#282 Using Word To Fill Scanned Forms

As much as we may hope for them to go away, paper forms are far from disappearing. This quick & easy tip for using Word to fill in forms, is especially handy for forms that you use over and over like insurance claim forms, etc.

How It Works:

The first step is to scan the form and save it as an image (.gif, .jpg or .png).  If you already have an electronic version of the form you can take a screenshot of the form to get it as an image.

Getting the form into the background of the document

1. Once you’ve got the form as an image file, open a new, blank Word document.
2. Open the header section by double-clicking in the top margin area
3. From the Insert tab click Picture from File and find the scanned form image.
4. With the picture file selected, go to the the Text Wrap dropdown and choose Behind Text.
   

Now you can close the header section to start filling in the blanks. Don’t worry if the graphic dims a bit.

Using Text Boxes to Fill-in the Blanks

1. With your form displayed in the background, go to the Insert tab and find Draw Text Box under the Text Box drop-down.
2. Click and drag a text box over each blank in the form you want to complete.
3. From the format tab, set the Shape Fill color of the text box to “No Fill” and the Shape Outline to “No Outline”

DOWNLOAD A COPY:  Here’s a copy of the document I created if you’d like to play around with it at all.

The good thing about this is once you get it set up, all you have to do is change the text each time you need the form again and there is probably a lot of the data that will never change. Think of all the repetitive form filling you’ll save!

Plus once you have this electronic copy, it’s easy to print as a PDF and send as an email attachment.

#281 Keeping PowerPoint Images in Place When Resizing

Have you ever noticed that after resizing an image in PowerPoint you usually also have to move it back to it’s original spot where you wanted it? This handy tip will show you an easy way to resize your images while keeping them in place, centered in the exact same location.

How It Works:

1. Select the image by clicking on it.
2. Hold the CTRL key while you drag the CORNER resize handle.

Original

After ‘Normal’ Resizing:

After ‘In-Place’ Resizing using the CTRL key:

Note – CTRL + dragging one of the side handles is also great for simultaneously resizing shapes in two directions while leaving the center in place.

#280 Deciphering Shortened URLs

Driven by the increasing prevalence of social media you probably encounter many shortened URLs every day — whether you realize it or not. Originally intended to make sharing websites easier, these shortened URLS also disguise the true identity of where the links will take you. Obviously not knowing where a link is taking you until you click on it can be potentially dangerous.

There are two things that can keep you out of danger. The first is to simply be aware of how these URL shorteners obscure the destination of a link and second is knowing how to check where they are directing you BEFORE you click them.

Ways to Translate the ‘short link’ into a real URL

Most URL shortening services provide kind of “preview” feature that lets you see where a link will take you before actually going there. If you’re curious, you can learn how to preview shortened links from the most popular services here. However, with so many different services this quickly becomes way too burdensome to deal with.

A couple more efficient approaches include:

1. Longurl.com is a website that can “exapnd” those shortened URLs and show you were it is pointed, along with a few other details.

2. Long URL Please is a browser plug-in that simplifies the process of ‘translating’ shortened URLs by automatically converting the  short urls to their originals so that you don’t have to.

Have you ever been taken somewhere you didn’t expect by a shortened URL? Have you ever considered any ways of dealing with them other than either of these two options?

#279 Are You (and Your Passwords) as Smart as You Think?

For those of you who have followed me over to “the other side”, I can’t tell you how glad I am that you’ve made the journey. Since my new role has brought me into the cyber security world, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit a previous tip on passwords.  One of our human foibles is often over confidence and the fact that we are often unable to recognize their mistakes.  After all, you don’t know what you don’t know, right?

So in an attempt to increase your awareness of what makes a good password I’d like to invite you to take 2 minutes and check the strength of your passwords. As someone who has had an account hacked I promise you that you’ll be glad.

Go Take the Password Test

How did you do? If you passed, good for you. If not, check out how to make your passwords better. Strong Passwords | Microsoft Security

Leave me a comment and let me know how you well you did. Next time we’ll revisit some options for keeping track of all those dang passwords and how you can implement a more secure password strategy AND save time doing it.

#278 The Tips Will Live On & Why You Should Blog

Update: The Tips Will Live On

In today’s environment, connecting & collaborating are more import than ever before. As I mentioned last week, I’ve learned as much from as you have from me and “going cold turkey” just doesn’t make any sense. So I’ve decided to continue theses tips with a few minor adjustments.

