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Delete unwanted email conversations in Outlook 2010

2011-11-17T17:28:00.000-08:00

First of all, that's define a conversation. Microsoft defines a conversation as follows: A Conversation is the complete chain of email messages from the first message through all responses. The messages of a Conversation have the same subject.

Now, here’s how to delete a conversation:

Select the message in the Reading pane.
Click the Home tab, and click Ignore in the Delete group, or press [Ctrl]+[Delete], or right-click the message and choose Ignore from the resulting context menu.
Click Ignore Conversation.

This will remove all emails belonging to this conversation from your Inbox (or folder) and Outlook will automatically detour new messages in that conversation.

The conversation can easily be reclaimed if you don't have the permanently delete all items in the "Deleted Items" folder when closing option turned on:

Select the Deleted Items folder.
Select any message in the conversation that you want to recover.
Click Ignore in the Delete group.
Click Stop Ignoring Conversation.

When you stop ignoring a conversation, Outlook will move all messages in the conversation back to your Inbox. In addition, you’ll start seeing new messages in your Inbox as they arrive.

How to display the Close All command for ribbon users

2011-11-10T18:17:00.000-08:00

Click the Quick Access Toolbar dropdown and choose More Commands.
From the Choose Commands From dropdown, choose Commands Not In The Ribbon.
Scroll down the list until you see Close All and highlight it.
Click Add and then OK.

Change the color of selected items in Microsoft Office

2010-09-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

When you select cells in Excel, text in Word, and even e-mail in Outlook, your system displays the selected data in a contrasting color—the default is gray. Office doesn’t control the color, Windows does and it doesn’t take long to change the default. Just keep in mind that the change is system-wide and not just a subtle change to Office.

Be warned, this change impacts almost every application, so be prepared for a bit of adjustment and remember your orginal settings in case you wish to revert to them.

If you can live with that, do the following to change the selection color in your Office applications and everything else, in Windows XP:

Right-click the Desktop and choose Properties from the resulting context menu.
Click the Appearance tab.
Click Advanced.
From the Item dropdown, choose Selected Items.
From the Color 1 dropdown, choose the color you want to use with selected items (cells, text, email, and so on).
Click the OK button twice.

The process is a little different in Windows 7:

Right-click the Desktop and choose Personalize.
Click Window Color (at the bottom of the screen).
Click Advanced Appearance Settings.
Repeat steps 4 through 6 above.

Delete all the tab stops in a Word document

2010-09-23T23:55:00.000-07:00

Tab stops are a paragraph format. That means you can assign different tab stops for individual paragraphs. Fortunately, that doesn’t mean you have to delete them all individually—or by the paragraph. There’s a quick, easy way to delete all the tab stops in a document.

Press [Ctrl]+A to select the entire document.
Choose Paragraph from the Format menu. Or, right-click the selection and choose Paragraph from the resulting context menu.
(In Word 2007 and 2010, click the Home tab | Paragraph group Dialog launcher)
Click Tab (at the bottom-left).
In the Tabs dialog box, click the Clear All button at the bottom-right.
Click the OK button.

Hope this helps.

Auto-close Outlook 2010's Message Window After You Reply

2010-09-20T23:00:00.000-07:00

When you've replied to a message you probably don't want to keep staring at it, so let Outlook close the message window automatically after you send a reply.
To close the message window:

Click on File, then Options,
Select Mail, then scroll down to Replies and Forwards,
Add a checkmark next to "Close original message window when replying or forwarding."
Click the OK button.

Hope this helps.

How to turn off Word's 2007/2010 Mini Toolbar

2010-09-12T18:30:00.000-07:00

Word 2007 and 2010 have a feature called the Mini Toolbar. When you select text, Word displays the Mini Toolbar (right over the text you just selected).

If you wish to turn it off in 2007:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Click Word Options.
3. In the left pane select Popular (the default).
4. In the Top Options For Working With Word section, remove the tick from the tick box in the Show Mini Toolbar on Selection option.
5. Click the OK button.

