By Susan Harkins
Thursday, July 02 2009 12:24 PM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/techguide/office/0,39044682,62055654,00.htm

Microsoft Word

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Quick sort for Word lists

A reader recently confessed to exporting Word lists into Excel to sort them. That's just too much trouble because Word can sort those lists for you.

However, doing so isn't exactly intuitive--the command you want is on the Table menu.

To sort a list in Word, you have to treat the list like it's part of a table, as follows:

1. Select the list you want to sort.
2. From the Table menu, choose Sort. For most lists, the default settings are adequate.

3. Click OK and Word sorts the list.

This sort feature is flexible enough to handle text, numbers, and even dates. Simply change the Type setting to change the way Word evaluates the selected data--as text, numbers, or dates.

Microsoft Outlook

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Avoid e-mail mistakes with a single setting

We've all done it, and regretted it--sent an e-mail to the wrong person, sent an angry e-mail in haste, or sent an e-mail with mistakes.

I don't mind confessing my most humiliating e-mail mistakes because they're so old:

• I sent an article to the wrong publisher. Now, that's not horrible and as a freelancer, all my editors know that I work for other publishers, but it was still unpleasant because I looked stupid.
• I used the wrong publication name when corresponding with an editor. She responded with a curt, "I work for… ," and I never received another assignment from her.

Most e-mail clients send e-mail as soon as you hit Send in the message window, and that's why we get into trouble.

Instead of sending each e-mail immediately, let them sit in the outbox. Later (usually a few hours or so), review the messages one last time and then send them. I often find small and seemingly unimportant mistakes, but mistakes nonetheless. Occasionally, I find something more important and I count my lucky stars! Letting a message sit for a while, especially if you're angry when you respond, will give you a bit of time to rethink and perhaps, even save face.

Outlook is configured to send mail when you click Send in the New Message window. To reset this option so that you control when Outlook sends mail, do the following:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Options.
2. Click the Mail Setup tab.
3. Click Send/Receive in the Send/Receive options.
4. Uncheck the Include This Group In Send/Receive (F9) option in the Setting For Group “All Accounts” section. Most of us will set this for all accounts, but you can configure Outlook to handle each account differently.
5. Click Close and then OK.

After unchecking the Send/Receive option, you must remember to click Send/Receive on the Standard toolbar to send mail. You can also set Outlook to send e-mail when you launch or close Outlook, or schedule it to send and receive e-mail at regular intervals, so be sure to consider those options as well.

You'll still have to find the mistakes, but putting a little time between creating and sending messages makes it easier to catch mistakes you might otherwise miss.

Microsoft Excel

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Use labels to quickly define Excel range names

The only Excel task more common than entering data and formulas is probably assigning range names to use in formulas and functions. For instance, you could enter the function =SUM(B2:B5), or you could assign the name Qtr1 to to cells B2:B5 and reference the range name instead, =SUM(Qtr1). The range name is easier to remember when you're entering new functions and formulas.

If you're working with more than one row or column with labels, Excel can quickly assign names to spreadsheet rows and columns using label text. To use this method of naming ranges, do the following:

1. Select any cell in the range and press [Ctrl]+[Shift]+* to select the contiguous range. (There's a great keyboard shortcut you might not know!)
2. Choose Name from the Insert menu and then choose Create. If you're using Excel 2007, click the Formulas tab and choose Create From Selection in the Defined Names group.
3. Excel will display the Create Names dialog box; it does a good job of finding the label text. Usually, you won't have to change the settings, but you can.

4. Click OK.

To quickly view the new range names, choose Name from the Insert menu and choose Define. In 2007, click Name Manager in the Defined Names group on the Formulas tab. Excel defines a range for each column and row in the worksheet, using the respective labels. That's much quicker than creating them manually, one by one!