It's Halloween. I sit alone in my living room with the curtains drawn and the lights out. I am not getting into the spirit of things, though, I just want those pesky trick or treaters to think there's nobody home. Instead I will pass on to you some choice tricks from the vast and varied world of Microsoft Office applications.

Trick! Keep Your Recent Documents Recent.
When you are working on a document you have created in an Office application, you can access it quickly via Recent Documents - no problem. This easy access route is lost, however, when other documents are opened and yours is gradually nudged down the list and relegated to the relative obscurity of wherever you have saved it. If you have a document that is used regularly, a stock letter for example, then it would be handy to have it permanently lodged in Recent Documents so that it could always be opened via this useful shortcut. That is exactly what you can do simply by clicking the thumb tack (that's a drawing pin to me and you) icon to the right of the document's title. Et voila - a permanent, easily accessible link to that oft-opened document without the searching.

Trick! Save Time With AutoCorrect
A scenario. You are running the fan club for the latest boy band sensation Testarossa Through Testosterone. Obviously you will be typing out this name many times as you respond to letters and update news about the band and their music. Typing such a long name over and over would pretty soon become a pain in the neck, enough to have you contemplating quitting and starting a JLS fan site instead. Well, fear not - you can create a unique abbreviation in AutoCorrect that will print out the name in full, saving you time and keystrokes. So in this case the abbreviation TTT could be entered and AutoCorrect would print it as Testarossa Through Testosterone.

To customise AutoCorrect in Word 2007, click the Office button and select Word Options. Click Proofing in the left pane and click the AutoCorrect Options button. Select the AutoCorrect tab and in the box labelled Replace, type the abbreviation you want to use. Then, in the box labeled With, enter the full text that you want to replace the abbreviation, (in this scenario you want to replace the abbreviation you type, TTT, with the band's name in full, Testarossa Through Testosterone). Click Add, then OK - job done. AutoCorrect will also pick up on any mis-spelt words and correct them as you type.

Trick! Recall An Email You Didn't Mean To Send
It's a nightmare scenario; you spent an age compiling an email in which you declared your undying love for your sweetheart and then you accidentally sent it to your boss. Before you collapse into a sobbing heap, there is a chance that you could retrieve the mail, providing it hasn't been opened. So jump to it; go to the Sent Items folder in Outlook and open the message you want to recall. Go to Tools and click on Recall This Message. If your message hasn't already been opened by the the boss, delete it immediately. Bear in mind, though, that although you may successfully recall the email, your boss could still be aware that a message has been sent and recalled so you may have to be ready with a plausible excuse. If your boss had already opened the mail then there is not much you can do about it - a week on the sick might be your best bet.

So there they are - three top drawer Office tricks that work a treat and a nice closing play on words for Halloween.