Or in 2010:

1. Click the File tab.
2. Select Options under Help in the left pane.
3. Click General (the default).
4. In the User Interface Options section, remove the tick from the tick box in the Show Mini Toolbar on Selection option.
5.Click the OK button.

Hope this helps

Excel's counting functions

2010-08-30T00:17:00.000-07:00

Excel offers three functions: COUNT(), COUNTA(), and COUNTBLANK()
COUNT()
This function counts only the numbers in a range. This function uses the following forms:
COUNT(v1, v2[, …])
COUNT(range) where v1 and v2 represent the literal values you want to count and range identifies a range of cells whose contents you want to count.
COUNTA()
Used to count all values, not just number. This function uses the same forms as COUNT() but be careful because this function considers all values–even the ones you can’t see.
COUNTBLANK()
Counts empty cells in a specified range of cells. Unlike the other two count functions, this function takes only one form: COUNTBLANK(range) which makes sense—you can’t really enter a blank as an argument.
Please note: COUNTA() counts cells that contain a formula that returns an empty string. Since COUNTBLANK() is counting blanks, you might expect it to not count cells that contain formulas that return an empty string—but it does.

Insert a Screenshot in an Outlook 2010 Message

2010-08-11T19:03:00.000-07:00

E-mailing a picture of a dialog box or browser screen or anything else that appears on your desktop:

Begin writing your message,
Click on the Insert tab on the Ribbon, then click Screenshot. A tiny dialog box shows you all the current windows open on your desktop so you can
Choose the one you want to insert, or click on Screen Clipping and click to draw a box on screen.
Press Enter, and the contents of the box will be inserted into your message.

This is great if you need to send an email to a help desk showing an error message on screen.

Remove a hyperlink from a Microsoft Office document

2010-07-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

When you type an Internet address, an E-mail address or URL, Word automatically formats the string as a hyperlink. If you do not wish this to happen, right-click the hyperlink and choose Remove Hyperlink.

You can also use the following methods:

[Ctrl]+z to remove only the hyperlink format.
After Word applies the hyperlink format, press [Backspace].

Hope this helps

Microsoft Office 2010 System Requirements

2010-07-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

Processor and RAM requirements
Same as for the 2007 Office system. Therefore, if your computer meets the 2007 Office system requirements, you can run Office 2010.
Recommended hard disk space
Increased with Office 2010 because of new features, Office-wide ribbon implementation, and in some cases different applications that are included in the Office suites. For example, Microsoft Office Professional 2010 includes OneNote, whereas Microsoft Office Professional 2007 did not. Also, the system requirements are rounded up to the nearest 0.5 GB to be conservative. For example, if we measure an application’s required hard disk space to be 1.99 GB, our recommendation will be 2.5 GB. Our hard disk system requirements are intentionally larger than the actual disk space usage of the software.
Graphics Processor
Requires a Microsoft DirectX 9.0c compliant graphics processor with 64-MB video memory. These processors were widely available in 2007, and most computers available today include a graphics processor that meets or exceeds this standard. However, if you or your users do not have a graphics processor, you can still run Office 2010.

Send a message to several people with Bcc

2010-06-17T21:32:00.000-07:00

If you wish to message several people but you want to protect their identities, send the message to yourself and enter the recipients in the Bcc control. Bcc stands for blind carbon copy. Any recipient entered via the Bcc control will have complete anonymity—no other recipient will see any other names or addresses.

TIP: If the Bcc box isn’t visible in Outlook 2007, click the Message Options tab and click Show Bcc in the Fields group.

