The Missing Manuals

Hi all,
I have discovered after a lengthly flick through most of the Office books at "Borders" that the missing manuals books are very good. I have purchased Access 2007 and Project 2007 to start with and these say on the front :
"The book that should have been in the box". This is true, it's got a wealth of useful extras, background help, interesting utilities that I have not come across in other manuals. they are written in a nice relaxed style, brave enough to even say when a facility is rubbish or never took off.

Check them out ...


The Access 2007 book covers macros, VB, SQL ,all the basic Objects and Database theory as well.
Jamie

TOP TIPS for Office

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/atwork/tips/default.mspx

Use this link above to gain access into a wealth of top tips and shortcuts/useful things to know in Office via our friends at Microsoft !

Jamie

Want a copy of Office Ultimate 2007 ??

SAVE £500 on Office 2007 !!!!!!!!

http://www.theultimatesteal.co.uk/

As long as you are a registered student you can get a FULL version of Office 07 for £38.95 as opposed to £549 !

Do you know your RSS from your elbow?

see the link below for all info re RSS and Blog elbows !

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/atwork/rss.mspx

thanks,
Jamie

Fed up with the backs of envelopes? Try OneNote instead

"OneNote is a really easy way to take notes, manage and share them. You can input your own notes, grab pages from the Internet, import and annotate documents from other Office programs and organise the information to suit the way you work. You can even include audio and video notes.
Everything is stored in searchable electronic notebooks. Set up sections within a notebook, or multiple notebooks for different projects. Using hyperlinks between sections or notebooks means you can quickly access and deal with complex information. And it's all on one screen.
Take a trial Why not try OneNote for yourself? Download the trial today, and get ready to be even more productive!
Watch the demo If you'd like to find out more about OneNote's features, check out the demo. You may never buy another notebook again." - Taken from the "At Work" MS Office newsletter Jan 08

Duplicates Addin for Excel

The previous Link is for EXCEL
and it works a treat on column data when you are checking for duplicate data between the columns or rows or a highlighted area of your sheet !

Please think about donating to the creators !

JJ

The Duplicate Master

Happy New Year folks !!!

Having trouble finding duplicates and highlighting them or maybe you want to remove or delete them via a utility.
Then try this Add-in below, you will need to be able to install addins to your PC for this to work.

http://members.iinet.net.au/~brettdj/


Cheers

Jamie

Creating GRaphical Indicators in MS Project

Hi again
Have a look at my latest posting , below I ahve placed a link to TechTrax website that explains the different types of graphical indicators within Project and how to set them up.
You can have "Traffic Light Indicators" for tasks overbudget or slipping dates, etc and Drop down menus (combo boxes) to allow the end user to only choose from the given list, e.g. Task Name , Dept ( Custom Field) etc.


http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=403

Thanks

Jamie
PS have a Merry Xmas and New Year to all the bloggers out there !

Blogging via Word 2007 Blog Editor !!!

Yes I created this using the Blog option now within Word 2007 and then setup my Blogger account within Word to Publish directly to my Blog site.

Give it a try as you then get much better editing and formatting options supported by Microsoft Word 2007.

Thanks
Jamie

MS ACCESS - Input mask syntax and examples

Many people struggle with input mask special characters so here is the help file from MS Access:

Valid input mask characters

Microsoft Access interprets characters in the InputMask property definition as shown in the following table. To define a literal character, enter any character other than those shown in the table, including spaces and symbols. To define one of the following characters as a literal character, precede that character with a backslash (\).

Character Description
0 Digit (0 through 9, entry required; plus [+] and minus [-] signs not allowed).
9 Digit or space (entry not required; plus and minus signs not allowed).
# Digit or space (entry not required; blank positions converted to spaces, plus and minus signs allowed).
L Letter (A through Z, entry required).
? Letter (A through Z, entry optional).
A Letter or digit (entry required).
a Letter or digit (entry optional).
& Any character or a space (entry required).
C Any character or a space (entry optional).
. , : ; - / Decimal placeholder and thousands, date, and time separators.
(The actual character used depends on the regional settings
< Causes all characters that follow to be converted to lowercase.
> Causes all characters that follow to be converted to uppercase.
! Causes the input mask (input mask: A format that consists of literal display characters (such as parentheses, periods, and hyphens) and mask characters that specify where data is to be entered as well as what kind of data and how many characters are allowed.) to display from right to left, rather than from left to right. Characters typed into the mask always fill it from left to right. You can include the exclamation point anywhere in the input mask.
\ Causes the character that follows to be displayed as a literal character. Used to display any of the characters listed in this table as literal characters (for example, \A is displayed as just A).

