TIPS AND TRICKS

WINDOWS TRICKS

1 Windows 7

Hide user names while logging

in to Windows

Windows shows all the user accounts

on the welcome screen and in this way

gives away the names of the users

even to unknown and curious third

parties. You want to prevent that from

happening. 

 

In order to prevent unauthorized

persons from having to guess just your

password, click on ‘Start’ and type

‘regedit’ under ‘Programs’. Windows

shows the results of the search

directly in the Start menu. Double click

under ‘Programs’ on ‘regedit.exe’ to

start the registration editor. If you are

working under an account without the

administrator rights, you will have to

first get them. For this, click with the

right mouse button on ‘regedit.exe’ and

in the context menu select ‘Run as

administrator’.

Navigate in the tree structure on the

left side of the application to the key

‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\

SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\

CurrentVersion\Policies\System’. Now,

on the right side, you will find the value

‘dontdisplaylastusername’ among others.

Open this with a double click for editing

and in the following dialogue box set its

‘Value’ to ‘1’. Confirm this entry with ‘OK’.

From now on, you will have to enter

the name for the user account in addition

to the password on the welcome screen.

In this way, you make it harder for

unauthorized users to start your system

since they would need to know or guess

the name of the user account also

besides the password.

2  Windows XP, Vista, 7

Access file properties without

context menu

In order to see the properties of a

folder or a file, you have to first rightclick

with the mouse on the symbol

and open the context command

‘Properties’. You want to see the

information in a quicker way.

How to get the information

you want faster: Select the entry or

the icon of the desired file or folder.

Then, press the key combination

[Alt]+[Enter]. Thereafter, Windows

opens the dialogue ‘Properties’, without

you having to go through the context

menu of the file. If you prefer to work

with the mouse, you can still avoid

using the context menu by keeping

the [Alt] key pressed while you double

click on the icon of a file or folder.

3   Windows Vista, 7

Underline key combinations

and shortcuts for direct access

While operating menus throughout

Windows, you are used to seeing the

respective shortcut letters that are

characterized by underlines, which help

you learn how to quickly use keyboard

shortcuts.

Since Vista, the underlining

of shortcut keys in menus for better

Enable the old-style display of keyboard activated

shortcuts in menus and on toolbars.

3

This registry tweak will make your PC more

secure. Use it if you're afraid of intruders.

1

intelligent computing chip 12/2011 147

Tips & Tricks

HANDS ON

readability is turned off as a standard

setting. This practical and unobtrusive

help function can be quickly activated

again in the ‘Ease of Access Center’.

For this, click in the Control Panel

on ‘Ease of Access’ and then on ‘Ease

of Access Center’. There, follow the

link ‘Make the keyboard easier to use’.

Activate the option ‘Underline keyboard

shortcuts and access keys’. Confirm the

dialogue with ‘Apply’ and ‘OK’ one after

the other (or ‘Save’ in Vista). The change

is active without a restart. However,

these underline hints are not present

everywhere; they are mainly there in the

classic menus and, for example, not in

the Windows Explorer toolbar.

4   Windows Vista, 7

Center the icons of running

applications in the task bar

Windows places the icons of started

applications in the task bar just to

the right of the ‘Start’ button. You

would like to place the shortcuts in the

middle for quicker access.

Windows cannot really display the

icons of applications in the center of the

taskbar. However, if you tweak it a little

bit, you will get what you want through

another way. You will need a new folder

which you can place anywhere on your

hard drive using Windows Explorer. For

this, click with the right mouse button

in any empty space on the right side of

your screen and select ‘New | Folder’.

Overwrite the name suggested by

Windows with a suitable name like ‘Task

bar icons’. In this folder, save links to all

the programs which you want to access

through the taskbar in the future. Then,

click with the right mouse button on a

free space on the taskbar and deactivate

the option ‘Lock taskbar’ if necessary.