Word's Close All icon image

2010-06-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

If you have multople documents open, you can use the Close All icon. To add it to your toolbar (in Word 2003 and earlier):

Click the dropdown arrow that appears at the right end of any open toolbar, choose Add or Remove Buttons, and then click Customize. Or, right-click the background of any toolbar and choose Customize. Or, choose Customize from the Tools menu.
Click the Commands tab in the resulting Customize dialog box. With this dialog open, the toolbars and menu bar, and all their menus and buttons are in Edit mode.
From the Categories list, select the appropriate menu. In this case, click File (the default).
Doing so updates the items in the Commands list to the right. Drag and drop the appropriate command from this list to a toolbar. To recreate my problem, drag Close and Close All to a toolbar.

Perform a quick sort in Word

2010-06-02T13:52:00.000-07:00

A list can be easily sorted,in Word. You do not have to convert the text into a table first, as long as each item in the sort item is on its own line. (Press Enter after each word or line).
Do the following:

Select the list.
From the Table menu, choose Sort. In Word 2007, click Sort in the Paragraph group on the Home tab.
From the Sort By dropdown, choose Paragraphs.
From the Type dropdown, choose Text. (To sort numbers and dates, choose the appropriate data type from the Type dropdown.)
Click ther OK button.

Hope this helps

Two ways to sum Excel data

2010-05-31T03:43:00.000-07:00

There are two ways to sum values:

Highlight the row or column, plus one blank cell for the result, and press [Alt]++.
Highlight the row or column, plus one blank cell for the result and click AutoSum on the Standard toolbar.

For example, if you want to sum the values in cells C1:C7, you select cells C1:C8, and then press [Alt]++ or click AutoSum. Excel will display the sum in cell C8. You don’t have to enter a thing — just highlight and click or press.
Obviously, AutoSum is the easiest route, but the Standard toolbar isn’t always available, so knowing the [Alt]++ combination might come in handy.

A Find and Replace trick for inserting new text

2010-05-19T23:55:00.000-07:00

If you wanted to add a something to part of the document i.e. add 2003 to MS Word , you could search for every occurrence and change it. You might use Find and Replace to search for your MS Word , using the full replacement string as follows: MS Word 2003. Both methods will work, but there’s a simpler way: Use the ^& code in the Replace With value. The ^& code tells Find and Replace to add the text in the Find What entry to the replacement text. The above situation, you’d use the following settings:
Find What: MS Word
Replace With: ^&, 2003

Hope this helps

Windows 7 Tip

2010-04-25T21:01:00.000-07:00

Windows 7 Calculator
When you first look at the Windows 7 calculator it looks just like the Vista version. However, if you explore the View menu you'll find new Statistics and Programmer modes. Also on the View menu are very useful Unit Conversions (length, weight, temperature etc.), Date Calculations (how many days between two dates?) and worksheet templates to let you calculate fuel consumption, mortgage rates and more.

Change Outlook's default appointment reminder

2010-04-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

If a 15-minute reminder prior to the start of the event isn’t enough time (or it’s too much time), you can change the reminder when you create the appointment. If you find yourself changing the reminder time a lot, change the default instead:

From the Tools menu, choose Options
Click the Preferences tab.
In the Calendar section, select a new time from the Default Reminder drop-down list. You can enter a custom time; just be sure to identify it as minutes, hours, days, or weeks.
Click OK.

You can also disable the default reminder. Simply uncheck it (step 3). Once the option is disabled, Outlook will also disable it in the appointment window.

Inserting a Date that Updates in Word

2010-03-26T22:42:00.000-07:00

Word allows you to insert dates into a document. This is the system date. To complete this:

Place the insertion points where you wish the date to go
From the Insert menu select Date and Time. The Date and Time dialog box is displayed
Select the date in the required format
Tick the Updated automatically tick box
Click the OK button

Everytime you open the document, the date will display the system date (should be current date).

Using hidden text in Word

2010-03-19T23:50:00.000-07:00

To hide text in Word you need to use the Hidden format. To complete this, do the following:

Select the text you want to hide.
From the Format menu, choose Font.
Click the Font tab.
Check the Hidden option in the Effects section.

