports the objects as a bitmap with an EPS file attached, re-import the file with the Postscript Interpreted (PS) filter. The file will now be presented in vector format, available for editing. Grid Dynamics Obtain quick and easy access to the Grid and Scale Setup dialog by double-clicking on either the horizontal or vertical rulers. You can relocate rulers by holding down the Shift key, clicking on the rulers and dragging them anywhere you like on the page. A Mightier Mouse Add functions to the right-mouse button by clicking on the Advanced tab in the Options dialog box. In the Pop Up Menu Customization section, choose an option from the First Menu Item list box. Click on OK. Now, whenever you click the right mouse button, the option you choose from the First Menu Item list box will appear at the top of the pop-up menu. If you choose None, the standard pop-up menu appears. A Moving Sight To see an object outlined as you move it, click the right mouse button with the pointer over the Pick tool. Then select Properties and check the "Draw objects when moving" option box. Finally, set "Delay to draw when moving" to 0.100. Get a Handle Increase or decrease an object's size in 100 percent increments by holding down the Ctrl key and dragging the side handle of an object to increase its horizontal dimensions, or the top or bottom handle to resize its vertical dimensions. Grab a corner handle in this manner to resize the entire object. Identify Cryptic Icons Figure out what tool icons represent by placing the pointer over the tool and pressing the right mouse button. When the menu appears, select either Help or What's This. Shadow Boxing To create a simple transparent drop shadow, select an object and press the + key to duplicate the object. Drag the duplicate to the spot where you wish the shadow to appear. Using the LENS function, set a suitable shadow color and transparency amount in the LENS dialog box. Send it behind the original object using the Arrange To Back menu item. Dynamic Defaults You change the default settings for Artistic text, Paragraph text, Bullets and Graphics to match your personal preferences. Open Layout/Styles Manager. Next, select the object you wish to change from the list and click the right mouse button. Select Properties, make your changes and select OK. Now click on the flyout button above the word Hot-Key and select Template. Click on the option "Save as default for new documents" and your settings will be saved for future sessions. Metafile Magic When you export a file from CorelDRAW with two-color bitmap pattern fills as a Windows Metafile (WMF), and then re-import the file, the result is a grayed-out image. To solve the problem, export the file using the Enhanced Windows Metafile (EMF) filter. The file will now import back into CorelDRAW correctly. Simplify with Layers Use layers to break down complex drawings into easy-to-edit components. You can make layers visible or hidden. A layer can be output to the printer or visible on the screen but not available for print. You can also lock a layer to prevent objects on it from being changed or moved. Have Tools, Will Travel Customize your workspace by moving the Toolbox. It can be docked, or can float anywhere you like. You can have flyouts grouped by function or have all tools visible at once. Deja View If you prefer the way Zoom Tools worked in earlier versions of CorelDRAW, place the pointer over the Zoom Tool and click the right mouse button. Select Properties and enable "Use traditional zoom flyout." Quick-Draw Artist When your screen is taking too long to redraw, consider changing to Wireframe view. This displays your objects without their outline and fill attributes, speeding redraws. You can choose Wireframe from the View menu or click the Wireframe icon in the ribbon bar. Layer by Layer If you'd like to select and edit objects on any unlocked layer in your drawing, turn the MultiLayer option on. Choose the Layers Roll-Up from the Layout menu, click on the menu flyout button and select MultiLayer. When it's disabled, you're restricted to objects on the active layer. Fractal Painter 4.0 Follow the Pointing Finger If you have trouble selecting a path you want to move, click and hold on the Adjuster tool located on the Tools Palette. Two choices will appear. One is the Floater Adjuster and the other is the Path Adjuster, which looks like a pointing finger with a dotted rectangle. Select the Path Adjuster. You can now manipulate the path. Lose the Blues If your Windows system is set to display 16-bit color, your Painter palettes may be hard to see and could display funny green and purple colors. Open Edit/Preferences/Windows and check "No device dependent bitmaps." Reload Painter and the problem should disappear. Specify Clickable Regions To specify a floater as a clickable region on a Web image map, open the image and select the region you want to click on. Float the selection, open the F.List Palette and trim the floater. Next, choose File/Get Info/Floater Attributes. Enable the WWW URL option. In the Notes field, enter the hypertext reference and URL. When you save the file in GIF or JPEG format, Painter will write out a text-based map file that defines the hotlink areas. Clipboard Gymnastics Fractal Painter can copy to the Windows Clipboard but is unable to paste information created in other applications. To work around this problem, press Alt+Print Screen to copy the active window containing the information you need. Paste the window into Painter. The window borders can now be cut out using the rectangle selection tool. Be Independent Groups that contain both bitmap floaters and shapes cannot be scaled, rotated, flipped or distorted. Make sure you manipulate the two types of objects independently before you group them. Don't Erase Paper Texture If you apply a paper texture to your image when first created, the texture is erasable. When you erase brush strokes, you will also erase the paper texture. To avoid having this problem, add the paper texture as a last step. Customize Brushes Use the Brush Look Designer for interactive feedback when customizing brushes. Choose Brushes Palette/Brush Look Designer. The Brush Look Designer window appears with a sample brush stroke on the scratch pad. Any changes you make to the brush will be reflected in the scratch-pad window. Put Swap File in Its Place Painter creates its own memory management swap file named PAINTER.SWP. You can designate which drive or partition the file resides on by selecting Edit/Preferences/Temp Volume. Select the drive with the most free space and defragment the drive. Undo the Undo Feature Multiple undo levels is a great feature, but it hogs memory. If your system pauses between brush strokes while Painter writes an undo record, reduce the number of undo levels. Select Edit/Preferences/Undo and set a lower number of undo steps. It's Only Fitting To determine if your image will fit on one page, click and hold the i icon in the lower left corner of the image window. A pop-up preview box will appear. The white box is the printable area and the gray border is the non-printable area. Your image is represented by a rectangle with an X in it. Different Strokes Painter will border a selected region with a brush stroke automatically. Set the paths you want to stroke as the active selection. Choose the brush variant, color and paper texture for the stroke. Then pick Stroke Selection from the P.List menu found on the Objects Palette. Brush Up on Textures Make the most of Painter's paper textures. Many of the brushes, such as Chalk and Charcoal, interact with the paper grain. Combine brushes and paper textures to create unusual effects. Select Multiple Floaters If your image contains numerous floaters, you can select them all at once. With the Floater Adjuster tool active, choose Edit/Select All, and all floaters in the image will be selected. Rearrange Your Drawers Normally, Painter arranges the most recently used items first in a drawer. To lock certain items in place, drag them out of the drawer to the drawer front. Click on each icon and hold the mouse button until a green light appears under it. Freehand 5.5 Save Before You Outline Converting type to outlines makes output easier, but can cause problems if you have to edit text after the type is converted. Before converting type to outlines, save a copy of the working file with type specs and kerning. This can make the difference between inserting changes and reconstructing all the type in your drawing. Members First To edit an individual member of a group, hold down the Alt key and click on the object in the group. While it's selected, you can change an object's attributes, text, position or shape. When you deselect the object, it goes back to being a member of the group. Fill 'Er Up When creating or editing radial fills, you can change the inside color and location in one step. Press the Alt key and drag the new inside color to the location at which you want the center of the radial fill to appear. A Custom Blend If you need a custom color palette in a hurry, use the Blend tool to create a blend. Now select the Eyedropper tool, pick up individual colors and place them on the new palette. It's a Wrap Adjust the text wrap applied to an inline graphic (one you've pasted into a text block) by selecting the graphic with the Text tool. In the Character Inspector, click the Edit button. In the Text Wrap dialog box, click on the Wrap button. Enter the desired settings in the Standoff Distances dialog box. Negative numbers can be used if you want the text in the block to overlap the graphic. Line Dance Stretch a line segment on a FreeHand path by dragging it. Select the Pointer tool and hold down the Alt key. Click on any line segment between any two points and drag it. FreeHand bends the line segment and automatically changes the position of the two control handles defining the curve of the line segment. Make Your Point Switch temporarily to the Pointer tool while a different tool is selected by holding down the Ctrl key. The original tool will reappear when you release the Ctrl key. Get Color Previews Color EPS Preview is a hidden Preference option that can be adjusted by editing the FHPREFS.TXT file in the FreeHand 5 directory. Open the file in a text editor and locate the line ColorEPSpreview (No). Change the line to read ColorEPSpreview (Yes). Get Centered Move a selected object to the center of your view by highlighting the magnification field in the lower left of the document window. Change the magnification percentage and press Enter (or just press Enter if no change is required). The screen redraws with the selected object at the center of the screen. Rotating by the Numbers When rotating multiple text objects, use the menus and apply specific numerical increments to get a neater, less random design than you would with the Rotation tool and mouse. Point the Way You can move points with the Pen tool if you don't like where you placed them. With the Pen tool selected, hold down the Ctrl key to move a point to the desired location. Balancing Act When using FreeHand to lay out a newsletter, use the Balance Column and copyfitting features in the Text Inspector to align the column bottoms evenly in a hurry. The Path to Success Create text on a path in one step by drawing a path, choosing Bind To Path with the path selected and typing the desired text. On a closed path, such as an oval or circle, press Enter and continue typing to create text both on the top and bottom of the object. Get a Neon Effect Place a thin, light-colored line directly on top of a thicker black line. Select both lines and choose Blend from the Arrange:Path Operations pop-up menu. The result is a single line with a neon color effect. Unobstructed Vision If you can't see your design under all the open palettes on the screen, press Ctrl+Alt+H. All open palettes will be hidden, giving you an unobstructed view of your work. To reopen the palettes, press Ctrl+Alt+H again. Micrografx Designer 4.1 Adjust Intersection The ruler origin-the point where the two rulers intersect at zero-can easily be changed. To show the rulers, open Display/Workspace/Show Rulers. Point to the button at the intersection of the two rulers. Holding the left mouse button, drag the mouse pointer to the desired position of the new zero point. The zero point on both rulers will move to the new position. Maximize the Clipboard If you have trouble transferring large objects from Designer through the Clipboard, try this: Locate the MGX.INI file in the Windows directory. Add the following line: AllowLargeClipboardObjects=1. You should now be able to cut and paste large objects, limited only by available memory constraints. Look for Attributes Select all symbols with a matching attribute by opening Edit/Select and highlighting the attributes you wish to search for. All symbols matching the criteria you choose will now be selected. Copy Cats Keep multiple versions of one drawing or create a new drawing based on a previous one. Go to File/Open and highlight the file you want to copy. Click on the File Options button and choose Copy. Type in the new filename and press Enter. Designer will copy the file using the new filename. Transform Yourself Create several transformations at one time. Select Change/Transform and click on the Details button. Set your transformation and click on Add. Repeat this process to set multiple transformations such as Skew or Scale, and click the Add button after each. Now click on Apply and all transformations will be applied to your objects at the same time. Leave the dialog box open, and you can apply the same transformations to other objects. Chain Gang Create complex chained objects using the Connect-A-Draw feature. Draw your first object and then click away from the object to end the current drawing action. Hollow boxes will appear at the endpoints of the object. You can now use another tool. When you move the mouse over the endpoint of the first object, the pointer changes to let you know you will be adding a shape to the previous object. Create Highlights Use the Blend command to create a highlight effect. Draw an object and fill it with a solid color, then draw another object with a lighter color on top of the first object. Make the outline color of the top object invisible. Select both objects and choose Change/Blend. Enter the number of steps for the blend and click Apply. Designer blends the shape and color of one object into the other. Group Dynamics To edit group objects without ungrouping them, double-click on an object in a group. A thick blue box appears around the objects, indicating that you are in Group Edit mode. You can modify individual objects, add new objects to the group or even delete objects. To exit Group Edit mode, double-click outside the blue Group Edit box. Get Good Guidance Drag a guide from the ruler to the drawing area to help align objects precisely. An alternative is to place guides at specific x or y locations via the Coordinates dialog box. Open Multiple Files The Find File dialog box helps you find and open multiple files at the same time. Select File/Open and click on Find. You can use DOS wild card characters to find files with similar names or extensions. From the list returned, you can select the desired files and open them all at once. Use Custom Fills Designer allows you to use clip art or your own drawings as object fills. Copy the clip art or drawing to the clipboard. Choose Format/Interior Fill/Object. Click on Paste. Set options for your new fill, such as Retain Original Colors, by clicking on the Edit button in the Object Fill dialog box. Edit with Ease Double-click on an object to enter edit mode quickly. This allows you to reshape an object or edit text. If you double-click on an OLE object, you can edit it through the server application. Reduce Vector Points If you have trouble printing a bitmap converted into a vector object using the Trace tool, try reducing the number of points on the vector object. Select Object/Reduce