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THE OFFICE LETTER
STANDARD EDITION
Tips, Tricks, Tools, and Techniques for Microsoft Office
Volume 4, Number 19 October 25, 2004
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IN THIS ISSUE
1) Office: Halloween Clipart
2) Word: Indexes, Part 1
3) Outlook: Use Categories to Organize Contacts
4) Software Testers Needed
5) Review: Anagram and Outlook Make the Perfect Pair
Premium Edition Extras:
6) Reader Follow-up: Hiding Rows in Excel
7) Word Index Undocumented Tricks
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1) OFFICE: HALLOWEEN CLIPART
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It's almost time for little ghosts and goblins to knock on your
front door. For a large assortment of Halloween clipart, visit:
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For a Halloween greeting card template:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC010219541033.aspx
and for Trick or Treat labels:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/templates/TC010219831033.aspx
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2) WORD: INDEXES, PART 1
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For long documents, nothing helps your reader more than an index.
In this discussion, we'll look at how to create an index. The
process can be broken down into two parts: creating index entries
(marking the words or phrases to be indexed) and creation of the
index itself. This week we'll explore how to mark entries; in the
Premium edition we discuss two undocumented tricks, including how
to override the sort order of index entries.
An index typically has two parts, though it can have more. The
main heading is the word or phrase you see alphabetized in the
index itself; Word calls this the Main Entry. The subentry divides
main index entries even further. For example, the index entry
Office Letter
Standard Edition
Premium Edition
has a main entry (Office Letter) and two subentries.
Subentries can be broken down even further, so we could, for
example, break out Premium Edition and show the following in the
index:
Office Letter
Standard Edition
Premium Edition
Current Issue
Previous Issue
(We explain the undocumented technique for creating this third
level in the Premium Edition this week.)
MARKING ENTRIES
When you create an index entry, you're really telling Word to
insert a special field into the text, called an XE (for index
entry) field. To tell Word that you want to mark a word or phrase
for the index:
1. Select the word or phrase from the document with your mouse or
keyboard.
2. Use the Insert/Index and Tables command from the main menu in
Word 97 and 2000; use the Insert/Reference/Index and Tables command
in Word 2002 and 2003.
3. Select the Index tab, then choose the Mark Entry button.
4. Word fills in the selected text in the Main Entry field, which
you're free to edit. Enter whatever subentry you want. Be sure
your text in the Main Entry and Subentry fields are EXACTLY what
you want -- capitalization, punctuation, and spelling matter. If
you define one phrase with a Main Entry of "Office" and another
phrase with a Main Entry of "office," you'll end up with two
entries in the index.
5. Choose the "Current page" radio button from the Options section,
then click on the Mark button. Word places an XE field after the
indexed term. For instance, if you selected the word Office to be
indexed, you'll now see
Office { XE "Office" }
To hide these field markers, click the Show/Hide button on the
Standard toolbar (the button has the paragraph mark -- a backwards
"P" with two vertical stripes).
6. Word keeps the Mark Index Entry dialog box open. To mark
another word or phrase, click on the open document, select the item
to be indexed, and click again on the dialog box. Continue at step
4 above.
IMPORTANT NOTES ABOUT INDEX ENTRIES
1. Shortcut: Instead of performing steps 1 through 3 above, select
the word or phrase to be indexed, then press Alt + Shift + X.
2. Spelling and capitalization are important. Make sure you have
entered the Main Entry and Subentry boxes correctly. If you find
there's a mistake, you can always make the correction inside the
curly braces of the XE entry. For instance, you could change
Office { XE "Office" }
to
Office { XE "office" }
so the index entry would be lowercase simply by editing within the
XE field.
3. If you want to mark all occurrences of the same word or phrase
you selected in Step 1, then click on the Mark All button (instead
of the Mark button) in Step 5. As in the case of Main Entry and
Subentries, capitalization matters. For instance, if you select
"Office" and choose to Mark All, the lowercase word "office" within
your document will not be included in the indexing. Word matches
your text exactly.