After this, again open the context menu

of the task bar. However, this time select

the menu command ‘Toolbars | New

toolbar’, new toolbar with the links you

had saved in the folder earlier. Take the

mouse pointer to the left edge of the

toolbar. As soon as it changes shape,

press the mouse button and keep it

pressed. Drag the toolbar toward the

left until it shows the icons in the center.

Release the left mouse button.

If you find the title and the description

in the new toolbar to be irritating, you

can remove it by clicking on empty space

in the toolbar and in the context menu

remove the ticks before the options

‘Show title’ and ‘Show text’. Finally,

activate the option ‘Lock taskbar’ that

you had deactivated earlier by ticking the

corresponding entry in the context menu.

The icons centered in this manner work

like regular links. If you click with the right

mouse button in Windows 7, you will see

just the normal context menu and not a

jump list.

5   Windows Vista, 7

Call up user account control

dialogs without interrupting

Windows

When the user account control dialog

pops up, the screen automatically

darkens and Windows deactivates

the currently running process. You

would like to turn off this irritating

behavior.

In order to change the system

behaviour when the user account

control is called up, an entry in the

registry is necessary. For this, open

the registration editor with the key

combination [Win]+[R], followed by

the command ‘regedit’ in the dialogue

‘Run’. Then, navigate to the key

‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\

Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\

policies\system’. Now, in the right

side of the window, open the entry

‘PromptOnSecureDesktop’ for editing.

Set the value from ‘1’ to ‘0’ and

confirm this with ‘OK’. The change is

effective immediately without having to

restart the system. You can try it out by

starting the Registry editor again because

the user accounts manager kicks in every

time with this. To activate the standard

settings again later, just change the value

from ‘0’ to ‘1’.

6  Windows XP, Vista, 7

See icons in DLL files and

extract them

While searching for other program

and desktop icons, you should comb

through the available DLL files in the

system. However, the icons in them

cannot be copied easily.

There are innumerable DLL files

in the Windows system folders which

contain diverse icons in addition to

procedures as libraries that are already

used by the system. In order to use

such icons yourself, you either have to

extract them from the DLL file and save

as a separate ICO files, or at least know

the serial number of the icon within the

library. Both these tasks are easily and

quickly done with the help of the NirSoft

tool IconsExtract (www.nirsoft.net/utils/

iconsext.html). After a short installation

or unpacking from the ZIP archive, you

can start the tool immediately.

The dialogue box ‘Search For Icons’

will appear automatically at the start.

Activate the option ‘Scan icons in files’

and enter the complete path to the

appropriate file containing the icons

under it. Basically, you can also search

through folders with subfolders or drives

for this. However, it is not recommended

for ‘C:’, as this can take a long time.

With ‘More Options’ the selection can be

limited to certain characteristics. With

a click on ‘Search For Icons’, the main

window shows all the matches found.

They are the assigned the file name of

the origin and the index numbers within

this file in brackets. You will need this

value, for example, to refer in the registry

to a certain icon from a file. The index

number cannot be determined in other

dialogues by counting. All icons can also

be exported individually to ICO files. For

this, mark one or more, if necessary with

the pressed [Ctrl] key. Then open the

command ‘File | Save Selected Icons’,

change the target folder and the process

by clicking on ‘Save Icons’. All icons will

then be in individual files which still

contain the original file names and the

index numbers.

7  Windows Vista, 7

Now use mouse gestures in

Windows Explorer

 

Another handy registry tweak, which makes

Windows less annoying but a little less secure.

You love the useful mouse gestures in

your Web browser and now you want

them for working in Windows Explorer

also. You would like to know if that can

be done.

Operating Windows Explorer

can be improved with mouse gestures.

For this, you will need, for example,

the free tool Gest (www.bambi4.

co.uk/programs/gest/gest.php). For

installation, start ‘Gest.exe’. After a short

while, the tool will be available in the

notification area. After the automatic

program start, confirm the question with

‘Yes’. You will then go to the configuration

dialogue. Even if no changes are required,

take some time to get to know the predefined

gestures in the secton ‘Gestures’

for controlling by mouse movements.

