#267 Display Multiple Excel Worksheets Side-by-Side

Several people have asked about how to see multiple Excel worksheets side-by-side at the same time. Depending what you want to do, here a few tricks you can try to save yourself some toggling back and forth.

2 or More Worksheets of Different Workbooks

1. Open the workbooks you want to view.

2. On the Window menu, click Arrange.

3. Under Arrange, click the option you want.

2 or More Worksheets of the Same Workbook

1. From the Window menu, click New Window.

2. Switch to this new window and click on the sheet/tab you want to view.

3. From the Window menu, select Arrange and check the Windows of active workbook check box.

3. Then just, click the option you want and hit the OK button.

Voila! Two windows displaying different tabs of the same workbook.

Make Use of That Second Monitor

If you’re fortunate enough to have a second monitor, one trick you can try to see a different worksheet on each screen is a bit counter-intuitive. The steps are the same as above but before you do that UN-maximize your Excel application window and size it so it spans across both monitors.

You just need to use the Restore button from the top right corner of the Excel window (shown below) and then resize so it fills BOTH screens.

#266 Copy/Paste vs Inserting Images

I’m guessing that a pretty big percentage of images used in PowerPoint come from the web. And
I’m also guessing that most people may realize that most images on the web have been compressed in some way to provide a balance of quality & small file size.

What I don’t think many people realize is that when you copy & paste images directly from the web into PowerPoint that you lose much of that compression and wind up with a bigger file size than you need to have.

The reason is that whenever a picture is copied to the computer’s clipboard and then pasted into PowerPoint (or Word, etc) the picture is pasted as a bitmap—regardless of the file format of the original picture. Bitmap file sizes are much larger and have less detail which leaves you with a much larger Word or PowerPoint file than necessary, particularly if you have used multiple images this way.

So instead of copying & pasting directly from the web into your document, you should save them first and then Insert them via the Insert menu instead.

I did a quick test with the following results:

Method	File Size (kb)
Copy & Paste	2,027
Copy & Paste (Compressed)	440
Insert	300

Notice that even after using PowerPoint’s option for compressing the pasted images, the file size was still larger than the file using inserted images.

#265 If I only knew how to…

Although I always welcome your questions it’s been awhile since I’ve asked you directly. So here’s your chance to share the biggest challenge you’ve been facing lately by completing this sentence…

If only I knew how to __________________ I’d be happy.

For example:

Leave your answer as a comment below (go head it will only take a few seconds and it’s amazing what you can learn simply by asking.) While you’re there, how about taking a quick look at what others are wrestling with to see if you can ‘pay it forward’ by helping them out with a solution. (It’ll give you lot’s of good karma!)

Be sure to check the “Notify me of follow-up comments via e-mail” box if you’d like to get other comments in your in-box instead of having to repeatedly check the site to see if anyone has answered your question.

#264 Word Formatting Detective

If you’ve ever struggled with formatting a Word document, you might be interested in learning how to figure out exactly what formatting has been applied to any/all parts of your document.

The details available in the Reveal Formatting pane, located under the Formatting menu, can help figure out just why in the heck your text doesn’t look like you want it to.

SHORTCUT:
SHIFT + F1 is the quickest way to access this. In older versions you’ll have to click on the text you’re analyzing. In newer, versions it will analyze the selected text.

This handy little trick will give you lots of details about your text, such as the font, paragraph and line spacing, styles, and language. You can expand or collapse these details as needed to focus on the specific details you’re interested in.

Some of the things you can do while you’re poking around in there include:

Change Existing Formatting

Simply click any of the hyperlinked text (the stuff with a blue underline) to open the appropriate dialog box and change any settings you want.

Learn How It Got That Way:

To determine whether the formatting was manually applied or if it comes from a style, select the Distinguish style source check box.

Compare It To Another Selection:

If you check the Compare to another selection check box and then select another block of text Word will automatically tell you the differences between two.

#263 Word Ruler Shortcuts

If you ever feel like you’re spending more time on formatting your documents than you should, you should check out these shortcuts you can access by double-clicking in Word’s ruler.

Obviously these won’t work if you don’t have the ruler displayed. If you don’t see it you can turn it on by selecting Ruler from the View menu.

Page Setup

Double-click in the grey area of either ruler (horizontal or vertical) to a open the Page Setup dialog.

Paragraph Settings

Paragraph settings are accessible by double-clicking any of the indent markers located to the left of the horizontal ruler.

Table Properties

Double-click the Move Table Columns marker (the small squares you see when you’re in a table) on the horizontal ruler to display the Tables Properties dialog.

#262 Hiding PowerPoint Background Graphics

Every once in awhile I run into a situation where I want a slide or set of slides in my presentation NOT to have the template styling. For example, when the template takes up too much space for the content on the slide.

Fortunately, it’s very easy to turn them off for a particular slide or set of slides.

You might also want to turn the background objects off for printing….but you aren’t inflicting
“Slideuments” on anyone are you!?!?

How It Works

On the Format menu, click Background.

Select the Omit background graphics from master check box.

