How to trace formula dependents in Excel
Posted on October 2, 2009 - Filed Under MS Office Tips | Leave a Comment
Tracing Excel formula errors is tedious, if not guided by the built-in formula auditing tools. The formula bar itself is a good starting place to debug formula errors but when the formula gets longer and more complicated, a visual guide to trace the dependents is a great help.
You can use the Trace Precedents button on the Formula Auditing toolbar to trace all the generations of cells that contribute to the formula in the selected cell (something like tracing all the ancestors in your family tree). Many times, finding the original source of the formula leads you right to the source of all the error values in your spreadsheet.
PowerPoint 2010 review and overview
Posted on September 3, 2009 - Filed Under MS Office Tips | Leave a Comment
Since the release of the Office 2010’s technical preview 2 months ago, I have been using it for quite a while. PowerPoint is one of those Office programs that I wasn’t really able to replace with an alternative software. It just keeps on evolving and always has something new to offer in every release.
Let me start by comparing the main menu from the 2007 version. The 2010 Ribbon interface has a separate menu for Transitions:
Add multiple tabs to Word, Excel and Powerpoint
Posted on August 27, 2009 - Filed Under MS Office Tips | 2 Comments
If you use Microsoft Office a lot (I use it pretty much everyday), you might be interested in slightly increasing your efficiency when using Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. How so you might ask?
Well, OfficeTab is a nifty little program that adds tabbed document support to Microsoft Office programs. Tabbed documents in a program is really nice because it means you can view multiple Word documents in one window and switch between the documents by clicking on a different tab.
Don’t forget attachments in Outlook 2007 anymore
Posted on June 29, 2009 - Filed Under MS Office Tips | 1 Comment
Just two days ago, I wrote about the most useful Gmail Labs features, one of which is a attachment reminder. If you mention somewhere in your email that you have “attached” a file, etc, and if you click Send and there is no attachment, it will prompt you before sending.
Unfortunately, this functionality is not available in Outlook by default, however, since it’s one of the most used email clients in the world, it would be nice to have the option!
How to open a new instance of Excel 2007 workbooks
Posted on June 26, 2009 - Filed Under MS Office Tips | 16 Comments
If you work with Excel a lot, you’ve probably noticed that each workbook you open doesn’t create a new instance of Excel. There are not several tabs for Excel in your taskbar like for Internet Explorer or other programs.
Why is this and how can it cause problems? For the most part, it’s not a big deal and doesn’t bother most Excel users. However, it is a real pain when working with many spreadsheets and they are treated as a group.
Remove backgrounds from pictures using Office 2010
Posted on June 22, 2009 - Filed Under MS Office Tips | 3 Comments
Removing picture backgrounds for an image has always been a challenging task for casual users. Traditionally we need a good picture editing software like Photoshop and use its magnetic Lasso tool to select the portion of the image that we want to retain.
In the technical preview of the incoming MS Office 2010, there is built-in capability to remove the background of an image so that the subject of the portrait will be the only thing remaining.
