As the semester comes to a close, I have asked the students in my graduate level Wellness Management Administration class at Ball State University to offer one last post for your enjoyment. Over the next few weeks, they will be sharing their favorite “Technology Tip.” I will start by sharing my favorite tip from Bill Joos at Go To Market Consulting.
Enjoy!
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I still have word 2003 on my home computer, so using Office 2007 has been challenging. In addition, my computer crashed at the beginning of April, only to loose all documents. These fortunately have now been retrieved during finals week!
My favorite new feature in word is Save as PDF. This is simple, easy, and makes the document appear brighter, bolder and readable. With the PDF, the document wording cannot be changed by others and can be easily posted to the internet. I also appreciate the ability to save the documents in a variety of file formats, such as word 2003.
I also like the great templates in PowerPoint and learning how to resize the file to create a poster. There are many great features in 2007, however, becoming familiar with the ribbon and enhancements can be very time consuming. I have appreciated becoming familiar with the features in 2007.
I found that the website is a fun and easy way to get your informationout onto the web. It allows people to search for things they would like to learn about or even to advertise their business. For example before this class the only way I knew that you could put your name out (in an easy way) was through pages like myspace and facebook but now I can make a website. This will come in very handy. My brother owns an auto body repair shop. He wanted to put up a website so he was paying someone to do it. Now with love and kindness from his sister he won’t have to pay anyone to do it he can just have me do it!! This was a good tool to help save a family member some money!!!
This course was particularly helpful in introducing me to the options available in microsoft word, publisher, and power point. I enjoyed going through the tutorials, which worked step by step in a simple to understand manner. I also enjoyed exploring power point in greater depth and adding animation and voice narration the most. The skills that I sharpened and information I received, will be very helpful to me in the future. My favorite tutorials were the power point tutorial http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC101772971033 and http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC102253691033
With the advances being made in administrative technology and coming from a culture where my secretary did a lot of the tech stuff, I realized I had to catch-up. This class has set me on a new learning path and at the end of it I am more enlightened, empowered with new skill sets.
I can see myself in the future using all the skills gained to make my presentations more high-tech, and professional. In fact I have started using some already. Just about the same time we learnt how to create Table of Content in Word I had to present a document on the research I was doing for my assistantship. This document was over a 100 pages and corrections and additions had to be made. The fact that I had preset the Table of Content made life so easy. Every time I updated the file I just clicked on update Table of Content and my document was updated. I think the professor was impressed.
I sometimes have problems typing the correct URL address when creating a hyperlink in Publisher. My special tip is:
1. Open the website to be linked to the website being created.
2. Select and CRT click on the icon/word/picture in the document you want to place the hyperlink
3. Right click on mouse
4. Select on hyperlink
5. Click on the website you open before (this will transport the address to the Insert Hyperlink address field)
6. Click Ok (Voila! The link is made and no typing errors)
I enjoy making powerpoint presentations and the most useful resource that I use for creating dynamic presenations is Microsoft’s downloadable clipart gallery which can be found at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx.
Simply type in whatever you’d like to search in the box located on the upper left. You can use the “Filter by Type” function to choose whether you’d like to search for clip art, photos, animation, and sounds, or all of the above. The “Filter by Category” allows you to search images, animation, and sounds in a wide range of categories including people, backgrounds, government, etc…
Once you find an image you’d like to download, check the blank box located below the clip art image.
In the left bar, “Selection Basket” will appear with a white box underneath. Click “Download 1 item”.
The next screen’s heading will be “Download”. Click the “Download Now” button at the bottom of the text. Open the file and it will be downloaded into your clip art!
Take advantage of the plethora of images available for free and good luck presenting!
Hello!
There are many “tidbits” of information that I have acquired over the past semester that will help me create more professional documents in a quick and simpler manner.
My favorite “tech tip” has to be learning about the use of our ilocker and iweb. This is such a great tool especially to backup large important documents. It is reassuring that intensely time consuming projects can be found in another location besides my computer. Because I am a mac user I learned about Fetch as well, the program to view ilocker and iweb on an apple computer. Lastly, my favorite part of the ilocker and iweb is that you can access it from any location. I do not need to have any special disk or thumb drive to access important documents such as my resume.
Thanks and enjoy your summer!
