Fall 2005
California State University, Los Angeles
ITS Advisor
Tips, Tricks, and Techie Tidbits
Microsoft Word Shortcuts
- When you have more than one Word document open and want to save them all at once, press the Shift key, then select File from the menu bar. With the Shift key depressed, the Save feature changes to Save All.
- To make a vertical rather than horizontal selection, press the Alt key and then click and drag the cursor from the top left to the bottom right of the chosen text (see Figure 1 for example):
Figure 1
- To copy the formatting of a word or phrase to other text, click anywhere within the formatted text and press Ctrl+Shift+C. Then highlight the text you want to receive the formatting, and press Ctrl+Shift+V.
- Here’s an easy way to indent a paragraph and
every subsequent one after you’ve pressed the Enter key.
To indent each line of the paragraph at one of the tab stops,
click the left or right indent arrows on the toolbar
.
Or, to make more refined indents, make sure the Ruler is visible
at the top of your document (View ► Ruler). Notice the
two triangles pointing at each other where the left margin is
indicated and the upward facing triangle where the right margin
is indicated on the Ruler. These are called “indent markers.” To
indent the first line of the paragraph, click and drag the
top left indent marker (see Figure 1) to the desired position on the Ruler.
To set a hanging indent, click and drag the bottom left indent
marker. To left-indent every line in the paragraph, click and
drag the paragraph indent marker (the little box
that is attached to bottom left indent marker). To right-indent
every line in the paragraph, click and drag the right indent
marker to the desired position (see Figure 3).
Figure 2
Figure 3
Microsoft PowerPoint Shortcuts
- You can save the TrueType fonts you used in your presentation to be sure that others to whom you may distribute the file can view it exactly as you created it. On the main menu bar, select Tools ► Options ► Save tab. Under the Font options for current document only section, click in the Embed TrueType fonts checkbox, and click one of the radio button options to embed only those characters used in your presentation, or to embed all the characters in the font(s) used. Click OK to set your options.
- To quickly and almost automatically make a copy of an object, press the Ctrl key, then click and drag the highlighted object to where you want the copy positioned.
- Measure the distance between objects using the drawing guides. Select View ► Grid and Guides…. In the Guide Settings section, click in the Display drawing guides on screen checkbox. Click OK to set your options. Click and drag a drawing guide to where you want to begin measuring. Press the Shift key and click the drawing guide (its tooltip will read 0.00); then drag the guide to where you want to stop measuring (the tooltip will record the distance from your start position).
- Ctrl+click+drag on a drawing guide creates a copy of that guide in the position where you stop dragging it.
- Press Shift+F3 and click on any object containing text to toggle the text case to all caps, lower case, or title case.
Microsoft Excel Shortcuts
- Repeat what you just typed in another cell. Click in the new cell and press Ctrl+”. Even if you first add text in the new cell, pressing Ctrl+” will append the contents from the first cell. Repeat in as many cells as desired.
- To enter text that was already entered in a previous cell in that row, right click in the cell and select Pick From List from the context menu; then select the text you want from the drop-down list.
- Select two or more cells containing numbers. The sum of the selected cells will appear on the status bar at the bottom of the screen (see Figure 4).
Figure 4