Online IT Pro » Microsoft Office

Make Excel 2007 workbooks open in separate windows in Windows Vista

The Pro — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:21:09 +0000

Do you need to open workbooks in separate windows in Excel 2007? If so, there is an easy fix for you. Just so you know, this only works with Excel 2007 in Windows Vista

Open Microsoft Excel 2007 and click on the Office Button. At the bottom of the menu, click on the “Excel Options” button.

On the left-hand navigation menu click the “Advanced” option and in the right-hand menu scroll down to the “General” section. Check the “Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)” check box and click the “OK” button.

Now try to open mulitiple Excel 2007 workbooks and they should open in separate, individual windows.

How to create an Out of Office reply in Outlook 2007

The Pro — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:04:59 +0000

If you get a lot of emails like I do, colleagues want to know when you are not in the office. There is an easy way to takle this in Outlook 2007 by using the Out of Office attendant. You can set up a custom notification to be automatically sent to anyone who sends you an email, letting them know your out of office status. Here’s how to setup an out of office reply in Outlook 2007.

On the Outlook 2007 Ribbon, click the “Tools” option and select the “Out of Office Assistant…” option.

Select the second option that says, “I am currently Out of the Office” and type your custom reply and click the “OK” button.

Now you have easily setup your custom out of office reply in Outlook 2007.

Change Microsoft Word 2007 Background

The Pro — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:02:45 +0000

Is Microsoft Word 2007 too bright for you and hurts your eyes because the colors are so light? Do you spend a lot of time in Microsoft Word and have bad eye strain? You can very easily change the background in Microsoft Word 2007 so that you lessen the strain on your eyes while you type.

Open a Microsoft Word 2007 Document by clicking on the Vista Start Menu, the “Programs” option, and then open Microsoft Word 2007.

On the Office Ribbon click the “Page Layout” tab.

In the middle of the ribbon, you will see the “Page Background” section so click on the “Page Color” button and select a darker bluish color.

Now change your text color to a very light color (such as white) and begin typing.

You will notice a drastic difference immediately. Try this for a while and this should dramatically lessen any eye strain.

Create an email Signature in Outlook 2007

The Pro — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 15:05:41 +0000

If your computer is anything like mine, I spend a lot of time in Outlook 2007. I send a lot of emails and it gets very annoying to always have to type my contact information at the bottom of every email. Fortunately, we can set up an email signature that will be shown on all outgoing emails.

Open Microsoft Outlook 2007 and click on the “New” button to create a new email message.

Click on the “Signature” button (over on the right side of the Ribbon) and click the “Signatures…” option.

The Signatures window will open so click on the “New” button to create a new email signature.

GIve your signature an easily identifiable name and click on the “OK” button.

Now you should see the name you just entered in the list. In the text box below the name, enter in your signature and format it to your liking and click the “OK” button.

Now your personal signature will always show when you send out new emails.

Show From field in an email in Outlook 2007

The Pro — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:02:13 +0000

In this post, I showed you how to display the Blind Carbon Copy button in Outlook 2007. Due to overwhelming confusion and the defaults in Outlook 2007, I will show you how to add the From field to an email message. When you enable the from field this way, you will always see the field on every new email message that you create.

First, open Microsoft Outlook 2007 and click on the “New” button to open a new email message.

A new email message will now open. Click the “Options” tab at the top of the message and in the Fields section click the “Show From” button.

You will see the From field in the new message and it will remain on every message you now create in Outlook 2007.

Freeze the top row in Microsoft Excel 2007

The Pro — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:18:23 +0000

In Microsoft Excel 2007, you have the ability to freeze the top row of the spreadsheet so that you always see the labels and headers in the first row at all times. This way when you scroll down on a very long spreadsheet, you don’t have to guess what column you are looking at. You will always see the first row and your column header.

First, open Excel 2007 on your computer. At the top of the Office Ribbon, click on the “View” tab.

Simply click the “Freeze Panes” button and you will see this drop down. Now click the “Freeze Top Row” to freeze the top row so it is always in view.

Scroll down your document and the top row is always frozen.