4. After you have marked one entry or all entries, Word keeps the
dialog box open. Keep marking entries if you wish, or close the
dialog box (click the Close button in Step 6 above). You can
always index more items later.
CREATING THE INDEX
There are still more tricks to learn about marking (and formatting)
index entries. We'll look at those techniques next week, followed
by a discussion of how to generate the index itself.
-- James E. Powell
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3) OUTLOOK: USE CATEGORIES TO ORGANIZE CONTACTS
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In a previous tip, I explained how to use mail merge from Outlook
to create mailing labels for a mass mailing, such as sending out
holiday cards. An Office Letter reader wrote asking about the
Holiday Cards category that Outlook creates by default, wondering
what the category was for and how she could use it to organize her
contacts for printing.
First, let me explain that an Outlook category is just a tag that
you can associate with an Outlook item such as a contact, task,
message, and so on. When you install Outlook, Setup creates several
of these category tags by default. You can use these categories as
they are, modify or delete them, or create new ones. First, let's
take a look at using that Holiday Cards category.
Outlook includes a Holiday Cards category because Outlook's
development team at Microsoft thought you'd probably want to
identify people in your Contacts folder to whom you would send
holiday cards. By associating the category with each person to whom
you will want to send a card, you make it easier to identify those
people when the time comes to print your mailing list. You can add
the category to any new contacts you create, or remove the category
from existing contacts if you no longer want them included on the
holiday card list.
Now, let's assume that you haven't been using that Holiday Cards
category and you want to assign it to many of your contacts. But,
you don't want to have to do that one contact at a time -- that
would take too long! Fortunately, there's an easier way:
1. Open your Contacts folder and choose By Category from the
Advanced toolbar or choose View/Arrange By/Categories. You should
now see a table view of your contacts, organized by category.
2. Double-click a contact you want to add to the Holiday Cards
category to open the contact form.
3. On the General tab, click Categories. Place a check beside
Holiday Cards and click OK. Click Save and Close to save the
contact.
4. That single contact should appear in its own category group in
the view. Expand any other category groups so you can locate the
other contacts you want to add to the category. Hold down the Ctrl
key and click on each of the contacts to select them. When you
finish selecting the contacts, drag them to the Holiday Cards
group. They will now have Holiday Cards as a category.
Now that your contacts have the Holiday Cards category, what do you
do with it? If you remember from the previous tip about mail merge,
the trick to specifying which contacts you want included in the
mailing list is to first customize the view to show only those
contacts.
1. Choose View/Arrange By/Address Cards to switch back to the
Address Cards view (or choose whatever view you use most often).
2. Right-click in the view (not on a contact) and choose Filter to
open the Filter dialog box. Click the More Choices tab, click
Categories, place a check beside Holiday Cards, click OK, then
click OK again. Your view should now show only those contacts with
the Holiday Cards category. You can now run the mail merge to
create the mailing list.
3. When you finish with the mailing list, you'll probably want to
change the view back to its default settings. Right-click in a
blank area of the view, choose Filter, click Clear All, and click
OK.
-- Jim Boyce
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4) SOFTWARE TESTERS NEEDED
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We're near the end of testing a toolbar creation program. We need
volunteers to help us test the results. The toolbar is for IE and
allows for a Google (and potentially Yahoo) search, along with
shortcuts for accessing Office Letter content.
We need volunteers to test the toolbar on their systems. Set-up
should be quite simple, and testing should take no more than about
five minutes.
Here's the twist: We're also testing a mailing list program. We'd
like to combine both efforts into a single test, so we're going to
use this mailer program to handle sign-ups and to let you know when
the toolbar is ready for testing.
So far, both programs have worked admirably, but we could really
use your help to test both programs on a far greater range of
systems.
If you're interested in helping us test these programs, please:
1. Click on this link:
http://www.mach5.com/subscriber/?a=Office+Letter
and enter your full name and e-mail address. (As with your Office
Letter subscription, this information is kept confidential.) You
will receive an e-mail with a link that you must click to confirm
your sign-up. (This double-opt-in protects you from being enrolled
without your knowledge.)