The alphabets stand for the sequence

of the movements, whereby ‘L’ is for left,

‘R’ for right and ‘U’ for up and ‘D’ for

down. The ‘O’ means a circle. However,

you should avoid this, since a circular

mouse movement is mostly interpreted

as a result of individual movements.

All the entries can be changed. Several

possible gestures for the same action

are separated by commas. Besides

‘New Window’, click on ‘Select folder’

and decide in which folder the Explorer

windows thus started will be opened, if

the standard view of the Libraries is not

wanted. Besides special folders like ‘My

Computer’ or ‘Control Panel’, you can

also define another folder through ‘Other

Folder’. Finally, apply the changes with

‘Apply’ and ‘OK’. You can again open the

configuration dialogue if needed with

the key combination [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[F2]

or with the mouse gesture ‘DUD’, i.e. a

movement ‘down-up-down’. For running

a mouse gesture, keep the right mouse

button pressed and execute the desired

movement. A blue mouse trace illustrates

the sequence. In addition, the ‘Gesture

Box’ in the upper left corner shows the

recognized movements. In case the

result has not yet been defined as a

gesture, you can do it in the dialogue box

presented. Besides, mouse gestures also

function in windows similar to Explorer,

including the Control Panel.

8 Windows 7

Add elastic shadows for the

taskbar

While windows in the Aero theme are

provided with surrounding shadows,

this is missing for the taskbar as a

standard. You would like to add this

design element.

The small free tool ‘Taskbar

Shadow’ adds this design element. You

can download it for free under tinyurl.

com/6e8r983.

After unpacking the ZIP archive,

start ‘Shadow.exe’. With right click on

the displayed shadow you can control

the darkness of the shadow with the

command ‘Opacity’ and confirm with

‘OK’. The command ‘Exit’ or a double

click on the shadows ends the small

game. If you want the shadows to be

visible always without having to do it

every time, you can place a link for it in

the autorun folder.

9  Windows 7

Bring the Recycle Bin icon to

the taskbar and keep it visible

there

The Recycle Bin is mostly hidden

somewhere on the Desktop and is

thus only rarely used. Pinning it to the

taskbar makes it directly accessible

always. However, Windows refuses this.

The simple pinning of the

recycle bin on the taskbar has many

practical uses. It can be reached through

the Explorer jump list, but that takes

just as long as opening it from the

desktop. To use the Recycle Bin as a

real life waste bin in which you can drag

and drop objects with the mouse, it

should be available directly, for example,

in the taskbar.

Since Windows does not directly

support the pinning, you have to create

a new link for it which you can then

pin. For this, right click on the empty

space on the desktop and select ‘New |

Shortcut’. Enter ‘%systemroot%\explorer.

exe shell:RecycleBinFolder’ as the target

and click on ‘Next’. Change the name and

confirm the dialogue with ‘Finish’. Now

you can even replace the standard icon

given by the Explorer. For this, click with

the right mouse button on this shortcut

and select ‘Properties’. In the register

‘Shortcut’ click on ‘Change icon’. The

program ‘explorer.exe’ already contains

some icons, from which you can sensibly

select the waste basket and confirm with

‘OK’. However, you can also use an icon

from another source, like for example the

file ‘shell32.dll’. In the following dialogue,

click on ‘Apply’ and then ‘OK’. Finally, the

finished shortcut can be attached to the

QUICK TIPS

SPEED UP THE START MENU

For this, in the registry editor, change the

value of the entry ‘MenuShowDelay’ under

‘HKEY_CURRENT-USER\ControlPanel\Desktop’

to ‘0’.

DISPENSE WITH THE RECYCLE BIN

For this, click with the right mouse button on

the desktop, select ‘Customize’ and ‘Change

desktop icons’ and deactivate ‘Recycle bin’.

REMOVE FILE INFO (MS OFFICE)

In the dialogue ‘Properties’, you can clean up

with the link ‘Remove properties and

personal information’ in the section ‘Details’.

PIN START MENU ELEMENTS

In order to pin a program to the Start menu,

simply drag and drop it onto the Start button

or even on the desired spot in the Start

menu.