First, they may not come at such a regular pace. Sometimes they may me less than weekly and sometimes maybe more. Secondly, the topics may broaden a bit to newer versions of Office, mobile apps and whatever other cool, useful stuff arises.

Obviously they won’t be coming from this email address anymore so if you’d like to continue receiving them you’ll need to subscribe by dropping your email in the subscription box.

So I’d like to officially invite you to come along with me to continue to ask questions, learn new things together and share your knowledge with others.

Why You Should Blog (Yes you!)

1. A blog can make your emails better and easier to manage.

As a sender of emails using a blog eliminates the need to manually maintain any email distribution lists. As a recipient you’ll automatically get an un-subscribe button allowing you to stop unwanted emails.

You can still send and revive info via email if you prefer. The blog just greatly simplifies the management of who gets the email and even allow the sender to write things in advance and schedule them to be sent automatically in the future.

2. Avoid broadcast emails that don’t concern you.

How many emails do you get that are totally irrelevant? Bake sale in the lobby anyone? I can’t tell you how irritating it is getting dozens of these each week with no way of making them stop…EVER! By using a blog everyone automatically has a way to un-subscribe and the sender doesn’t have to worry about maintaining any email lists. This should be our next constitutional amendment “Thou shalt not spam!” (Yes, internal emails can be spam too.)

3. Using blog posts instead of emails allows these communications to be stored in a central repository, instead of lost in silos.

Enough said.

4. Each post has a link you can point people to and you can use comments to discuss (otherwise people may email reply to select people, leaving others to miss out on the discussion).

5. Allows your audience to browse by author, date, month, category, tag,etc.

Metadata liks categories, tags, etc provide context when browsing, and the post title is similar to an email subject line.

7. Besides publishing, organizing, subscription, notifying, and storing searchable communications in a single place, a blog can also act as a portal by displaying other relevant information and links on the sidebar.

8. A new staff member can easily catch the gist of what’s going on by reading the blog, and checking out the links on the sidebar.

How many times is your organizational knowledge locked in email which is totally unavailable to the new guys who have joined after the email was sent?

9. Anyone can author the blog, anyone can view the blog.

10 Since this information is centralized for people to view, it may avoid re-inventing the wheel, or a related business unit may borrow concepts from another business unit, leading to innovations.

I’m convinced we’ll all be involved in blogging sooner or later. It just makes too much sense. So why not get ahead of the game and start now? If you have a school group, sports teams, etc you can use a free blog from WordPress or Blogger to get started.

#277 Google Cloud Print

<beep> <beep> <beep>

…we interrupt this broadcast to bring you a breaking news update…

For better or for worse, next week will be the final edition of these weekly tips. May 4th will be my last day at AEP. I’d like to thank everyone who’s been along for the journey. I’ve learned a lot from all of you and appreciate your questions, comments and participation over the past six years.

For anyone who may be interested in following me or my activities, you’ll still be able to find me in all the usual places: LinkedIn | Twitter | My Personal Blog | My Shared Bookmarks

The archive all the previous tips will live on at miketips.wordpress.com

…now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Google Cloud Print

In this week’s tip you’ll learn how you can print wirelessly from virtually anywhere. My wife totally loves being able to print things from anywhere in the house…and it’s always good for me to stay in good graces with her! (She likes to say I’m the domestic CIO, but I think I’m actually closer to the help desk than the executive suite.)

Print Anywhere

Google Cloud Print is a new technology that connects your printers to the web. Using Google Cloud Print, you can make your home and work printers available to you and anyone you choose, from the applications you use every day. Google Cloud Print works on your phone, tablet, PC, and any other web-connected device you want to print from.

Setting It Up

Although there are ‘cloud ready’ printers now available, they are not required. You can make this work with any printer connected to a computer that has internet access.

This works via Google Chrome, so you’ll need to have that installed on the computer. (If you are using Windows XP you’ll also need the the Microsoft XML paper specification pack.) Once you’ve got Chrome installed, follow the steps below to enable the Google Cloud Print connector in Google Chrome.

1. Open Google Chrome.
2. Click the wrench icon wrench icon on the browser toolbar.
3. Select Options
4. Click the Under the Hood tab.
5. Scroll down to the “Google Cloud Print” section. Click Sign in to Google Cloud Print.
6. In the window that appears, sign in with your Google Account to enable the Google Cloud Print connector.
7. A printer confirmation message appears and click Finish printer registration.
8. You’ll see a confirmation that Google Cloud Print has been enabled.

The printer is now associated with your Google Account and connected to Google Cloud Print. You can print to this printer whenever you’re signed in with the same Google Account.

Thanks,
Mike

#276 Five Shortcuts Everyone Should Know

Awhile back we saw how the CTRL + F shortcut can help us find things in documents, etc. Now that you are hip to that one, I thought we should add a few more things to your shortcut repertoire.

Finding Stuff : CTRL + F

CTRL + F is the shortcut for the Find command. In a web browser pressing CTRL+F will bring up a search box. Type what you’re looking for in that search box it’ll find it for you on that page. This trick will also work in other places like Microsoft Word, etc.

Start Something New : CTRL + N

Pressing CTRL+N, is for creating something new. In a web browser, you’ll get a new window. In a word processor, image editor or similar document-based programs you’ll get a new document.

Save Your Work : CTRL + S

After you’ve created a document, at some point you’ll need to save it. That’s where CTRL+S comes in. If this is the first time you’ve saved the document you’ll be asked to name it and where you want to save it. If it’s already been saved before, this will simply save your changes.

Print It Out : CTRL + P

If you want to print the document you just made, Control+P will take you to the print dialog where you can change any settings, choose a printer, etc. From there you can send it to the printer with the Print button. This shortcut works in virtually all programs that allow you to print, including your web browser.

Close It Down : ALT + F4

ALT + F4 will let you quickly exit the current application. (Just be sure you saved your work first!)

#275 Quick & Dirty Excel Data Comparison

You can compare your Excel data a bunch of different ways. For example, conditional formatting is one great way automate that comparison. This week I’d like to share something that works really well for quick, one-time comparisons.

How It Works

1. Select the columns of data you want to compare.
2. Press the F5 key to open the Go To box.
3. Select the Row differences option, then click OK

Excel should have highlighted all the values in the other column(s) that don’t match the corresponding data in the first column.

NOTE: This will work with multiple columns and it does matter HOW you select your range. For example, in the 1st example below I selected the cells by starting in A1. Now compare that to the 2nd example where I started in C8.

The comparison is from the first column selected to all the other columns.

  vs.  

#274 Using Format Painter to Copy PowerPoint Designs

Microsoft Office’s format painter can help you in many ways. Basically, what it does is it transfers the exact formatting of one object to another.

1. Click an object with the desired format
2. Click the “format painter” button.
3. Click the 2nd object and you’re done

You can use the format painter to copy text formatting in Word, cell formatting in Excel, shape formatting in PowerPoint and about a bazillion other things. If you aren’t familiar with the format painter you can learn more about it here.

The thing I wanted to share with you this week is how you can easily copy the design formatting from one presentation to another.

How It Works

Before you apply these steps, open both presentations in PowerPoint and arrange them so you can see them both side-by-side. The target presentation can be a blank new one.

Before

1. In the presentation with the formatting you want to copy from click on the thumbnail view of any slide. (You may have to click twice; the 1st one to activate the window)

2. Click the Format Painter button.

3. In the presentation you want to apply the formatting to click on the thumbnail view of any slide. (You may have to click twice; the 1st one to activate the window)

This is easiest to do when you are just starting a new presentation.

After

Notice that if you want to apply the formatting to an existing presentation you’ll need to use that same format painting trick to apply the formatting from that single updated slide to all the rest.

Are you a format painting artist? What type of ‘master pieces’ do you create with this trick?

#273 Adding Information Fields in Word

Fields are an nice, efficient way to include frequently updated information about your documents automatically. There are a ton of things you can include such as your document file name, the last date your document was saved, the total number of pages, or the initials of the user who created the document, etc. Check out this nice summary for a more complete list of what you can include.

Regardless of what type of info you choose to include, Word will automatically update your fields as changes occur. Many times you may want to put these fields into a header or footer, but you can also put them anywhere else in your document too.

How It Works

1. From the Insert menu, select the Field… option.

2. In the resulting dialog box, simply select the field you want to use, apply any options for the field properties (if applicable).

3. When you click the OK button, Word will insert the field wherever your cursor is located.

See It In Action

Word 2010

In Word 2010 field are on the Insert tab under Quick Parts » Field Names. See the details here.