How many of us can say that we know all of the tips and tricks of Microsoft Office to help save precious time?
In a world where time is of the essence and working smarter rather than harder is crucial, any trick or tip to help raises a smile. PC World reports that many of them are hidden away in the menus of the programs you’re using, and often it’s only by chance you come across one! Take a look below at some of these hidden gems and save yourself some time.
1. Select separate bodies of text (Word)
Holding down the Ctrl key while selecting text means you can highlight more than one body of text at a time. It also works to select just one sentence, so hold down Ctrl and click on a word, and it will highlight that single one for you.
2. Quick access (Word)
This bar is located at the top left of the window in Word and already comes with some shortcuts, like Undo and Save. If you customise it yourself, it can be a stroke of genius. Click on more commands on the dropdown menu and add in the ones you think you will really need. You can even add macros if you’re feeling adventurous!
3. Conditional formatting (Excel)
This makes your spreadsheets more visually interesting and isn’t too difficult to grasp. Start by using data that will benefit from the technique. You can use the conditional formatting option in the styles menu, but if you use the new rule, you can fine tune it and change the type, number and value fields to make your spreadsheet really work for you. This could help with an overall visual image if you’ve transferred information from PDF to Excel as well.
4. Learning
Life is all about learning, so never stop developing yourself professionally and personally. Look up free courses available to develop your existing skills and keep up to date with the program changes. https://pdftables.com/ is a good starting point where you can find some hints and tips; they have a good one about transferring PDF to Excel.
Whether you’re working on Word, Excel or PowerPoint, ask yourself if there’s a smarter way. Often there is – you just need to find it!