Points. Simultaneous Shape and Move While creating a new shape, hold down the right mouse button to reposition the object at the same time you are creating it. The same concept applies when dragging a selection bounding box. Where'd It Go? When moving an object from one location to another, hold the mouse still for a second. An outline of the object will appear at the current location to help you position the object. Microsoft Publisher 95 Motivated to Rotate To rotate text, use WordArt, an OLE server application shipped with Publisher. Publisher is unable to rotate an imported graphic, so you must rotate the graphic before importing it. Get Started! Skip the Start Up dialog box by opening the TaskBar editor and choosing the Advanced tab. Right-click on Publisher and choose Properties from the drop-down menu. Select the Shortcut tab from the Properties dialog box and change the Target to mspub.exe /b. Publisher will now bypass the Start Up dialog box and open a blank publication. Tag, You're It Logo Wizard's seventh dialog box contains a text box for adding a tag line to your logo. You can separate the tag line into two lines by pressing Ctrl+Enter at the point you wish to break the line. The tag line can be 40 characters long, with Ctrl+Enter counting as one character. Don't Get Hijaaked Publisher 2.0 and Hijaak Pro sometimes conflict. If you try to import a graphic to Publisher and get a message saying you don't have a filter for the graphic, check System.ini. Remove the Hijaak filters (those beginning with the letters HJ) from the MS Graphics Import Filters section. Restart Windows. Hijaak will still work as advertised and Publisher will be able to import the graphic. King-Size Copy The maximum size of text you can place in a WordArt object using the toolbar drop-down list is 500 points. If you need text larger than 500 points, use the Best Fit option from the list. You can then make the text larger by dragging the resize handles of the WordArt frame. A Black-and-White Case To print white text on a black background, select the text, choose Character from the Format menu, and select white as the color for the text. Next select the text frame and choose Format/Shading. Set black as the color for the text box and click on OK. Some printers will convert all text to black, regardless of the color selected. If you own such a printer, select the Print TrueType As Graphic option in the Setup window of the Printers option in Control Panel. Pick Your Palette In older versions of Publisher, the scratch area is always white. In Publisher 95, the color is based on the Application Background color of your Windows color scheme. To change the color of the scratch area, open Start/Settings/Control Panel. Open the Display icon and click on the Appearance tab. From the Item list, select Application Background, choose the color you would like the scratch area to be and click on OK. Banish Those Black Bullets To match the color of your bullets to colored text, place the cursor where you want the first bullet to appear. Go to Tools/Insert Symbol. Select the font and character you want as a bullet and click on OK. Now select the bullet and choose Format/Character. Select a color for the bullet and choose OK. Use tabs to separate the text from the bullet. Just the Fax If you're using Microsoft Fax in Windows 95, you can send a fax directly from Publisher by printing to the Microsoft Fax driver. Go to the File/Printer Setup. From the list of installed printers, select Microsoft Fax and click on OK. Select File/Print. Choose the pages you wish to fax and then click on OK. The New Fax Wizard will start, and guide you through sending your document. Table Tabs You can set and use tabs in cells created with the Table tool. Click on the selected cell, and the tab and indents ruler will be displayed on top of the horizontal ruler. Click the ruler where you want the tab stop to appear and the tab will be set. To move to a tab stop within a cell, press the Ctrl+Tab key combination. If you press the Tab key alone, you will move to the next cell. Unwrap Your Text You may want to cover up text by placing another object over part of the text frame. By default, text in a text frame will wrap around any other frame placed on top of it. To prevent this, select the text frame and select Text Frame Properties on the Format menu. Now clear the Wrap Text Around Objects check box in the Options section and click on OK. The Next Text You See ... You can set or change the default text style by choosing File/New Publication and then selecting the Text tool from the tool palette. Choose the desired font and point size from the dialog box. Choose File/Save and name the file NORMAL.PUB. The file should be saved in the Publisher template directory. When you open new files, the default text will adhere to the new settings. Set the Table If page numbers look correct on screen but print as the pound symbol (#), you may have inserted the page numbers into a table frame rather than a text frame. To solve this problem, select Page/Go To Background. Click the frame containing the Page # text and open the Edit menu. If Delete Table is a choice on the menu list, that indicates you used a table frame. Delete the table frame and then enter the page number in a text frame. Cast a Spell If you can't load the spelling checker or dictionary, the problem may be in the custom dictionary file. Using Notepad, open the file CUSTOM.DIC in the WINDOWS\MSAPPS\PROOF directory. Delete any non-alphanumeric characters and make sure there's a hard return after the last letter of the last word in the file. Save the file and try running the spell checker again. Scratch Use the scratch area to quickly move an object from one page to another. Frames on the scratch area remain there, even when you change pages. Switch to the new page and drag your frame from the scratch area into the new page. PageMaker 6.0 Create HTML Documents Create HTML documents using the free HTML Author plug-in supplied with PageMaker. To produce a page that corresponds to the image area of the Netscape Browser, choose File/New and enter the following values: For Page Size type 0p480 by 0p344. For Left, Right and Top Margins type 0p8. Check Filters If starting PageMaker takes forever, consider reducing the number of filters installed. To see which filters are currently installed, hold down the Ctrl key while you are clicking on Help/About. Map Styles If a document has PageMaker paragraph styles applied to the text, you can map your PageMaker styles to standard HTML styles. In the HTML Author dialog box, click Preferences and specify how you want each PageMaker style you've applied to map to an HTML style. Force Redraws If your display contains ghost lines or other garbage, force a quick redraw by pressing Ctrl+J twice. This will turn off and then turn on guidelines and force a screen redraw. Quick Moves Here's a fast way to get where you want on a page. Click your right mouse button to view the whole page and place your cursor at the point you want in the center of the screen. Now click the right mouse button again. You are back to your original view, with the desired location centered on the screen. Shifty Maneuvers When you need a perfect circle or a perfect square, or want to resize a graphic while maintaining its aspect ratio, use the Shift key with the appropriate tool. Precise Pasting Duplicate graphics at a constant offset from the previous paste operation. First copy the original graphic, and then paste it with Ctrl+V to create a duplicate graphic on top of the original. Move the duplicate to where you want it and press Ctrl+Shift+P. This will paste a second copy offset by the same amount as the first copy from the original. Use this operation to place duplicates in the same position on multiple pages. Avoid Drooping Drop Caps Prevent a drop cap from sitting on top of your first line of text. Finish editing your text, then just prior to selecting the drop- cap feature, place a tab after the letter to be drop-capped. Take Me to Your Leader If tab leaders are the wrong size, or vary from one line to the next when used in lists with different fonts, don't select the tab leader and try to change it, or the entire line of text changes. Instead, enter a space in front of the tab. Change the format of the space and the leader will change to match. Text Tool Tricks If you want to paste text into a text box and the Pointer tool is selected, you'll wind up with another object in your document. Instead, select the Text tool, position the cursor at the location in the block that you want to insert the text, and then perform your paste operation. Avoid Unwanted Characters If symbol characters print where you don't want them, select the Print dialog box and click on Options. Make sure "Use symbol font for special characters" is unchecked. Missing Features If you're using Windows 3.x, don't try to use the following features, which work only on Win95 or NT: clipping paths displaying or printing to non-PostScript printers, masked objects printing to non-PostScript printers, importing EMF (Enhanced Metafiles) when running Win32s, and Gallery Effects when running Win32s. Create Rules on Web Pages Create a horizontal rule for your Web page by selecting the Line tool and drawing a horizontal line of any length. Select the line with the Pointer tool and then Edit/Cut. Select the Text tool and position the cursor where you want the line to appear in the text, then choose Edit/Paste. The line will appear in the text block. When exported as HTML, the HTML Author Plug-in will replace the line with the
tag. Read the Symbols Read the symbols on a text block to gain helpful information. An empty handle at the top of the block represents the beginning of a story, at the bottom it indicates the end of a story. An empty handle at the bottom with a + sign indicates more text is in another box. An empty handle at the bottom with an inverted triangle indicates there is more text to be placed. PhotoShop 3.0 Shifty Shades Set color options quickly by pressing the Ctrl key and clicking on the color bar at the bottom of the Picker Palette. Shift+click to cycle through all the available options. Quick Layers To create layers without using the Layers dialog box, Alt+click the New Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. If you need to change the default name of the layer at a later time, double-click on the layer to open the dialog box and rename the layer. The Font's the Same When you're working with layers, each layer of your drawing remembers the last font and font size used in that layer. When you click on the image with the Type tool, the last used font on that layer is selected in the Type Tool dialog box, allowing you to add text items without resetting the font. The Shadow Knows When you need to make quick painted shadows with any of the brushes, select Behind in the Paintbrush Options palette. This mode allows you to paint only on the transparent parts of a layer. Select the color and opacity and then paint behind any silhouetted object. Pare Your Palettes Too many palettes open? Double-click on the title tab on any of the palettes to hide it under the tab. To keep everything neat, palettes snap to the sides of the screen as well as to each other. Band on the Run Don't let banding in gradient fills ruin an otherwise excellent drawing. To minimize this, add a small noise filter. Select Filter/Noise/Add Noise. Enter a small number in the amount box. The banding should be reduced or eliminated, greatly improving the appearance of the fill. Put Files on a Diet The preview options in the More Preferences dialog box build an image that is saved with the file, increasing the file size and the time it takes to save it. Turn off the Thumbnail and Full Size options to save time and disk space. Duplicate Drawings If you need a new file with the same image size as an existing drawing, open the drawing you wish to duplicate. Now select File/New/Window. Select the open image from the bottom of the Window menu to copy the image's characteristics into the New File dialog box. Filter Finesse If you consistently run out of memory when applying filters to large files, try this trick. Apply the filter to each channel individually. If you're running in RGB mode, each individual channel requires only one-third the memory of the full-color image. Get Organized If your workspace has gotten messy, restore everything to its default position. Open File/Preferences and click More. Select Restore Palette and Dialog Positions. An additional dialog box appears that enables you to restore all palettes to their original position. Layer It On Select a layer of your drawing directly from the image on the screen. Using the Move tool, hold the Ctrl key while clicking on any part of the image to make that layer active in the Layers palette. This shortcut may not work if the opacity for the layer you click is less than 50 percent. Banish Ghosts Moving type on a colored background sometimes results in ghosting. Avoid this by selecting and moving type on a transparent background using the magic wand. Fix That Crop You can crop an image to the height, width and resolution of another image. Select the image with the desired dimensions and resolution. Then select Fixed Target Size and click Front Image in the Cropping Tool Options palette. True Colors If you want the colors on your monitor to match the printed output, calibrate your monitor by selecting File/Preferences/Monitor Setup from the submenu. Read the instructions in the Adobe Photoshop User Guide before attempting this procedure. Hidden Layers You can hide all but one layer by holding the Alt key while clicking on the eye symbol next to the layer you wish to view. Alt+click the symbol again to redisplay all layers. QuarkXPress 3.22 Temporary Help Instead of switching tools every time you want to select another object, use the Temporary Item tool. Hold down the Ctrl key instead of switching tools in the tool palette. Quick Fonts Quickly access the font field in the Measurement palette. Press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+M or Shift+F9. When the field highlights, type in the first letters of the font. When the correct font appears, press Enter to make the change. Create Rounded Corners Here's how to make a box with one, two or three rounded corners. Create a box with rounded corners using the Rounded-corner Rectangle Picture Box tool. Select the Item tool or the Content tool and create guides that align with the box edges to mark the square corners. Choose Item/Box Shape/Polygon to change the box to a polygon, then Item/Reshape Polygon to display polygon handles around the box corners. Delete all but one handle from the corner you want to be square. Grab the remaining handle and drag it to the corner indicated by the intersecting guides to make the corner square. Use Discretionary Hyphens Use discretionary hyphens by pressing Ctrl+Hyphen where you want the word to break. If the text moves and the word does not fall at the end of a line, no hyphen appears, so you don't have to remove hard hyphens from the copy. Turn Off Smart Quotes If you have turned on Smart Quotes in the Applications/Preferences menu but want inch or foot marks rather than curly quotes, hold the Ctrl key and press the single quote key to get the foot symbol. Hold the Ctrl+Alt keys and press the quote key to get the inch symbol. Use Thumbnails Use the thumbnail drag feature to copy pages from one document to another, provided the documents are exactly the same page size. Change both documents to Thumbnail view. Click on the page icon of the first document, drag it to the other document icon, and release the mouse button. This method will not work if the page you want to move has linked text. Printing Complex Documents If you get a Type 1 or VM error when you try to print your document on your local printer, it means the document is in some way too complex. If the document is too long, print it in small batches rather than all at once. If you just