Uncheck the Hidden option to display hidden text. Or click Show/Hide on the Standard toolbar — t’s faster. Show/Hide is a toggle, so a second click rehides all the hidden text when you’re ready to put it out of sight.
Viewing all the hidden text can be helpful, but it won’t remove it.

If you wish to remove all hidden text, do the following:

From the Edit menu, click Replace. Or press [Ctrl]+H.
Click the Find What control.
Click More.
Click the Format button and then choose Font from the resulting menu.
Check the Hidden option in the Effects section.
Click OK.
Click Replace All and Word will delete any text to which you’ve applied the Hidden format.

Always check your document before sending to clients, other staff members, etc.

Identify e-mail from specific senders by colouring their messages in Outlook

2010-03-11T03:46:00.000-08:00

Identify important mail as soon as it comes in by displaying it in a different colour.
Complete the following steps:

Select an existing message from the sender
In Mail, choose Organize from the Tools menu.
In the Ways To Organize Inbox pane, click Using Colors on the left side. The sender’s name will appear in the text box.
Choose a colour from the drop-down list
Click Apply Color and close the pane.

Outlook will display all messages, existing and new, from the person you specified in the colour you selected.

Things to do after purchasing a new computer

2010-03-04T15:15:00.000-08:00

Just brought a computer? Here are six things you should do before using it:

Make a starter CD-ROM - most computers (aspecially laptops) do not come with the DVD/CDs and you are required to burn the necessary setup files on to a DVD/CD.
Remove the promotional applications - most computers have trial software included. Delete any you are not going to use.
Install your antivirus software - in most cases even if you are keeping your old computer, you can purchase another licence or you may of purchased a multi licence.
If your antivirus software does not have a firewall, turn on Windows firewall. It is a modest but still useful.
Install printers and other peripherals
Establish a system restore point - you have the basic setup if you need to recover your system.

Change Outlook's default window

2010-02-25T18:12:00.000-08:00

When you launch Outlook, it displays your Outlook Today view. This view displays calendar entries and tasks for the current day.If you prefer, you can customise your first look at Outlook by changing a simple setting. To change Outlook's default window:

From the Tools menu, choose Options.
Click the Other tab.
Click the Advanced Options button in the General section.
In the General Settings, click the Browse button, to the right of the Startup In This Folder option.
In the Select Folder dialog box, select the folder you want Outlook to default to when launched. You can choose any of Outlook’s folders.
Click OK three times.

If you change you mind, you can reclaim your Outlook Today view by choosing Personal Folders in step 5

Word 2007's built-in cover pages

2010-02-22T02:02:00.000-08:00

In previous versions of Word, you had to manually set section breaks at the top of your document before you could create on a cover page with a different page format from the rest of your document. With Word 2007's built-in cover pages, the section breaks are already formatted for you. To add one of the built-in cover pages to your document, do the following:

Click the Insert tab.
Click the Cover Page button.
Scroll to and click Sideline.
Select the Title field and add your own title.
Click to select the Subtitle field and add your own subtitle.
Click the list arrow on the Date field and select the date from the calendar.
Click anywhere in page two of your document.
On the Insert ribbon, click the Page Number button.
Point to Bottom Of Page and click Plain Number 3.
Click the Page Number button on the Design ribbon.
Click Format Page Numbers.
Click in the Start At text box and change the 1 to 0. Click OK.
On the Design ribbon, click the Close Header And Footer button.

Note: This feature is not supported in Word 2007 Compatibility Mode documents.

Streamline your frequent mailers

2010-02-11T02:18:00.000-08:00

If you frequently send e-mail to the same person, make it easier on yourself. In Outlook, you can create a desktop shortcut that will open a blank, pre-addressed message that's all ready for you to send. Here's how:

Right-click in an empty area of your desktop, point to New, and then click Shortcut.
In the Create Shortcut dialog box, type mailto: and enter the e-mail address of your recipient, leaving no spaces.
Click Next, and then choose a name for your shortcut.
Click Finish, and a new shortcut appears on your desktop.
Double-click the icon, and Outlook opens with your recipient's address in the To field. Just compose your message and send as normal.