My tech tip is simple, but learning to use the headings in a Word document to import into a Table of Contents opened up a whole new world of packaging information for me! I wrote a 100 page research paper in my undergrad and manually formatted my Table of Contents. Finding out that I could have done it in a series of easy steps was initially upsetting (I had spent a lot of time the last time) but I quickly grew to love it. Once you’ve set up your headings and distributed them throughout your document (see Neal Miller’s post above), you simply add a Table of contents from the templates menu/document elements (this may be a little different on a Mac than a PC).
In your document, select the words to include in the table of contents, and then in the Formatting Palette under Styles, click a heading style. Repeat for each heading that you want to include, and then insert the table of contents in your document. You can also create a table of contents by clicking the Create with Manual Formatting option and then type the entries manually.
Hopefully, you will get this tip before you ever try it manually!
i very much enjoyed this class. I found the 2 most rewarding lessons learned to be using outlook to schedule meetings, and using ilocker. Using outlook is a great way to effectively and efficiently communicate and coordinate meeting times that will work for everyone. It allows you to view other parties’ schedules prior to determining a meeting date and time, therefore resulting in more efficient communication. Using ilocker is also a very useful tool. I have found ilocker to be a great way to back up a flash drive. The ilocker system is much more reliable and permanent than a flash drive (as i experienced the hard way – flash drives can break!). I would highly recommend backing up information from your flash drive (if appropriate) to an ilocker.
I very much enjoyed this class. I found learing about ilocker to be one of the most useful applications i learned from this class. I think that ilocker is a great way to back up a flash drive for certain documents. I had never heard of ilocker before taking this class, and have since used it quite a bit. My flash drive cracked in half, and luckily i had also saved most of the files to my ilocker when practicing how to use it. I would highly recommend using ilocker (as well as taking this class) to anyone.
I have found this class to be very helpful. I was not at all computer savvy to begin, and have since learned quite a few things that will undoubtedly help me in the future. One of the most valuable things i have learned is about ilocker. I had previously never heard of anything like ilocker, and although it took me awhile to become accustomed to using it, it has become my saving grace this semester. I found it to be a great way to back up/replace a flash drive. I also found the review marking lession to be quite helpful. We use the application quite a bit in report editing, and although i had sort of figured out how to navigate around the feature, i found it quite useful to know how to use it proficiently. Again, this will be quite a helpful tool to use in the future. Overall, i found this class to be great, and would highly recommend using ilocker and the review marking features in Word.
I am the classic nontraditional student. I have been out of the mainstream educational system for approximately thirty years. I started the lowest on the learning curve which means I had the most to gain. I must admit that there have been some harsh learning lessons. The lack of a standard with video formats play havoc with Microsoft office programs. Camcorders do not have easily usable formats. Cannon comes the closest with .mov which is the Apple Quicktime applicable format. In the past they had used avi which most digital cameras use that allow short video streams. The format avi has history of being more readily usable. To shift to a workable windows format one must buy Quicktime Pro 7 or find another converter program. My video advisor (my barber) has had good success with the free downloadable from any-video-converter.com. They have other products on their website for advanced conversions for a fee. For the future we will need possibly to go to many different video products such as Zune, iPod, iTune, PSP, and of course YouTube to access potential consumers. My one pet peeve with power point is the inability on rotating video by 90 degrees without first going through moviemaker.
From this is the reminder of the separation that exists between office products and the video. When transferring ppt’s that include video, it is important to understand that it is linked and not embedded. This requires that the video streams be shifted in a folder along with the power point presentation.
This class is very practical and helpful. It enhanced my understanding to Microsoft Office. It taught me many functions of Microsoft Word that I never used before such as merging mails and making comments. The skills of recording narration to the PowerPoint slides and recording time to create self-running presentation will help me a lot in my future education. The most practical techs that I learned a few weeks ago are using Publisher to create websites and using iWeb. I created my first website. And, I prepared to use it as my electronic resume in my future job interview.
The key tech for making a website with Publisher is to add hyperlink to the categories.
First, highlight the category you wish to hyperlink.
Second, use right click on the mouse and choose “hyperlink”, then choose the item you wish to which the highlighted category is linked. Make a choice and click “OK”.
Third, go back to the page of your website and check if the category is hyperlinked. It should be a hint “Control + Click” next to the category when the cursor is moved closely to it.
Be careful when hyperlink a PowerPoint. First, upload the PowerPoint slides to the “ftp” address. Second, follow the same procedure to create the hyperlink. But, be sure to change the “ftp” address of the PowerPoint to “http” address.
