Let me (or us, as the case may be) help with questions regarding Office 2007

General Questions
#1

I was just over in the BBQ pit and reading the thread about Office 2007. I’m actually currently assisting a professor who is teaching a course on that particular set of software. Plus, I’m just nerdy enough to enjoy playing with software in order to figure out how to make it do things.

Anyway, one of the things that just came up is that the help section in the latest MS Office suite is more than a little lackluster. So, rather than hijack that thread, I thought it would make sense to open separate thread over in this section.

Iff’n you got questions regarding how to accomplish something with the new Office software, feel free to post 'em here… I don’t purport to know everything about those programs, but I will gladly answer the questions that I can, and look into the best answer for questions I can’t immediately address…

#2

Or, someone else may know the answer - if so, please don’t be shy.

(that was supposed to be part of the OP, but the durn preview button escaped from me once again…)

#3

this is probably dead simple, but I haven’t had a chance to figure it out. When I open a new doc, I want it to be set at TNR, 12 point, and “list paragraph” style as the default. How do I do this?

#4

Yeah, how do you set the default for the font and paragraph style you want? Remove lines after paragraphs, single space, etc.? I hate setting three options every time I open a new document.

And tabs – heck, I never figured out tab stops in 2003, let alone 2007.

#5

Hi, pepperlandgirl - first off, whether something is “dead simple” is very much in the eye of the beholder when it comes to any new software setup, so don’t think of it that way.

Anyway, to answer your question - you can access the default setup for your documents under the “Home” portion of the upper menu (the one that comes up when you initially open Word). You should see a “styles” section, and one option within that section that says “Normal”. That there is the default setup for your documents. Right-click it, and you should see a window come up with your standard font options.

For more options, you can then click the “Format” button in the bottom left of that new window that came up. “Paragraph” is one of the options there - I myself don’t know what the “list paragraph” that you mentioned means, but you should be able to find something that fits what you need to do there.

Now, one thing (and this important to decrease ongoing frustration). In that previously mentioned window that pops up, there are two radio buttons at the bottom, which ask if you want your specs (font, paragraph, etc) to apply to only the current document, or to every document starting now. To make your changes permanent, you need to select the radio button that specifies “apply to all new documents based on this template”.

If you do that, then click Ok, any new blank document that you open should contain the font/paragraph specs that you want.

#6

“list paragraph” is one of the styles on the Style Menu (the very bottom one). tries suggestion And it worked! Fantastic!

#7

Check this out - if you haven’t changed your display options for Word 2007, then you should see a ruler-lookin’ thing above your document, but below the menu items. Double-click in said ruler-lookin’ thing (ideally, in the location you want your tab stop to be). A window will pop up - in this window, you can specify the type of tab stop that you need, and where exactly it should be.

#8

Sweet! Glad it worked out…

#9

I have a list of numbers and I want to have 3 digits to the right of the decimal, even if they are 3 zeros. The old highlight, formant, number, no. of digits was so simple. I couldn’t get adequate “help” on that although the subject did show up. I’m closing for tonight.

#10

Many apologies for not getting back to you sooner, Ignatz - I honestly just noticed your post this morning. You’ve probably gotten this sorted out already, but in case you haven’t…

I’m assuming you’re talking about Excel. If so, good news - the decimal thing is pretty easy. In the “Home” tab, there is a section labeled “Numbers”. On the right hand side of that section, you’ll see two buttons - one with some zeros and a left arrow, one with some zeros and a right arrow. These two buttons control your decimal places. The left arrow button increases the number of decimal places, the right arrow button decreases the number of decimal places.

And, as an added cool thing, check out the little diagonal arrow in the very bottom right of the “Numbers” section of the “Home” tab. If you click that little guy, it brings up the old “Format Cells” dialog box that folks are familiar with from Excel 2003.

#11

So I know how choose to “show white space” in print view.

But how do I get it to start up that way? I always want to “show white space.”

#12

For this, you need to start with the round “Office” button up on the top left of your screen. a dialog box pops up - most functions are listed along the left side of this box, but you want the “Word Options” button at the bottom of the box. Click this, then choose “Display”. From here, the check box for “Show white space” should be first in the list. Make sure this is checked, click ok, and you’re all set - your print layout view should now show the white space by default.

#13

unstrung, I want to fill out a paper form on the computer, in Word 2007, and then put the actual paper form through the printer with only what I typed printing out onto the form.