If you want to omit the background graphics from only the selected slides, click Apply.

If you want to omit the background graphics from all slides, click Apply to All.

2010 Version

It works pretty much the same in PowerPoint 2010 except you have a few more options as you see below. You directly work with the check box that hides the background graphics on the Design tab.

Or right-click on the slide and select “Format background…”

Love it? Hate it? Got a better idea? Let me know.

#261 Highlighting Documents

Do you ever highlight documents as you read them? I am a big highlighter when I’m really trying to focus on learning and retaining information from documents that I’m reading. It makes reviewing easier for me and calls out the important parts for others.

Did you know you that Word and a number of other programs have a highlighter built right in?

Microsoft Word

In Word 2007/2010 you can simply select the text you want to highlight then press [CTRL] + [ALT] + H This is a toggle, so simply repeat the same steps to remove the highlight.

In older versions of Word you can find the highlighter button on the Formatting toolbar …or make your own highlighting shortcut.

PDF Viewers:

Most PDF viewers also have this highlighting ability. In Adobe Reader X just look for the highlighter on the toolbar

PowerPoint & more

For applying this to your PowerPoint presentations, here are seven ideas for emphasizing text in PowerPoint…and it even works in email too!

#260 2011 Top Ten Tips

It’s hard to believe another year has come and gone and that we’ll be starting the sixth year of these weekly tips. The upcoming year promises to bring many new things to all of us and I look forward to all that’s ahead. Thank you for joining me every week and I always love to hear from you, so if you ever have any thoughts or suggestions please send them my way.

To wrap up the year, here are the ten most popular tips from 2011. At least these are the ones that had the most traffic on the web site.

1. PowerPoint Notes Pane

How to avoid ‘slideumentitis’ – the #1 PowerPoint crime – by moving your text off your slides and down into the Notes pane. Trust me – your audience will thank you!

2. The Biggest Loser: PowerPoint Edition

How to shrink your PowerPoint files when they get overly bloated and out of control.

3. Dropbox: Like ‘Magic’ For Your Files

How to sync your files and/or back them up across computer and devices so they’ll be available anywhere you need them. Get yours here.

4. Six Million Dollar Presentation Tips

A collection of shortcuts to use during PowerPoint presentation such as how to jump to a specific slide, blacking out your screen, and more good stuff.

5. Apps To Be Thankful For

A collection of useful applications and software that I’ve personally found helpful.

6. Move & Copy Excel Worksheet Tabs

How to work with Excel data that is spread across multiple tabs or between different spreadsheet files.

7. Word: Cliffs Notes Version

The Word edition of the Clif Note series, a short & simple guide to mastering your documents. You can also check out the Excel & PowerPoint versions.

8. 5 Things You Should Know About the Excel Fill Handle

The fill handle is one of my all-time favorite and most used Excel functions.The fill handle is quite powerful, capable of filling thousands of rows in the blink of any eye – you just need to know these tricks.

9. Password Manager

LastPass just may be “the best solution possible” for managing your passwords.

10. Replacing Fonts in PowerPoint

How to replace one font with another across your entire presentation.

Do you have a favorite? Was it one of these or another one?

#259 Selecting Overlapping PowerPoint Objects

Occasionally, when you work with slide objects that overlap each other, it can get a little tricky to select the objects that are behind the others. The most common example of this is when a text box is on top of a shape or image that you want to work with. But when you try to click on the shape, you can’t because it is covered beneath the text.

Of course you could drag the text box somewhere else, but then you’ve got to put it back right?
Pressing your tab key will cycle through all your slide objects so you can get that shape selected without moving anything. After it’s selected you can make your changes and be done without having to worry about moving everything back.

Just keep pressing that Tab key until you get what you want!

I know at least one other way to solve this problem without moving anything on the slide? Do you?

#258 Zoom! Zoom!

As computer screens get bigger and bigger with higher and higher resolutions, trying to read small text and even seeing images online have become an increasing challenge. This week we’ll see a few tricks to enlarge the text you’re reading online and save yourself some eye strain in the meantime.

Taking CTRL

Most popular web browsers will let you increase/decrease the text on a web page by using the handy keyboard shortcut: CTRL and + or -

If you prefer, you can also use the wheel on your mouse while holding the CTRL key on your keyboard to do the same thing. And CTRL + 0 (zero) will reset your text size back to the default.

This trick works most of the time but it isn’t a perfect solution since not all web pages automatically adapt the layout to the larger text size, potentially making some parts of the page unreadable.

Browser Settings

Most browsers will also let you permanently set your preferred text size via a browser setting. For Internet Explorer you’ll find this under the View menu. From there, go to Text Size and select the size you like.

Computer Resolution Settings

If you’d like to make this type of change to everything on your computer and not just the online stuff, you can change your resolution.

1. Right-click on your desktop and choose Settings

2. Click on the Settings tab and find the slider for Screen Resolution.

3. Sliding the control to the left will make the text on your computer bigger.

NOTE: If you have two screens click on the one you want to change (1 or 2) before moving the slider control for the resolution. Each screen is controlled separately.