I hate to see poor quality images displayed on a website. It’s obvious that many of those who upload images to the web don’t know how to prepare their images for optimum results. Here are some image preparation tips specific for web display:
• Select a suitable image and use image editing software to improve the appearance as necessary (increasing contrast, changing an image to grayscale, brightening the colors, adding special effects). Photoshop is an excellent image editing software application but it is very expensive and not necessarily the best choice for a novice. Photoshop Elements is a less expensive alternative, but Picasa is free and available for both Mac and Windows.
• Images should be edited at full resolution on an uncompressed file.
• Before resizing your image, you should crop out any unwanted areas.
• When resizing your image manually, it is important to hold the shift key while dragging a corner-point. Failure to do so will distort the image. Disproportionate images do not look professional.
• An image of 50-100kb is often adequate, however web images should be no larger than 150kb, with a width of 400-600 pixels. Screen resolution is quite low (72 dpi), consequently it is unnecessary to use excessively high resolution images. Doing so will only increase the time necessary for your image to load.
• GIF file formats are suitable for images with large areas of flat color or a line art image, JPEGs are best for continuous tone images such as photographs.
• Compressing JPEGs can dramatically reduce your file size. Compression rates of 50-80% are probably best, but you should evaluate the results to determine the percentage that produces the best results for a particular image.
Throughout class this semester, I’ve learned new and better ways to use technology around me; however, the tip I’m sharing is not something we’ve formally discussed in class. To me, downloading fonts from the internet is a great skill to have. To some, this may seem like a minor issue or a waste of time; however, having the perfect font for a project can be absolutely critical to the overall quality of the final product. Computers generally come equipped with around a hundred fonts, but it’s easy to acquire many, many more!
My website of choice is DaFont. If you’re interested in learning how to download fonts, go to http://www.dafont.com, and follow my instructions below.
1) Scroll through the lists of fonts available. (You can search alphabetically or by theme. DaFont also has a “Top 100” and “Recently Added” fonts for you to peruse.)
2) After you’ve found a font that fits your needs, click the “Download” box on the right-hand side of the screen.
3) You will be promoted to open or save the file. Click “Save” and load the file onto the desktop of your computer.
4) When the download is complete, click “Close” and then rick-click the file on your desktop.
5) One of the options from the drop-down window is “Extract files.” When promoted to do so, click “Yes.”
6) The file will be extracted, and the usable font will open in a new window.
7) After this, enter the Control Panel of your computer, and open the “Fonts” folder.
9) Tahh-daaah! You’re done! It was that easy.
Remember, using the perfect font can add visual appeal and pizzazz to a poster, brochure, or PowerPoint. Although Times New Roman, Arial, and Calibri all serve their purposes of being simple and professional, when appropriate, it’s fun to jazz up your work with unique fonts.
The next time you have a creative project to design, instead of just selecting a typical font, consider downloading one. I promise it won’t take you very long. You’ll be a pro in no time. I bet your audience will notice a difference, and then it will be your turn to teach them how to find fun fonts!
“Tech Tip”
The “tech tip” that I learned a few weeks ago was how to mail merge. Before coming to Ball State University I use to work in the Athletic Department for Slippery Rock University and I have sent hundreds of letters for Alumni events, Hall of Fame Receptions, and applicants for new employment. It would have made my job a lot easier if I knew how to mail merge. It is rather easy and if you get confused just press the help button, but all you have to do is follow these steps: In excel, outlook, or access create a recipients list. Then in Word click Start Mail Merge on the Mailings tab, and then click Step by Step Mail Merge Wizard. After this you can select what type of merge you want to perform, Letters, emails, envelops, or labels. Next, you want to connect to your recipient’s list, you created in excel, access, or outlook. Select the recipients you want to mail to you can preview the final document and then print!
I have found ilocker and iweb to be very challenging, interesting, and useful this semester. Used as a digital storage space for students, faculty, and staff, ilocker is a great place to store and transfer documents. This is a secure and easily accessible space with a huge amount of storage. I had to get used to the difference in sending information and storing information. To send a document, the http link must be used, and to post only, the fttp link is adequate. The iweb is a web page space used to store course information, portfolios, and class assignments. Again, the ftp link is used to post, and the http for showing work. I found this technology interesting because I didn’t even know that it existed, how to log on to these sites, or how to submit or transfer information. Now that I’m aware of this technology, I’m sure that I will utilize the sites in my work and in other classes.