NOTE: If you save this document with the top row frozen you can open it in an earlier version of Excel and the top row will still be frozen.

Show Bcc field in Outlook 2007

The Pro — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:40:25 +0000

Many people are confused because they don’t know where the Blind Carbon Copy (Bcc) button went in Outlook 2007. By default, this option/button is disabled in Outlook 2007. Don’t worry, you can get it back in just a few clicks. Here’s how to enable the Bcc field in Outlook 2007.

Make sure you have Outlook 2007 open. In the upper left-hand corner click the “New Message” button.

When the new message opens, click the “Options” tab and then click the “Show Bcc” button.

Now when you compose a new message you will automatically see the Bcc field.

And yes, Outlook 2007 saves this setting so you will see the Bcc field on every new email message you create.

Repair Outlook 2007 PST with ScanPST

The Pro — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 01:20:21 +0000

Are you having problems with your PST (personal folders) in Outlook 2007? If so, there is a simple way to take care of any issue or corruption you may have with your PST. Outlook automatically includes a PST repair tool called ScanPST.

ScanPST can save your PST if you see this message:

FileName.pst file could not be opened. The file may not be compatible with this version of Outlook or it may be corrupted.

In Windows Vista, you may see an error message when you start Outlook 2007 that says:

.pst file could not be opened

NOTE: These two things are very important to repair your PST, so do them first.

Make sure Outlook 2007 is closed
Locate the PST file that you will be repairing and note that location so you can get back to it later.

Once you have completed the previous two steps, navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12 (where “C” is the letter of your hard drive) and find the SCANPST utility.

Double click on the ScanPST utility and the Repair window will open. Click the “Browse” button and navigate to the location where your PST lives and select the PST you want to repair.

The name of your PST will show in the window. Click the “Start” button to begin scanning your PST. There is no need to worry as this only does a scan on your PST and does NOT make any changes. This will only detect any problems.

The scan will go through 8 steps. The amount of time it will take to complete, depends on the size of your PST.

When the scan completes you will see the summary window of what the scan found. The important part is that it will tell you if you have any error in your PST.

Now you can repair your corrupt PST. I highly recommend making a backup of your PST before you repair just to be safe. So check the box to make a backup and click the “Browse” button to select a location for your backup. (Save the backup to your desktop since the repair will be fine and you can delete the backup when you are done.) Now click the “Repair” button to repair the PST.

The repair will process your PST and complete and you will see a confirmation message that the repair is complete.

You can now delete the backup that you made and saved to your desktop. Open Outlook 2007 and you shouldn’t see any more issues with your PST and Outlook 2007.

Encrypt and password protect an Office 2007 document

The Pro — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 21:23:13 +0000

In this post, I showed you how to password protect a Microsoft Office 2003 document. Here, I will show you how to encrypt and password protect a Microsoft Office 2007 document. This is easier in Office 2007 than in 2003 and is much more secure.

For this example, I will be using Microsoft Work 2007, but the process is exactly the same in Microsoft Excel 2007. Click on the Office Button and hover your mouse over the “Prepare” option and click the “Encrypt Document” option. (If you care, Office 2007 does 128-bit encryption)

The password window will open so type in your password and click the “OK” button.

Type in the same password again to confirm and click the “OK” button.

Save and close your document. Now re-open your document and you will be prompted to enter your password to decrypt the document and click the “OK” button.

Now you can now view and edit your encrypted document

Recover deleted emails in Outlook 2007

The Pro — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 15:55:40 +0000

Have you ever accidentally deleted an email that you needed and you didn’t know how to get it back? If you are using Microsoft Outlook 2007, there is a possibility that you can get that email back. Microsoft has a very easy way to see the emails that it can recover from the depths of your email.

Make sure you have Outlook 2007 open. On the main menu click “Tools” and click the “Recover Deleted Items” option.

The Recovery window will open and display all emails that can be recovered. Click on the email(s) that you want to recover and click the “Recover Selected Items” button (it’s the second button in the top menu).

All emails that you have selected will be put back in the original folder that you deleted them from. So if you deleted the item straight from your Inbox, the email will be put back in your Inbox.