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Showing posts with the label PowerPoint

Add a watermark to Office files, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

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Only Microsoft Word has a built-in watermark feature, but Excel and PowerPoint have a reasonable workaround to adding watermarks on those files, as well. For each of the instructions, I'm using Office 2016 for Windows. Word Word is very easy -- just 3 quick steps. Go to the Design ribbon in your Word document. Click on the Watermark icon of text found near the right end of the ribbon in the Page Background section. Select a watermark you prefer or Custom Watermark... from the menu. If you select the custom option, you have multiple options beyond just custom text. Enter watermark text (or alternatively a picture). Change the font used. Change the font size or use auto for auto-scaling. Text color. A layout of diagonal or horizontal. When you need to remove the watermark, repeat steps 1 and 2, and then select Remove Watermark found at the bottom of the menu. Excel The workaround for a watermark in Excel is done by using an image file.  Find or

Merge PowerPoint Slides from Different Language Sources

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I recently had a situation where I needed to merge PowerPoint slides that had originated from two different language versions. While both were written in English, one group of slides were created from a Spanish install of PowerPoint. Of course the English text was displaying as incorrect spellings in the Spanish version. First, I was surprised to see the English text still displayed as spelled incorrect when I opened in my English install of PowerPoint. After that, I figured once the slides originating from the Spanish version of PowerPoint were inserted into an English version PowerPoint, it would correct itself. I found that still wasn't the case. All the slides that were authored in the Spanish version of PowerPoint still retained the Spanish dictionary, and therefore the English text on those slides indicated they were misspelled. Come to find out, each text box within PowerPoint is assigned its own dictionary language. In order to correct, follow these steps. (Note that I&

Insert Clipart causing install loop problem for MS Office apps

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On my work laptop, running Win7 Pro, all of my MS Office apps are all 2007 except for Visio 2003. When Visio was installed, for whatever reason the clipart was not installed. If I tried to use the clipart, it would start the install wizard, ask for a path to the install disk and eventually fail as I didn't have the disk. This is unfortunately is expected behavior. But, when I go to insert clipart from my other Office apps, they run into a problem due to Visio. It goes through the same Microsoft Office Visio 2003 install wizard, and after failing, it will open the clipart that WAS installed for 2007. I search for solutions, but never found one. This works for some install loop type problems, but not my specific case. Enter one of the following using Run... . Substitute Excel, Visio, or PowerPoint for Word as necessary: Office 2007: reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Options /v NoReReg /t REG_DWORD /d 1 Office 2003: reg add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\

Office Ribbon Frustrations: Working with Pictures

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Here's another frustration in learning Microsoft Office's new ribbon interface. I wanted to compress my PowerPoint images -- something I've always done to reduce the file size of my PowerPoint. I searched and searched for some indication of how I might do this. I finally discovered that I must select an image, and magically a new menu appears. The words "Picture Tools" appears in the Title Bar, and below it is a Format menu. Upon clicking Format, I revealed several options for manipulating the image, including "Compress Pictures". The Microsoft website covers file compression and other picture manipulation functions .

Office Ribbon Frustrations: Use the Quick Access Toolbar

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I continue to find new and frustrating things when using Excel 2007. For example, in most spreadsheets I want to freeze the top row and sometimes columns. To do this, I need to remember that I first need to go to the View Ribbon. If I want to use a Macro, it's not on the Insert or Data Ribbon, as I expected, but it is also on the View Ribbon. For Print Preview, you need to go to the Office Button and select the Print arrow. Needless to say, some of the most common tasks I perform are now hidden and/or further clicks away. One way to make some of these tasks easier is to use the new Quick Access Toolbar. The Quick Access Toolbar is the toolbar just right of the Office Button, above the Ribbons. By clicking the drop-down arrow to the right of the toolbar, you can customize the toolbar with your favorite shortcuts. Here's how to customize the Quick Access Toolbar. Click the drop-down arrow to the right of the Quick Access Toolbar Click on "More Commands...". This should

Fonts not displaying or printing correctly

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Ever have a Word (or other) document given you by someone else, and it didn't display the fonts correctly? Perhaps they sent you a PDF or image of the file, and it displayed correctly there, but not in the file that you want to now update. The first thing to check is to make sure you have the same fonts on your system. An easy check is to look at the font list in your application. For example, if you're supposed to display Frutiger 45 Light, but its not in the list, then it's likely not installed. If you don't have the font, and can get access to it, Microsoft has a process for installing it to your Windows machine. In some cases, you may have the font, but it still doesn't display correctly nor is it in the list of fonts in your application. This is likely due to the original file being created on a Mac. It may even occur in some applications, such as Word or QuarkXpress, but not in others, such as Photoshop. The reason is that Windows uses style-linking, while th

Office Ribbon Frustrations: Switching Windows

I may be a little late to the party, but I finally upgraded to Office 2007 a few months back. While I like the new styles and themes, and I can still use the keyboard shortcuts I've learned, I'm still struggling with find other features within the Ribbons. Top of my list has been switching windows (view another open file) within Excel. In prior versions of Excel, I could go to the Windows menu and select another file. With Office 2007, you have to first select the View ribbon and then click Switch Windows, where you can select a different open file. As with many of the changes, I had to hunt for a while to find the Switch Windows option. In the mean time I did learn a new keyboard shortcut for switching windows. Use Ctrl-F6 or Ctrl-Shift-F6 to go in reverse order. As with the View >> Switch Windows menu, this also works in Word and PowerPoint as well as Excel.

Add a new Download Action in Firefox

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Recently I was asked how to add a new Download Action to Firefox. In other words, how can I get Firefox to always use the same program and open a file from the web without having to save it first each time. I scratched my head for a minute and then thought, "this is easy, just click Tools | Options , and then the Content tab ." I found out I could only manage them here, not add. After being perplex for a while, I realized it is actually very easy. Download the file type (e.g. PowerPoint), select the Open with radio button, select the application you want to open it with , and (here's the hard part) check the box next to Do this automatically for files like this from now on . Now you can go back to the Content tab in the Options menu if you want to remove or change the file association. Ahh, such an easy solution to any easy problem.

PowerPoint Keyboard Shortcuts

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I have put together another keyboard shortcuts tri-fold , this time for PowerPoint. Whether you use PowerPoint a lot or just occasionally, I think you will find this to be a valuable tool. I have some really good shortcuts in here. For example, did you know that if you enter Ctrl + Shift + [plus sign] with text selected, that it will change it to superscript? Or that Ctrl + D will duplicate a selected object? That is just two of over 100 keyboard shortcut combinations. Download