Have you ever gone to a meeting and the first thing you did is exchange business cards? Didn't you just email the person with your signature block with all that information? Why do we continue to use business cards as the primary form exchanging contact information? It seems kind of antiquated in the age of Facebook and LinkedIn. So as part of my paperless goal, I looked for a better way to exchange contact information. The solution I came across is called CamCard (iOS, Android, Windows 10). It’s a free app for scanning and organizing your business cards.  Now, I just snap a picture of their business card, it uploads to my google and outlook contacts and I hand the card back. It's also a great way to start a conversation about my paperless initiative.

CamCard also has great features that let you easily exchange your contact information. You can even use a share a QR Code. Below are instructions for how to upload your first card. Explore the app and let me know what you think. How do you deal with your business cards and contacts. Please share in the comments.

As always, if you have any questions, reach out.

Ever Advancing,
​Ralph

Have you ever typed something and then realized you wanted it in in all caps? ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEERS SEEM TO LOVE OVER CAPITALIZING EVERYTHING. Or typed something and didn’t realize your "Caps Lock" was on? Thought you had to retype the whole thing? WRONG. You can use Shift+F3 in Word or Outlook to change the capitalization of a word, sentence, paragraph, etc.

hello
Hello
HELLO

Keep Capitalizing,
Ralph

Have you ever needed to change the font or size of all your headings on a document? Have you ever received a document that all the headings were different sizes and you seem to spend more time updating and getting the formatting correct than it took to write the document in the first place. Well, Microsoft Word Styles has the answers! Styles allow you to format your document with one click using dozens of different styles of titles, headings and subheadings. Not only does Microsoft Word styles make it easier for you to format your document and make it look clean and neat, but it also help navigate it. In addition, Word keeps track of when you are using different headings and normal text and automatically creates a clickable outline in the Navigation Pane for you. It also can automatically generate a table of contents for your document so that you can easily jump between different parts of your document. See instructions below also here is a great video on how to use styles.

Stay Styling,
Ralph

Have you ever been sent a document where all the comments and changes were within the text of document? (Or maybe you are the one that sends them.) How annoying is that? Now you have try to track down every little change comment that is embedded in the text? Track changes has been around for over 10 years, we should all be using them to communicate revisions. Using track changes lets you create suggestions without the author having to accept each and every one of them. 

​All these features are under Review tab. Below is a detailed description of each feature:

Sorry to those that have been using track changes effectively for years, however there may be a couple new tips below. And as we move more to cloud documents using the commenting and track changes features becomes more important to help us collaborate more effectively. Here is a great 4-minute video that takes you through everything.

As always if you have any questions, feel free to send them my way.

Keep commenting,
​Ralph

During this month, we will be covering a few ways to use Microsoft word a little better. We use Word almost daily, but we probably only use 25% of its features. I know we can do a little better. 

​Do you ever want the next part of your document to start at the top of a new page? How do you do it? Just hit enter a bunch of times. Although this may work in the short term, it is inefficient because as you update what is up above, your entire document shifts down the page. What a pain. Instead use Page Breaks (Ctrl+Enter). These allow you to start the next part of you document at the top of the next page no matter what happens above it. Another important tool is Section Breaks. These allow you to have different headers and footers or a new count of page numbers within the same document. You can start a new section on the next page of a document or even within the same page. Below find information on which breaks should be used when. Also remember when using breaks, it becomes helpful to turn on paragraph marks and other hidden formatting symbols using the paragraph mark button under the home tab.

As always please reach out if you have any questions or comments.

Keep Breakings,
​Ralph

Often when I look at an Excel file, it just has way too much information. Rows upon rows of data. How do I make heads or tails of it? Lately, I have been using tables and slicers to assist in the sorting and filtering of my data. The great thing about tables and slicers is that I can quickly get down to the granularity level that I need. I also don't need to create as many tabs as I can filter the data. Please follow the steps below to create your first table and slicer.

​As always, reach out if you have any questions.

Always Advancing,
​Ralph

We often use excel to organize and communicate the data. Unfortunately, this sometimes takes manually copying and pasting from one file to another. And often the data is not quite in the format we need and my format is all messed up. Excel (and many other office products) have many special pasting features that allow you to format the data just as you would like. These options are found simply by right clicking on the area you want to paste the data, and then clicking on "Paste Special.."(Also using Ctrl+Alt+V). Try out values and transpose. They have saved me hours over the years.

As always if you have any questions, please reach out.

Stay Special,
Ralph

Have you ever been working in excel file with multiple tabs, and you have to reference multiple tabs for a report.  

Most of us, just constantly flip back and forth between two or three tabs, spending more jumping between tabs than actually digesting the data in the excel file. Well there is a really simple way to reduce this switching back and forth by opening the same excel file in multiple windows.

This will open a new window of the same excel that can be dragged over to another screen. You know that you have multiple windows open because there is a "1" or "2" next to the file name.

Another cool feature is that when you close the file (file > close) and reopen it, Excel remembers you are using multiple windows. Note: this is not a new instance of excel. Therefore if you update data or a formula that is referenced on another tab, it will update throughout all windows.

As always reach out if you have a questions,
Keep Advancing,
​Ralph
 

Recently I was asked about the alerts you get when people are available and unavailable via Skype. This is referred to as tagging or "Tag for Status Change Alerts" to be more precise. Tagging can alert you when someone is status changes. As in you get a little notification when they come online. This is very helpful if you have a quick question to ask someone and don't want to schedule a meeting or keep walking past his/her office. 

However, tagging can become very annoying after a while and you will need to untag. Unfortunately, after researching there is "no untag all" and you have to take some time to untag each contact individually. Below are instructions for tagging and untagging a contact.

In addition to tagging and untagging, I included a few of my preferred options such as keeping Skype in the notification area rather than the taskbar.

As always please reach out if you have any questions.

Keep advancing,
​Ralph