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Word doesn't get the (insertion) point - style shortcuts at end of word

snuffleupagus — Thu, 09 May 2013 10:05:45 -0800

In Mac Word 2011 - When editing a block of existing text, with the insertion point at the end of newly typed word, using command-B or command-I seems to style the word preceding the insertion point, and that I just applied styles to, rather than turning the styles off for the word I am about to type. Can this behavior be altered? This is contrary to the behavior of every previous version of Word I can recall using (and every other word processor, generally) and is driving me nuts in trying to clean up an existing document. My current kludge is to type a space, then Shift+back-arrow to select the space, then Command-B or whatever to disable the style, and then space and resume typing.

But that's stupid and way too much work for what should be accomplished with one keystroke.

[Excelfilter] How do I stop Excel from formatting my numbers?

crios — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:01:23 -0800

I sat on the phone with Microsoft support and they weren't able to help me. I've scoured the internet trying to find a solution to this problem and I'm just about ready to give up. Can Metafilter rise to the challenge? How do I stop Microsoft Excel from formatting numbers into scientific notation? No matter what I do, Excel keeps doing this. Please make it stop. See the youtube video I made explaining my problem (45 seconds). I'm a librarian. Every couple of months I need to export new books that we have recently added to our collection from our catalog. Unfortunately the catalog gives me ISBN numbers with dashes. I need to upload these ISBN numbers to the database Novelist. Unfortunately Novelist only seems to accept ISBN numbers without dashes.

Here is the crux of my problem.
Excel WILL NOT remove the dashes without formatting the ISBN numbers into scientific notation. No matter what I do, they will be formatted after I remove the dashes. I've scoured the internet, I've called Microsoft, does anybody know how to turn this "feature" off?

If any librarians know of a better way to perform this procedure, please tell me.

Learning to use VBA

Proginoskes — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 21:31:13 -0800

I have read that John Walkenbach's books are the de-facto standard for learning to use VBA in Microsoft Excel. I'd like to know what books are recommended to learn to use vba in other Office products - primarily Access, but also Word and Powerpoint. I'm more interested in books than in websites.

Why does my Microsoft BlueTrack mouse work almost nowhere?

Flunkie — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:35:47 -0800

Microsoft advertises their "BlueTrack" mice as being able to work on almost any surface, with only a few exceptions (mirrors and glass, if I remember correctly). But mine works on almost no surface. I've found that it works on a small glossy sticker that came on my laptop (in the area below the keyboard). Other than that, it works nowhere, and I mean nowhere. I have tried my couch cushion. I have tried my pants leg. I have tried my actual leg. I have tried a piece of paper. I have tried a piece of cardboard. I have tried a piece of plastic. I have tried a hardbook cover. I have tried a paperback book cover. I have tried a glossy magazine cover. I have tried a glossy book cover that seems to me to be just as glossy as the glossy sticker. I have tried an old-school mouse pad. I have even, in desperation, tried a mirror (which they say it won't work on).

The area that the glossy sticker is on is very close to the USB plugin thingy on my laptop, so I thought maybe everything else was just too far away, but that's not the case: I've tried parts of my laptop not covered by the sticker, but even closer to the USB plugin thingy; I've tried a book cover very very close to the USB plugin thingy; I've even tried a piece of paper that I taped down over the glossy sticker.

And I've tried different USB ports, including ones that were significantly farther away from the glossy sticker.

I've tried regular batteries. I've tried rechargeable batteries. I've tried freshly recharged rechargeable batteries. I forget whether the mouse came with batteries or not, but if it did, I certainly tried them.

Embarrassingly enough, I even bought a second mouse of the same type! And had the same problem.

When I say that it works on the glossy sticker, and does not work anywhere else, it's like night and day. It is perfect on the glossy sticker. It does not move my cursor one single iota on any other surface.

I haven't seen anything but praise for BlueTrack, and I haven't heard of anyone else having problems like this. And I've had nothing but good luck with Microsoft mice in the past - I've been using their mice for, I don't know, fifteen or twenty years? And have always been very happy with them, before this.

Help! Recover file!

bearette — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 01:14:35 -0800

I was just working on a proofreading file for hours. I closed it, thinking I had been saving it (I'm pretty sure I was saving it!). Then I went to email it , and it's nowhere to be found on my computer. I searched for it. I thought that if you don't save something it will be recovered when you open Word again, but nope. And I can't find it on my computer anywhere. Does anywhere have an idea where it could have gone and how/if I can get it back?! Thanks!

Microsoft employee (fte) question

pakora1 — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:22:13 -0800

Curious if anyone is/was from Microsoft, I had an employee based question. How long does an employee review stay on file? My cousin worked there for over 7 years and the last review he got was pretty stellar, in 2011 August. After the layoffs in 2012 he is thinking of going back and wants to use that review as a leverage. Do you think his review would be on file now?

Pinning Excel docs to the taskbar doesn't work with Office upgrade

merocet — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 16:23:31 -0800

So I upgraded from Microsoft Office Starter 2010 to Microsoft Office 2010. I uninstalled the Office Starter program. Then things went wrong. Please help! This is Windows 7 Home on a PC.

If I double click an Excel file it opens dutifully in Office 2010.

If I drag the same icon to the taskbar so that it's available to open from there it shows "Pin To Office Starter 2010" and a shortcut to Excel Starter is added to the taskbar. If I right click on that link to get to the list of documents pinned to that taskbar icon it lists the program as Microsoft Excel Starter 2010 but if I choose my recently added document from that same list it opens in Excel 2010 (not Starter) This is good.

If I then click the Excel icon on the taskbar to open Excel, I get a message that says "Click-2-Run Configuration Failure" which suggests that the icon is looking for the starter version which is uninstalled. This is bad.

If I pin Excel 2010 to the taskbar and then try to drag the document onto that icon it shows "Pin To Microsoft Excel 2010" but then doesn't show up in the shortcut list when I right click the Excel icon. Right clicking on this icon however shows that it is the correct version of Excel (not Starter) and clicking on the Excel icon on the taskbar opens Excel normally.

Errr Help? How do I get a working Excel icon on my taskbar that'll both open my installed Excel program when clicked and show my shortcuts to individual documents when right clicked?

Can I take advantage of $40 Windows 8 if I don't have an older Windows?

grobstein — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 10:29:26 -0800

I currently don't have any version of Windows installed on my PC (it's a Mac). I would like to install Windows on a Bootcamp partition. I noticed that Microsoft has a special offer where they are selling a Windows 8 download for $40 through Jan. 31. That's a good price for me. The possible catch: Microsoft seems to be saying that I need to have an earlier version of Windows installed in order to use that download. I can't quite tell whether they are serious about this. Do I really need to have a preexisting Windows install to take advantage of the $40 Windows 8 offer? For clarity: this is a question about what Microsoft is selling in their $40 deal. Is the download they're selling good enough to allow me to install Win 8 on my Mac, even though I do not have a previous version of Windows installed? If it won't, what's a good alternative?

Does this feature which exists for Word for Windows exist in Mac Word?

professor plum with a rope — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 18:15:24 -0800

If I'm using Word for Windows, I can double click at the bottom of a page to create one big page. But if I double click at the bottom of a document inside Word on MacOS it opens up the footer prompt. Does Word for Mac have a similar "join pages" feature?

Help on moving from MS Office Pro 2000 to 2010?

InsertNiftyNameHere — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 19:57:57 -0800

Advice for help on moving from MS Office Pro 2000 to 2010? I decided to finally take the plunge and upgrade to MS Office Pro 2010 after using the 2000 version for ages. I've never even seen any of the versions post 2000.

The ribbon thingy freaks me out based on all the comments I've read over the years about how unintuitive it is. I've been looking at books on amazon, but it seems that none really fits my needs well because I've skipped so many versions (2003, 2007, IIRC). The books seem to be mostly aimed at people who have never used Office and are just starting out (how to enter text, copy, paste, etc.) with the 2010 version or people who already are accustomed to the ribbon in 2007, and who want to know the differences between 2007 and 2010 versions.

I'd appreciate any info you folks can provide regarding resources that will help me migrate from the 2000 version to the 2010 version.

Any type of resource is welcome. Having said that, I'm learning this on my own, so expensive training classes are not an option because I can't afford that sort of thing.

I guess the biggest thing is I'm trying to avoid buying a bunch of intro books for all the apps in the 2010 version and then have to go back and buy a whole other set of more advanced books for those very same apps.

Many thanks in advance!

Recovering Office 2010 product key from dead Windows 7 system

dumbland — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 01:49:12 -0800

How might I recover an Office 2010 product key from a Windows install now located on an external hard drive? The hard drive in my sister's laptop went mostly kapoot (would not boot into Windows, nor safe mode, nor would it allow a recovery/re-install of Windows on to it).

A new hard drive is now in the laptop and Windows 7 is re-installed and all is fine again, except for the lack of Office 2010. Dell never bothered to send along the product key for Office. Cool.

The old hard drive is plugged into a dock and we can retrieve some files from it.