2. Send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to let me know
you've signed up. Please use the subject Testing and include your
e-mail address in the body of the message. (Yes, I know your e-
mail address is in the "from" field, but my script needs it in the
body of the message.)
We'll send you details about the toolbar testing as soon as it's
ready for a spin on your system.
Thanks!
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5) REVIEW: ANAGRAM AND OUTLOOK MAKE THE PERFECT PAIR
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I'm always looking for ways to make my job easier, so I welcome
programs that do things for me automatically. I especially like
software that provides me with shortcuts to my routines and can
also help do the tedious data manipulations when they're needed.
Basically, I want a program that can do a recurring task with
varying data and has some "smarts" built in.
Word can convert tabbed lists into a table, for example -- it's a
simple example of converting one form of data into another.
Anagram is another example: it can convert clipboard text into
appointments, contacts, tasks, or notes. Its built-in intelligence
is mind-boggling.
I regularly receive e-mails from vendors asking if I can
participate in a conference call at a particular time to discuss a
new product. With Anagram, I swipe part of their e-mail message --
"Can we call you tomorrow at 10 to discuss Acme Software's new
product for 20 minutes?" -- and tell Anagram to turn it into an
appointment scheduled for the next day, starting at 10:00 a.m. and
lasting 20 minutes (see illustration in our online edition).
Anagram opens Outlook (if necessary) and displays the new task,
waiting for me to make final edits and save the appointment. I
asked Anagram to leave the appointment subject blank, but it could
have filled that in too, and I also asked that Anagram shorten the
appointment text (it removes the date, time, and duration, since
those items are now part of the appointment itself).
Likewise, if I highlight a signature block in an e-mail, I can ask
Anagram to add a new contract entry to Outlook. A reminder from a
colleague can be selected and converted into a To Do list item with
a couple of keystrokes.
Anagram waits patiently as a system tray icon; select the text and
click on the icon and Anagram goes to work. Alternatively, or you
can select text and then press the shortcut keys (you can choose
from among several shortcut combinations -- I picked Left Ctrl +
F12). Should Anagram create the wrong type of entry, you can use
the Anagram icon on Outlook's toolbar and change a note to a task,
for example.
Anagram is quite smart in analyzing names, addresses, phone
numbers, and appointment details, though it's not perfect. A
request for "a meeting two weeks from Tuesday" wasn't properly
understood; Anagram made the appointment for the very next Tuesday.
Even so, for the majority of text I tried, Anagram did an admirable
job of understanding meeting requests and contact information.
The program comes in separate versions for Outlook (I tested it
with Outlook 2000) and Palm-compatible PDAs. It's $19.95 for the
first copy (of either version), and $6.95 for each additional copy
you want to run on an alternative computer. (A separate version for
use with Salesforce.com is available for $6.95 per month.) The
vendor offers a generous 45-day free trial, which is more than
enough time to see how the program can make a difference in your
daily work life.
Timesaving utilities that take the drudgery out of everyday tasks
make a difference. It's a joy to find a program that can relieve
me of the hassle of translating an e-mail into an appointment, or
add a contact from a signature block -- Anagram does some of the
thinking (and all of the keystrokes) for me for very little money.
You can find more information about Anagram at
http://getanagram.com
-- James E. Powell
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PREMIUM EDITION EXTRAS THIS WEEK
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This week Premium Edition subscribers are learning how to hide rows
quickly using AutoFilter, and two undocumented tricks for making
indexes work the way you want.
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----------- THE OFFICE LETTER ----- www.officeletter.com ----------
Tips and Tricks for Microsoft Office - Published Weekly
Copyright 2004 Masterware, Inc. All rights reserved
Now In Our Fourth Year - ISSN: 1543-5768
Editor in Chief: James E. Powell
Contributing Editors: Jim Boyce (www.boyce.us)
Dick Archer (www.diseno.com)