Passwords Do's and Don'ts

2010-02-03T20:13:00.000-08:00

Do’s
1. Combine uppercase letters with lowercase letters, numbers and special characters such as “&” or “$”, you will increase the complexity of your password (for example, if your password has a “s” in it, change it with a “$”, an “o” change it with an “0” (zero) or an “8” with a “&”.
2. Have passwords that are at least eight characters long.
3. Change passwords on a regular basis.
4. Use a firewall and other security products.

Don’ts
1. Use such things as pet’s name, children’s names, dates of birth or dates that are easy to remember, like a wedding anniversary.
2. Include any words related to your name or the names of family members. Also, don’t include easily recognizable numbers like your address, phone number, or birthday.
3. Write them down
4. Use the same password for all of your accounts.

Close All command in Word 2007

2010-01-28T17:28:00.000-08:00

In Word 2002 and 2003, when you press the Shift key as you click the File menu, the File menu displays the Close All command. This command is not available on the Word 2007 Ribbon but you can add it to the Quick Access toolbar to use them. Do the following:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Select the Word Options button
3. Click Customize in the left-hand column.
4. Click the drop-down arrow of the Choose Commands from box and
select Commands Not In Ribbon.
5. Scroll to and click Close All.
6. Click the Add button.
7. Click the OK button.

You can now access Close All command by clicking the icon in the Quick Access Toolbar.
PS. Repeat this if you wish to access the Save All command but replace Close All with Save All.

Keep Outlook running smoothly by emptying the Deleted Items folder

2010-01-20T14:17:00.000-08:00

Outlook stores messages, including large attachments, in one file. That storage file includes the Deleted Items folder. When you fail to empty the Deleted Items folder, the deleted email continues to contribute to the mailbox size. Therefore you should regularly empty the Deleted Items folder.

You can configure Outlook to automatically empty Deleted Items when exiting the email application. Do the following:
1. Click Tools, and select Options,
2. Click the Other tab and select Empty The Deleted Items Folder Upon Exiting
3. Click the OK button.

Please note you will be given a choice when exiting Outlook.

Delete a stubborn page break in Word

2010-01-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

Trying to delete a page break in a word document but Word just ignores the action.

Check that you have Track Changes enabled. You can’t delete page (or column) breaks when Track Changes is on.

If you need to delete a page break, turn off Track Changes, delete the break (make sure you’re in Normal view), and enable Track Changes again.

HINT:
To quickly disable and enable Track Changes, in Word 2003 double-click the TRK section in the Status bar or in Word 2007 turn on Track Changes in the Status bar and click to turn on or off.

The shortcut is [Ctrl]+[Shift]+E for all versions of Word.

Add a secondary sort column to an Outlook sort

2010-01-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

You know that you can sort Outlook items by clicking a column title. Clicking toggles between ascending and descending order.

But Outlook doesn’t limit you to a single-column sort. To sort by two columns, sort the primary column. Then, hold down the [Shift] key and click the column cell that represents the secondary sort group.

Request a Read Receipt Message

2009-12-16T21:24:00.000-08:00

Is it essential that you know the people you send emails to, have read them? This week’s tip is about setting the read receipt for email as default.
To automatically turn on the request a read receipt message:
1. In the Tools menu, select Options
2. In the Preference Tab, select Email Options
3. Tick the Read receipt option and click the OK button.
All done.
PS. The person who you send the email you may have the option to not send the receipt. In this case you may want to check the “Delivery receipt” box and in this case you will obtain a receipt saying your email has been delivery to their mail box.

