Userbility

This section of the website is designed to provide you with some shortcuts and top tips on how to get more from the systems we use every day at work. 

It’s called Userbility because its all about helping us users with our ability to get the most from the applications we use to do our work.

If you have any areas you would really like to know what the best ‘userbility’ tips are, get in touch here with your request and we’ll see what we can do.

Adding your cell totals in excel

If you adding together totals in excel which are in the same column, instead of manually adding them up, if you select the first cell and scroll down and at the bottom of the page it will tell you what the sum is and how many cells it has added.

Copying from a webpage to word

2007

Have you ever copied from a webpage to word and the format is all over the place. Then this tip will really save you time.
Highlight the text and click the clear format button which is an A with an eraser at the top right hand corner of the font section.

2003

2003 is a little bit different as to find this you will have to go to the formatting tab at the top of the page and click Font. Then click the Clear formatting option in the pick formatting to apply box. remember to have everything highlghted before you do this. 

Viewing web pages on a small screen

 If you have a small screen laptop and are struggling to see the full webpage. If you press F11 on your keyboard then it will hide the top and bottom toolbars so you can easily see a larger screen. To use the toolbars at this stage just hover over them and the one you hover over will appaer and when your done it will hide again. To get your screen back to normal just press F11 again.

Viewing and navigating documents

To see where many Word 2003 commands are located in the Microsoft Office 2007 Fluent user interface, you can use the Interactive: Word 2003 to Word 2007 command reference guide. The guide is a visual, interactive tool that helps you quickly learn where commands are in Office Word 2007

• To turn off Full Screen Reading view and return to Print Layout view, press ESC.
• To prevent Full Screen Reading view from opening automatically, in Full Screen Reading view, click View Options, and then click Don’t Open Attachments in Full Screen.
• To move to the previous or next word, press CTRL+LEFT ARROW or CTRL+RIGHT ARROW.
• To go to the beginning or end of a document, press CTRL+HOME or CTRL+END.
• To view a document’s organization and jump to different sections, on the View tab, in the Show/Hide group, click Document Map.

Snapping Windows to the edge of the screen in Windows 7

Snap is a quick (and fun) new way to resize open windows, simply by dragging them to the edges of your screen.

Depending on where you drag a window, you can make it expand vertically, take up the entire screen, or appear side-by-side with another window.  Snap makes reading, organizing, and comparing windows a…well, you get the picture.

If you don’t want to drag the windows you can simply hold down the Windows key and press the left, right or up arrow to achieve the same goal.

To see it in action, have a look at this video

Pasting Unformatted Text

Ever wondered how to copy data from the internet, a PDF or another document directly in to your current word document without having to reformat the entire thing? Well, here’s how.

Word 2007

Highlight and copy the text you need, go in to your word document and select the small down arrow below the paste option on the home tab, click on Paste Special, then on Unformatted Text and hit enter.

Word 2003

Highlight and copy the text you need, go in to your word document, click on Edit, Paste Special, then on Unformatted Text and hit enter.

Your text will now appear in the document in the same style as your existing text.

Zoom

Want a closer look at what you’re reading? Use the scroll button on your mouse to zoom in and out of word documents, internet explorer, windows desktop and most MS applications.

Just hold down the Ctrl key and roll the scroll wheel forward to get a closer view of the document – to shrink, roll back.

Move using ‘Alt’ key

Moving data from one Excel worksheet to another is easy. Simply highlight, then hold down the ALT key and move the mouse until the pointer arrow is on the border of the selection.

Drag the selection down to the destination worksheet tab and, when the arrow touches the tab, Excel will switch to the desired worksheet.  Then drag your data to the correct position, let go of the mouse and the ALT key.
 
* To copy data, hold down the CTRL+ALT keys and perform the steps above.

Cleaning a spillage on a keyboard

Get a computer’s keyboard wet and the water will disrupt the electrical contact made between a key and the circuit board below. That’s the bad news. The good news is that, once dry, the keyboard should work again. So if you do spill water over one, disconnect it, shake or drain it, then leave it to air dry for a day. Don’t use a hairdryer on it, as the heat can cause damage.

Sugary or milky drinks, however, leave residues after drying that will permanently kill the keyboard, so if your builders tea goes flying, you’ve got little to lose. Run the board under a tap to flush out all sticky stuff, leave it to dry as above and, if you’re lucky , the keyboard will live again.