MS-Office includes a lot of features and options which can be used for increasing efficiency or for completing the desired task within the least possible time. This article summarises a few quick tips for increasing efficiency.
1. Use the Clipboard Collector to collect and paste multiple items at a time. To invoke the Clipboard (in any MS-OFFICE) program, press CTRL+C and keep it pressed till the clipboard screen appears. Anything which is copied then goes into the Clipboard collector. For example, if there is a very long document, and you are looking at just keeping relevant extracts, you can keep on copying onto the Clipboard and then paste all such copied content into a new file at one go. Try it, it is very handy.
2. The default number of sheets in MS-EXCEL workbook is 3. Many times, the information is stored in just one sheet. When a workbook with three sheets is presented, one has to browse through all the three sheets to ensure that there is no information in the other sheets. The practice which I prefer is to set the default number of sheets in a new workbook to 1 and not 3 (Change it from Tools Õ Options Õ General Õ Sheets in new workbook (1) from MS-EXCEL). Then, if I want to have a second sheet, I can insert a sheet. The advantage of this approach if universally followed is that if there are 2 sheets in a file, you are sure that there is information in each of them.
3. If I want to view two different sheets of a workbook at the same time, I can use the Window Õ New Window to create two views of the same workbook. Both the Window views can then be adjusted to display simultaneously on the screen and can contain different worksheets.
4. In case a single mail has to be sent to multiple users, the general tendency is to type the list of e-mails in the To or CC or BCC fields. The To & CC fields would expose the recipient list to all the recipients. All the three approaches also have limitations in terms of number of recipients. In such a scenario, if the mail size is not huge (Say you are just announcing, greeting or reminding), a better approach is to create the matter in MS-WORD and then mail-merge it to Electronic Mail.
5. Use the Shift+F5 combination to quickly navigate to the previous editing area in MS-WORD. You can use this combination multiple number of times. Just try it once.
6. Use your Favorites Folder in the Start Menu to include all your regularly used folders on the hard disk and also all the frequently visited web-sites. You will find that once this exercise is done, you can navigate through your entire computer with a single mouse-click.
7. One can very quickly draw a table intuitively by using the keyboard. Use the + key on a blank line to start the process, continue the + with - keys till you reach the end of a particular column. Use + to indicate a column break. Continue this process till you complete the desired table. To indicate the end of the table, again use +. Press Enter and the table is ready for you. For example, typing
+—+————+———+—————+
followed by Enter on a blank line would create a table like this :
CAclubindia