want to check the text, print everything but the graphics with the Rough printing option. Slim Down Files Reduce the number of font styles and weights to reduce file size and complexity. Each font and font weight you specify requires that the entire font set be downloaded at output. Don't Mix Type Never mix TrueType and PostScript Type 1 fonts in the same document. If the file will only be printed on your local laser printer, TrueType fonts are fine. If the final document is for a service bureau's high-resolution printer, use only PostScript fonts. It's wise to stick to PostScript fonts for all your documents. Choosing a Tool If you've selected the wrong tool, instead of using the mouse to select a different one, use keyboard controls. Scroll forward through tools in the palette by pressing the keyboard combination Ctrl+Tab. To scroll in the reverse direction, press Ctrl+Shift+Tab. Using the Same Tool When you finish drawing an object, QuarkXPress reverts to the Item or Content tool-whichever was selected prior to creating the object. If you want to continue using the same tool, hold down the Alt key when selecting the tool. The tool will remain selected until you manually select another tool. Measure Up Let QuarkXPress make precise measurements. If you have a box that should be 1 3/8 inch wider than you allocated, type Ctrl+Alt+M to access the Measurement palette and tab over to the width section. Use the right arrow to move to the end of the field and type +1.375. The program will add 1 3/8 inches to the original width of the box. This also works with division and multiplication. Cross-Platform Harmony Avoid problems in a cross-platform environment. Use the same fonts from the same vendors on all machines. If the font metrics are the same, you should be able to preserve text flow. When working with graphics, stick to formats that are common on all platforms. TIFFs, EPSs and JPEGs are best. Save your EPS files in a PC format. This ensures that they use a TIFF preview, which is readable on both platforms. Use Page Grabber Hand You don't have to use the scroll bars to move around on your document. Just hold down the Alt key. The Page Grabber Hand will appear. Now you can use the mouse to quickly move to another portion of your page or through the entire document. Disappearing Guides To place guides that appear only at a specific view percentage, hold down the Shift key while dragging a guide from the ruler. The guide will appear only at the view percentage at which it was created. Change the view percentage, and the guide disappears. Diagnostics wintune Tweak Your System with Wintune Use the WINDOWS Magazine Test and Tune-up Kit to make your system run faster and more reliably. Wintune tests your system and analyzes the configuration to find ways to improve performance. Version 2.0 is for Windows 3.x and Windows for Workgroups 3.x. Wintune 95 is for Windows 95. Where Is Wintune? You can download Wintune at no charge from our Web site (http://www.winmag.com), our CompuServe forum (GO WINMAG) or our America Online forum (keyword WINMAG). You can also get Wintune from the WinMag CD-ROM (call 800-654-4200 to subscribe or buy a copy at your local newsstand). Check out the frequently asked questions (FAQ) file and our discussion forums on CompuServe or AOL. Help Wintune Help You The first time you run Wintune, it will ask you for a description of your system. This information is used when you save your test results into Wintune's database, and it helps Wintune determine whether certain tips are appropriate for your situation. For example, if you indicate your system is a notebook PC, Wintune won't show tips that apply only to desktop PCs. Better Save than Sorry Before you start tuning your system, make sure you can get back to your original configuration in case something goes wrong. Locate a DOS boot diskette in case you need it. Then copy your system configuration files to a safe place; they'll easily fit on a floppy disk. At minimum, make a backup of CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT, SYSTEM.INI and WIN.INI. If you plan to do major tune-ups such as defragmenting your hard disk, it's a good idea to do a complete backup of the whole disk. Run Wintune Alone If you are running other applications while Wintune does its diagnostics, the results may not be correct since apps often use CPU time. Close down all other apps before starting Wintune's tests. Sometimes applications in your Startup folder, such as real-time virus protection, can affect performance. You may want to disable these applications temporarily and run Wintune to see what impact they have on overall system performance. Whose Fault Is It? During Wintune's video test, you may get one of Windows' dreaded General Protection Fault error messages. This is usually because the video driver in your system is not working properly. To test this, try running Windows and Wintune using the standard VGA driver (640x480x16 colors). If everything works fine that way, then it's a driver problem. Contact the system vendor or video board maker to see if they have updated drivers on their Web sites or ftp sites available for download. Compare Your System to Others Is your system performing normally? The easiest way to find out is to compare it to similarly configured systems. Both versions of Wintune let you select systems from a database and compare their results to your own. If your results are within 10 percent or so of those in the database, then performance is probably fine. Throw Back the Little Ones Systems with similar components generally perform in the same range. For example, all 133MHz Pentium systems will get the same CPU score within about 10 percent of each other. If your system is in the range for its type and speed, don't worry about minor variations. Even if another system is five percent faster, you'd never notice that while running applications. More RAM Is Better If you're running Windows with less than 16MB of RAM, now is the time to add more memory. Prices have plummeted in the past year, so an upgrade to 16MB will probably cost you less than $100. Try Wintune before and after you upgrade, and you'll be amazed at the difference. More RAM Is Slower?? On a few very old Gateway and Packard Bell 486 systems, you may find that adding memory actually makes the system slower due to a hardware bug. Most commonly, these systems have a Phoenix BIOS version 1.01 and were sold with 4MB of RAM. Readers have reported mixed luck getting BIOS upgrades to solve the problems. Given the age of these PCs, the best solution is probably to start fresh with a new Pentium system. Try Different Video Resolutions Vendors sometimes concentrate on optimizing specific resolutions or color depths. Run Wintune with a variety of video resolutions and color depths to see which give you the best performance. Also, video vendors are constantly updating drivers; it's unlikely you're running the latest drivers, even if you bought your system a month ago. Check out the vendor's Web site or online support forums for updates. Use the Help File Wintune's Help file doesn't contain directions on how to use Wintune. It's actually a treasure trove of information about PCs, Windows and tuning your system. Browse through the Help file, especially if Wintune has given you performance tips you don't understand. In many cases, you'll find the answer will be there. Wintune 2.0 How Does It Work? Want to know more about a particular test and how it's performed? After you have run the tests, click on any of the performance indicators to see a short description. If you want more info, check out the full descriptions in Wintune's Help file. Check Your RAM Cache When Wintune runs its tests, it generates a graph showing memory performance at various block sizes. If you'd like to see this graph after the tests are complete, click on the RAM Performance indicator in the Main tab. A CPU with an internal cache that is operating correctly should have at least two levels on this graph, with a high performance for small block sizes that falls off around 8KB. There may be a second drop in performance around 256KB due to an external cache. Check Out 32-bit Access Options Both Windows 3.x and Windows for Workgroups 3.x have a complex set of disk access and cache options that can be rather difficult to configure. Wintune checks out your system and advises you when you may have some of the options set incorrectly, or have them set for less-than-optimal performance. Avoid the 32-Bit Access Blues Some Windows 3.x systems may not run Windows when 32-bit disk access is used. If you turn on 32-bit disk access and find you cannot start Windows normally, try using the command WIN /D:X at the DOS prompt to start Windows with 32-bit options turned off. Then you can go to Control Panel and disable 32-bit access. Wintune 95 Never Feel Out of Sorts In the Wintune 95 Database tab, click on any of the column headings to sort by that item. The first time you click the heading it will sort in ascending order; a second click on the same heading will sort in descending order. Call Out Your Orders When you generate a chart or report, the order in which the systems appear in the chart or report depends on the sort order from the Database tab. For example, if you want your chart to be sorted by increasing CPU megahertz, go to the Database tab and click the CPU Speed table heading to sort by increasing CPU speed. Do the Right-Click Thing Do you want to change the system name or notes on one of Wintune's database entries? Just use your mouse and right-click on the entry in the Database tab. You'll get a menu of actions you can perform, including delete, export or change properties. Don't Sweat the Details Wintune's Details tab delivers just what it says: a detailed view of all sorts of information about your system. On the left-hand part of the screen there's an Explorer-like tree view of the information, arranged by subsystem (System, CPU, Video, Disk, Memory and Apps). On the right is an explanation of the item you've currently selected. Click on any item on the left and you'll see an explanation on the right. If that's not enough information, click Tell Me More and you'll be taken to the detailed help file entry for that item. One Test at a Time It's usually best to run all of Wintune's tests once using the Analyze Now button on the Summary screen. Sometimes, though, all you want to do is run one test. Or, you may want to test a removable disk such as a Zip or Jaz drive, that Wintune doesn't test by default. To do this, go to the Details tab, right-click the test or disk drive you want to test, and select Run This Test. Look at All the Tips When your system is in good working order, you won't see most of the tips Wintune 95 can give you. If you're curious about the kinds of things Wintune can detect, go to the Details tab, right-click one of the analyzers (System, CPU, Video, Disk, Memory) and select Tell Me More. From there you'll be able to browse through the list of tips for each analyzer. Check Your RAM Cache Wintune 95 provides three tests that exercise a PC's RAM subsystem. The most useful one for checking the effectiveness of caches is the RAM Read test. To see the results, select your system in the Database tab, then click on the Charts tab and choose Memory Read Performance from the list box. You should see high performance at the 4KB and 8KB levels due to the CPU's internal cache, and a lower level of performance after that. Most systems will also have a slightly increased performance between 8KB and about 256KB thanks to a secondary RAM cache on the system board. Get the Latest Test Results Our Web site (http://www.winmag.com) has all the Wintune results for the systems we've tested in the past year, ready for you to download. You can import the data into a database file and use it for comparing to your existing system. It's also a handy tool for finding the best performers before you make a trip to the local computer store. Importing Is a Drag-and-Drop To import new results (WTX files) into your Wintune database, you can select File/Import. In most cases, though, it's easier to select the WTX files from your desktop or Explorer, drag them over to the Wintune window and drop them. Either way, the files you import will be placed into your database, ready for use in charts and reports. Crunching Wintune Numbers If you want fancier graphs or reports than Wintune provides, send the Wintune data to Clipboard and use another application to process it. From the Report or Database tab, type Ctrl+C or select Edit/Copy. The entire report or database table will be copied to Clipboard and can be pasted into an application such as Excel. The Making of Wintune 95 Wondering how Wintune 95 was built, who built it, and what tools were used? Select Help/About from the menu and click the Credits button. CorelDRAW TASK SHORTCUT Character attributes dialog box Ctrl+T Fit text to path Roll Up Ctrl+F Check spelling Ctrl+F12 Page Setup dialog box Double-click on Page Border Grid Parameters dialog box Double-click on ruler Undo operation Ctrl+Z Redo previous operation Ctrl+Shift+Z Select Artistic Text tool F8 Select the Paragraph Text tool Shift+F8 Toggle between the Text tool (or the last tool selected) and the Pick tool Ctrl+Spacebar Shape Tool Keys Select the start node of a curve Home Toggle selection of start node on and off Shift+Home Select the first sub-path in the selected curve Ctrl+Home Toggle selection of the first sub-path on and off Shift+Ctrl+Home Select the end node of a curve End Add a node to the selected point on the path + (plus key) Delete selected nodes - (minus key) Shift current node selections forward along the curve Tab Fractal Painter TASK SHORTCUT Screen Navigation Zoom In Ctrl+Spacebar Screen Navigation Zoom Out Ctrl+Alt+Spacebar Hide/Display Palettes Ctrl+H Lasso Tool Close Path Press Enter key Shape Selection Tool Keys Select start point of shape Home Select end point of shape End Select previous point in shape Page Up Select next point in shape Page Down Floater Adjuster Tool Duplicate floater Alt+Click mouse button Move floater by one screen pixel Arrow keys Hide/Display Marquee Shift+Ctrl+H Delete selected floaters Delete Select floater in image Click mouse on floater De-select all floaters in image Click mouse outside floaters Attribute dialog box for current floater Enter Windows Magazine ¥ Winter 1997 ¥ www.winmag.com # FreeHand TASK SHORTCUT Pan illustration window faster than with scroll bars Press spacebar and drag the grabber hand Reduce view window to smallest percentage Select Magnifying tool and press Shift+Alt while clicking Activate an edit box on a visible palette Press Ctrl+Tab until palette you want is active. Then press Tab until edit box you want is active Switch to Pointer tool temporarily Press Ctrl key Keep objects selected while selecting more objects Press Shift and click Select all objects on pages and pasteboard Press Ctrl+A Select color mixer Ctrl+Shift+9 Preview from View menu Ctrl+K Display Rulers Ctrl+R Display Info bar Ctrl+Shift+R Windows Magazine ¥ Winter 1997 ¥ www.winmag.com # Micrografx Designer TASK SHORTCUT Editing Text Middle-align text Ctrl+Shift+M Bottom-align text Ctrl+Shift+B Left-align text Ctrl+Shift+L Center-align text Ctrl+Shift+C Right-align text Ctrl+Shift+R Justify text Ctrl+Shift+J Viewing View at actual size Ctrl+F8 View full screen F4 Zoom in F6 Zoom out Ctrl+Shift+F6 Ribbons and Dialog Boxes Display Bitmap ribbon Ctrl+W Display Draw ribbon Ctrl+D Display Edit ribbon Ctrl+E Display floating Color palette Ctrl+F Open Properties dialog box F12 Open Text dialog box Ctrl+Shift+T Microsoft Publisher TASK SHORTCUT Add a page after the current page Ctrl+Shift+N Go to next page Shift+F5 Go to previous page Ctrl+F5 Turn Snap to Guides on and off Ctrl+W Show/Hide Boundaries and Guides Ctrl+Shift+O Undo the previous action Ctrl+Z Change the current font Ctrl+Shift+F Change the font size Ctrl+Shift+P Increase the font size by 1 point Ctrl+] Decrease the font size by 1 point