TURN ON ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS

You can access the dialogue for activating or

deactivating additional functions like ‘telnet’

in Windows 7 directly by typing the command

‘optionalfeatures’ in the Start menu.

The difference in appearance before and after

installing this little utility.

8

Gestures are easy to learn and will greatly speed

up your work.

10  Windows XP, Vista, 7

Apply paths and file names in

the command line

While navigating in the command line,

you have to work your way along the

paths or manually enter the complete

target path. You would like to simplify

this difficult and error-prone work.

The correct way of applying path

and file names in the command line

depends on the respective Windows

version and other parameters. In Vista

and Windows 7, it is recommended, for

example, to first navigate in Windows

Explorer and then open the command

line in the correct folder with the

command ‘Open command prompt here’.

For flexible application of paths and

file names for use in the command line,

it is already possible in XP to drag and

drop the elements from the Windows

Explorer to the command line. While

Vista does not allow it, this method is

again available in Windows7, provided

that the command line has not been

started with administrator rights. Thus,

for example, you can type ‘Type’ and then

drag a file from Explorer. Its name will be

added correctly and if needed with the

quotation marks so that the command

can be completed. In Vista, the only way

is the more difficult method of copying

and pasting. For this, in the Windows

Explorer click on the concerned element

while keeping the [Shift] key pressed

and select ‘Copy as path’. Now, change

to the command line and similarly click

there with the right mouse button in the

window. The context command ‘Add’ will

now apply the data.

11  Windows Vista, 7

Sort last used documents

chronologically

In the Start menu, the entry ‘Recent

items’ makes quick access to recently

used documents and files easy.

However, Windows does not sort the

entries in chronological order.

The sequence of the icons

shown in the Start menu cannot be

changed. However, a small detour

through the Windows Explorer can help

you in your search for particular files,

for example, in order of last modified.

For this, right click on ‘Start | Last

used’ and select the context command

‘Open’. The folder ‘Recent’ appears in

Windows Explorer and there you can

see last used files and folders like

normal links. ‘Recent’ is the memory

location for the menu ‘Last used’.

Click on ‘Change view’ and select

‘Details’. Then, click on ‘Date modified’ in

the sub-menu in order to sort the entries

chronologically according to when they

were last changed. After this, you will find

the last edited Excel tables or the last

written Word file higher in the list.

By the way: You can determine the

number of files shown in the Start menu

in the registry with the DWORD value

‘MaxRecentDocs’ in the key ‘HKEY_

LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\

Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\

ExplorerAeroSnap’.

12  Windows 7

Keep jump lists at all times in

spite of the active clean up tool

In Windows 7, you lose some of the

jump lists in the taskbar from time

to time. But you would like to work

with them always and are therefore

searching for the cause as well as

solution of the problem.

The reason behind the deleted

jump lists are tools like CCleaner.

However, you can change the settings

so that the jump lists of Windows 7 are

not removed. For this, start CCleaner

and select the category ‘Cleaner’ on the

left. In the section ‘Windows’, search for

‘Windows Explorer’. Deactivate the option

‘Taskbar Jump Lists’ under this.

13  Windows Vista, 7

Accentuate active folder in

Explorer/Registry structure

For better orientation in the

Explorer or in the registry keys, you

would like the currently open elements

to appear differently since there is

hardly any difference in the icons in the

standard setting.

In the system, there is no direct

setting for the used folder. But since

Windows differentiates between the

states, different icons can at least be

assigned for this through the registry.

Type ‘regedit’ in the search field of

the Start menu and press enter. Confirm

the query of the user accounts manager

with ‘Yes’ or ‘Continue’. Then, navigate

to the key ‘HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\

SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\

CurrentVersion\Explorer’.

There, search for the sub-key ‘Shell

Icons’ or create the same with the

command ‘Edit | New | Key’. Now, open

this and in there add the value ‘4’ with

the command ‘Edit | New | Character

string’. That is the internal key for the

system icon of an open folder. Double

click on this new entry for editing.

