Tech

Guides

Business Applications ▪ Database Management ▪ Disaster Recovery ▪ Enterprise Servers & Storage ▪ IT Security ▪ Java ▪ Microsoft Office Suite ▪ Network Admin ▪ Open Source ▪ SMB ▪ SOA ▪ Tech Management ▪ Software/Web Development ▪ Windows Server ▪ Wireless Tech

Microsoft Office Suite TechGuides

Create a title style in Word to save time and mouse clicks

By Mary Ann Richardson, Special to ZDNet Asia
Thursday, October 02, 2008 12:14 PM

It's easy to define a custom style for your document titles, and it will greatly simplify the task of formatting title text.

Microsoft Word

Create a title style in Word to save time and mouse clicks

Are you finding that after you type and format a title or heading and press Enter, you need to manually change the paragraph text back to the Normal style?

You can save a lot of time by creating a custom heading or title style that does all the work for you.

Follow these steps to create a custom Title style:

Open a blank document and type Title.
Select Title and click the Bold and Center buttons on the Formatting toolbar or Home tab.
Change the font to 22 points.
Click anywhere in your title text.
Go to View | Task Pane, click the arrow in the New Document box, and select Styles And Formatting. In Word 2007, click the Styles dialog launcher in the Styles group of the Home tab.
Click the New Style button in the Task Pane. Figure A shows the New Styles button in Word.)

Figure A
styles

Click in the Name box and enter My Title.
Select Normal from the Style For Following Paragraph drop-down list.
If you want this style available to all documents you work with, select the Add To Template check box. In Word 2007, click the New Documents Based On This Template button (Figure B).

Figure B
MyTitle style

Click OK.

The My Title style should appear in your Task Pane. Now when you type your title text, click My Title in the Styles Task pane.

Word automatically formats the title text for you. When you press Enter to begin typing the next paragraph, Word will automatically switch back to the Normal style.

You can use the same procedure for creating custom headings that save keystrokes.

Microsoft Excel

Import and convert Web text to columns in an Excel worksheet

Excel makes it easy to extract table data from a Web page--but to be of use in a worksheet, you will need to convert the text tables into columns. For example, say you need to chart U.S. GDP data from 2002 through 2006. First, you would use a Web query to import the data from the Web. Then, you'd extract the data into two separate columns. Follow these steps:

Open a blank worksheet.
Go to Data | Import External Data and then click New Web Query. In Excel 2007, click the Data tab, click Get External Data, and then click From Web.
Enter the Web page URL http://forecasts.org/data/index.htm (Figure A).

Figure A
gdp

Scroll to Gross Domestic Product.
Click the arrow next to the Gross National Product Table. (If there are no arrows next to tables on the page, click Show Icons twice at the top of the dialog box to display them.)
Click the Import button (Figure B).

Figure B
import

Click Existing Worksheet, if necessary.
Click the cell on the worksheet where you want the upper-left corner of the Web data to appear and click OK.
Select the data cells containing the text you want to convert.
Go to Data | Text To Columns. (In Excel 2007, click Text To Column in the Data Tools Group on the Data tab.)
Select Delimited (Figure C).

Figure C
delimited

Click Next.
Click to select the Space check box under Delimiters (Figure D).

Figure D
finish conversion

Click Next.
Click Finish.

The data from the Web is now ready to chart (Figure E).

Figure E
chartable data

Microsoft Access

Use color to flag Access form fields

When working with forms, it is often hard to zero in on the important data. Color is one way you can ensure certain data stands out from the rest. For example, you can use color to emphasize that a customer has a $0 balance and, therefore, is eligible for a cash discount. Follow these steps:

Open the form in Design View.
Right-click the form and select Properties.
Click the drop-down arrow under Selection Type and select Form (Figure A).

Figure A
field properties

In the Event tab, click the On Current property box, click Event Procedure, and then click the Build button (Figure B)

Figure B
Event procedure

Enter the following code at the prompt:

If Me.Balance > 0 Then

    With Me.Balance

        .ForeColor = vbWhite

        .BackColor = vbRed

        .FontBold = True

    End With

Else

    With Me.Balance

        .ForeColor = vbBlack

        .BackColor = vbWhite

        .FontBold = False

    End With

End If