A quick tech tip that I just learned a couple of weeks ago that I found to really be of value for people working on long projects such as thesis papers or dissertations was the use of headings to create a quick and easy table of contents. This tech tip a true example of working smarter and not harder.
When using the Microsoft Word program, use headings to divide up your paper into sections. Each different heading can be customized. For example, a general category can use heading one, a subcategory can be heading two, and so forth. Once you have finished your paper (or think you have finished it) you can go up to the ribbon and click on the table of contents, select the style and it creates it with all the categories and subcategories and then lists the pages. The great thing about this format is if you go back and make minor or major changes/additions/modifications to the content, you can just go up to your table of contents and click update and it will update your new sections and the page numbers!
This is really a great way to write a paper and I would suggest you try it sometime!
I found the ilocker and iweb information interesting and helpful. The ilocker is a digital storage space for students, faculty, and staff where documents can be stored and transferred. It is a secure and accessible site with a huge amount of storage space. The iweb is a web page space for courses, portfolios, projects and assignments. These new technological sites were interesting to me because I didn’t know that they existed, how to log on, or how to submit or transfer information. I learned quickly that posting and submitting documents were done differently. To send something from ilocker for example, it has to be from either bsu or world shared or no one can access the information. For posting to iweb, the ftp link is used as opposed to the http which is for showing information only. This took some practice, but is a great tool to know about and utilize.
I still have Office 2003 on my main computer and one of the features that I have used is the ability to compare two documents side-by-side. I find it helpful, especially being in grad school, when I need to compare my original copy of a paper or report with my revised copy. It is really easy to do. You just open the two documents that you wish to compare, go to the Window menu of either document and select the “compare side-by-side” command. Both documents will be visible next to each other at the same time and you can scroll through both together.
Another tip that I have found is the Format Painter. There is a paintbrush icon that should appear on the standard toolbar. If it doesn’t, you can add it to the toolbar by going to Tools | Commands, selecting Format, and then dragging the Paintbrush icon to a toolbar.
When you click on this icon, Format Painter copies the text formatting of the area where the cursor is located. You can then “paint” the copied formatting into other parts of the document by simply highlighting the text that you want to change. If you double-click on the Format Painter icon, you can apply the copied formatting on multiple secitons of text until you hit “Esc”.
This is a rather simple tip that I have found it to be very useful and helpful in formating documents in Word, Publisher, and PowerPoint. It is the Format Painter and it is represented by the little paint brush on the toolbar above the document. It is used to copy the formatting from one section of text to another. Simply place the mouse, or curser, on the text for which you want to copy the formatting of, click the paint brush icon, and then click the text that you are wanting to change the formatting of. It is so easy and saves so much time!
For my Tech Tip it would have to be thee “Track Changes”.
The reason for this is 2 fold. First and foremost I’ve seen this done before but never learned this valuable skill until now. Interestingly enough the day after I learned track changes I had to go into work for a training meeting. This meeting was from 1-3 or so I thought, turns out that it was from 10-1 and my manager wasn’t to happy with me showing up at the last 5 minutes. So afterwards I was sitting at my desk reading through the meeting notes when my manager came in the room and was speaking with another employee about some problems she was having with Microsoft word – speciafically track changes. Long story short, I was able to help her with it and got myself out of the dog house – all thanks to track changes.
Here is the Microsoft training link:
http://office.microsoft.com/training/training.aspx?AssetID=RC102359491033&pid=CR100654561033
This may be a tip that many have already picked up over the years with experience. However, if not, it is a valuable tip that will save some frustration when using Microsoft PowerPoint bulleting!
I spend a lot of time creating PowerPoints to use as a reference. Whether these PowerPoints are for professors for GA work or my graduate classes, I have gotten proficient at utilizing Microsoft PowerPoint 2007. The one thing, though, that I continued to have an issue with was bulleting! And I know this is a common issue (as I have heard peers express the same frustrations). When making a bulleted list on a slide, you can easily tab in the bullet below the main bullet. However, it seems nearly impossible to get back to the main bullet position in a lower line. For example:
Colors:
– Green
– Blue
– Yellow
Shapes: <– Nearly impossible to get this line to return to bullet position of the first line, Colors, without some copying/pasting!
