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Give Your Data The Chart It Deserves

As written on nhlearninggroup.com
Definitely for the arithmophobic. Thanks to the Live Charts feature in Excel, you can give them an instant makeover with colorful charts. In older versions of Excel, charting was one of the more difficult tasks. It wasn’t only about the time it took, but also about the right chart type that fit the data. Excel 2013 makes it easy as a click with Live Charts. Excel uses a special algorithms to show the chart types you can use based on the data.

Select the data to chart and click Insert — Recommended Chart to see options such as line, bar, and pie charts that Excel feels is right for your data. Click each chart to preview what your data will look like. Pick the right chart and Excel inserts the chart with some page elements to work with styles, colors, and the chart data. Do note: Not every chart type is recommended. Specialized chart types are available from the Insert Chart button on the Ribbon..

From PDF to editable Word documents

One of the best features of PDFs are that they are not editable as a default. It’s also an irksome feature if you want to take information out of it. A whole industry of tools exist that help you be more productive with PDF files. Don’t disregard the new PDF Reflow feature in MS Word 2013. Making it uncomplicated – open a PDF with Word 2013 and it will behave like a normal Word document. You can reuse the content without too much effort. Now, all that rich data locked in PDF files is ripe for picking.

Word creates a copy and opens it as a normal document as you would any other from File – Open. Make any changes - the original PDF is left intact. The conversions are not always perfect, but this is a very handy feature.

Use Share Link As A Quick Presentation Tool

Microsoft Office 2013 brings new collaborative features for Word and PowerPoint which piggyback on a Microsoft Account. With the Office Presentation Service your collaborators do not even need the Office suite at their end. A web browser does the job with the help of the Office web app. Work on your document and begin sharing from File — Share — Present Online. From here, select Office Presentation Service and click Present Online. A share link is created. Send it via Skype, email, or any other online medium. Start your presentation and the recipients get to view it on their browsers when they click on the shared link. Share notes and your team members can follow you through the document. They can also watch the presentation independently. The presenter controls the presentation from this special menu bar.

Refer Wikipedia Within Word

The official Wikipedia app is a quick resource for general research. With the Wikipedia app inside Word. Go to Insert – Apps for Office– Wikipedia. You might have to search for it among the featured apps. The app also allows you to insert a section of a text or an image. Select the text or hover over the image. Click on the insert symbol to insert it into the body of your Word document. The source link is automatically included with the insert. The Wikipedia app can also be used to research something on the side-pane by simply selecting something in your document. Nice.

Use Your Ears with Assistive Technologies

With the Office suite, you can take advantage of the built-in screen reader (Narrator) to read and create Word documents, PowerPoint slides, Excel spreadsheets, OneNote notebooks, and Outlook email. Microsoft Support recommends that you become familiar with shortcut keys as well. For example, you can use voice to record your comments on PowerPoint slides or a Word document. If you are short on time, use the Narrator to have it read aloud Outlook emails or a Word doc. Microsoft Office 2013 also comes with an audio-enabled Mini Translator that can take a selected foreign phrase and read aloud its pronunciation. Select a foreign word. Click onReview – Translate – Mini Translator. Hit the Play button.

Go Easy on the Eyes with Read Mode

If you have a touch enabled computer, Office 2013 was designed for productivity with fingers. The Ribbon menu was restyled and made more functional. I will ask you to do one thing if you are still deciding to come aboard (c’mon, it’s been a year now!). Go to View – Read Mode. That’s a bonus point for a distraction free reading experience.

It auto-resizes the document to the full screen and is completely uncluttered. Click on View to see options for tweaking this mode. For instance, the color modes that make it easier on the eyes. You can get rid of the toolbar for a full-screen experience.

Save Time With a Copy

Don’t go hunting for the document to copy. The shortcut for creating a copy of an Office document is not very apparent but it is a huge time saver if you want to work on a copy while keeping the original intact. Click on File – Open – Recent Documents. If the document was opened recently, the filename will be displayed. Right-click on the filename and select Open a copy. Any changes that you make are saved to the copy. You can then save it at any location. This tiny step is a time saver because you are spared from browsing to its location and manually creating a copy to work on.

Work Anywhere With Documents Online

Save your Office documents online via the Microsoft account. Microsoft has the sister suite ofweb apps for Word, Excel, OneNote, and PowerPoint. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint save the last location where you left off work before saving– to the letter, cell, or slide. Pick up where you left off working on a different device while away from your main computer. You can also continue your work on Mobile apps for Office.