I scanned the form, a 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" statement, and copied it into a new Word 2007 document which I also made 5-1/2" x 8-1/2". I inserted the image beneath the Text Layer, on the Drawing Layer. Then I inserted Text Boxes in the fields of the form that ask for information.

I attempted to put the Text Boxes in the Inline Text Layer. It was my impression that then, when I press Print and put the original paper statement through the printer, only what I typed would print onto the statement. Instead, what prints out is the scanned image along with all the information I typed into the Text Boxes.

Any advice you could point me to that would tell how to make the Drawing Layer *not print *but the Text Boxes print?

#14

Is there any way to use functions in Excel 2007 for the Mac? They seem to have done away with Visual Basic on the Mac, which I could live with if they still allowed user-written functions, but I can’t find any way to do that.

w.

#15

Mark, sorry for taking so long to get back to you - been away from the Straight Dope for a bit, and am just now getting back and catching up. Given that your post was a month and a half ago, you’ve probably already figured out a solution, but in case you haven’t…

One thing you could try is via the display options. You can get to this two ways:

  1. From the start menu (the office icon up in the top left), choose “Word Options” - this is not a regular menu item, but a button at the bottom of the dialog box, next to “Exit Word”. Then select “Display”.

  2. Select Print (not Quick Print), then click the “Options” button.

Once there, you should see a section towards the bottom marked “Printing Options”. There you will find a check box for “Print Drawings created in Word”. Uncheck this box and click OK. This should prevent the scanned image from printing.

Now, I know you’ve said you have your text boxes set as in-line, but you might want to double check this. If you can still click them and drag them around, Word probably still considers them as floating text boxes, and will most likely suppress those from printing along with the scanned image. Right-click the text box and choose “Edit Text Box”. Click the “Text Box” tab, then click the button in the bottom right labelled “Convert to frame”. Now, you should be ok to get the printout you are looking for.

I know the above a bit of a process, so… as a less official according to MS Word yet much easier solution, simply save the document, then delete the scanned image, then print. Close the document without saving, and when you open it back up, the scanned image will be back where it was.

Hope this helps…

#16

This one, I unfortunately cannot answer. I’m not really familiar with the Mac version of Office…

#17

I have not. It’s proven quite the intractable problem for this simple mind. Both your suggestions have filled me with new hope though.

Trying to solve this puzzle has taken me pretty deeply into Word 2007 (plus a little bit into Publisher), for which I’m grateful, and I have come to like it. I won’t be able to try the solution(s) right away since my free trial with Microsoft Office 2007 came to an end about a month ago. I don’t have Word now except an older version at work. I’m using Open Office Writer at home. But Office 2007 is on my wish list. I intend to try purchasing it at The Ultimate Steal website soon.

Thanks for taking time to explain the solutions. They sound like they might just work and I"ll let you know how it goes.

#18

In Outlook, I have sever sub folders in my Inbox, and some sub-sub folders. I like to display the folder contents with the folder list on the left; a middle column with AutoPreview OFF, and the reading pane on the right. About a month ago, I logged on in the morning and AutoPreview was ON and there was no reading pane. With Inbox selected, I went to the View menu and changed it back to the way I wanted it, thinking it would globally change Inbox and all subfolders. But no luck- every single subfolder and sub-sub folder still has to be changed manually. The problem is I must have a couple hundred of them.

Is there a global change to get the view back to the way I want it, or do I have to change each one manually?

#19

Hmm. You’ve got me stumped on this one (for now). It seems like there must be a way to do this, but for the life of me I can’t find it. I’ll do a little more research and get back to you…

#20

I don’t know if I have Office 2007 on my computer (the IT guys don’t always keep us up to date on technicalities things like that), but I have a question about Outlook. (I posted a thread about it last week, but didn’t get many replies.)

For record-keeping purposes, I print out all my e-mails and put a copy on the relevant file. That can be important if there are ever any questions about when a particular document crossed my desk as an attachment to an e-mail.

My problem is that when the e-mail containing the attachment is sent in html format, the names of the attachments don’t print, so the hard copy doesn’t show the attachments. If the e-mail was sent in text format, the attachments show up as icons on the printed version.

In the html version, the attachments are in a field, under the cc field, not in the body of the e-mail. Is there any way to tell the printer to print the attachments field for html e-mails?

thanks in advance - great thread, and thanks for helping us techno-peasants!