We can all make it this far with a PowerPoint bulleted list. However, if the next bullet should be a main bullet, as in the example of Shapes, how do we quickly insert that? Well in Microsoft Word you would simply hit Enter below Yellow, then Enter again to position the bullet in the correct spot, directly vertical to Colors. However, if you press Enter, then Enter again in Powerpoint, a line is skipped and you are not back to the initial bullet position. Using Microsoft help, I finally figured out how to do it!
To Get Back to the Initial Bullet Position:
1. Hit Enter following your last bulleted text to get to the next line.
2. On the top ribbon, under the Home tab, click either Increase List Level or Decrease List Level to move the bullet to the position you want.
P.S. Using Jennifer’s tip from above, you can also remove the use of the mouse by hitting: ALT, followed by H, followed by AI (at the same time) for Increase List Level (move bullet more to right) or AO (at the same time) for decrease List Level (move bullet more to left).
I hope this makes sense and saves you some frustration within PowerPoint! I know I wish I would have figured this out a long time ago!
Before I came to Ball State I worked for a market research company where I spent a lot of time manipulating data in Microsoft Excel and creating reports in Microsoft PowerPoint and/or Microsoft Word. As in many service based organizations deadlines were a constant topic of discussion, specifically the shortage of time needed to successfully complete projects. Finding ways to improve efficiency was one way to try and compensate for that time shortage. In other words, I spent a lot of time learning shortcuts to completing my work in the above mentioned programs and would like to share a few that will hopefully be helpful to you.
For those who have had a hard time adjusting to the new 2007 ribbon or for those who don’t like to spend the time pointing and clicking their way through the ribbon, Key Tips allow you to quickly scan through and select functions from the ribbon using your keyboard rather than your mouse.
1. Open any Microsoft Office Program.
2. Press and hold the ALT key until letters/numbers appear next to the ribbon functions. These letters and numbers are called Badges.
3. Press the Badge indicated next to the menu or function you would like to select.
4. You can also press and hold ALT and then simply use the Tab key or Arrow keys to scan through the ribbon functions.
5. Press Enter when the function you want is highlighted to use it.
While this may seem like more work initially, if you use this method often enough you will start to memorize the letters and/or numbers you use most often and be able to create, format, edit and save an entire document without your hands ever leaving your keyboard.
If you’re not sure how to do something in Word 2007, try searching for its tutorial. For example, does it seem that creating a Table of Contents in a Word document is an incredible hassle? There is a semi-automatic way of creating one after one has completed that document and used either built-in or customized headings for different sections. For a thorough explanation of how to create a Table of Contents, refer to the Word 2007 Help search or to this Microsoft online tutorial: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HP012253721033.aspx?pid=CH100626361033#2
Have fun typing!
Avoiding the Great PowerPoint Slide Hunt – from Bill Joos at GoToMarketConsulting.com
This PowerPoint tip takes just 120 seconds to learn and can make you look like a real pro.
Before your presentation, make a simple, small discreet list maybe on a 3 X 5 card, of all of your slide titles with their respective slide numbers; like this example:
1- Welcome
2- Company overview
3- Players, problem & pain
4- Pain killer
5- Our magic technologies
6- Competition
7- Business model
8- Go to market plans
9- Revenue summary
10- Team
11- Timeline & status
12- Why Us Summary
Backups (to be used only as needed*)
13- Expanded market data
14- Technical details, expanded view
15- Financial details
16- Revenue details
17- Etc.
18- Etc.
Now you are all set to look like a professional, perhaps even a genius with ESP. Read on in the next "comment."
Example 1: You are just finishing talking about slide 9 (revenue summary) and someone asks for more revenue details. Without missing a beat you glance at your list, and press 16 and Enter – - you are instantly seeing that slide (revenue details). When you're done, you simply do a 10 and Enter and you're back to your original flow.
To the audience it looked like the revenue details slide was always immediately after the revenue summary. Only you know that this is what really happened: . . . 7, 8, 9, 16, 10, 11, etc.
Example 2: You are on the summary slide 12 and a question comes up about your patent-pending technologies. With a simple 5 and Enter you can return to the slide where that was discussed, or jump ahead to a more detailed explaination with a 14 and Enter. After that discussion, a 12 and Enter will return you directly to the summary slide.
You can totally avoid the Great PowerPoint Slide Hunt and jump to any slide at any time, if you just know what slide number you want. Referring to your discreet slide list, simply press the desired slide number and Enter. You can hop-scotch all around your presentation at will.
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