Don't Cut and Paste Anymore

There’s this quicker way that uses lesser key presses. Using Cut-Paste (Ctrl-x Ctrl-v) to move text from one place on the page to another within a Word document is fine. But try this. Select any block of text. Press F2. You will notice that the status bar (at the bottom of your screen) says Move to where. Place the cursor at the location where you wish to move the block of text. Press Enter and the selection will be moved.

Searching for Data in Excel

When you search for data, you can use ? to represent any single character or * to represent a series of characters. Example if your data has all the states, you could type “*Dakota” and it will pull up both North and South Dakota data.

Auto Filter in Excel

Too much data to go through? Use AutoFilter to find values, show or hide values, in one or more columns of data. You can filter based on choices you make from a list, search to find the data that you want to see. When you filter data, entire rows are hidden if values in one or more columns don't meet the filtering criteria. Click the Data Tab- Filter to activate.

Save and Auto Recover in Word 2013

It will happen! A computer crash, power goes out or you just close without saving. To avoid losing all your work when this happens, make sure AutoRecover and AutoSave are turned on. Simply click on the File Tab- Options- Save and make sure the SAVE AUTORECOVER INFORMATION IS SELECTED and you can select the number of minutes from 0-120.

Calendar Views in Outlook 2013

Managing and Viewing multiple calendars? By default, calendar groups appear side by side. To make the calendars overlap, click the View in Overlay Mode arrow on the tab of each calendar you want to overlap. In Microsoft 2013 there is a world of cool new things to discover. However, a favorite new feature in Outlook 2013 is located below the Navigation pane where you can have mail, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes.

Extended Clipboard in Microsoft Work 2013

Microsoft Word has a useful "Spike" feature that allows you to cut text and images from multiple locations in a document and paste them all at once to a different location. To use this feature, select the text, images or other objects in your document that would like to move and press "CTRL +F3" to move that selection to the Spike. You can to that same spike using the same key combo shortcut.

Adding Video to Microsoft PowerPoint 2013

Ask any teacher, and they'll tell you nothing captures your audience more than a movie. To add a movie to your PowerPoint Presentation, click "Insert" on the Ribbon. You will see a button for "Video" on the right side of the ribbon. Using the drop-down menu, you can insert a video from YouTube, Facebook or your OneDrive account, or any other video embedding website.

Refreshing the Same Query in Access 2013

You may use a report or query with the help of parameters as a filter tool. With this one report of query you filter different departments or dates you need to print multiple reports for different purposes. You may only need your mouse click to click the refresh button to prompt for a new parameter window. You can work much faster by staying on the keyboard and creating a smoother workflow. After running your first query or report stay in the same view (don't switch back to design). Press "SHIFT + F9" to run the report again with a new parameter.

Copy and Paste Tricks in Word 2013

When you copy a passage of text from the web to Word, styles and formatting are retained. However, there's an easy way to remove this styling from any block fo text in Word - just select the text you copied and press "Ctrl+Space Bar". The rich text will be transformed to plain text. Additionally, you can move text in Word without the traditional "Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V" shortcut. Highlight any block of text, press "F2", and place the cursor at the spot where you wish to move that text. Press "Enter" and the selection will be moved! Test it out with this paragraph!

PowerPoint Presentation Tricks

While you are conducting a PowerPoint presentation, if something comes up that you don't want to be seen at that point without having to stop the slideshow, hit the letter 'B' on your keyboard. This will blackout the screen without losing your place. Hit 'B' again, and you'll be back in business. Another cool trick... while in presentation mode, hold 'Ctrl+P' and you will change your pointer into a pen that can write or draw. Hit the 'Esc' key and you will change back to your pointer!

Custom Views in Outlook 2013

In Microsoft 2013 there is a world of cool new things to discover. However, a favorite new feature in Outlook 2013 is located below the Navigation pane where you can have mail, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes.

While working in your inbox, to view your calendar without leaving your inbox, right-click on the calendar and select open new window. You will now be able to stay in your inbox and open your calendar at the same time. You can now actively work in your calendar and read your emails. Tada!

Visually Represent Your Data in Excel

Here is a great Excel trick for all of us out there that like visual representations of our data. You can use this trick with Excel 97-2013. Whenever you have a table of data and want to create a chart, here is what you do. Click in a cell within the table you want to chart. Press the Key on the top row of your keyboard, and say "WOW"! Now you have a new chart of your data on a new worksheet named "Chart 1". Your original table is still on the original worksheet!

Navigate Excel Workbooks Easily

Here's a little-known trick that will allow you to quickly and easily navigate to a specific worksheet in Excel workbooks that contain more than one (Sheet1, Sheet2, etc.). You can display a pop-up list of all worksheet names in your workbook by right-clicking one of the navigation arrows to the left of the worksheet tabs that are located at the bottom of the screen. Simply select a sheet from the list, and you're there in a flash![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

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