IT Tip #2 - Excel & Word

Rather than concentrating on one major area of interest – mail merge using word – this time, I've offered a wider range of tips and tricks. Hopefully you will find some, or all, of them to be of use! These will work "as given" in Office 2000 - 2003, there are differences in Office 2007 which later blog entries will cover

Excel: To change the width of a column

• Find the right-hand border of the column you wish to change and follow it to the top of the worksheet into the area of the column heading.
• When the mouse pointer is moved in this area, it changes to a thick crosshair.
• Click on the right-hand column heading border and drag the mouse to the left to reduce the column, or to the right to increase the column size.

NOTE: If you enter text that exceeds the column width, it will spill over into the next column as long as the cell does not contain any data. If it contains data the entry will be truncated at the edge of the cell. Although the entire entry does not appear, it will still be intact. If you enter a number which exceeds the width of a column, ### signs will be displayed in the cell to let you know that the column is not wide enough.

Excel: To set the column width to match the data automatically

• Find the right-hand column border in the column heading area.
• Double click on the border to make the column change to fit the data in it. The column will be as wide as the largest entry in it.

Excel: To change the width of multiple columns to match the data

• Click on the heading (column letter) of the first column you want to change, and drag to highlight the other columns.
• Double click on the right-hand border of the column heading of any of the highlighted columns.
• The column widths will change to match their largest entry.

Excel, Word & PowerPoint: Auto Correct

AutoCorrect looks at the entry you are making and checks it against a (pre-defined) list of common errors. If you make a common error AutoCorrect will make the required correction. In addition, you can add your own items to the list, for example people’s names, job titles, company names, products, or even images etc. To do this…

• Open the Tools menu and select the AutoCorrect option.
• Enter the incorrect spelling in the Replace box.
• Enter the correct spelling in the With box.
• Click the Add button. The entry is now in the AutoCorrect list.
• Click OK to finish.

Excel, Word & PowerPoint: Copying and moving using the mouse

Rather than using the Edit>Cut, Edit>Copy & Edit>Paste menus or the icons on the toolbars to copy & paste, you can just use the mouse.

Drag & Drop (Cut & Paste)

• Select the range that you want to cut & paste with the mouse
• Move your mouse to the edge of the range (it will change from an open cross to an arrowhead
• Hold down the left button and drag it to where you want its new location to be
• Let go of the button

Copy & Paste

• Select the range that you want to cut & paste with the mouse
• Move your mouse to the edge of the range (it will change from an open cross to an arrowhead
• Hold down the left button and and the Control (CTRL) key on your keyboard (the pointer will now have a cross by it) drag it to where you want its new location to be
• Let go of the button

To move and copy data to another worksheet

• Select the cell or range that contains the data to be copied.
• Press and hold the ALT key and drag any edge of the selected range to the required worksheet tab.
• Place the range where required and release the mouse button.
• To copy the data carry out the above procedure holding down both the CTRL and ALT keys.