Explore a wide range of software applications, including their features, benefits, and best practices for maximising their potential in various business and personal contexts.
If you’re running Windows XP, you’ll be familiar with that annoying update that happens when you try and shut down for the day. It takes ages, it means you can’t simply switch off and run out the door, and there’s a good chance you’ll miss your train because of that wretched ‘Updating 1 of […]
We’ve already discussed what the cessation of support for Windows XP means for your business. Deciding whether to upgrade to Windows 7 or 8 has had the Google+ community divided, though one thing is for sure: Windows XP is going to be missed. Windows XP X-Tinct To celebrate the success of the operating system, Microsoft […]
Everyone knows the best things in life are free. That’s why we’ve made our entire library of Microsoft Office training manuals available for you to download completely free of charge. Our comprehensive resources include manuals for Word, Excel (as used on our Microsoft Excel Training courses), PowerPoint, Access, Project & Visio, ranging from 2003 to […]
Released on August 24th, 2001, Windows XP is widely regarded as Microsoft’s most successful OS, boasting over 400 million active users at its peak in January 2006. Now almost 12 years old, Microsoft have decided to cease support for Windows XP effective April 8th, 2014. Continued use of the OS after this date runs the […]
In life as in business, we always strive to find the easiest ways of getting things done. Sometimes, however, the simplest methods involve cutting corners, obtaining short-term results but long-term headaches. One of a long line of Excel features, the PivotTable is the best way to break your information down into more manageable chunks. In […]
It’s easy to see why Office 365 is now the most popular MS suite to date. With over 1 million subscribers during its 2013 launch, it’s packed with all the great features that we know and love about Office, with the added bonus of online storage, file sharing and collaboration. With new save and share […]
In the right hands, PowerPoint can be an extremely useful presentation tool. However, much like Excel, the low barrier to entry for PowerPoint means that anyone can get their hands on the software and that’s where the problems begin. Cue poor presentations and cringe moments. These three tips twinned with our other bite-sized tips will […]
See the timing of trends in your Excel 2013 PivotTable data with the new timeline feature. By default the data is split into months, though manipulation allows you to break this down into weeks, quarters, years or even days if you prefer. If you make user of Slicers in your PivotTables and PivotCharts, you will […]
Visual reports are another fantastic way to share figures with stakeholders in way that’s digestible and easy to break down. In Project 2013, you can view specific project data in a visual report in Excel or Visio, if you have those programs installed. How to: Select Reports, Visual Reports, select an Excel or Visio report for your project […]
Whether you’ve decided to use a suggested chart to represent your data or already knew which one works best from the outset, a new toolbar in Excel 2013 allow you to customise your visualisation quicker. Selecting the chart will automatically reveal two tool ribbons: Design & Format, both specifically designed to help you manipulate your […]
Cost Overview Reports Where is your spend going? Could your resources be better allocated? Cost Overview reports in MS Project are a great way of keeping track of your budget in a way that’s digestible and simple to share with colleagues and clients. The Cost Overview report shows the following prior to setting a baseline: […]
In years gone by, the Microsoft Office Suite would come pre-loaded on your PC or laptop. However, due to a host of market influences including increasing demand for cheaper hardware, many products were boxed and customers were invited to pay only for the applications they needed. In June 2011, Microsoft launched Office 365, a subscription […]
Project 2013 comes with a brand new set of pre-designed reports and dashboards to help you better understand your data. You can visualise performance and analyse resources in ways that weren’t previously possible in Microsoft Project. The burndown report is a much-requested feature that will be especially interesting to those of you practicing agile and […]
Introduced in Excel 2010, Sparklines create charts within a cell. It can help to show one figure in context with others and illustrate trends. In this example a blank column is created for the sparklines before selecting the adjacent data. In Excel 2013 the Quick Analysis feature has now brought Sparklines to the fore. Perfect […]
The Folder Pane and the Peek feature provide quick and convenient ways to open your email, calendar, contacts, and tasks. One of the new features in Outlook 2013 is the ability to peek at the details of the other Outlook objects such as Calendar, Tasks and Email. This is great for those times when you […]
The Timeline feature was first introduced to MS Project users in 2010. It helps to display a visual summary of a project. This post will detail the many functions of the Timeline feature and which benefits it can offer in addition to the normal Gantt view. In its simplest form, the Timeline can be used […]