Create a copy of an existing Excel worksheet

2009-12-10T14:54:00.000-08:00

Here is the way to copy a worksheet, either within the current book or into a different one. Useful if you need to start a new sheet that includes some or all of the data and formatting of an existing sheet:
1. Right-click on the sheet tab of the sheet you want to copy.
2. Choose Move Or Copy.
3. Select the Create A Copy check box in the bottom-left corner of the
Move Or Copy dialog box.
4. Choose a different workbook, if desired, from the To Book drop-down list.
(Make sure the other workbook is open to show up in the list.)
You can also select New Workbook.
5. In the Before Sheet list box, specify where you want the copied sheet to go
within the specified workbook.
6. Click OK.

Jump quickly between Documents

2009-12-03T15:38:00.000-08:00

If you work with a lot of open, overlapping documents in Word, here's a quick way to cycle between them: Press [Ctrl][F6] to jump from one to the next; [Ctrl][Shift][F6] will jump you backward. Also works with spreadsheets in Excel.

Save changes to all open Word documents at one time

2009-11-26T15:35:00.000-08:00

If you’re working in multiple documents in Word 2003 and want to make sure you’ve saved your changes to all of them, all you have to do is press the [Shift] key and pull down the File menu. Word will add the Save All command to the menu, above the Save As command. Word will prompt you to save each document that has any unsaved changes.

Two quick ways to sum Excel data

2009-11-18T03:58:00.000-08:00

There are two easier ways to sum values:

Highlight the row or column, plus one blank cell for the result
* press [Alt]++ OR
* click AutoSum on the Standard toolbar.

For example, if you want to sum the values in cells B2:B5, you selecte cells B2:B6, and then press [Alt]++ or click AutoSum. Excel will display the sum in cell B6. You don’t have to enter a thing — just highlight and click or press.

Obviously, AutoSum is the easiest route, but the Standard toolbar isn’t always available, so knowing the [Alt]++ combination might come in handy. Most methods work with multiple columns and rows and noncontiguous blocks of values.

Creating AutoComplete Entries in Word

2009-11-12T16:53:00.000-08:00

AutoComplete anticipates what you are typing and offers to complete it. To setup an AutoComplete entry:
1. Select the text
2. Select the Tool menu, then choose AutoCorrect Options
3. Select the AutoText tab
4. Activate by ticking (if not already done so) the
"Show AutoComplete suggestions" option
5. Click the Add button.
6. Click the OK button.

Hope this helps.

Changing the MS Outlook Mail alert options

2009-11-05T04:11:00.000-08:00

There are a number of emails alerts options in MS Outlook which can be turned off.

Here is the procedure

1. From the Tools menu, select Options
2. From the Preference tab, select the Email Option button
3. Select the Advance Email Option button
4. Select the required alerts or unselect by removing the tick from the box
5. Select the OK button three times.

Hope this helps.

Error Reporting in Windows XP Professional.

2009-10-29T19:24:00.000-07:00

This service gives Microsoft the ability to track and address errors relating to the operating system, components, and applications. The idea behind the service was that Microsoft would be able to track down bugs and fix them more efficiently and quickly.
If this annoys you, then turn it off.
The controls to turn off or customize Windows Error Reporting reside in System Settings, located in the Control Panel. (You can also right-click My Computer and select Properties.) In the System Settings dialog box, select the Advanced tab and then click the Error Reporting button to reveal the Error Reporting dialog box.

Computer Tip 23 October 2009

2009-10-22T20:05:00.000-07:00

Turn off Word's Smart Cut and Paste
The Smart Cut and Paste feature enables Word to automatically adjust formatting when you paste text. The problem is, you might not want Word to adjust a thing.
This feature is enabled by default, and it works well most of the time.
To disable this feature, do the following:

Choose Options from the Tools menu.
Click the Edit tab.
Uncheck Smart Cut And Paste in the Cut And Paste section.

Hint By disabling this feature, you’ll lose its good points as well as its bad. That’s why customising it might be more efficient.

What's new on the web

2009-01-21T16:47:00.000-08:00

Hi
This is my first post. I will be using this blog to update and explain what is happening in regard to web sites. Please check back soon.