Ctrl+[ Highlight (select) entire story Ctrl+A Begin new line without starting a new paragraph Shift+Enter Check spelling F7 Delete entire contents of text frame Ctrl+Delete Delete selected object Delete Copy selected format Ctrl+Shift+C Paste format Ctrl+Shift+V End one column of text and begin a new column Ctrl+Enter Add or remove hyphens automatically Ctrl+H PageMaker TASK SHORTCUT View, Fit in Window Ctrl+W View, Actual or 100% Ctrl+1 Display Current Installed Filters Ctrl+About PageMaker under Help menu Close or cancel nested open dialog boxes Alt+OK or Cancel Select all Ctrl+A Send an item to back Ctrl+B Edit current story Ctrl+E Send object to front Ctrl+F Hyphenation Menu Ctrl+H Open Indents/Tab dialog box Ctrl+I Constrain movement of item to vertical or horizontal axis when moving Shift+Item Print document to file Alt+Print Toggle guidelines Ctrl+J Spell check (Story Editor) Ctrl+L Toggle rulers on/off Ctrl+R Save command Ctrl+S Change selected text to all caps Shift+Ctrl+K Strike out selected text Shift+Ctrl+S Underline selected text Shift+Ctrl+U Snap to Rulers toggle Shift+Ctrl+Y Reduce or enlarge selected text by one point size Shift+Ctrl+< or > Photoshop TASK SHORTCUT Select Marquee tool M Select Magic Wand tool W Select Lasso tool L Select Move tool V Select Type tool Y Select Full Screen view F Select Eye Dropper tool I Select Pencil tool P Select Brush tool B Select Airbrush tool A Show/Hide Status Bar F4 Show/Hide Channels F6 Show/Hide Colors F7 Show/Hide Info F8 Show/Hide Paths F9 Undo/Redo Ctrl+Z Select All Ctrl+A Go to General Preferences dialog box Ctrl+K 2,001tips QuarkXPress TASK SHORTCUT Remove all tabs Ctrl+click in tab ruler Delete all guides Alt+click in ruler Fit in window Right mouse button Zoom in Shift+Right mouse button Zoom out Shift+Ctrl+Right mouse button Show/Hide Guides F7 Snap to Guides Shift+F7 Show/Hide rulers Ctrl+R Save Ctrl+S Save Text Ctrl+Alt+E Save as EPS Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S Discretionary new line Ctrl+Enter New line (soft return) Shift+Enter New column Keypad Enter New box Shift+Keypad Enter Constrain box shape Shift drag Maintain aspect ratio Alt+Shift drag Scale box and picture Ctrl drag Scale box and picture and constrain Ctrl+Shift drag Scale picture and maintain aspect ratio of box and picture Ctrl+Shift+Alt drag Keep tool selected Alt+click on tool Tune the Slowest Subsystem If your system has several weak points, concentrate on the tips Wintune gives you, or the subsystem (disk, video, CPU) that lags farthest behind comparable systems in the database. One exception: If your problem is low cached-disk performance, check for CPU and memory subsystem problems first. Cached disk speed is so dependent on CPU and memory performance that fixing problems in those areas will eliminate any disk problem. Choose and Compare Systems Wintune 95's Database tab is also where you select the systems used for charts and reports. When you click on a system in the Database tab, it will be highlighted and a check will appear next to the entry. All the selected systems will be used when you move to the Charts or Reports tab. E-mail Eudora 3.0 Message Melodies If you don't want to hear a beep each time you get e-mail, or if you'd rather hear a different sound, select Tools/Options and click on Getting Attention. Use the check boxes to set the event that signals mail arrival, or click on the bar below the Play a Sound check box to associate a custom sound. By Any Other Name Tired of being yourself? Send e-mail under another identity by entering a new name and return address; select Tools/Options and click on Personal Information to make the changes. Folders for Files Eudora automatically stores attachments that are received with messages. To tell Eudora where to put those attachments, select Tools/Options and click on Attachments. Click on the bar below Attachment Directory to indicate the filing locations. Dragster To quickly send a file, drag and drop the file onto a Eudora shortcut; a new message window will open with the file already attached. Making Folders Create mailboxes to help sort your incoming messages. Select Mailbox, click on New and type a name for the mailbox. To set up new mailboxes within that mailbox, repeat the procedure but check the "Make it a folder" box. Malcontents If Eudora displays a message that indicates a mailbox has a damaged table of contents, you must let the program rebuild it in order to open the damaged mailbox. After the rebuilding process, you'll lose status information for the messages that are in the mailbox. All of the mail should still be intact, however. In Search of ... Eudora lets you search all messages within a given mailbox. Select Edit/Find and type in the word or phrase you're looking for. Check whether you want to match case or summaries only, then click on Find. Good Connections A dial-up connection will automatically disconnect if there's a long period of inactivity. To keep the connection alive, select Tools/Options and click on Checking Mail; set the program to check for mail every 5 minutes or so. Sorting the Mail You can sort mail by sender, date, subject and so forth. In an open mailbox, click on a particular column heading to sort the mail by that field. To sort in reverse order, press Shift when you click on a column head. Small Screen Run Eudora as a tiny icon. First, create a desktop shortcut to EUDORA.EXE. Right click on the shortcut and select Properties from the Context menu. Click on the Shortcut tab and select Minimized from the drop-down menu in the Run field. You can then check your mail status from the Windows 95 taskbar on the bottom of the screen. Queue Ball You can set Eudora to either send new messages immediately or to queue them up for later delivery. Select Tools/Options and click on Sending Mail; check (or uncheck) the Immediate Send box. You can reverse this choice from within any new message by holding down the shift when you click on the Send/Queue button. Wrap Up Your Messages Use Word Wrap to ensure that the lines in your messages break correctly when your recipients read them. Select Tools/Options, click on Sending Mail and make sure the Word Wrap box is checked. Wise Replies If you have Eudora's Reply All option turned on, you can still selectively choose reply recipients. Hold down the Shift key when you select Reply to respond only to the sender of the message. Lotus cc:Mail Select Company You can do a spell check on text and reformat it without having to reselect the text. Save time by highlighting the text, then spell checking it. When the spell checker is finished, the text will remain highlighted, so you can easily apply format modifications, such as changing text color or margins. Add an Address The cc:Mail program automatically keeps Internet and other addresses that aren't in your company's directory. When you open a message, a dialog box lets you keep the sender's address. If you don't want to retain the address, press the N key immediately after opening the message; the message will open without displaying the dialog box. Reminder in RAM A utility called cc:Notify helps conserve RAM by alerting you when you receive messages-telling you the subject, author and date-so you don't have to run the full program. If you want to read a new message, you can quickly launch cc:Mail from cc:Notify by double-clicking on your name, which will be displayed in cc:Notify's upper window. Message Screening You can quickly skim through your messages using cc:Mail's Preview Pane. Select View/Show Preview Pane. When you click on a message, it will appear in the preview window on the bottom of the screen. A Few Good Folders cc:Mail's Workspace allows access to several message folders simultaneously. For instance, you can access your inbox and outbox at the same time. Select Window/Workspace and choose the folders that you want to appear in the Workspace area. Mail Order If you subscribe to an Internet list server, you know that these servers tend to combine individual e-mail messages into a longer message-and the messages often arrive out of order. To read these-or any other-messages in the order they were sent, select the first message by clicking on it. Hold down the Ctrl key, then select the remaining messages in the order you want to read them. Press Enter and the messages will open in the order selected. Space Saver You can save space and speed up transmission by compressing file attachments from within cc:Mail. After attaching a file, press the Compress button that pops up in the dialog box. cc:Mail Rules You can use cc:Mail Rules to separate mail exclusively addressed to you from the mail addressed to groups that include you. The messages addressed to you alone will be placed in a special folder and won't get lost among all your group messages. Archive Your Mail Store messages in archives on your hard drive or a diskette so they don't take up mail-volume space. You can read and copy archived messages, but you can't delete them individually. To archive a message, press Ctrl+N while in the Mailbox window and choose Archive from the Add New dialog. A file dialog lets you indicate the desired destination for the archive. Microsoft Mail/Exchange Up Close and Personal You can quickly add addresses to your Personal Address Book in Exchange. When you get a message, right-click on the address in the From: field and select "Add to personal address book." Keep It Thin It's easy to resize columns in Exchange, but here's a twist: If you double-click on the border between column headings, Windows will automatically resize the column to the narrowest width that will still show all the data in the column. Folder Feats Normally you can view only the messages that are stored in a single folder. However, if you want to look at the contents of two folders simultaneously-for example, your inbox and outbox folders-select View/New Window. You can click on the inbox folder in one window and the outbox in the other, and then move and resize the windows so that both are visible. Letter Opener If you'd like to take a sneak peek at your messages before they're opened, select View/Columns, choose Item Text from the list on the left, click on Add and then OK. Part of the message text will appear in a column in your inbox display. You can adjust the width and placement of the text column in the Columns dialog box to display as much of the message text as desired. Finders Keepers Use the Find command to locate a message in an overstuffed mailbox. Select Tools/Find to open the Find dialog box, then enter your search criteria in one or more of the fields and pick the folder to search. Among the criteria you can use for a search are From, Sent To, Subject and text in the message of a body. The Message Is a Message You can include another message as an attachment to a new message. Create a new message, and select Insert/Message. In the dialog box, you can browse all the messages in your folders until you find the one you want to attach; once you've found it, double-click on it to attach. You can also attach files to messages (Insert/File) or other objects (Insert/Object). Spellbinding Messages Make sure every "i" is dotted and each "t" is crossed by spell-checking your messages before you send them. In a message, select Tools/Spelling. To customize the way your messages are checked, select Tools/Options, click on the Spelling tab and select or deselect the options. Netscape Mail 3.0 Deliver Da Letter-Da Later, Da Better You can save online time and charges by composing e-mail messages offline. Start up Netscape Navigator, switch to mail (Window/Netscape Mail) and create a message, but don't send it. Select Options/Deferred Delivery to change the Send Now button to Send Later. After creating your messages, you can toggle off Deferred Delivery. Automatic Outbox To keep track of all the mail you send, create a mailbox for sent mail. Select Options/Mail and News Preferences, and click on the Composition tab. In the Mail File: field (under the "By default, copy outgoing messages to the file:" section), type a path to a directory to store sent mail (for example, C:\Program Files\Netscape\Navigator\Mail\Sent). Sent messages will be saved to the directory and displayed in a Sent Mail folder in the Mail Folder view. Unread Army When a lot of messages clutter your inbox, it can be difficult to see which ones still haven't been read. To quickly see the unread messages, select Options/Show Only Unread Messages. Easy Address Additions When you get a message from someone not listed in your e-mail address book, you can add that person as a new entry without typing anything. With the message displayed, select Message/Add To Address Book. You can add a nickname, or just click on OK to add the entry. Cancelled Mail If you want to delete a message from a mailbox, highlight the message and press the Delete key. A Sorted Affair Netscape mail is automatically sorted by date, but you can resort the list of messages by subject, sender or message number. Select View/Sort and select a sort criterion. The current selection is indicated by an inverted arrowhead in the column heading. You can also re-sort mail by clicking on the column heading. Folder Feats Organize your mail by creating separate folders to store messages. Select File/New Folder, type a name for the folder, then click on OK. You can drag and drop messages from your inbox into new folders. Variable View You can easily adjust your mailbox viewing areas by moving the lines that divide the areas. For example, if you want a larger area for message display, click on the divider line at the top of the message, then drag and drop it upward. You can adjust the Subject, Date and Address columns in the folder contents area in the same manner. Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope Keep track of your outgoing mail by sending a letter to yourself. Select Options/Mail and News Preferences, then type your e-mail address in the Mail Messages field under the "By default, e-mail a copy of outgoing message to:" section. E-Mail Environment Change the way your Netscape Mail looks by selecting Options/Mail and News Preferences, and clicking on the Appearance tab. You can change characteristics such as the screen layout (vertically or horizontally split), font size, and proportional- or fixed-width text. Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope Keep track of your outgoing mail by sending a letter to yourself. Select Options/Mail and News Preferences, then type your e-mail address in the Mail Messages field under the "By default, e-mail a copy of outgoing message to:" section. PIMs ACT 2.0 Print a Contact Screen To capture your contact screen layout or the values in the pop-up menus, use the Print Screen key on your keyboard. Press the Print Screen key while in ACT. Then (in Windows 3.1x) Alt+Tab to Program Manager, open the Accessories window, then choose Write/Edit/Paste. The contents of Clipboard are pasted to Write. Choose File and Print. In Windows 95, you can print from WordPad instead. Choose Start/Programs/Accessories/WordPad, then press Ctrl+V, Ctrl+P and press Enter. Disappearing Toolbars Low memory can cause your toolbar to disappear. To turn it back on, choose Edit/Preferences in the main menu. In the Modify list, choose Bar position. Then, under Tool Bar, select Fixed and click on OK. Add ACT to Office Place your mouse cursor on top of the Microsoft Office toolbar arrayed along the right side of your screen. Right click, choose Customization from the resulting menu, then choose Buttons/Add File. Navigate the resulting dialog box until you locate the ACTWIN2.EXE file, usually located in the ACTWIN2 directory. Double- click on this file, and you'll see its icon added to your Office toolbar. Screen Shenanigans Sometimes ACT's display changes even without any alterations to the video driver. You can edit the Window Positions section in your ACTWIN2.INI file to repair this. Using a text editor, such as Notepad, open the file, which is usually in the WINDOWS directory. Under the Windows Positions section toward the bottom of the file, you will see the Main Window= line. Delete the values to the right of the equal sign, restart ACT, and your display will return to its default settings. One Contact, Many Labels It's easy to print a sheet of labels for a particular contact. Call up the person's name from the Lookup menu, then choose Report from the main menu. Pick the Other option and select the filename of the label sheet you're using. In the Prepare Report dialog box, select Active Contact under Use, and Document under Output. Click OK-a single label will appear on the screen. Choose Edit and click Select All. Click on Edit again and then Copy. Go to File on the main menu and close the file, but don't Save Changes. Next, perform any lookup that has at least as many contacts as labels on the sheet. Go to Report and choose Edit Template. Select the same filename as before. Highlight all the lines between, but not including, Start_Contact and End_Contact, and select Edit/Paste. The contact-relevant data will replace the merge field codes that have been highlighted. Make sure you didn't remove any blank lines between Start_Contact and End_Contact. Go to Format/Create Report and use Active Lookup and Document as your output. Place a full sheet of labels in your printer and press Control+P, then Enter. Multiplying Area Codes Rapidly multiplying area codes can be a problem for the standard installation of ACT, since your local call area includes more than one. To make sure that the software doesn't get confused, open the ACTWIN2.INI file with a text editor and eliminate the phone number from the Me Phone line under [Me Record] section. Those DOS Blues If you have problems trying to import an ACT for DOS database into ACT for Windows 2.0, first export the file to a DOS format. Then reimport the file into ACT for Windows 2.0. Change of Orientation The HP 550C printer driver HP VER 6.0 might cause your envelopes to print with the wrong orientation. Changing the orientation from Portrait to Landscape should resolve the problem. Your Print Setup should consist of the following: ENV3, Top=1.0, Bottom=.5, Left=1.0, Right=1.0, Paper size=#10, Source Tray and Landscape. SideKick 95 Calendar Constituents When backing up or copying your Sidekick calendar, keep in mind that it's not just a single file. The calendar comprises eight files, all with the SKW extension and all beginning with four characters from your name or initials. The files are ("XXXX" indicates your initials): XXXXEVEN.SKW (Appointments), XXXXCALL.SKW (Calls), XXXXTASK.SKW (ToDos), XXXXMAST.SKW (Goals), XXXXRECR.SKW (Recurring activities), XXXXINIT.SKW (Calendar settings), XXXXCSCA.SKW (Personal list definitions) and XXXXDATA.SKW (Special days and multiday events). This Appointment's a Drag Keep a portion of your calendar open below the cardfile detail display, and you can easily create an appointment by dragging a card from the list on the left to the calendar. The Urge to Merge Create a merge template to print letters using names and addresses from your Sidekick cardfile. First type the standard text, then add fields from the current cardfile by selecting Tools/Create Merge Template. Save the document. Keep a Date The date or time (or both) can be added to a merge document by typing {#date} or {#time} in your template. At the time of the merge, Sidekick will fill in the actual date or time. Keyword: Starfish If you need to print labels or want to print your calendar, check Sidekick's America Online site before you create the format. There's a good selection of formats, including popular Avery labels, that you can download. Give Exchange a Kick If you have Microsoft Exchange installed, you can send e-mail directly from Sidekick. Create your message using Write, right- click on it and choose Send E-Mail. Changing Times You can quickly reschedule an appointment by right-clicking on it and selecting Edit. An even faster way is to drag an appointment to a new time slot. Sort and Print To print a sorted copy of your address book, select File/Print/Print Address Book, click on the More Options button and choose Print Index Field. Take Care of Your Contacts Use Sidekick's built-in Backup and Restore utilities to safeguard your files. Select Tools/Back Up and Restore Files, and choose Back Up. Click on Next and select the files you want to back up, then click Begin. Sidekick will let you copy across several diskettes. To restore files, select Tools/Back Up and Restore Files, and choose Restore. Click on Next, accept or modify the destination directories and click Begin. Exchange Swap You can integrate Sidekick 95 with your Exchange Inbox by importing your Exchange address book. Presentations ASAP Word Power 1.95 Dictionary Double Duty ASAP Word Power automatically links its personal dictionary to Microsoft Word's custom dictionary. Entries previously added to Word show up in ASAP's personal dictionary and vice versa. However, ASAP won't let you delete or change any of the entries originally provided by Word. Outline Printing You can't print a presentation outline directly in ASAP, but there is a workaround. Save your outline as a text file by selecting File/Save As and specifying Text format. You can then print the resulting text file from any word processor. Go for a Twofer To combine presentations, open two copies of ASAP-each with a different presentation-and copy individual pages from one presentation to the other. Shift-click on a page (or choose Edit/Select Page) and copy, then select the other copy of ASAP and paste. Just Like Autobuild Want to incrementally reveal objects on a page-such as a series of bullets-a la other presentation programs' autobuild feature? Start by creating a page with all objects in place, then make a duplicate of the page for each element that has to appear separately-for example, displaying four bullets would require a total of four pages. To copy pages, select the page (Shift+Click or Edit/Select Page), then keep choosing Paste until you have the necessary copies. Starting with the next-to-last page, remove items one at a time until you get to the first page in the sequence. The first page should have just the first item; the last page should have all items; the next-to-last page should have all but one, and so on. To remove bullets, double-click on the bullet's text placeholder and press the Delete key. An empty text placeholder should remain. You can then run the presentation to see the autobuild effect. Drag-and-Copy ASAP's drag-and-drop feature, which lets you easily reorganize all your presentations, is available in both Outline and Preview modes. Don't forget: To copy instead of move, hold down the Ctrl key while dragging. Shuffle The Pages When reordering pages in Outline mode, it's easier and safer to collapse the entire outline so that only the page icons and headings appear. To do that, click on the Collapse All icon on the toolbar. Fast But Calm You may find that slides display faster and with less jitter during presentations if you select the Turn Transitions Off option from the Format menu. Don't Go with the Flow Even if you're in the middle of a live presentation, you can jump to a specific page by right-clicking, then selecting a different section from the pop-up list of available slide pages. Take Control Ctrl+Home moves you to the first page in an ASAP presentation. Ctrl+End takes you to the last slide. This works in both Outline and Preview modes. Harvard Graphics 4.0 Contemplating Templates You can sidestep the master template settings for an individual slide by selecting Slide/Adopt Master Template and then unchecking options. Turn a Chart into Art A chart can be converted into an editable image by clicking on the chart to select it, and choosing Chart/Chart to Image. Keep in mind, however, that when you convert a chart to an image, the spreadsheet data you used to create the chart is no longer linked to the chart. Get It Down in Black and White You can print out a presentation in black and white-even if it was created in color. From Print Setup, you have a number of choices, including Printing Text as Black, Skipping Background Fill, Using Black-and-White Palette and Print Fills as White. Brief Preview Review To get an instant glimpse of your work in the Slide Editor, Slide Sorter or Outline, press F2. When you're finished previewing, just press any key. More for the Image-Conscious Go to one of SPC's online sites and download the Symbol Library Conversion Utility. This utility lets you convert older Harvard Graphics symbols that you can use with Montage and HG 4.0. You can find SPC on both the Web (http://www.spco.com) and CompuServe (GO SPC OnLine), and it has its own BBS (408-977-0290). Preview Review, Part 2 If you want to preview your slide show in black and white, press Shift+F2 while you're working in the Slide Editor, Slide Sorter or Outline. A Sharper Image Harvard Montage Lite, an image browser, lets you search and sort graphics, and drag or paste them into a Harvard Graphics slide. Montage comes with 500 clip-art images. Ole! HG 4.0 supports OLE 2.0, so it will work with other Windows apps with drag-and-drop and in-place activation. Graphically Speaking The Space Evenly tool will align a series of graphics with equal spacing. The Tint Bitmaps feature lets you add special effects to bitmaps. Tweak the Toolbar The standard HG toolbar is identical to the one in Microsoft Office, but you can add your own icons for frequently used functions. Select Options/ Customized Icons Bar. Design Police HG's Advisor will let you know when you violate a design principle. If you double-click on the message when you commit a faux pas, a dialog box pops up where you can make the necessary changes-with guidance from the Advisor. Slide Savior If you sometimes forget to save your work until it's too late, turn on Harvard Graphics' Options/AutoSave and indicate how frequently you want the program to save your work automatically. However, don't forget that you won't be able to undo changes made before an AutoSave. Lotus Freelance Graphics 96 Slide onto the Web You can export a slide show to the Web by selecting File/Publish to Internet. Each page of the presentation will be converted to a GIF file that can be viewed with a Web browser. Logo a Go Go You can quickly add your company's logo to every slide in a presentation (except the title slide) by selecting Presentation/Add a Logo to Every Page. Testing, Testing 1-2-3-4 To check a SmartMaster to ensure that it works as desired, create a test presentation that includes diverse elements-charts, diagrams, different types of text, bulleted lists and a variety of colors. Also, take a look at the final test file in black and white. Your Prints Will Come Use File/Print Preview or View/Set View Preferences/Show Page Borders/Printable Area to make sure that no slide elements are beyond the printable area. Teamwork When in TeamReview mode, you can add comments to a file in a box that will automatically adjust its size to suit your comment. Recycled Slides Copy selected slides from old presentations using File/Copy Pages from Other Files. The old presentation is displayed as thumbnails, from which you can select the slides to include in the new presentation. When the selected slides are inserted, they adjust to conform to the SmartMaster currently in use. Quick Right-Click Edits InfoBox-also available in other Lotus applications-pops up when you right-click on an object. From the InfoBox, you can select any of the object's properties and change them. Double-clicking on InfoBox's bar will contract or expand the box so that it doesn't obscure your view. One Size Fits All Imported bitmaps will usually maintain their original size, but if they're too large, they are reduced until they fit the page. If this automatic sizing causes distortion, you can use the image editor to properly scale or crop the graphic. Degrees of Rotation Hold down the Shift key while you are rotating an object, and it will move 45 degrees at a time. Background Bitmaps Create a background for your slides using a bitmap file or a bitmap image copied from the clipboard. You can tile the image or enlarge it to fit the slide. The Angle on Lines When you draw a line while holding down the Shift key, the line will move only in 45-degree increments. Objects in Order Select View/Set Units and Grids to display a grid over your page. Objects on the page can then snap to the grid lines for accurate alignment. Beautify Bars Bar charts can be spiced up by inserting images into the bars. Copy the image you want to use to the clipboard, then select Chart/Series. Click on the Pictures tab and select a series. Choose a Picture size, then Paste Picture. Time Trial Practice your presentation by selecting Presentation/Rehearse. This feature will keep track of the time spent on each slide and create a summary for future reference. Quick on the Draw While you're giving your Freelance presentation, you can draw lines on slides by holding the left mouse button and dragging the cursor. You can alter the size and color of the lines you draw by selecting Presentation/Set Up Screen Show/Tools. Share a Show Display your presentation to your audience on one PC while viewing it on another that's connected by a serial or parallel cable. TeamShow lets you see the presentation with speaker notes while the audience sees only the slides. Itinerant Icons Rearrange icons on Freelance's toolbars by holding Ctrl and clicking on an icon, then dragging it to a new location on the bar. Microsoft POWERPOINT 95 On with the Show Save your file with the PPS file extension and you will launch directly into Slide Show the next time you double-click on your file. Alternatively, launch a file into Slide Show from the Windows 95 shell by right-mouse clicking on the PowerPoint file and selecting Show from the shortcut menu. Never Touch the Mouse You can create a new slide and move from the title area to the body area with keyboard commands. To create a new slide, hold the Ctrl key while hitting Enter in Slide view. Start typing to automatically enter Title text. Then hit Ctrl+Enter again to move to the bullet area, and so on. When you've finished with the last placeholder on the slide, Ctrl+Enter will create a new slide for you. One Step Forward, One Back If you've created a slide and made formatting changes to the layout but want to revert to the original PowerPoint formatting from the master layout, select the Slide Layout button on the lower right of your screen, select the slide layout of your slide, and click on Reapply. Back to My Former Size If you resize an object and distort it by accident, you can restore the original size by pressing the Ctrl key and double-clicking on a resize handle. Background Be Gone You can hide background graphics from the master on any slide if you need more room for your slide objects. From the Format menu, select Custom Background and click the "Omit background graphics from master" check box. Glide through Guides You can create multiple guides in PowerPoint to help you align different objects. From the View menu, select Guides. While pressing the Ctrl key, drag a copy of the guide to the desired location. To eliminate unwanted guides, select one and drag it off the edge of the screen. See the Light The Scroll Lock light indicates when your next slide is ready in Slide Show. When it goes on, you can immediately go to the next slide. Adding to AutoClipArt You can add your own clip art images to AutoClipArt to illustrate concepts in your presentation. Use the Organize button in Clip Art Gallery, select Add Pictures, and double-click on your picture to add it. After the image is imported, you'll see the Picture Properties dialog. Enter the keyword(s) in the Description box to associate with the image. The next time the AutoClipArt feature encounters that word and suggests clip-art images, your image will be among the selections offered. Opening ACT You can customize the way ACT opens with a macro. Press Alt+F5 to