Sunday, December 1, 2013

Excel Formula Shortcuts



·      The first shortcut is for summing cells.  This shortcut automatically inserts =SUM( ) in the formula bar, so you only have to select the cells you want to sum to complete the formula.  (Use this shortcut in place of the Autosum  tool or where the Autosum tool  isn't appropriate.)


  1. Click in the cell where you want the formula.
  2. Press ALT+ = (hold down the Alt key while pressing and releasing the Equals key)  This action inserts =SUM( ) in the formula bar. 

  3. Select the cells you wish to sum. 
  4. Press ENTER.




·     The second shortcut automatically inserts $ (dollar sign) in front of a cell name to make that cell reference an “absolute” (constant) cell reference. (The cell reference won’t change if you copy the formula).  Example: =$A$1* B1.  If you copy this formula to the cell below, the formula would change to: =$A$1*B2.  Only the “relative” portion of the formula changes.

  1. Click in the cell and type the formula.
  2. Click in the formula bar and select the cell reference that you don't want to change when copied. 
  3. Press F4 (function key)   The $ is inserted automatically before each selected cell reference.
  4. Copy the formula. (Position your mouse over the fill handle in the lower right corner of the cell containing the formula and either double-click or drag to the other cells.) When you copy the formula in cell C1, down to cells C2 and C3, the formula will always remain $A$1.  The formula in C2 will be: $A$1*B2.  The formula in C3 will be: $A$1*B3.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

How to change the Home Page in Google Chrome

The default home page in the Google Chrome Browser is Google Search.  If you want a different Home page, follow the steps below:



  1. Click the Chrome menu on the browser toolbar.
  2. Select Settings
  3.  Select the "Show Home button" check-box in the "Appearance" section to show it on the browser toolbar.
  4.  Click the link "Change". 
  5. In the "Open this page" field, type the address for the home page.
  6. Click OK.
  7. The Home icon now appears on the browser toolbar. Clicking the Home icon will automatically open the specified home page.   If you want the new homepage to automatically open when you open Google Chrome, continue below. 
  8. In the "On Startup" section click the radio button, "Open a specific page or set of pages" and then click Set pages.  (See screenshot at #4 above.)
  9. In the "Add a new page" field, type the same website address that you typed for the home page. (If you are already viewing the website that you want for a home page, click the button, Use current page at the bottom.)  If you don't want Google search website to open at the same time, you will have to select it and click the X to delete it.  Click OK.
Note: You can also choose to open the New Tab page on startup.  This tab displays recently visited websites.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Recover a file you didn't save in Office 2010 and 2013



Did you know that in Office 2010 & 2013 you can recover a file you never saved?   
There are a few stipulations:

  1. You must recover it within a few days of when you created it.
  2. Your Office program must have Auto-Recover turned on.
  3. The elapsed time between creating the file and closing the file must be greater than the Auto-Recover time set.
 First, let's set up Auto-Recover:
  1. Open your Office 2010 or 2013 program, i.e. Word, Excel, PowerPoint.
  2. Click File (tab) > Options.
  3. Click Save in the left Navigation Pane. 
  4. Verify there is a check in "Save AutoRecover information every __ minutes."  Set the number from 5 to 10 minutes.  This is the amount of time that elapses before your program will recover the file. Also check the box "Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving."
  5. Click OK at the bottom of the window.
Now you can recover a file by following the steps below:
  1. Open the program in which you created the file (that you didn't save).
  2. Do ONE of the following:
    1. Office 2010 - click File (tab) > Recent
    2. Office 2013 - click File (tab)> Open
  3. At the bottom of the window, click Recover Unsaved Documents
  4. A window will open showing all unsaved documents for the past few days.
  5. Select the file and click Open.



Monday, September 2, 2013

Type Accented Letters in Microsoft Word and Outlook


Do you know that with 1 additional keystroke, you can create accented letters like the ones shown below?


ç é à ø â å ü ñ


Here are a few words that use these accents that have been adopted into the English vocabulary:

o  Résumé

o  Déjà vu

o  Pâté

o  Voilà



The following instructions work in Microsoft Word or Outlook (if you are using Word as your email editor).  If you want to use the accented words in other applications you can type them in Word and then copy/paste them into another application.



Accented Letter:
What to type:
ç
Hold the CTRL key and type: , (comma) then release the CTRL key and type: c
é
Hold the CTRL key and type: ' (apostrophe) then release the CTRL key and type: e
à
Hold the CTRL key and type: ` (grave accent) then release the CTRL key and type: a
ø
Hold the CTRL key and type: / (forward slash) then release the CTRL key and type: o
â
Hold the CTRL+Shift key and type: ^ (caret) then release the CTRL key and type: a
å
Hold the CTRL+Shift key and type: @ (at sign) then release the CTRL key and type: a
ü
Hold the CTRL+Shift key and type: : (colon) then release the CTRL key and type: u
ñ
Hold the CTRL+Shift key and type: ~ (tilde) then release the CTRL key and type: n