Comparing and tracking changes in a spreadsheet is hard work. It’s utterly necessary but that doesn’t make it any easier. When you start adding in modifications to the VBA code underneath – which is not immediately obvious – there’s a mountain of things to screen. If a colleague has modified a module you’ll have to […]
One of the most common questions in PowerPoint training is “how can I see something different on my screen to the audience?” The answer is complicated and involves multiple graphics card outputs. The Presenter View was added in 2010 but has really come into it’s own in PowerPoint 2013. In Presenter View you can see […]
For users with the Office Professional Plus package, the Inquire add-in comes pre-installed on Excel 2013. Helping you to analyse, audit and review workbooks, this great new feature also has the potential to highlight errors and security concerns. We recently discussed, how to take back control of your spreadsheets by reducing “fat finger mistakes” and […]
Because appearance means everything in modern day business, you’ll want to make sure that you dress right for the occasion. Outlook 2013’s new Calendar view will give you all the information you need to plan your day’s schedule or your next trip. The temperature defaults to Fahrenheit which can be changed easily. How to: File […]
Previous versions of Word came with useful layout options optimised for printing and web viewing. Print layout and webpage layout were particularly useful in years gone by. The recent addition to Word 2013 sees the introduction of a new Read Mode. Optimised for tablets and touch, your document will adjust according to screen size and […]
A great way of preserving the look and feel of the original source document when sending to multiple devices, the PDF is a much loved office favourite. Compressing large file sizes into much reduced versions is one of the PDFs best features. However, up until recently, making changes to a PDF file in Word was […]
Social networking is an important part of modern day business. Microsoft have recognised this and redesigned Outlook around your favourite platforms, LinkedIn, Facebook and others. Get the updates that you want from the people that you trust, right on time. When you open an email in Outlook, the Outlook Social Connector is minimized as a […]
Save time and effort with Flash Fill for Excel 2013. Just one in a long line of nifty improvements to help you work more efficiently. Flash Fill for Excel 2013 notices patterns in your data entry and then auto completes the remaining, so there’s no need to use formulas or macros to do this. Data […]
So many times people pick the wrong chart type for their data. There’s a time and a place for pies, and lines aren’t for everyone. Picking the right one takes a bit of thought. The Charts option in the Quick Analysis gallery, a new feature for Excel 2013, allows the user to quickly view and […]
If you’ve got a lot of data, it’s not always easy to spot trends and to easily analyse your figures. Conditional Formatting can instantly show you patterns in your data by highlighting cells that meet certain conditions. So for example you might want to flag up sales below a certain threshold in red, or bold occurrences of […]
Poor Excel skills are costing UK businesses millions in lost revenue. According to an article in the Financial Times more than half of financial service groups have “poorly applied or no controls for managing business critical spreadsheets”. The article blamed losses in part due to “avoidable errors in MS spreadsheets”. So, what could thousands of UK […]
The Sigmoid Curve, or S Curve as it’s otherwise referred to, can represent any number of things. Its characteristics are easily recognisable with a period of slow initial growth, through rapid expansion and finally reaching a plateau. Its use varies from illustrating the lifecycle of a new product, the cost effectiveness of a training course, […]
Project management can be a daunting task, especially if you are new to the role. To ensure that you stay on top of things throughout the course of your project, whilst keeping everyone happy, we recommend using Earned Value Equations. This article will discuss the benefits of using Earned Value Formulae when conducting your projects, […]
For those of you that have been using computers since the 1990’s, you’ll likely remember a number of Easter Eggs embedded into a range of Microsoft applications. But do you remember all of them? This post will take you on a trip down memory lane to a time before the Trustworthy Computing Initiative of 2002, […]
Formerly named Business Productivity Online Suite, Office 365 sees the introduction of a host of cool features that have the potential to increase your company’s productivity. With the ability to take your Office suite and put it onto the cloud, there’s huge scope for businesses to work more efficiently. Your Office can be accessed anywhere […]
Passing your spreadsheet and database needs to an external company is all too appealing when looking for quick results at low cost. But, is this economically viable or is outsourcing slowing bringing Britain to its knees? Can the US President’s passion for insourcing make Britain Great again? Insourcing is the process of bringing operations back […]