Password
Setting the InputMask property to the word Password creates a password entry text box. Any character typed in the text box is stored as the character but is displayed as an asterisk (*).
Input mask examples
The following table shows some useful input mask (input mask: A format that consists of literal display characters (such as parentheses, periods, and hyphens) and mask characters that specify where data is to be entered as well as what kind of data and how many characters are allowed.) definitions and examples of values you can enter into them.
Input mask definition

Examples of values
(000) 000-0000
(206) 555-0248

(999) 999-9999!
(206) 555-0248
( ) 555-0248

(000) AAA-AAAA
(206) 555-TELE

#999
-20
2000

>L????L?000L0
GREENGR339M3
MAY R 452B7

>L0L 0L0
T2F 8M4

00000-9999
98115-
98115-3007

>LMaria
Pierre

ISBN 0-&&&&&&&&&-0
ISBN 1-55615-507-7
ISBN 0-13-964262-5

>LL00000-0000
DB51392-0493

Getting data into your Oulook Calendar from EXCEL !!!

I now use this to import my weekly/monthly calendar data across into my Outlook Calendar at home to keep me up to date with my latest whereababouts, thanks to Allister for the loan of this information .....

Wednesday, May 11, 2005 3:35 PM by Allister_Frost


Another handy way to add appointments to your calendar is by importing from Excel. To do this you first need to create an Excel file containing the appointment information Outlook needs. Your first row should contain columns titles which match Outlook's appointment fields. You don't need many fields to get started, just try the following for a basic import of all day appointments:

Cell A1: Subject
Cell B1: Start Date

Now add the data you'd like to import into your Outlook calendar under each of these column headings, for example: cell A2 could be "Bob's Birthday" and cell B2 could be "11/05/2005"
Now, here's the important bit. Highlight the entire range of cells that you've used (in my example this would be A1:B2) and give this range a name under Insert, Name, Define (or just type into the Name Box just above the top of column A). Outlook needs this range name so it knows where to find the data to import. Save your Excel file and close it.

Now just pop into Outlook and choose File, Import and Export. Then select Import from another program or file, hit Next, then choose Microsoft Excel and hit Next again. Now locate the Excel file you created earlier, hit Next, select your Calendar, press Next again and check that Outlook finds the correct Range Name in your Excel file. Now press Map Custom Fields to verify how Outlook is mapping your Excel column headers to its own Calendar Appointment fields, changing if necessary, then hit OK, then Finish.

If you've done everything right, your Outlook Calendar will now contain the appointments you created in Excel.

There are 22 fields you can import into Outlook in this way. These are: Subject, Start Date, Start Time, End Date, End Time, All day event, Reminder on/off, Reminder Date, Reminder Time, Meeting Organizer, Required Attendees, Optional Attendees, Meeting Resources, Billing Information, Categories, Description, Location, Mileage, Priority, Private, Sensitivity, Show time as.

Top tip: try importing in this way to your Task folder rather than your Calendar. This is a great way to move a list of 'to do' items from Excel or Project directly into your Outlook calendar.

SQL Query Criteria

Hi all,
See this link below for the Microsoft guide to Query criteria and SQL commands :

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/access/HP051885161033.aspx?pid=CH063608261033

Thanks

Jamie

next simple code sample !

'Code to set the current active cell value to something

Sub SetValue()
Worksheets("Sheet1").Activate
ActiveCell.Value = 35
End Sub

More Office Manuals ...

Dont forget to check out www.interquadbooks.co.uk for a now updated library of Computer Reference Books !


Jamie

Get your Code into Action ...

I almost forgot ....

Copy and Paste the code into the VB Editor window maybe on the first sheet or the This Workbook page, Save it !!! and then test it out by running the Code from the Run icon.


PS you could create an icon on the Toolbar to run the Macro later if you are feeling brave !!

Jamie

VBA for EXCEL Code Snippets

Hi all ,
I will be adding a little bit of code here and there to the BLOG in the form of Excel Code as I find out a little more on the subject as I go along the path to becoming a VB person !! [anorak not included]

Heres some code that uses the InputBox Function to then add a number of required additional worksheets to your Spreadsheet.

' Code to create additional Worksheets
Sub AddXWorksheets()
Dim myNum As String

myNum = Application.InputBox("Enter the number of additional WorkSheets required")
Worksheets.Add After:=Worksheets(Worksheets.Count), Count:=myNum
End Sub

Thankyou !

Need some sample data to play around with Excel 2007 ?

Then try Mr Excel ...

http://www.mrexcel.com/miraclesfiles.html

These files are from the Book : Excel 2007 Miracles Made Easy by Bill Jelen.

Download a Sudoku Solver here !

"Yes you can solve Sudoku in seconds with MS Excel !"

thanks to Mikes spreadsheet of VB magic !

download from :
http://www.mikeoldroyd.com/

PowerPoint Links

Need some professional backgrounds and templates, then check out these links below :
obviously a lot of these sites you will have to pay for the goods !!

http://www.ppted.com/

http://www.powerfinish.com/

Also check out Microsoft Office Online site for some free templates !

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/templates/results.aspx?qu=powerpoint&av=TPL000

And also check out :

http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/free_powerpoint_template.htm

free templates !

Note in PowerPoint 2007 you can have access to a wide range of pre set templates and colour combinations, it makes a lot of the older templates look "out-dated" by comparison.

Thanks

Jamie

Microsoft At Work Website

Useful tips and tricks for Office lovers everywhere !

http://www.microsoft.com/uk/atwork/default.mspx