Googling around I see there are tools like Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder which will scan a registry and extract the product key. I'm not sure how to achieve this with the registry contained on a separate hard drive however, in an instance of Windows that I can not boot into.

Any recommendations?

How can I export MS Powerpoint to a Word document?

Jahaza — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 07:35:47 -0800

How can I export MS Powerpoint to a Word document? I've got a half-done presentation (slides and extensive notes) that needs to become a paper instead. How can I export the text (slides and notes) to word? I can do a whole bunch of cut and paste, but it seems like there might be a setting to do it buried somewhere.

Advice needed: moving a MS Access DB to the cloud..

Sagres — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 20:09:28 -0800

Our small office uses a MS Access database daily for non profit work. The database is small enough where I'm not certain it warrants upgrading to SQL. Most of the work done in the database is remote (7 users total) so we are looking to move from a standalone PC w/remote access to the cloud. I would greatly appreciate any advice with regard to moving the DB to a cloud service provider that supports MS Access. One that is reliable, is relatively easy to admin e.g., backups and lastly, inexpensive.

Can I Use A Legitimate Windows 7 CD Key with an Illegal Copy and Not Run Foul of MS?

Effigy2000 — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 19:42:13 -0800

I have a genuine copy of Windows 7 Ultimate which i have previously installed and activated through Microsoft. I wanted to reinstall Windows today but I've found the DVD has somehow been scratched and my DVD drive refuses to read the disc. If i download a copy of Windows 7 from BitTorrent and install it using my genuine CD key, will I get into any trouble? Will it even work? If not, what are my options?

Accidentally deleted audio driver on Windows XP machine. How do I get it back?

MattMangels — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:45:59 -0800

I accidentally deleted my audio driver software on my XP machine. How can I remedy this? I was going through files on my old XP machine, deleting unnecessary programs and such, and when I was in the "Add/Remove Programs" part of the control panel I noticed a program called "C Media 3D audio" or something like that. I have a bunch of old video and audio converter programs and figured this was one of them. It even said that I used the program rarely, the last time being April of 2005. "Well surely I can delete that!" So I did. And then the computer restarted itself and now I have no more ability to play sound. You know, a fucking prompt that says "hey if you delete this you won't be able to play audio anymore" would be nice, Microsoft. (In case someone from Microsoft is reading this, THIS IS WHY PEOPLE HATE YOU.) Anyway, what can I do to restore audio capabilities on this computer?

Creating a letterhead in Microsoft Word and need to make the header and footer graphics join seamlessly. Im currently getting a separation line between the two.

Senor Cardgage — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:49:26 -0800

Creating a letterhead in Microsoft Word and need to make the header and footer graphics join seamlessly. Im currently getting a separation line between the two. I have a letterhead design with an area of color stretching from the top to the bottom of the page. No matter how hard I try to line them up, I still end up with a white space where the header ends and the footer begins, as if theres a white line border there. I really need this to flow seamlessly. Tips?

Microsoft Office Professional Plus 10 authentication code help, please?

parmanparman — Tue, 07 Aug 2012 09:48:13 -0800

I bought a Thinkpad through Gumtree (UK) last year and now Microsoft Office Professional Plus 10 is asking me for an authentication code. When I got the computer, windows had just been installed but I don't know if I got a trial version or a corporate version that was imaged onto the machine. Do I need to pay for an authentication code or is there a way to otherwise disable the authentication request message?

Reassign Mouse Button (program) Function

peacay — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 23:49:16 -0800

How can I assign a command to a mouse button so that a .jpg will open in MSPaint? I've got an MS wireless mouse 5000 (model 1058*). O/S = Windows 7. The mouse control software is working fine: I can reassign functions to any of the buttons including have program specific functions. So I can make it open MSPaint from mousewheel click or I can have mousewheel click take on another function inside the MSPaint program. But I want to be able to middle-click on a saved image and have it load in MSPaint and I don't really see an easy way to do it with win7 or the mouse controls (or with Irfanview or MSPaint for that matter).

Normally I have to R-click and jog down to "Open with" and then choose from the menu items that appear (and which don't have shortcuts). And I do this action a LOT and I'm looking at ways of reducing wrist affects from over-mousing (I also recently got a logitech touchpad too which helps)

I've had a quick look at the AutoHotkey tutorial and it looks a bit daunting for my pedestrian abilities. {mind you, this might be the start of a useful learning curve} Any easy recipe recommendations??

