Tag Archives: Tech Tip

Learning & Development

Start A Fresh Page In Word

You are working on a Word document…
you are part-way down the page…
and for one reason or another you wish to end that page there and start a fresh page.

What do you do? No, do not hit the Return key over and over until the cursor moves onto a new page!! This leaves a whole lot of blank lines that will haunt you later when you make formatting changes and add other things to the document.

Instead, press Ctrl + Enter

Or:
1. Click the Insert tab
2. Click Page Break

This gives you a new blank page, and your cursor moves to that page. This is the correct way to get a new page,  for the reasons  I mentioned above.

Note: If you need to remove a Page Break – and you will sooner or later – switch on Paragraph marks so that you can see the Page Breaks in your document and delete any you need to.
The Show Paragrah marks icon

 

For other great time-saving tips, look up:
– Being more efficient with your technology
– Technology Information for Staff website

Was this tip helpful to you? Anything else you want to know? Got some suggestions? Please leave a comment below or let me know.

You’ll find more learning at Learning and Development.

Learning & Development

When Excel Menu Icons Are Greyed Out

When you’re using Excel, do you ever find that the Ribbon and menu icons are inexplicably greyed out?

This can happen if you are in edit-mode in a cell (the cursor is blinking in a cell, waiting for you to enter something), or you have a dialog box open. It can also happen when you minimise an Excel workbook, then open a different one: if you were editing a cell in the first workbook (or have a dialog box open), you won’t be able to insert or edit anything in the second.

The solution is easy: hit the Esc key on the upper left corner of your keyboard.

Thanks to Able Owl Tips for this one.

For other great time-saving tips, look up:
– Being more efficient with your technology
– Technology Information for Staff website

Was this tip helpful to you? Anything else you want to know? Got some suggestions? Please leave a comment below or let me know.

You’ll find more learning at Learning and Development.

Learning & Development

If Your Macrons Stop Working

From time to time I find my macrons suddenly stop working.
This is almost certainly because I have accidentally hit the Windows key + space bar, which is the shortcut to switch the keyboard input method from the Māori keyboard that I usually use, back to the US keyboard.

To correct this:
Press Windows key + space bar to switch it back
or…

1. Click the keyboard input language button, located at the far right end of your taskbar (in the bottom right corner of your monitor/screen).
It looks like this:

 

 

2. Then click English (New Zealand) Maori keyboard.

To use Macrons, see my Tech Tip Type Using Macrons.

For other great time-saving tips, look up:
– Being more efficient with your technology
– Technology Information for Staff website

Was this tip helpful to you? Anything else you want to know? Got some suggestions? Please leave a comment below or let me know.

You’ll find more learning at Learning and Development.

Learning & Development

Are you sending emails to yourself?

We all do it. An idea for later. Something we must remember to do. Some ideas relating to a project.

For example, say you have an Outlook email folder containing email relating to a particular thing you are working on, and you’d like to save some thoughts of your own in the same folder…. So you send yourself an email containing those thoughts, which you then save in that work folder. Sound familiar?

There is a better way!
It is called Post In This Folder, and it is a button in Outlook Mail.

To use Post In This Folder in Outlook Mail:

  1. Open the folder in Outlook that you’d like to post the note in
  2. Click the New Items button (at the left end of the Home Ribbon)
  3. Click More Items
  4. Click Post In This Folder
    – a blank note “page”  appears
  5. Add a subject line
  6. Write any notes you’d like to record
  7. Click the Post button

NOTE: if you use this button a lot, pin it to the Quick Access Toolbar so that you can access it quickly.

For other great time-saving tips, look up:
– Being more efficient with your technology
– Technology Information for Staff website

Was this tip helpful to you? Anything else you want to know? Got some suggestions? Please leave a comment below or let me know.

You’ll find more learning at Learning and Development.

Learning & Development

Save Travel Time for Meetings

Some fresh air is great, but you don’t always have the time to travel to and from a meeting. There is an alternative.

Did you know that you can meet with your colleagues around the University, from your desk, using the teleconferencing and video conferencing* features on your computer?
(*video conferencing is available if you have a camera on your computer)

In Microsoft Outlook Calendar:

  1. Click New Skype Meeting on the Home ribbonNew Skype Meeting button
  2. Add your participants (as you would normally add recipients to an email) so that each recipient will receive an invitationNew Skype Meeting Invitation with invitees
    You’ll notice in the body of the meeting there is a link to Join Skype Meeting.
  3. Complete the other details of the meeting and Send the invitation as you normally would.
  4. When the meeting time is due: you, and each participant, click Join Skype Meeting and a conference between you and all the
    participants will be formed.

You can also use this feature for external meetings – eg, with people external to UC – even if they don’t have Skype!

For other ways to make the most of your Skype for Business tools, see these other Skype for Business Basic Tasks.

For other great time-saving tips, look up:
– Being more efficient with your technology
– Technology Information for Staff website

Was this tip helpful to you? Anything else you want to know? Got some suggestions? Please leave a comment below or let me know.

You’ll find more learning at Learning and Development.