As ‘Value’, you can assign any icon you

wish. For example, use ‘shell32.dll,-46’

here. This entry points to a folder symbol

within the library with an additional

green arrow. You can add an even more

conspicuous symbol like ‘shell32.dll,-290’

or any other. But remember to always put

a minus sign in front of the index number

of the symbol. For searching for an

appropriate symbol, you can use a tool

like IconsExtract. Confirm the entry with

‘OK’ and close the registry. When you

start Windows Explorer or the Registry

editor the next time, the change will become effective.

14  Windows XP, Vista, 7

Display DLL files with separate

icon

As a standard, all DLLs are given

a single icon by the system. You

would rather like to use a unique icon

contained within each DLL file for

display in the Explorer.

With a small change in the

registry, you can change the appearance

of the standard icons. In order to change

the DLL icons, type ‘regedit’ in the search

field of the start menu or in the ‘Run’

dialogue and if necessary confirm the

query of the user accounts manager

with ‘Yes’ or ‘Continue’. Then, navigate to

the key ‘HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\

defaulticon’. On the right, the character

string ‘Standard’ is defined which symbol

is used by the Windows system for

display. For editing this, double click

on this entry. Change ‘Value’ to ‘%1’

and confirm with ‘OK’. Through this

parameter, the particular file will itself be

referred to for the icon. Then, close the

registry and open Windows Explorer.

In the future, you will immediately

recognize in the Explorer if a certain DLL

contains any icons at all. All other DLL

files will only get an standard empty icon.

APPLICATIONs

15 Thunderbird

Move the folder of your profile

to another location

You want to move the profile folder

of Thunderbird hidden on your system

drive to another hard disk so that you

can conveniently include it in backup.

You cannot directly move the

available profile. Instead you will have

to create a new profile, which then

accesses the restored folder. For this, 

if Thunderbird is open then close it

first. Then search the relevant profile

folder in Windows Explorer. For this,

type “%appdata%” in the address bar

and press the enter key. Then navigate

your way to the subfolder “Thunderbird\

Profiles\”. The subfolder with a cryptic

name is the searched profile folder.

Copy it with all the subfolders to a new

location. Important: Do not overwrite

the available folder even during a data

restoration instead create a new profile

with a new folder. Type the command

“thunderbird.exe -ProfileManager” in the

address bar of the explorer and press

enter for creating a new profile. Now click

“Create profile”. In the dialog following

it, enter a name for your new profile

and click "Select folder". Now navigate

to your desired folder, select it and

then click “Complete”. Select the newly

created profile in the profile manager and

activate the option “Don’t ask at startup”.

Finally click “Start Thunderbird”.

16 Firefox

Switch off fraud protection

(Phishing filter) in browser

You want to speed up Firefox. For this,

you can switch off the automatic fraud

protection of the browser.

 

In order to gain more efficiency

from the browser, you can close the

phishing protection of Firefox. Because

if you have a complete security suite like

Norton or Kaspersky installed in your

system, than that is already protecting

you against phishing. So having Firefox’s

phishing filter activated will not be of

mush consequence. For turning off the

phishing filter of Firefox, go to “Tools

| Options”. Here click on the security

option and here deactivate the options

“Block reported attack sites” as well as

“Block reported web forgeries”.

17 Excel 2007, 2010

Visualize cell values with

conditional formatting

When making reports in Excel, you may

wish to highlight certain cell values by

using visual aids in the worksheet.

 

Select the cells whose values

you want to support visually and click

“Conditional Formatting” in the “Home” 

tab. Here, you can select from several

predefined formats. These include

‘Highlight Cell Rules’, ‘Top/Bottom Rules’,

‘Data Bars’, ‘Color Scales’ and ‘Icon

Sets’. Under ‘Highlight Cell Rules’, you

have the option to highlight data that is

greater, lesser, equal to, or between the

specified values. Apart from this, you

can also highlight according to text, date

and duplicate values. The ‘Top/Bottom

Rules’ allow you to highlight the top

ten, bottom ten, above average, bottom

average and even top/bottom ten based

on percentage.

