Tips, tricks, tools, and techniques for Microsoft Office

While none of the Office Letter editors has run into problems with Office XP, it may be that we're just lucky. My colleague from my Winmag.com days, Scot Finnie, writes a newsletter about Windows and broadband Internet access, and he also keeps up with the latest software. His experience -- or rather his problems -- are important if you use either Norton Systemworks (versions 2000 and 2001) or the popular Windows interface tool, Tweak UI. If you use either of these programs, be sure to check out Scot's newsletter at http://www.scotfinnie.com/newsletter/06.htm.

You also owe it to yourself to check out Scot's newsletter if you want to know about Windows or broadband connectivity. No one has a newsletter with as much USEFUL information as Scot does.

Scot isn't the only one having problems with XP, of course. Microsoft has posted several problem reports on its Web site. In this issue, Dick Archer relates his experience with voice recognition. Though Dick is generally pleased with the functionality in Word, if you use Excel you'll have problems navigating with voice commands. From Microsoft's Knowledge Base (http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q282/1/52.asp) comes this known problem:

"When you attempt to reference a worksheet cell by dictating a letter followed by a number into the Reference box of the Go To dialog box in Microsoft Excel, the following behavior occurs: The letter appears as expected, but the number that you dictate does not appear in numeric format." For instance, if you speak "A 3" you'll see "A three", so navigation won't work. Oops.

Some support items on Microsoft's site are most amusing. For example, if you're a touch typist (and like to avoid the mouse whenever possible), Microsoft notes that the Task Pane doesn't have a keyboard shortcut to close the pane. The explanation they give uses far too many keystrokes to be useful. What a pain that is.

Here are two tips for dealing with Task Panes. The Startup Task Pane is called the New "something" pane – in Word it's the New Document pane, in Excel it's the New Workbook task pane, and so on. By default, it opens on the right side of your screen in all applications except Publisher, where it's open on the left (to be consistent with Publisher's interface but inconsistent with the rest of Office). (In Publisher 2002, the New Publication task pane appears by default on the left.)

Task Pane Tip #1: Fortunately, you can change the startup location of this task pane by dragging the title bar of the task pane to the desired location.

Task Pane Tip #2: If you don't want to see the Startup task pane when you start an Office application, click the "Show at startup" check box at the bottom of the pane. Should you change your mind and want to see it again, choose Tools, Options, then open the View tab (except in FrontPage, where it's on the General tab – apparently the Office application programmers don't talk to each other). In the Show section check the Startup Task Pane box, then choose OK.

As more of us put XP to the test, the Knowledge Base articles and bug list is sure to grow. We'll keep you posted on the bugs you need to know about.

-- James E. Powell

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In our premiere issue we passed along news of a Word security patch that prevents macros from automatically executing. Reader Ray Tuftedal wrote to say he'd applied a patch from a previous bulletin (Bulletin MS01-028) that seemed to cover the same thing. Ray wondered whether he should install Bulletin MS01-034.

It turns out that Ray wrote back after doing a little more exploring. He found the answer in Bulletin MS01-034 itself, though you'll have to expand the Frequently Asked Questions section of the bulletin to find the answer. As Ray discovered, the only difference between the two patches is that Bulletin MS01-034 also covers Word 2002, which wasn't available at the time Bulletin MS01-028 was issued.

Thanks for pointing that out, Ray.

If you haven't applied the update, I urge you to do so. You'll find the details at:

     http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms01-034.asp

-- James E. Powell

Last week I was working on a spreadsheet for a friend of mine, trying to compare the costs of two health plans. With myriad options, deductibles and scenarios presented by the insurance company the spreadsheet quickly grew to be really ugly. All I wanted to print was just a few rows of data, plus some headings so my friend could make a decent evaluation. I also wanted to print a different set of cells for my own use.

Each time I wanted to print my selected data I found I had to individually select the cells for my friend or the cells I wanted to review. Things got even more tedious because many of the cells weren't contiguous – that is, I needed a row here, a few cells there, and so on. What a pain!

Well, I found a much easier way to switch between the sets of cells for printing: I used named ranges. A named range is a set of cells to which you assign a name. The range name (and the cells it refers to) is stored as part of your worksheet. (Ranges offer a host of benefits besides easier printing, as we'll see next week.)

The cells in a range can be contiguous or non-contiguous. In my case, I wanted to print cells A1 through D5 and C25 through H25 for my friend, so I called this range Final. I created a different range named Analysis for the cells I wanted to print for my own review.

Creating a Range

To create a range, choose the cells you want to include. I first selected cells A1 through D5 (you can do this with the mouse or from the keyboard). Then I held down the Ctrl key and selected the remaining cells (C25:H25). From the main menu select Insert, Name, Define. Enter a range name in the "Names in Workbook" text box (I entered Final) and select OK.

Your range name can be up to 255 characters long, but the first character must be a letter or the underscore character. The rest of your range name can consist of letters, numbers, periods, and underscores. Spaces, however, are NOT allowed. Had I wanted to call the range Final Costs I would have to settle for something like Final_Costs or Final.Costs.

To print the named range, be sure the range is selected. In the upper left corner of your screen you'll see a small box that usually displays the name of the currently selected cell. To select your named range, click on the down-pointing arrow to the right of this box and select the range name from the drop-down list. (If your name is short, you can also enter the range name directly into the box.) Excel highlights your range automatically.

From the main menu, choose File, Print. In the Print dialog box choose Selection in the Print What area.

You'll notice a couple of things where printing is concerned.

1. Print Preview doesn't show just your selected range unless you set the range to be the Print Area. To do this, choose the range and then use the main menu and choose File, Print Area, Set Print Area. If you're working with a brand new sheet, Print Preview shows you the entire worksheet if no print area has been selected.

2. If your range includes non-contiguous cells, the Print command will print a new page for each contiguous group of cells. Thus, in this example, printing the Final range resulted in two printed pages. To date I have found no simple way to combine non-contiguous groups of cells into a single printed page.

Share Your Experience

If you have used ranges in a special way and would like to share your experience, please write to us. [hyperlink to tips@officeletter.com]

Next Week

How to save time using ranges to navigate through your spreadsheet, do faster data entry, and how to delete a range you no longer need.

-- James E. Powell

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In previous versions of Outlook you could configure Outlook for Corporate / Workgroup or Internet Mail Only (IMO) modes, depending on whether or not you used the Microsoft Exchange provider. Although you could add multiple accounts to a profile, accounts frequently didn’t play well together and the types of accounts were somewhat limited. If you’ve been struggling with multiple accounts in previous versions of Outlook, you’ll truly appreciate Outlook 2002’s new Unified mode.

All account types can now reside in a single profile and coexist with one another. In addition to Exchange Server and POP3 accounts, Outlook 2002 supports HTTP-based e-mail services as well as IMAP accounts. This means you can use Outlook 2002 for just about any e-mail service, including Hotmail, CompuServe 2000, and most others.

You don’t need to do anything special to use Unified mode, as it’s the only mode Outlook 2002 offers. Simply create a profile and add whatever accounts you need. Keep in mind that Outlook delivers messages for POP3 and Exchange Server accounts to your default message store. In most cases, this will be Exchange Server, which means your POP3 mail will download to your computer and then be placed in your Exchange Server Inbox. If you don’t want your POP3 messages stored there, consider creating a message rule that moves them to a personal folder.

-- Jim Boyce

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