Word Tips and Tricks

Use Diagnostics to Repair Microsoft Word September 18, 2007

Posted by iawalsh in : Misc, How do I ?, downloads , add a comment

The Diagnostics option replaces the Detect and Repair function you found in previous versions of Microsoft Office.

Use this to:

Check for corrupt files and registry settings in MS Office.
Check for hard disk issues.
Verify your computer has latest service packs.
Identify conflicting versions of Microsoft Office Outlook.

To run the Diagnostics in MS Word:

Click Microsoft Office and then click Word Options.
Click Resources.
Click Diagnose.
Click Continue and then click Start Diagnostics.

Before you do this, close all open programs, especially for memory and RAM testing.

Office Live Store Manager in Beta September 18, 2007

Posted by iawalsh in : Microsoft Office News , add a comment

James Senior over on Technet introduces Office Live Store Manager, which is currently in private beta with several small business customers.

He highlights that ”The store manager portion of Office Live enables this small business to have an online store tightly incorporated within their website with the minimum of fuss.”

James gives an example of Office Live Store Manager helped Larouex Gourmet Foods, makers of fine tasting food products in Washington State. He visited their online store where they have some sauces and meats available to buy.

Before Office Live they used Paypal and had some complicated ASP pages to get around the problem of selling online. The promise of Office Live Store Manager is to offer a one-stop-shop for all online activities for small business.

Visit James’ blog here: http://blogs.technet.com/james/archive/2007/09/17/office-live-store-manager-private-beta.aspx

Download IBM Lotus Symphony September 18, 2007

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IBM have announced Lotus Symphony, “a suite of free software tools for creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentations.”

IBM are positioning this office productivity suite as a rival to MS Office.

Symphony includes a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation tool. It runs on Windows and Linux, and supports Open Document Formats and Microsoft Office and PDF export.

Lotus Symphony is based on the Open Document Format (ODF) standard-which means you’re not locked into proprietary file formats, software licensing agreements and upgrades.
Iimport, edit and save a variety of file formats including Microsoft Office files.
Export documents to Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF).
The tools work with computers running both Microsoft Windows and Linux- environments, with support for Apple Macintosh planned for the future.

Download Symphony from IBM website.

MS Office Add-in: Microsoft Save as PDF or XPS September 18, 2007

Posted by iawalsh in : Misc , add a comment

Get this download so you can export and save to PDF and XPS formats in eight 2007 Microsoft Office programs.

You can also send an e-mail attachment in the PDF and XPS formats in a subset of these programs.

Download from Microsoft site here

Download Size:

934 KB

MS Office Compatibility Pack September 18, 2007

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If you use Microsoft Office XP and 2003 programs Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, Microsoft suggest that you install all High-Priority updates from Microsoft Update before downloading their Compatibility Pack.

Installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, lets you open, edit, and save files using the file formats new to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007.

You can use the Compatibility Pack in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats.

Download from the MS site here

Download Alternative to Microsoft Office September 18, 2007

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OpenOffice.org 2.3 includes upgrades to its word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, and database software.

The Charting component has undergone a complete revamp, adding a range of new features as well as simplifying and streamlining chart formulation. This component is used throughout OpenOffice.org.

Writer, OpenOffice.org’s word processor, has been boosted with the addition of intelligence to handle multi-lingual documents better. Wiki users will love the addition of a new MediaWiki (Wikipedia) export filter. Mail merge has some additional usability features.

A number of general productivity improvements have been made to Calc, OpenOffice.org’s spreadsheet. These include changes to printing, functions, menus, dialogs and toolbars.

Performance improvements have been made to Impress, OpenOffice.org’s application for creating presentations. The ‘move along curve’ animation feature has been re-introduced, giving ‘cartoon-like’ abilities to presentations.

OpenOffice.org’s database application, Base, continues to evolve, with additional features for expert users such as keyboard shortcuts, and a Report Builder (available as an extension).

OpenOffice.org Draw, the drawing and diagramming module, has been enhanced to provide improved exporting to HTML/web by adding support for exporting the images to portable network graphics (PNG) format. Accessibility improvements have also been made by providing alternate text for image maps and layer titles and descriptions.

General improvements to the entire suite include a persistent stylist filter, re-ordering of the PDF export dialogues, new shortcut keys, easier keyboard customisation, previewing of web pages in a browser, a number of enhancements for extensions and a higher default macro security level. In addition support for numerous languages and locales have added.