bring up the Record Macro dialog, then type a name and description. In the Mouse box, select Ignore Mouse. Press the Record button and perform the following key strokes: Alt+V, G, Down arrow to highlight the group, Tab key (selects OK button), and Enter to select the group. With the mouse, stop recording the macro by selecting Edit from the main menu, Macro and then Stop Macro. Finally, choose Edit/Preferences. Highlight Startup in the Modify box to the left of the dialog box, set the Database as the Default file and list the Macro in the Startup box. Custom Creation While ASAP Color Schemes can't be edited, there are still plenty of ways to be creative with your presentation. How about turning a graphic into a custom background? Select Insert/Picture. Right-click on the picture and choose Show On. You can show the image on all pages, every page except the title, or just the current page. Finally, place the picture in the background by selecting Background from the Placement drop-down list on the toolbar. Make Room for More Use off-slide working space when you need to make more room for your work. Select any object, press and hold the Alt key, and drag it off your slide to the area outside the slide. This off-slide area is also good as a holding pen: As you plan your slide, drag some of the unused ideas off into the working space until you're sure they won't be needed. Spreadsheets Excel 7.0 Instant Insert Insert new cells and paste data in a single step. When copying and moving cells, select the range of cells you want to move, point with your mouse to the border of the selection, and hold down the Ctrl key as you drag the range to the location. When you release the mouse button, Excel copies the cells to the destination. To insert data at the destination, press and hold the Shift and Ctrl keys as you drag your selection; existing cells are shifted down or right. Easy Access to a Database Want to convert an Excel table into an Access file? Choose Data/Convert to activate a wizard that steps you through the process. If this option is missing from your menus, select Tools/Add-Ins and make sure the AccessLinks Add-Ins choice is selected. If this choice does not appear, you will have to install it using Setup. Access needs to be installed for the wizard to work. Rev Up AutoFormats for Quick Charts Store your favorite chart formats as user-defined AutoFormats and quickly apply them to charts. To create a user-defined AutoFormat, open or create a chart with the desired formatting options. Choose Format/AutoFormat and click the User-Defined option. Press the Customize button to activate the User-Defined AutoFormat dialog. Press the Add button, name and describe your format, and save it for later use. Faster Formulas and Functions To create formulas and functions quickly, type an equal sign in the cell, then press the button in the formula bar to activate the Function Wizard. This wizard provides a list of most recently used functions and defines each argument you need to enter. The wizard's buttons automatically enter nested functions, too. Well-Rounded Numbers Create a custom number format to display currency values in thousands ($1,000 instead of $1,000,000). Choose Format/Cells, go to the Number tab, and select Custom under Category. In the Type field, enter the following: $#,;($#,). Once created, Excel will remember this format and display it in the Custom Format options. Discard Duplicate Duplicate Entries Entries To eliminate duplicate values from a column of text, select the column of text to be filtered and choose Data/Filter/Advanced Filter. In the dialog box, click on the Unique Records Only box. Choose Filter the List, in-place to hide the rows containing duplicate information, or choose Copy to Another Location to create a duplicate list with only unique values. Excel turns the row numbers blue to indicate which rows are included in a filter. Track Data with Templates To track data entered in custom forms, try the Data Tracking feature in the Template Wizard. Create a worksheet to use as the data entry form. Choose Template Wizard from the Data menu. The Wizard steps you through the process of linking fields from your form to a tracking database. Once finished, you'll have a custom template that anyone can open and fill out, with entries entered automatically in your tracking database. Once Is Enough! Eliminate repetitive entry of the same text string when entering data in a list. Right-click in a blank cell and choose Pick From List to display a drop-down list of all previous entries for that column. More than the Sum of its Parts Use AutoCalculate to automatically total the values of highlighted cells and display that value in the status bar. Right-click on that value and you'll see a list of other operations, including Average, Count, and Max and Min. Select one and AutoCalculate will perform that operation instead. Get to the Bottom (or Top) Of Things Use AutoFilter to find the top or bottom values in a numerical range. With AutoFilter activated (select Data/Filter/AutoFilter), choose Top 10 from the drop-down list in the column containing the values you wish to filter. Choose filter for the top or bottom values, the number of elements you want to see, and whether you want to filter by actual value or percentile. Find Files Fast Find the file you're looking for even if you can't remember the exact name. Use the File/Open dialog to select files based on Text or Property and Last Modified values. The search dialogs also include a drop-down button that displays the most recent searches executed. Wend Your Way Through Workbooks Move between multiple sheets within a workbook by right-clicking on the VCR-style controls in the left-hand corner of the status bar. Excel displays a list of all sheets in the workbook; select the one you want and Excel takes you there. The Legend of the Data Maps To display the more informative full legend of a data map, rather than the default "compact" version, double-click to activate your map, right-click on the legend and select Edit. In the Edit Legend dialog, turn off the Use Compact Format option. Customize your legend text. Show What Your Maps Are Made Of To display labels or data values for your Data Map, double-click to activate your map and select Tools/Labeler. To display the names of geographical features on your map (states, countries and so on), choose Map Feature Names. To display data values, select Values From. Hover your mouse over the map to see the labels. Chart Data in Reverse To reverse the order of data in a chart, select the Categories in Reverse Order option in the Format Axis dialog. Double-click to activate your chart, select the axis you wish to reverse, click the right mouse button, and select Format Axis. (You can also double-click to activate your chart and double-click on the axis.) Choose the Scale tab and click the Values in Reverse Order box. Data Detente Use the ampersand character (&) to join text and data. For example, if the value in cell D10 is 500 and you want another cell to display this as "500 dollars," choose that other cell and enter the formula +D10&" dollars" and press Enter. Copycat Sheets Copy all Page Setup properties-headers, footers, margins and so forth-from one worksheet to another. Activate the sheet that has the Page Setup properties you wish to copy. Choose File/Page Setup and click on OK in the dialog box. Activate the sheet to which you want to apply this setup. Choose Edit/Repeat Page Setup or press Ctrl+Y. One-Step Centering If you frequently center text across columns using the Format Cells dialog, place a button on the toolbar to do this in one step. Right-click on any toolbar and choose Customize. Choose the Text Formatting category and drag the Center Across Columns button to your toolbar. Avoid Shared Spreadsheet Chaos To maintain an audit of past versions of shared spreadsheets, keep a list of all conflicting entries made to a shared list and record which entries won and which lost. Choose File/Shared Lists and select the Editing tab. To track conflicts, select the Show Conflict History option when you activate file sharing for your worksheet. Take a Spin Around a PivotTable's Data After creating a PivotTable, double-click in any cell to create a list of all the data records behind that cell. The new list is added to your workbook on a separate sheet. LOTUS 1-2-3 RELEASE 5.0 Consolidate! To compile summary reports from several worksheets or workbooks without retyping or cutting and pasting, move to the cell(s) in which you want the information to appear. Choose Data/Consolidate and a series of dialog boxes lets you specify the desired mathematical function. Select up to 255 separate source references (named areas or cell references on any worksheet or in a workbook accessible from your desktop or the network). Choose the Create Links to Source Data option. The cells will be automatically updated when the source data changes. Customize Lists Create a custom list to use with Fill by Example. Use Notepad or another text processor to edit the FILL.INI file in 1-2-3's PROGRAM directory. Follow the example of the series already included to create new sets. To create a new set, move to the end of the file and type the following: [SET x] ITEM1=Administrative ITEM2=Marketing ITEM3=Production and so forth. Number the new set with the next highest number. Include as many items in the series as you need. The next time you begin a Fill-by-Example series with the word "Administrative," 1-2-3 will automatically complete the rest of the series. Map Generator To generate a custom map of your company's sales performance by state, you must use the standard two-letter U.S. Postal Service abbreviations. Select the states and the numerical information in the row or column beside them, and choose Tools/Map/New Map. When the cursor becomes a globe with crosshairs, click in the upper-left corner of the location where you want the map. The program generates a colored map with a legend coded to the numerical data you've selected. Exercise Your Workgroup To share your work with others in your workgroup, select the range you wish to mail, choose File/Send Mail and follow the prompts. If you're sending a previously created version, 1-2-3's Version Manager technology routes the range sequentially or concurrently, and you'll be able to see who made which comments. Use the program's Merge feature to combine the data received from different sources. Fast Math Use matrix math to multiply a range of cells quickly. For example, enter the value 0.9 in cell A1. Next, select Range/Analyze/Multiply Matrix. Designate a range to update (B1..B15) as the first matrix. Name (or point to) the cell containing the new factor (A1 in this example), and point to or name B1..B15 for the output range. Select OK, and all cells in the target range are multiplied by 0.9 and replaced with the calculated value. Enter the 21st Century To enter dates for the 21st century, specify a four-digit year. For example, typing 1/1/2001 yields 01/01/2001. Note: If you enter a four-digit year for a 20th century date, 1-2-3 will truncate it to two digits. Change the date format by selecting Style/Number Format and choosing one of the other options. Format Now To quickly format a range of cells, select your range, choose Style/Gallery and choose one of the 14 predesigned styles. The styles are previewed as you move your cursor down the list of choices. Retain the Value From the main menu, choose File/Import/Numbers and 1-2-3 will import only the values from a text file, placing them in the worksheet beginning where the cursor was located before the command was chosen. Step to the Rear Move to a column's last cell containing a value by moving down, then up. Click on the current column header to select it. Press Shift+Enter to move to the bottom of the column. Move up to the last nonblank cell in the column by pressing End+Up arrow. Customize the List on The Style Button Change the number format of a cell quickly by choosing the Style box from the Status Bar at the bottom of the screen. You'll see all available number formats. To edit this list, select Style/Number Format. Highlight each number format you wish to appear in the list (one at a time), and check the Show in Status Bar box for each. Get Smart SmartMasters are specialized templates with predefined formatting options to give you a head start on data analysis. Create a new document with the File/New command to see a list of templates, including expense reports, time sheets and mortgage amortization. You can also create your own templates. Hide and Seek Hide a worksheet by choosing Style/Hide, then selecting the sheet. You can display a hidden worksheet by choosing Style/Hide, selecting Sheet and entering a range that includes cells on the hidden worksheet. Choose Show to see the worksheet. Keep a Running Total It's easy to maintain a running total of cells adjacent to a column of cells. For example, assume the original column of cells begins in cell A1 and runs through cell A20. In cell B1, enter the formula @SUM($A$1..A1), then copy the formula to cells B2 through B20. Tailor Your Toolbar Lotus 1-2-3 ships with eight standard toolbars. To customize a toolbar, choose Tools/SmartIcons. You can change icon sizes, assign macros to icons, and edit the icons themselves. Toolbars can be anchored to any side of your screen or can float on top of your workspace. Use the Printing Toolbar The Printing toolbar has options to Size Data to Printed Page and Set Columns as Print Titles. To select the Printing toolbar, click on the far right icon (Select the Next Set of SmartIcons) to toggle through toolbar choices, and choose Tools/SmartIcons. You can also click on the icon at the right side of the Status Bar and select Printing. @ Is Formulaic Click on the @ symbol in the Control Panel in 1-2-3 (just below the main menu) to see a list of the most frequently used formulas and for an option to see all formulas. Choose a formula from the list, and 1-2-3 will insert it in the current cell and prompt you for the needed variables. Put One In, Take One Out Insert a cell into your worksheet by selecting the cell immediately below or to the right of the new cell. Press Ctrl and the plus key on the numeric keypad. Check Insert Selection. To delete a cell, follow the same process, using Ctrl and the minus key, then choosing Delete Selection. Formula Fundamentals To figure out what's wrong with a formula, use the Sheet Auditing toolbar by selecting Tools/SmartIcons/Sheet Auditing. You'll find special functions for formulas, formula precedents, cell dependencies, DDE links and links to 1-2-3 files. Use Fill by Example For Worksheet Tabs Make short work of labeling your tabs when setting up a new sheet by using Fill by Example. Double-click on the first worksheet tab, then type in the first value in the series (e.g., if you're setting up monthly spreadsheets, start with January). Click on New Sheet for each additional month, and the worksheet tab will contain the name of the next value in the series. Navigate Your Spreadsheet Try the Navigator to move around your spreadsheet in a hurry. The button is to the right of the formula bar and to the left of the Function icon. Choose the desired Named Range and you're instantly there. QUATTRO PRO 6.0 Be a Presentation Pro Use Quattro Pro's built-in Slide Show Coach to guide you through the process of making simple presentations. You can reorder slides, set the presentation's tempo and choose from 30 slide-to-slide transition effects. Your Desktop as You Like It Choose File/Workspace/Save and enter a workspace name. The next time you open Quattro Pro, you'll return to the exact combination of files open when you last worked in the program. Using this procedure, you can save any number of workspaces by naming them. To restore a previous workspace, choose File/Workspace/Restore and select the name of the workspace. Group Operations Create a group and you can use it to add sums or create properties across several workbook pages at