Use Excel 2007's Date feature to stay on top of deadlines
Thursday, September 25, 2008 12:33 PM
Excel will highlight any dates that fall within the parameters you set.
Microsoft Excel
Use Excel 2007s Date feature to stay on top of deadlines
Excel 2007's new Date feature lets you see at a glance which accounts or projects are coming due each time you open your worksheet.
For example, say you have a list of financial accounts and their dates of renewal (Figure A).
Figure A
At the end of each month, you check your sheet to see which accounts are coming up for renewal next month.
Follow these steps:
- Select the range of cells that contains the Renewal dates .
- On the Home tab, click Conditional Formatting.
- Point to Highlight Cell Rules and then click A Date Occurring (Figure B).
Figure B
- Click the drop-down arrow, select Next Month (Figure C), and click OK.
Figure C
The accounts up for renewal next month are highlighted in red. Note that Excel automatically updates the rule based on the system clock; so when you open the workbook a month from now, Excel formats new dates based on the rule's conditions.
Microsoft Access
Use Access Query Totals to obtain a list of your customers recent activity
Orders have fallen in the last month and you are wondering whether you should send out another promotion. You decide to send one promotion to customers who have ordered recently and another to those customers whose last order was more than a month ago. Customers who haven't ordered in six months will be excluded from the mailing.
To find out when each customer placed their last order, follow these steps:
- In the Database window, under Objects, click Queries and then click the New button. Click Design View and then click OK. (In Word 2007, click the Create tab and then click Query Design in the Other group.)
- Double-click the Orders table.
- Double-click the CustomerID, CompanyName, and OrderDate fields from the field lists (Figure A).
Figure A
- Right-click the Query grid and select Totals (Figure B).
Figure B
- Click the drop-down arrow of the Totals cell under the OrderDate field and select Last (Figure C).
Figure C
- Click Run.
The query Datasheet view lists each customer's name and last order date.
Microsoft Word
Adjust line spacing for more attractive borders
Did you ever wonder why it looks like you need to insert a blank line between the top border of your paragraph and the paragraph text? By default, Word leaves only one point of line spacing between your top border and the text, which can look a little crowded (Figure A).
Figure A
You could click before the first word in the paragraph and press Enter, but that might not give you the exact spacing you want.
Let's say, for example, you would like 6-point line spacing between the border and the paragraph. To achieve that formatting, follow these steps:
- Click anywhere in the paragraph.
- Go to Format | Borders And Shading. (In Word 2007, click the Borders tool drop-down arrow in the Paragraph group of the Home tab. Then, click Borders And Shading from the drop-down list.)
- Click the Options button on the Borders tab (Figure B).
Figure B
- In the From Text section, click the up arrow of the Top box until 6 pt is displayed.
- Click OK twice (Figure C).
Figure C
Now your text will be situated six points below the top border, as shown in Figure D.
Figure D
There are currently no comments for this post.