Desktop Applications

Excelling with Excel!

• Deleting empty rows in Microsoft Excel
  When importing text files into Excel, use Sort to delete empty rows. Assuming the data are in columns A:F, select columns A:F, press the Sort icon and then delimiting characters and errors, which are all automatically placed at the end of a sorted list.
• Inserting Page Breaks
  Sometimes you need to adjust the page by adding manual page breaks. To insert a horizontal page break, move the cell pointer to the cell where you want the page break to begin. Make sure you’ve clicked in a cell in the A column. Click Insert/PageBreak. A page break will be inserted just above the cursor position.

Microsoft Word

• Common Keyboard Shortcuts for Word
  

  Align Center	[Ctrl + E]
  Bold	[Ctrl + B]
  Date Code	[Alt + Shift + D]
  Remove Paragraph Format	[Ctrl + Q]

PowerPoint Tips

• The best tip you can have about powerpoint is to use the "Slide Master" page to design the style of your pages BEFORE you start designing your presentation. This is the place to put your company logo, instead of placing it on every single slide put it on the slide master. This is also the place to set up all your fonts, size, and "slide color scheme". This will save you hours of extra work formatting every single slide
• Turn off "Fast Saves". This will make your actual .ppt files smaller. This is especially useful when trying the fit them on a floppy disk or to email them.

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Desktop Publishing ‘Hot Tips’

Defining Principles of Design

Generally, all the principles of design apply to any piece you may create. How you apply those principles determines how effective your design is in conveying the desired message and how attractive it appears. There is seldom only one correct way to apply each principle.

• Balance
  Try walking a long distance with a 2 pound bag of rocks in one hand and a 10 pound bag of marbles in the other. After awhile you’ll be wanting to shift your load around, putting a few marbles in the rock bag to balance your load, make it easier to walk. This is how balance works in design. Visual balance comes from arranging elements on the page so that no one section is heavier than the other. Or, a designer may intentionally throw elements out of balance to create tension or a certain mood.
• Contrast
  On the basketball court, one pro team looks much like another. But send a few of those players for a stroll down most any major city street and something becomes apparent – those players are much taller than your average guy on the street. That’s contrast. In design, big and small elements, black and white text, squares and circles, can all create contrast in design

InDesign Quick Tips

• Setup Character and Paragraph Styles
  Careful setup and use of both Paragraph and Character styles saves time and creates a consistent look — especially with multiple users. Paragraph styles change the entire paragraph, while Character styles only change the text selected. This example shows how the body text, the drop–cap body, and subheads are styled with Paragraph styles. The actual drop cap itself has been changed with a Character style (the default is the same font as the paragraph style); in addition, the Zapf Dingbat bullets and the glossary entries have been styled with character styles.
• Place instead of Paste
  In most cases, place Adobe Illustrator files rather than paste them. This creates a link to the original file and makes for easier management.

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The Graphics Corner

Photoshop Quick Tips

• Press the [ ] keys to change the brush size. If you hold the shift key down and go [ the brush will get softer and ] harder to a total of 5 different levels of softness. Try it, it rocks. Works for a variety of tools.
• To hide the selection – "marching ants" press Ctrl+H (Command+H)

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Web Design Tips

Usability

• Usability is the most important aspect to web design. It’s all very well having a beautiful looking dynamic web site, but if it takes a long time to download or is difficult to navigate, users will give up and visit someone else’s site. Users want to find the information they are looking for – if they don’t find it quickly, they will look elsewhere.

Dreamweaver Tips

• Break to the next line, but not to a new paragraph:
  Unlike a word processor, Dreamweaver inserts ‘two paragraph spaces’ (two lines) when you press the Enter key. That’s because Dreamweaver is writing HTML as you type, and HTML works a little differently. Pressing Enter creates a paragraph <P> tag, which leaves a blank line after the preceding paragraph. To break to the next line without creating an extra line space, press Shift+Enter, which creates a break <BR> tag.
• Place instead of Paste
  In most cases, place Adobe Illustrator files rather than paste them. This creates a link to the original file and makes for easier management.

Learn more by taking one of our Professional Classes:  Click here for more information.

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Doing the Database Shuffle

Access Tips

• Startup and settings
  Click Startup on the Tools menu to customize how your application looks and acts when it is opened.
• Managing files
  You can use wildcards in the Search text box. Type a question mark (?) to match any single character, or type an asterisk (*) to match any number of characters. For example, s?t finds "sat" and "set"; s*d finds "sad" and "started".

FileMaker Pro

• Sorting a Found Set:  To display or print a subset of the records in a FileMaker database in a particular order, perform the Find before you Sort the records. The Find automatically returns the records to the order in which they were entered, thereby negating the effect of any previous sort.
• If you frequently want to present the same set of records in a particular order, as might be the case with t telephone directory of a set of mailing labels, create a script containing both the required Find and Sort. The script not only will save time, it also will ensure consistency from list to list.

Crystal Reports

• Report Layout Tip
  If you have a column of figures which include a currency symbol (such as £ or $), you will improve the appearance of the report by not showing the symbol against every figure. Instead, place the symbol either in the column header or next to the figure on the first row in each page (to do so, open the field’s Format Editor, choose the Number tab, click on Customize, go to the Currency Symbol page and enable ‘One symbol per page’).

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