Office At Work : Word

Making thank-you cards easy

GillLeFevre — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 19:13:25 GMT

Embarrassing confession: for whatever reason, I always struggle with thank-you cards. My excuse is that the effort involved in getting Christmas cards out to family and friends around the world leaves me so exhausted that I can't even think about thank-you cards until February, by which time they're out of date and not worth doing.

This year, I've put Office Online on the case and as you'd expect, it's looking a lot easier!

First of all, there's a thank-you card template. There were hundreds of templates that came back when I searched for "thank you card" but this was the only one that had the quarter-fold approach that I was after. (Although I've just discovered there is also a similar photo greeting card available which is also quite handy.)

Yes, the template is a bit dated (and it certainly demonstrates how much Microsoft Office has improved the graphics in recent versions) but it's going to be fine as a starting point. I'm going to edit it so that the cover has a different graphic (probably a family Christmas photo) and being really efficient (ok, I mean really lazy!), I'll also look to use mail merge to customise the text for each recipient.

Then all I need to do is sign the cards and send them -- and even I can get that done before Blue Monday.

...for Absolute Beginners

StephB — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:59:32 GMT

No, this isn't a post about that questionable '80s movie adaption of the classic British coming-of-age novel. However, if you're new to Word, Excel, Powerpoint or Outlook you might be interested to know about the new 'Novice' training content available on Office Online.

These colourful training articles have loads of screenshots, introducing you to using Word, Excel, Outlook and Powerpoint with simple step-by-step instructions.

Like it's 80's movie counterpart our Novice content has a strong cultural flavour, not young British but most definitely far Eastern. Which is no co-incidence, given that it was designed and written by Office Online Japan. Thank you Japan!

Scanning into Microsoft Word 2007

GillLeFevre — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:28:51 GMT

I've had a number of questions about scanning images into Microsoft Word 2007 so I asked one of my colleagues to dig into the situation.

He's confirmed that this is an area where we've changed the functionality since Word 2003. Instead, you need to scan images to your computer and then insert them into Microsoft Word.

Here are some more useful links:

Hope this helps!

SmartArt: The best thing since sliced bread?

ElisaS — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:45:22 GMT

I always used to hate the cliché, "a picture's worth a thousand words" because with my standard of drawing it usually took me at least several hundred words to explain what was happening in the first place. Not any longer, at least not now that Microsoft have come up with a fantastic way to illustrate a wealth of content with little use of words.

To back this up I wanted to share an experience I had recently with you. Having this year studied for a marketing qualification I needed to produce 12 assignments for my final assessment. Word count was tight and I found it increasingly difficult to get across what I wanted to in the limit allowed. This is when I discovered SmartArt! A quick, simple way to get information across using few words.

All, at the click of a button............even I could do it .........which I think is why I was so impressed!

After submitting my drafts to my tutor they all came back with the same comment...alongside my SmartArt diagrams...... 'reference?' 'reference?' 'reference?' It was then I had great pleasure in informing my tutor that these diagrams were actually MINE using SmartArt, a cool new feature in Office 2007...."what do you mean???" (Clearly, he had not heard of it) And when I explained, he was very impressed.....THAT is how professional and fantastic these diagrams were.....he thought they had come from a book!

So, my final assignments were submitted with my SmartArt diagrams, referenced as follows:

Saunders.E, 2007 (using SmartArt, feature of the 2007 Microsoft Office system)

Not being one to brag but I did receive my first ever A grades for those assignments......and if I'm honest, I think this is partly down to effectively & professionally presenting my ideas in a clear & concise manner.

It really is simple.....just click on 'insert' then 'SmartArt' on the top ribbon and you're given a whole host of different ways to show your data:

So there you have it in a nutshell - If I this had been available to me as a school child or university student my life would have been so much simpler (and probably my grades higher!!)

Does anyone else love this feature or is it really just me?

Oh, and this one below is my particular favourite diagram: