Simple and easy, here is how it works…

Using the example below let’s find all the “xxxxxs”

Highlight any cell in column G that contains the text value, Beverage.
Press [Ctrl]+[Space] to select column G.
Press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+\.

The combo in step 3 selects all the cells (in the column) that do not match the value in the active cell. It’s a bit counter intuitive, but it works great!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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?

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?

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.

1. Reduce Brightness to Minimum:

The brighter your laptop display is set, the more battery it will use. So dim it to the lowest setting you can handle and your battery will thank you.

2. Switch WiFi Off:

WiFi eats a lot of battery power, so if you don’t need to be online, try switching it off. When you need the Internet, just switch it back on again.

3. Adjust Sleep Settings:

It makes sense to change how soon your inactive laptop “sleeps” when you’re trying to reduce your energy consumption and making your laptop’s battery last. Often this is handled by adjusting your power scheme (See item #5 below.)

4. Uninstall or Disable Flash:

If you don’t need to use any Flash-based sites, you can save up to 30% of power by blocking, or if possible, even uninstalling Flash altogether. Fortunately there are some handy browser add-ins that can help you deal with this: ClicktoFlash and Flashblock

Apparently, there is a hidden way to do this in Internet Explorer that I haven’t tried it yet so if anyone has, let me know how that works and if it’s worth the effort.

5. Adjust your Power Settings:

Depending on what kind of laptop you there is probably a set of options you can select to maximize your battery life. For example, in Windows XP you can find an option of “Max Battery” under Power Options in the Control Panel.

If you’re interested in even more ways to squeeze out some extra battery life check out this article “20 Ways To Increase Laptop’s Battery Life” and let me know if any of these work for you.

A workspace is a file that saves display information about open workbooks, so that you can come back later and pick up just as you left off with the same window sizes, print areas, screen magnification, and display settings.

When using a workspace you only need to open the one workspace file instead of each spreadsheet separately then repeatedly configuring each one to your liking.

How It Works

Excel 2003

1. Open the workbooks you want to save in a workspace.
2. Size and arrange the workbook windows as you want them to appear when you open the workspace.
3. On the File menu, click Save Workspace.
4. In the File name box, type a name for the workspace file.

Excel 2010

1. Open all the workbooks you want to save as a group.
2. Click the View tab.
3. Click Save Workspace in the Window group.
4. Enter a name for the group, and click Save.

To open the workspace (and all the workbooks in the group), open the group as you would any other file.

Your workbooks are still separate files. You can open and close them individually, as you normally would. However, Excel also saves a reference to the workbooks as a group now, using the .xlw extension. It’s a simple way to work a little more efficiently everyday.