For representing the data in a more

appealing way, you can even make use

of the ‘Data Bars’, Color Scales’ and the

‘Icon Sets’. With the help of the ‘Data

Bars’ you can make use of colored data

bar within the cell. Here the length of

the data bar corresponds with the cell

value. So higher the value, longer will

be the bar. You can also make use of

the ‘Color Scales’ that displays two or

three color gradients in the range of the

QUICK TIPS

EMPHASIZE WORD TEXT

In Word, use the key combination [Ctrl] +

[Shift] + U to underline text. However, if

you wish to emphasize the text by using

double underline then you can use the key

combination [Ctrl] + [Shift] + U + D and

to underline only the words without the

spaces use the key combination [Ctrl] + [Shift]

+ U + W.

EXPAND TABLE

In Excel, use the key combination [Ctrl] + [+]

to open the “Add cells” option. With this, you

can either add an individual cell or an “Entire

row” or an “Entire column”

CREATE CHART

In Excel, to create charts, you can simply

select the data and use the key combination

[ALT] + F1 or F11.

COPY TABLE SHEETS

In order to copy the Excel table, keep the

[Ctrl] key pressed and drag the table to the

desired place with the left mouse button

clicked.

DISPLAY MENU BAR

To activate the menu bar, go to IE and rightclick

on the title row and activate the

desired bar.

SEARCH IN A NEW TAB

After entering the search term press [Alt] +

[Enter] in Firefox to display the search result

in a new tab.

For a new profile, you can select a storage location

of data on a more practical location.

15

With conditional formatting, you can change the

look of cells based on the data.

17

You can often spare the double check of fraud

attempts in Firefox and hence surf faster.

16

the shade represents the

value. Alternatively you can make use of

the various icons from the ‘Icon Sets’ to

represent cell data visually.

18 iTunes

Convert titles from the internal

format to MP3

You have purchased various songs in

the iTunes store. As these are coded in

Apple’s M4A or M4P format, the titles

can normally be played only in iTunes

or with an iPod.

It’s possible to convert audio files

in MP3 format directly from iTunes. For

this, you only have to adjust the import

settings. Open “Edit | Preferences”

command and then select “General”

category. Here, click the “Import settings”

button. Now in the “Import using”

combination field, change the setting

to “MP3 encoder”. Confirm both open

dialogs with “OK”. Open the media library

or any playlist and select the desired

title with the [Ctrl] key pressed. Then

right click on it and select the context

command “Create MP3 version”. For all

newer files, this option should work, as

Apple is doing away with the old and

much criticized DRM protection of its

files since some time. If some of the

files cannot be converted, it probably

concerns older DRM-protected M4P files.

Collect these problematic cases in a

separate playlist. Then right click to the

left of this list and select the context

command “Burn playlist on medium”. In

the next dialog, make further settings

for burning. As the format, select either

“Audio CD” or “MP3 CD”.

For the conversion process, you will

however have to use the expensive

disk. Or you can use softwares like

NoteBurner or Virtual CD, to burn a

virtual CD without a medium. After the

procedure, you will either have an audio

CD, a medium with MP3s or the images

developed from virtual burning. Insert the

disks or mount the images to copy down

the music again, or to rip it.

19  Word 2003, 2007, 2010

Look for certain elements

specifically in large

documents

Every now and then, you look for the

next table or the next footnote in

larger files. For that, you either have

to go through the trouble of advanced

search for formatting or special

formatting.

Word has a highly efficient

special search option that is hardly

known to many people. The icon for

which is very inconspicuous and is

placed right below the scrollbar, in

the form of a circle icon with two

double arrows above and below it.

First click the circle icon and select

what you are looking for in the dialog

that pops up. From here you can quickly

access the “Go to” and “Search”, options.

While with the help of the other icons,

you can specifically search for graphics,

tables, fields, footnotes or endnotes.

Furthermore, you can search for editing

or comments in the text, and browse

through the contents section by section

or page by page.

After selecting the mode, you can

now search forward or backward for the

next suitable element in the document

using the respective double arrow

icons. The navigation also functions

with the keyboard with the [Ctrl] key

pressed using the scroll keys. This type

of browsing between sections, pages,

graphics or other elements allows for a

very efficient navigation, especially when

working on larger documents.

20 Outlook 2003, 2007, 2010

Export contacts / data easily

and quickly

You want to export your contacts from

Outlook to Excel or to another program

for editing.

Outlook allows you to export

your data that includes contacts, data,

calendar etc. For this, click on “File”

command and then select the “Import

and Export”. In the “Import and Export”

Even titles that cannot be converted directly can

be burned onto a CD and ripped as MP3.

18

The special search functions in Word simplify the

navigation distinctly.

19

Export your data with the help of the Import and

Export Wizard.

20

wizard you will find the “Export in

file” option. Select that and click on

“Next”. Now select the data format, e.g.

“Microsoft Excel 97-2003” or “Commaseparated

values (Windows)”. After

clicking “Next”, select the Outlook folder

to be exported, e.g. “Contacts” and again

click “Next”. Now determine the target

file. Then start the action by clicking

“Next” and “Finish”. Your data will be

successfully exported.

21  Excel XP, 2003, 2007,

2010

Highlight the active cell in

Microsoft Excel

It is often difficult in large tables to

find the active selected cell. You want

to configure Excel in a way that this

cell always and automatically stands

out from the rest of the sheet.

When working on large tables, it

becomes difficult to find the active cell.

To solve this problem you can download

a free add-in named RowLiner, which

can be downloaded from http://www.

cpearson.com/excel/rowliner.htm.

Double click on the file to install it. Once

installed, it can be accessed form the

“Add-ins” tab from the menu bar. Once

activated, it will highlight your active cell.

To change its settings, click “RowLiner”

in the “Add-ins” tab and select the

“RowLiner Setup”. Here you have

different options for rows and columns,

as to where these are shown and how

they should appear. To the right, you

can control the structure of the active

cell. Then confirm the configuration with

“OK”. However, the “Undo” function is not

available in active RowLiner. In case of

extensive entries, you should deactivate

RowLiner temporarily. For that, click

“RowLiner” in the “Add-Ins” tab and

deactivate the “Draw Lines” option.

22  Word XP, 2003, 2010

Underline text passages in

Word in a different color

If you want to underline text in Word,

the text editing uses the same color

for it as the text. But you want to

underline the text in a different color.

Select the text passages to be

underlined and open the menu command

“Format | Font” and then select the

desired format in the “Underline”

combination field. With “Only words”, you

can determine that Word only underlines

the words from the selection without

spaces. All other types, underline the

entire selection including the spaces.

In that, you can select from various

underlining types. As soon as you make

a selection different from “(none)”, Word

activates the “Color” combination box to

the right. Select the color that Word is

supposed to use for underlining. Confirm

your selection with “OK”. However, the

changed formatting only applies to

the currently selected text passage. If

you subsequently underline other text

passages with [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[U] or with

the button in the toolbar, the text editing

again uses the color of the text.

23  Outlook 2010

Delete appointments prior to a

specific date in one go

You want to remove all the

appointments prior to a specific date

from your personal “Calendar” in order

to make some space in the Outlook

PST database (Personal store).

All the appointments that are set

prior to a specific date can be deleted

quickly and when displayed in a tabular

format. It displays only the appointments

and does not give out the days, weeks

and months individually. For this you

first need to activate the calendar by

clicking on the “Calendar” tab from

the Navigation field. Then go to the

“View” tab, click on the “Change view”

button and select the entry “List” in the

following menu.

Now the next step is to sort the

displayed appointments in accordance

with the beginning or end period. Check

whether Outlook has correctly sorted

the appointments in a descending

chronological order and if necessary

click one more time on the column

heading till it is arranged in a correct

order. Now, look out for the first entry

of the date in the list where you would

want to delete the appointments prior

to this date and mark it. Then keeping

the “Shift” button pressed mark

the last entry. All the appointments

in between the first and the last

selected entries will be automatically

selected when the shift button is

kept pressed during the selection.

Now, delete these appointments

by pressing the [Delete] button. With

this, Outlook automatically moves

the deleted appointments to the

folder “Deleted Items”. You can still

restore the deleted appointments

if this folder is not emptied.

24  Word 2007, 2010

Use word processing for

publishing content in blogs

You write new articles for a blog now

and then. For this, most of the times

you first type in the article in Microsoft

word and then step by step copy it

on to the form given on the relevant

website.

The standard Word supports

direct publishing of an article onto a

Using font format, you can also change the look

and the color for underline.

22

The lines and markings of RowLiner promptly lead

you to the active line even in large tables.

21

You can delete the appointments prior to a specific

date quickly in a tabular format

23

blog. For this, you will first need to set

up the necessary access data and then

begin writing a new blog article using

the suitable template of your choice. For

this, you just need to have a blog set

up. You can do this via services such as

Wordpress, Blogger, etc..

Now, go to Word and follow the path

“File | New”. Select the option “Blog

Post” from the available templates

and then right-click on “Create”. A new

window will open, wherein you will get

a dialog for registration. Here, click on

“Register now”. In the next step, select

the name of the blog service you signed

up for, for example, “WordPress” in the

combination field and click on “Next”.

You will now be provided with a

link in the next dialog. Edit the entry

for “Blog Post URL” in such a way that

it will be displayed as your own blog.

Just make sure that the suffix “xmlrpc.

php” remains unchanged, otherwise the

registration would fail. You will also need

to add the login data in the “User name”

and “Password” fields. Next, activate

the option to “Save password” and

confirm this step by clocking on “OK”.

In case an error message pops up

check the spellings in the access data

as well as the exact form of the URL.

In addition to this, the access over the

API must also be stated in the blog.

Now, you can simply write and save

the blog article in the same way as you

would save a Word document. You can

directly publish the article on to the

blog by clicking the “Publish” button

available in the “Blog Post” tab. You can

even manage the blogs over “Manage

Accounts” tab when you want to manage

more blogs. You can even edit the

already published articles comfortably

over the “Open existing” option.

Note: It may so happen that Word

cannot be accessed at all times when

there are changes at the server end at

the blog providers or updates in Word.

At the moment there isn’t any general

solution found for this problem. In such

a case you can switch to a special blog

editor like say Windows Live Writer.

25  Word XP, 2003

Ignore the auto complete

suggestions for the current

date

The moment you write the current

year, Word will give you the date. You

can ignore this suggestion altogether.

Open the menu command “Tools

| AutoCorrect Options” to change this

mode. Open the tab “Auto Text” in the

next dialog and disable the option “Show

AutoComplete Suggestions”. Confirm

using “OK”. In any case, 2003 onwards

Word has done away with the AutoText

option for Suggestions of AutoComplete.

Communication

26  Firefox

Control address bar access in

Firefox with the old shortcut

[F6]

So far, you could jump directly to the

entry in the address bar by pressing

the [F6] key. However, from version 4

onwards, pressing F6 takes you to the

current active tab.

With [F6], the focus always shifts

to the topmost element in the window.

As it is the tab bar, the active tab is

selected. However, pressing [Tab] once

again is enough to set the cursor in the

address bar. In the newer versions of

Firefox pressing F6 will focus on the

active tab instead of the address bar.

You can change this by deactivating

the “Tabs on top” option. For this, right

click in a free area in the tab bar and

deactivate the “Tabs on top” option.

After this address bar will become the

top most element followed by the tab

bar. So when you press F6 you will be

taken to top most element that is the

address bar. Another easier option to

reach the address bar directly is using

the key combination [Ctrl] + [L

Now it is easy to directly write and manage your

blog entries using Microsoft Word

24

Disable the AutoComplete option

25

Using the Toolbox, you can have easy access to all

commands.