A question that often arises with a newly launched version of an application is; Will the new file format be compatible with an older version? If you are a Microsoft Project user then this question is asked more often than with other Microsoft applications. If you have been sent a Project MPP file created in […]
When you open the Basic Flowchart template in Visio, the Basic Flowchart Shapes stencil opens too. Each shape on the stencil represents a different kind of step in a process. However, there is no standard, universal meaning for the shapes – any shape can carry whatever meaning is agreed on by the people who will […]
In a commercial environment you’re probably aware of the ever-deepening sea of paperwork that lands in your inbox or on your desk. Over time we develop skills in picking out key points from the entire document, but over time we also become passive viewers of content both at work and in our personal lives. How […]
This week we published an infographic detailing What’s in and What’s out in Office 2013. Click the image to see the full thing…
After you’ve worked with VBA for a while, you’re going to want to prompt the user to open a file. Maybe they need to go and select the latest download from their database, or you need to import the contents of the latest sales data. Whatever the scenario, you’re going to need to access the […]
It’s important to stay ahead of the game and decent spreadsheet software such as Microsoft Excel is still regarded as one of the most empowering and flexible ways to track your SEO campaigns. In conjunction with important tools such as Google Analytics & Keyword Tools, Excel is able to help provide unrivalled analysis to aid […]
I used to work with a colleague who maintained a postal mailing list for a brochure we would send out. He used to spend some of his time cleaning up that list by removing repeat entries of customer email addresses who had signed up more than once. “De-duping” he called it. He would block out […]
Printing out Excel spreadsheets can be frustrating. Often you end up with one piece of paper with only one column of data on! If you are printing a spreadsheet that will take up more than one page, you have the ability to control were the page breaks. To do this you need to be in […]
Some people spend a lot of time working with Microsoft Office, performing the same actions over and over again. Using the mouse is a friendly and easy way to navigate around your presentations, but keyboard shortcuts can really speed up your workflow. Just a couple sprinkled throughout your week can add up to significant time […]
You’ve found the perfect image that illustrates the point you’re trying to make in your presentation, so you drop it in. Unfortunately it has a big white rectangle around it that really spoils the look. Or you’ve inserted the logo for your company’s new product but the black background makes it jar against the slide. […]
I even like the sound of it “zoom control”…I was so used to working in whatever view is set up, and then scrolling across endlessly to find the data I wanted to view…and if that didn’t work…I squinted. But I don’t have to. I discovered Zoooom control. I can access it using the Zoom control […]
Minor panic yesterday…I’d worked on an Excel file and quite possibly (you can take that as a yes) I hadn’t saved the changes. I was a bit distracted at the time and seemed to have forgotten the basic Save. Excel is very forgiving like this. It has a way that you can recover unsaved work. […]
Error checking is part of Excel’s auditing tools. It is set up to check your formulas for errors. Like spellcheck, the Error checker tool won’t necessarily find all errors, but it is a useful auditing tool as it works through your document to flag up the errors it spots. In the Formula tab, you have […]
Hyperlinks can add links to an Outlook email address to your Excel worksheet. Here is how to do it. In the cell you wish to add the email address, go to the Insert tab, and select the hyperlink button Type your preferred text into the cell (this saves space as email address are long). This […]
If you use mailmerge in Word, often the source of contact details comes from Excel. And there are times when you inherit contact details from another project or colleague, and the names may not be separated. This can be a heart-sink moment as you need to separate each name individually. Argh…this is going to take […]
When you have worked hard to set up and create an Excel workbook, which may include 3D formulas, pivot tables and links to other key worksheets, you will want to protect your work from unwanted changes. Excel allows you to protect your worksheets work and allow editing It isn’t just about stopping people from making changes to […]
PDF makes a document read only. This can be useful when you want to share information with colleagues, but don’t want them to have access to formulas or make changes to your document. It is one of several ways you can use to protect your Excel documents. To save your current Excel worksheet as a […]
It is possible to use Excel for data entry and miss out some of the tools that can make analysing and summarising data easy-peasy. For me, this was Pivot tables. I avoided Pivot tables because a) I didn’t know what they were and b) I thought it would be too difficult to use as they […]