once. Select Group Mode by pressing Alt+F5 (or choose View/Group Mode), and click on a page in the desired group. Select a cell to contain the results of an operation, such as SpeedSum, then perform that operation. The row or column selected will be totaled on all pages in the group. Help from the Experts Experts help not only with graphs, but also with consolidating data from numerous sources, building scenarios and analyzing your data. Try the Analysis Expert when constructing spreadsheets that can only be set up using templates in other programs. Bring Back the Property Inspector Remember those Property Inspector dialogs that appeared when you right-clicked in Quattro Pro 1.0? You can bring them back to life by editing the QPW.INI file (in your WINDOWS directory). Use a text editor, such as Notepad, and add the line Right MouseInspect=1 Save the file and restart Quattro Pro. Find Blank Cells To see if a cell (in this example, cell A1) is blank, use this formula: @IF(@CELL("type",A1)="b",1,0) Find out if a cell contains a value by substituting "v" for "b." To check if the cell contains a label, replace "b" with "l." Check for blanks in cell A1 by using the formula ~~@IF(A1="",1,0)~~ Do It Again Group a set of notebook pages (by holding down the Shift key as you select a series of notebook pages) and you can repeat an entry on each page of the group. First, activate the group by pressing Alt+F5 (or choose View/Group Mode), then select a cell, make your entry and press Ctrl+Enter. The entry will appear in the same cell of each page in the group. Good Old DOS Commands Still yearn for the days when you used the keyboard for commands starting with the / sign? You can go home again. Right-click on the title bar to activate the DOS-Version menus. Choose the Macro tab. Change the selection in the drop-down box for Slash Key to Quattro Pro-DOS. (You can also choose Lotus 1-2-3 Release 2.01 for DOS menus, if you prefer). Save a Print Setting To store a number of different blocks of information in a single notebook, each with its own print settings, use File/Named Settings to create separate print settings for each block you need to print. Get the Answer Before You Commit Find the answer to a formula before leaving a cell by entering the cell formula and pressing F9. The value is then displayed. To keep the answer, press Enter and the value will be placed in the current cell. Use Edit Mode To use the left and right arrow keys to move through the characters in an entry, press F2 and switch to Edit mode. To delete all data on the edit line, press Ctrl+Backspace; to erase all data to the right of the cursor, press Ctrl+/. Manage Your Macros Press Shift+F3 to see a list of macros. You can move directly to the macro commands in a category by navigating through the dialog boxes. Press Alt+F3 to call up a list of all available functions. Custom SpeedFill Lists Made Easy Custom SpeedFill Lists are easier than ever in Quattro Pro 6.0. Choose Notebook/Define Series and select Create. Give your series a name, then type each item in the list, clicking Add after each entry. Decide whether or not you want your list to be repeating, then press OK. I Get Around Press F5 to use the arrow keys to look at another area of a spreadsheet. Press Esc, not Enter, to return to your original location. Add an Annotation To add a nonprinting annotation to a cell, add a semicolon, followed by the comment text, after a formula or value. Example: 8.50; current annual percentage rate. Less Than Zero Hide (or display) zero values by right-clicking on the Page tab, choose Display Zeros and select Yes or No. This setting applies only to the current notebook page. Load Your Favorite Notebook To load a specific notebook each time you open Quattro Pro, select the Application Property Inspector and right-click on the title bar. Select File Options and enter the filename (with path). Date Conversion To convert a date label to a serial number date, select the cell containing the label, delete the initial apostrophe, and press Ctrl+Shift+D. Keep Those Macros Safe To keep from accidentally overwriting your macros with data, put all of them on a dedicated notebook page. Name the page "Macros" so you won't forget what it contains, and protect it from inadvertent changes by using the Property/Active Page/Protection menu. Lost & Found Can't find a file? Word's File Open dialog box lets you search for files by name, text in the document or date saved. Type the search criteria and click on Find Now. To see thumbnails of found files, click on the Preview button on the toolbar. Word Processing Word 7.0 In Your Own Words Custom dictionaries are ASCII files that can be created with Word. To make your own dictionary, type the words you want to include--one per line--then use Save As and select Text with Line Breaks. Before saving, change the file extension from TXT to DIC. (Be sure to put your file name within quotation marks so Word doesn't automatically add the TXT extension.) You can then use the Custom Dictionaries button under Tools/Options/Spelling to add your list to the dictionary. The Wizard of Odds To begin a document section on an odd-numbered page (so it always appears on the right when you print on both sides of a page), select Insert/Break, and then choose Odd Page. To remove a section break, click on the break line and press the Delete key. Precise Page Numbers To insert page numbers at the outside margin, select Insert/Page Numbers and choose Outside in the Alignment box. To start page numbering with a specific number, select Insert/Page Numbers, click on Format, then type a number in the Start At box. Deviated Dictionary If you've inadvertently added a misspelled word to the custom dictionary, open the CUSTOM.DIC file, remove the word (and the entire line)and save the file. Symbolic Signs AutoFormat and AutoCorrect will automatically format and insert symbols and ordinals. For example, type 1st and Word converts it to 1st and 1/2 becomes ½. Word does the same for special symbols: (c) becomes © and (TM) becomes ™. Speed's the Word Here are two easy ways to speed up Word's performance: Select Tools/Options, and on the View tab check the Picture Placeholders option so pictures display as empty rectangles. On the General tab turn off the Background Repagination option. Find That Folder Word looks for documents in the My Documents folder, but if you keep your work somewhere else, it can be directed to look in another folder. Select Tools/Options, click on the File Locations tab and from the File Types list highlight Documents. Click on Modify and select the directory/folder where your files are located. My Back Pages To print pages in reverse order, select Tools/Options, click on the Print tab and check the Reverse Print Order. To print a range of pages, select File/Print and in the Pages text box, type the page numbers you want to print (e.g., 4, 7, 8-10). Double-click the printer icon in the status bar to cancel a background print job. Quick Fix You can fix errors even if you're viewing a document in Print Preview mode. Click on the magnifying glass button, zoom in on the error and edit the text. Side By Side To arrange text and graphics side-by-side--for a catalog, for example--use a table. Daintier Documents If you keep Fast Save turned on while working on documents over 100KB, your files will get very large, especially if repeatedly revised. To keep files at their slimmest, turn off Fast Save by selecting Tools/Options and clicking on the Save tab. Uncheck the Allow Fast Saves checkbox. Take a Short Scroll If you get lost as you scroll through a document, use ScrollTips to see what page you're on. When you move the scroll bar slide, the page number will be displayed. Keep Up To Date Set headers or footers to include the current date and/or system time. Select View/Header and Footer, then click in the header (or footer) area and select Insert/Date and Time. Pick a format, and check the Update Automatically (Insert as Field) checkbox. When you open the document, Word updates the header or footer with the current date and time. Take a Spike Save multiple cuts from a document by selecting the text, then pressing Ctrl+F3 to put it on the Spike. Repeat for each item you want to append. Move the cursor to where you want to paste this collection of "cuts" (even in another document) and press Ctrl+Shift+F3 to paste all the cuts and clear the Spike. Double Duty Draw and Paint To use a Drawing toolbar button multiple times, double-click on the button. To copy the formatting of selected text multiple times, double-click on the Format Painter button. Play It Straight If you don't want to use the "curly" quotes that AutoCorrect inserts, type a single or double quotation mark, then press Ctrl+Z to get straight quotes. Bump a Button To remove a button from a toolbar, press Alt and drag the button into the document area. This doesn't delete the button; you can put it back on the toolbar, by using Tools/Customize. A Place for Paragraphs Rearrange paragraphs quickly by highlighting the paragraph you want to move and pressing Alt+Shift+Up arrow to paste it above the preceding paragraph, or Alt+Shift+Down arrow to paste it below the next paragraph. You can also hold down the Alt+Shift keys and repeatedly press the arrow key until the paragraph moves to the desired position. Push-Button Text Store frequently used phrases as toolbar buttons. Create the phrase you want to save, select Tools/Customize and choose AutoText from the list of categories. Drag the phrase to the toolbar, and name the button or pick an icon from the dialog box. Click on Assign to place the button on the toolbar. Box a Block of Text To select a rectangular block of text at any point on a page, press Alt while you drag the cursor. Get the Blues If you pine for the blue background of WordPerfect, select Tools/Options, click on the General tab and choose "Blue background, white text." Open and Shut Case To close all open documents, hold the Shift key while you select Close. Budge a Button To move a button to a different spot on a toolbar, press Alt while dragging the button. To copy a button, press Alt+Ctrl. Cap Zapper When AutoCorrect changes a word or abbreviation from all caps into lowercase letters, click on the Undo button or manually correct the characters. Word will automatically add your change to its Exceptions List, and won't make the same correction-or mistake-again. Border Patrol To add a line across the entire page, select Tools/Options and click on the AutoFormat tab. Check Borders. When you type a string of dashes or underlines, the keystrokes will be converted to a border across the page. Border lines will resize when the margins change. Lowdown on Highlighting Use the Highlighter button to call attention to text. Click on the toolbar icon and your cursor turns into a highlighter pen. Move it over text to be highlighted. Change the highlighter color using the drop-down menu next to the icon. Little Black Book Use Word's Address Book tool to insert addresses quickly. Click on the Insert Address button and pick the name to insert. Afterwards, you can access that address from Most Recently Used by clicking on the drop-down menu arrow next to the button. A Few of My Favorite Things Store files or folder locations as a Favorite Place by clicking on the button in the File Open dialog. When you want to access one of these files or folders, just click on the Look in Favorites button. WordPerfect 7 Cut Down File Size Because the Undo/Redo information is saved with the document, it can sometimes greatly increase file size, especially in cases where you delete, cut and paste large items (such as graphics or tables). To keep the file size down, either reduce the number of Undo/Redo items that WP remembers or turn off the feature that saves the Undo/Redo items with the document. To make changes, choose Edit/Undo/Redo History/Options. To change the number of items that WP remembers, type the desired number in the Number of Undo/Redo Items text box. If you don't want WP to save the information with the file, deselect the Save Undo/Redo Items With Document. After completion, WP still remembers the changes you make (up to the number of items that you set) until you save the document. Choose OK, and Close. Format Shortcuts For quick formatting shortcuts, try the HotSpots feature. As you move your mouse pointer in a document, a little button appears in the left margin of the paragraph closest to your pointer. Click this button and a dialog box appears, containing the most commonly used paragraph formatting features, such as justification, borders/fills and indent options. Similarly, if you move your pointer over a graphics box or table cell, a HotSpot appears in the upper corner. Click the HotSpot and a dialog box appears and allows you to quickly change formatting options. Remove Unwanted Spellings If you accidentally add a misspelled word to your supplementary dictionary during spell-check, remove it by editing the supplementary dictionary file. In a blank document screen, choose Tools/Spell Check/No. From the Customize pop-down button, choose User Word Lists. Your default word list, WT61US.UWL, should be selected. Pick the word you want to remove from the list at the bottom of the dialog box and choose Delete Entry. Repeat this to remove other unwanted words. When finished, choose Close twice. Create a Calendar Create an e 8.5 by 11 inch monthly calendar with the Calendar Expert. Choose File/New; from the dialog box under Select Template, double click on Calendar Expert. After a short processing time, you'll see the current month's calendar with a dialog box superimposed on it. If necessary, modify the starting month and determine how many months you want to create. Click Finished and your customized calendar is created and put into a document format ready to be edited as desired. Outstanding Reveal Codes You can change your Reveal Codes window to your favorite color scheme or simply have the codes stand out more from the background. Choose View/Reveal Codes to turn on Reveal Codes. Right-click in the Reveal Codes window and choose Preferences from the QuickMenu. Deselect Use System Colors. From the Text pop-up palette, select the color you want for normal text; from the Background pop-up palette, select the desired background. Choose OK to effect the changes. Fast Closes You can quickly close a file you don't want to save by adding the Close Without Saving feature to a Toolbar or the Power Bar. Right-click the Toolbar or Power Bar on which you want to add the button and choose Edit/Select /Close without Saving in the Features list box and choose Add Button. The new button is added to the end of the Toolbar or Power Bar. Choose OK. Now, whenever you have a document that you want to close and don't need to save, just click your Close Without Saving button. Labels Galore If you need to create a sheet of duplicate labels, such as return address labels, use the Merge feature. From a blank document window, choose Format/Labels. Highlight the type of label desired, such as Avery 5160, and choose Select. On the first label, type and format the information you want repeated on all the labels (including graphics, different fonts, borders, etc.). Choose Tools/Merge/Merge; next, select Options and in the text box type the number of labels on the page-in this example 30. Choose OK, Merge. WP creates a new document with a page full of identical labels. Suppress that Header Use the Delay Codes feature to allow a header or footer to appear only on the first page of a document. Place the insertion point at the top of the document and create your footer or header as usual. Choose Format/Page/Delay Codes. Leave the Number of Pages to Delay option set at 1 and choose OK. Choose Header/Footer from the Delay Codes Feature Bar, and select the footer or header you're using and choose Discontinue. Choose Close from the Feature Bar to return to your document. Instant Labels You can instantly create labels from selected addresses in your Address