Database n00b - how long will this task take?

sideofwry — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 08:05:43 -0800

Estimate of how long it will take to develop an Access database. I have a 5MB Excel spreadsheet that (for reasons listed below) I'd like to convert into an Access database. My database knowledge = zero. ( I work with them but do not know how to design, develop, code for, or administer.) No one in-office at my company has this skillset either, so I will be hiring a temp. Since the dataset is so small, I can't imagine this taking very long, but again, my database knowledge = zero. I need to tell the temp agency how long to contract this person. What timeframe should I give?

Using Access because:
we're an MS shop
need to allow multiple users access (but less than 10)
text-based data
relational data

Thanks for your help! Apologies in advance if I've failed to provide necessary info.

What should I wear for a job interview at Microsoft?

Anonymous — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 18:07:19 -0800

I have a job interview scheduled at Microsoft, at the Redmond campus. What should I wear? I would normally wear a suit and a tie to an interview, but Microsoft's dress code is so casual that I am afraid it would send the wrong message. So I have narrowed it down to two options:

1) Suit and tie anyway, better to be overdressed than underdressed
2) Jacket, dress shirt (no tie), a pair of high(er) end jeans and oxford shoes.

My interview is for a Product Management position at their marketing group, so I believe being a little dressier would be less of a problem, but I'm not sure how much.

Accessible Access Training?

rosswald — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 07:24:54 -0800

Microsoft Access Training/Classes in New York City (Manhattan), or your best suggestion of online materials. A coworker asked if I knew anything about an MS Access class she could take in NYC. The company would be willing to pay for it, but it would preferably only one or two days long.

Good online resources would be accepted also as I had trouble seperating out the chaff on Google, but again, live is preferred.

Thanks!

Info from Silverlight into Excel?

quadrilaterals — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 11:16:18 -0800

Can I get this information from a site on Microsoft Silverlight into Excel? I would like to get this conference program into an Excel file. I really, really, really do not want to type in the information for each of the >600 sessions. Is it possible to get this information to go directly into Excel?

I don't know much about these sorts of things, but I can follow instructions and I'm a decent Excel user.

I'm on a Windows 7 machine with Office 2007 and have access to Office 2010.

Outlook 2010 tortures my poor corporate soul

amazingstill — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:10:17 -0800

Outlook 2010 Filter - Why oh why do the changes I make to body portion of .oft email templates not save correctly? Woah not all at once now! This has been driving me crazy for a while now and I have no clue what is going on. My company used to have Outlook 2007 and I did not have this problem, but about 2 months ago we upgraded to Outlook 2010 and I have been banging my head since.

Okay here I go. The problem: I have an email template saved on a network drive shared amongst the company as a .oft file. There have been several revisions of this email template throughout the year, but it is currently saved as the most recent version. I can open the template which has a subject, recipients, body text, etc etc just fine and it shows as the most current version as I can tell by the dates and such. But for some reason, it will not save any changes I make to the body portion of the email and instead show old text that belonged to a long previous version of the .oft template. It will save changes I make to the subject line, recipients, and attachments just not the body text.

This is especially annoying after editing an email that has lots of numbers, calendar date updates, etc only to see it not save correctly.

The kicker is, if I open the .oft, save it to the draft folder, and re-open it from there and then modify the body portion of the email, and save it again, it WILL save the changes! From my draft folder = good, directly from the shared company drive = bad???

If someone has any idea how I can stop this madness I will high five a stranger. Thank you all.

Help me highlight Asian characters in MS Word?

merocet — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 09:31:36 -0800

How can I find and highlight non latin characters in a Microsoft Word? I have documents containing Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese characters. (hanzi, kanji, hanja etc.)

I want to streamline the process of finding and highlighting those characters in a document.

I can find and replace text by all manner of font and formatting options but don't seem to be able to search by non latin characters.

Any ideas?

I currently use Word Starter but I'm happy to upgrade or to use a different program entirely if it'll give me highlighted documents that I can print out!

Old computer for a new employee?

OrangeDrink — Fri, 25 May 2012 07:49:02 -0800

Help me set up my old computer for a new employee, and make this easier the next time. Hi,

This is probably more obvious than I think it is, but I can't find anything.

I just bought 6 new computers for the office, and one is going to me (hooray!). My old computer will go to an intern. I could wipe everything, reinstall windows, reinstall Microsoft Office, but I'm worried Windows will think that's a new user and we'll lose the license for Microsoft Office. Is there something I could do with Users, or is my best bet just deleting all the personal info I have on Firefox and Chrome?

Bonus question! With these new computers, would creating a Recovery Point save me this trouble in the future, including keeping Microsoft Office with the current license?

Oh, running Microsoft Office 2010 and Windows 7. Some computers are Home, some Professional, and some Ultimate. I'm trying to do this legitimately.

Thanks everyone. My google-fu is failing me.