Let Word create your document summary
Microsoft Word
Let Word create your document summary
Your team has just completed an annual report for 2006 that totals 102 pages. So, what do you do when management asks you to submit a one-page executive summary that is no longer than 500 words for tomorrow’s meeting?
You could skim through the entire report to pick out the main points or try summarizing them from memory, but that will take awhile. Rather, let Word’s AutoSummarize feature sum it up for you. Follow these steps:
- Open the document containing the annual report.
- Go to Tools | AutoSummarize.
- Select Create A New Document And Put The Summary There.
- Select 500 Words Or Less from the Percent Of Original drop-down menu.
- Click OK.
Word will create a summary of the document in another document that you can proofread and edit. If you find that the summary has missed a few points, try running AutoSummarize again with a larger percentage of the original report. It is always easier to delete from the summary than try to add to it from memory.
Microsoft Excel
Change the labels in an Excel data series
When you select data for an Excel chart before running the Chart Wizard, the wizard can usually distinguish which selected cells to chart and which not to use as data series labels. However, there are times when the Chart Wizard does not recognize a selection as labels for a data series.
For example, say you list the management positions for your company in A5:A14, and their corresponding salaries for 2004, 2005, and 2006 in B5:B14, C5:C14, and D5:D14, respectively. In B15:D15 you enter the total management salary expense for each year. You would like to chart the values in B15 through D15, but when you include the labels in B3:D3 in your selection, the Chart Wizard charts two data series instead of one. To correctly chart the salary expenses, follow these steps:
- Select B15:D15.
- Click the Chart Wizard button in the Standard toolbar.
- Click Next.
- Click the Series tab.
- Click the Window Shade button in the Category (X) Axis Labels box.
- Select B3:D3 to select the labels in your spreadsheet.
- Click the Windows Shade button in the Category (X) Axis Labels box.
- Click Next.
- In the Legend tab, clear the Show Legend check box.
- In the Titles tab, enter Total Annual Salary Expense in the Chart Title text box.
- Click Next and then Finish.
Microsoft Access
Split an Access database to increase application performance
Access works better if the application code is stored locally and the data is stored on the network file server; Access only needs to send data over the network, not the entire application.
One of the first steps toward making an Access application ready for the enterprise is to split the application code from the actual data–that is, place the data tables on the network file server and leave a copy of the application code on each workstation. When a user splits an Access application, tables containing the data are in one MDB file, and the rest of the database objects (which make up the application) are in another MDB file. When a user makes changes to the application code, the changes upload to the file server and then download to each workstation–there is no contact with the data tables during the change process.
To split a database, follow these steps:
- Open the database you want to split.
- Go to Tool | Database Utilities | Database Splitter.
- Navigate to the folder where you want the database data to reside.
- Click the
Split - Click OK when the process is complete.
When users open the Access application at their workstation, they will see a special icon indicating that the tables link to the actual table on the file server.