Book. From a blank document window, choose Format/Labels. Select the label style, such as Avery 5160, and click Select. Click the Address Book button on the Toolbar. When the Address Book dialog box appears, select the addresses needed to create labels for. To select multiple addresses, hold down the Control key as you select each address. Once the addresses are selected, choose Insert. Now, you're ready to print. Find Your Place Use QuickMark to label a spot in your document so you can return to it quickly. Place the cursor at the desired location and press Crtl+Shift+Q to insert a QuickMark. When you want to return to this spot, press Crtl+Q. If you want the mark to remain in the document, place the cursor at the desired location and press Insert/Bookmark/Create. To find a bookmark, click Insert/Bookmark, select the name of the bookmark, and click Go To. Skip Spell-Check You don't need to waste time spell-checking portions of your document that contain proper nouns, scientific words or foreign words that won't be recognized by the Speller. To have the Speller ignore sections you don't want spell-checked, select the text and choose Tools/Language and select Disable Writing Tools. Click OK. When you perform a spell-check, that part of the document is automatically skipped over. Format on the Fly Use drag-and-drop to copy formatting from one section of a table to another. Format the first cell with the shading and other formatting details you want, such as bold or center justification. Select the cell, then click the cell again with the mouse and drag the pointer to where you want to copy the formatting. With the insertion point in the new cell, release the mouse button and the formatting is copied. Colorful Highlights It's easy to highlight text in the color of your choice. Select the text you want to highlight and choose Tools/Highlight/Highlight On, or click the Highlight button on the default toolbar. To change the highlight color, choose Tools/Highlight/Change Color. Select the new color from the Color pop-down palette and choose OK. The new color is used for any text that you highlight from this point on. The highlighting will print in various shades, depending on the color and printer. Fade to Black Creating white text on a black background is a snap with the help of a macro included with WP. First, select the text in your document that you want to format. You can either right-click the Toolbar and select Design Tools, and click the reverse text (white-on-black) button. Or, you can choose Tools/Macro/Play, type reverse and choose Play. When the Reverse Text Options dialog box appears, select the settings you want, such as text and background color. Choose OK and your text is automatically formatted. Get Expert Help When you need help solving a problem, click the Ask the PerfectExpert button on the Toolbar or choose Help, Ask the PerfectExpert. In the text box, type the question you want answered, (such as "How do I delete a button from the toolbar?") then choose Search. The PerfectExpert displays a list of help topics that will best answer your question. Let QuickFill Do It To quickly finish a series (numbers, months, days and so on) in a table, select the cell where the series begins, as well as the blank cells needed to complete the series. Select Table/QuickFill. The remainder of the series will be filled in automatically. Search for Special Characters To search for special characters, select the text you want to find and choose Edit/Find and Replace. The selected text will appear in the Find text box. You can also select characters while in the Find text box by pressing Ctrl+W to launch the Character dialog box, which allows access to iconic symbols, phonetic characters and characters in other alphabets. What's in a Name? Create a footer with the path and filename of every document you create. Choose Format/Document/Initial Codes Style. From the Styles Editor dialog box, choose Format/Header/Footer/Footer A/Create. Choose Insert/Other/Path and Filename. Select Use as Default in the bottom of the dialog box, and choose OK. Charts Made Easy To automatically create a data chart or graphic from an existing table, select the entire table or just the data for the chart. Choose Graphics/Chart. Customize the appearance with the Chart drop-down menu. Splitting Cells To split cells in your table diagonally, place the insertion point in the table cell you want to divide, or select a group of cells. Right-click on the table and choose Format. In the Diagonal Lines group box, select the preferred option, such as upper right to lower left. You can even create an "X" in the cell by selecting Both. Choose OK. The diagonal line automatically adjusts to the width of the cell. Make It Fit To make your data expand or contract to fit into a desired number of pages, click Format/Make It Fit. In the "Desired number of filled pages" box, type the number of pages you want the document to fill (within 50 percent of the document's current size). Select the items to adjust, such as right and left margins, and click on Make It Fit. One at a Time Format a word without first selecting it. Place the insertion point anywhere inside the word by clicking with your cursor, and select the formatting you want to use. To change the font of a single word, place the insertion point in the word, choose Format/Font and select the desired font and font size. Permanent Font Change To change the font in your entire document, including page numbers, headers, footers and footnotes, you need to change the Document Initial Font. Select Format/Document/Initial, and choose the desired font. Click on OK. Fancy Titles in a Flash Ceate a fancy title in your document by using TextArt. Choose Graphics/TextArt. Type the desired text and select the shape, color, font and justification for the title. Choose Close. The title is inserted into your document as a graphic that you can size by dragging on its handles. Fast Lines To make lines, type three hyphens together (---) on a blank line and press Enter. They'll be converted to a horizontal line from the left to the right margin.Type three equal signs in a row (===) and press Enter to get a full-width double line. Insert a Check Box To add a check box to your forms and surveys, choose Tools/Macro/Play and then select Check box.wcm. A check box will be inserted, its size determined by the current font size. Once the check box has been inserted, you can put an "x" in it by clicking inside the box. Spell-Check as You Go Catch all your spelling errors by using the Spell-As-You-Go feature. Choose Tools/Spell-As-You-Go. When you misspell a word, it's underlined in red. Right-click on it to bring up a QuickMenu with spelling suggestions. Click on the correct word to fix your spelling. Take Me to Your Leader Insert dot leaders that extend to the right margin by pressing Flush Right (Alt+F7) twice. To have the dot leader go to the center of the page, press Center (Shift+F7) twice. Change the number of dots in your leader by double-clicking on the dot leader and choosing a new font size from the Power Bar drop-down list. A smaller font size gives you more dots and a larger font size gives you fewer. Calling All Fonts Create a sample printout of all available fonts on your printer by choosing Tools/Macro/Play and selecting Allfonts.wcm. It will tell you how many fonts are available and will generate an alphabetical list of fonts with a sample alphabet for each one. Word Pro 96 File Transfer Problems? Check your user ID and password if you receive a message that says the server is unable to login to the address when trying to access an ftp site from WordPro. If you are trying to initiate an anonymous ftp session with a server which does not have an account for you, use "anonymous" as the user name and your e-mail address as the password. Slenderize Your Data Tired of bloated files hogging your disk space? Cut those documents down to size. Open the File/User Setup/Word Pro Preferences dialog. Uncheck Save Graphics for Fast Display; next, go to the Disable menu and uncheck the Use Small File Format box. Use sections rather than divisions in your document--each division is a selfcontained minifile. For additional pruning, delete styles not needed in the document by selecting Text/Names Styles/Manage. Remove embedded fonts by clicking on the Options tag and choosing File/Document Properties/Document. Waaaay Out of Line If you really like to push the limits, you can regularly extend lines past a document's margins. Set a negative indent for a paragraph by clicking Text/Text Properties and selecting the Alignment tab. Use a negative number in the indent specification. Now You See It ... To make a frame transparent, change it by right-clicking on its edge. Select Properties/Lines and Color, and change the pattern to None. The Net Set If you need to uninstall Word Pro, or move its directory, you can maintain its internal proxy settings for Internet access. Copy and save the LTSNET.INI file from your Windows directory; this file contains all of the proxy settings. Names Escape Me Having trouble connecting the name of an embedded graphics file with its fair face? You can show the filename instead of the graphic just by choosing View/Set View Preferences and disabling the Show Graphics box. Quick-Change Artist If your documents require different types and sizes of paper, assign your page layouts to a specific printer bin using the Shortcut menu. Select Page Properties and change the options on the page size panel to sync up with the appropriate paper tray. Save the layout as a new page style by selecting Style/Create Style and naming the layout. Up to the Moment Keep a Table of Contents up-to-date by choosing Create/Other Document Part/Table of Contents. Click on the Contents panel, and select Update. Slightly Out of Line Extend a line past either margin by selecting Show/Hide from the View menu, and clicking on Ruler. On the ruler, drag the margin to where you want the line to end. Bulletproof Tired of boring bullets? Choose Text Properties and click on the Bullets and Numbers tab. Click on the bullet style you want, or choose another character from the pull-down Other menu. You can change bullet fonts by clicking on the Font button. I Meant That! You can tell SmartCorrect to ignore unusual or odd spellings in a document by placing a "soft space" after the word using Ctrl+Spacebar. This forces AutoCorrect to leave your words alone. Awake at the Switch If you're converting from Ami Pro to Word Pro, Lotus has a SwitchKit available on the Web to make the task easier. Check out http://www.lotus.com/wordpro/2112.htm. Excel Task Shortcut Open file Ctrl+O Print Ctrl+P Save Ctrl+S Undo last action Ctrl+Z Repeat last action F4 Display Function Wizard Shift+F3 Insert blank cell Ctrl+Shift+Plus sign Delete cell selection Ctrl+Minus sign Edit cell note Shift+F2 Move down one screen Page down Move up one screen Page up Move right one screen Alt+Page down Move left one screen Alt+Page up Move to next workbook sheet Ctrl+Page down Move to previous workbook sheet Ctrl+Page up Move up through a selection Shift+Enter Move right through a selection Tab Move left through a selection Shift+Tab Format selected element Ctrl+1 Check spelling F7 Enter date Ctrl+Semicolon Enter time Ctrl+Shift+Colon Calculate all sheets in all open workbooks F9 or Ctrl+Equal sign Calculate active sheet Shift+F9 Insert AutoSum formula Alt+Equal sign Insert new chart F11 Insert new worksheet Shift+F11 Apply percentage format Ctrl+Shift+% Apply two-decimal-place format Ctrl+Shift+! Format as currency Ctrl+Shift+$ Hide rows Ctrl+9 Unhide rows Ctrl+Shift+( Hide columns Ctrl+0 (zero) Unhide columns Ctrl+Shift+) Lotus 1-2-3 Task Shortcut Print Ctrl+P Open file Ctrl+O Insert Ctrl+Plus sign on numeric keypad Delete Ctrl+Minus sign on numeric keypad Left alignment Ctrl+L Right alignment Ctrl+R Justify text Ctrl+J Center text Ctrl+E Bold text, or unbold if text is already bolded Ctrl+B Italicize text, or unitalicize if text is already italic Ctrl+I Underline text, or remove if text is already underlined Ctrl+U Start Edit mode in current cell F2 Pop up Edit Replace command Ctrl+H Nonbreaking hyphen Ctrl+Shift+Hyphen Nonbreaking space Ctrl+Shift+Spacebar Select whole document Ctrl+A Save document Shift+F12 Zoom/Restore Ctrl+F10/Ctrl+F5 Quattro Pro Task Shortcut New Ctrl+N Open Ctrl+O Close Ctrl+W Save Ctrl+S Print Ctrl+P Exit Ctrl+Q or Alt+F4 Undo Ctrl+Z Cut Ctrl+X Copy Ctrl+C Paste Ctrl+V Boldface Ctrl+B Italic Ctrl+I Center Ctrl+E Underline Ctrl+U Left align Ctrl+L Right align Ctrl+R Delete a selected cell, block or object on all grouped pages Ctrl+Del Move left one screen (in notebook) Ctrl+Left Move right one screen (in notebook) Ctrl+Right Help F1 Spell Checker Ctrl+F1 Activate Edit mode F2 Activate Debug mode Shift+F2 Display list of macros Shift+F3 Close a window Ctrl+F4 Move selector to specified cell address F5 Switch between panes of split window F6 Repeat previous Query command F7 Repeat last Tools/Numeric Tools/ What If command F8 Recalculate the notebook (Ready mode); calculate and display result of formulas on the input line (Edit+ mode) F9 Move selector to menu bar F10 Display current graph F11 Display Object Inspector F12 Word TASK SHORTCUT Center, left align or right align a paragraph Ctrl+E, Ctrl+L or Ctrl+R Undo the last edit Ctrl+Z Undo more than one edit Ctrl+Z twice Update a field F9 Insert a footnote or an endnote Alt+Ctrl+F or Alt+Ctrl+E Create an annotation Alt+Ctrl+A Increase or decrease the size of selected text Ctrl+] or Ctrl+[ Turn selected text into superscript or subscript text Ctrl+Plus sign or Ctrl+Equal sign Turn selected text into hidden text Ctrl+Shift+H See hidden text Click the Show/Hide button Go to the beginning or end of a document Ctrl+Home or Ctrl+End Go to the beginning or end of a line Home or End Select an entire table Click the table and press Alt+5 Display paragraph marks, tab characters, spaces and hidden text Click the Show/Hide button Apply the Normal style to a selected paragraph Ctrl+Shift+N Change the case of selected text Press Shift+F3 until the text is capitalized the way you want it Repeat the last search Shift+F4 Select the entire document Ctrl+A Copy all selected data Ctrl+C Cut selected data and place on the Clipboard Ctrl+X Paste Clipboard data into the current document Ctrl+V Undo the last action Ctrl+Z Switch to boldface Ctrl+B Switch to italic Ctrl+ I Create a new document Ctrl+N Save the current document Ctrl+S Close a document window Ctrl+F4 Close a program window Alt+F4 WordPerfect TASK SHORTCUT What is Shift+F1 Spell check Ctrl+F1 QuickCorrect Ctrl+Shift+F1 Thesaurus Alt+F1 Spell-As-You-Go Alt+Ctrl+F1 Find and Replace Ctrl+F2 Save Shift+F3 Reveal codes Alt+F3 New blank document Shift+F4 Exit WP Alt+F4 Zoom full page Shift+F5 Center text Shift+F7 Flush right Alt+F7 Select cell Shift+F8 Margins Ctrl+F8 Styles Alt+F8 Sort Shift+F9 Macro record Ctrl+F10 Macro play Alt+F10 Horizontal line Ctrl+F11 Vertical line Ctrl+Shift+F11 Text box Alt+F11 Format Ctrl+F12 QuickFill Ctrl+Shift+F12 Justify full Ctrl+J Case toggle Ctrl+K Justify left Ctrl+L Quick Mark find Ctrl+Q Quick Mark set Ctrl+Shift+Q Justify right Crl+R Redo Ctrl+Shift+R Power Printing If you want your Power Fields, Document Info Fields, Table of Contents and Indexes to update automatically before you print a document, select File/Print and click on the Options button. Select the options for indexes, tables and fields, and each will be updated as the document is printed. ********************************************** Copyright © 1997 CMP Media Inc. WINDOWS Magazine (ISSN 1060-1066) is published monthly with two bonus issues a year for $24.94 per year by CMP Media Inc., 600 Community Drive, Manhasset, NY 11030. Periodicals postage paid at Manhasset, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to WINDOWS Magazine, P.O. Box 420215, Palm Coast, FL 32142-0215. Registered for GST as CMP Media Inc. GST# 131288078, Agreement Number 0225932. BULK RATE U.S. POSTAGE PAID CMP Media Inc.