Print your Word document on one page

If you have a letter or some other document you typed in Microsoft Word 97 or 2000, and you want to print it on a single page then this tip will save you some time and frustration. Before I discovered this feature, I would adjust the margins, shrink the font and make other formatting changes to make my letters fit on one page. Thankfully, one of the more useful additions to Word 97 and Word 2000 is the ability to shrink a...

Microsoft Word Users: Learn to Turn Off the Squigg...

If you have ever used Microsoft Word, you are familiar with the little red and green squiggles that crop under your words. The red squiggle represents a misspelled word and the green arrow represents a grammatical error of some kind. The purpose of these lines are to call attention to your miscues. In my opinion, they break up the flow of your thoughts as you type. I prefer getting my thoughts on paper (or the screen) and...

Mailing Labels

Since you are likely to be sending out some sort of Christmas/holiday cards soon, I thought you might appreciate some advice on creating mailing labels. First, if you have a copy of Microsoft Works or almost any card publishing program, you have the ability to create an ‘electronic address book’ and produce labels. Check out the help sections of these programs to learn how. I like the Microsoft Works approach...

High Tech DVD Rental

Do you like convenience? Do you like shopping in your pajamas? Do you enjoy renting movies? Do you forget which movies you want to rent? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, then online DVD rental services may be a great fit for you. My family has been using Netflix online rental service for more than two years now and enjoy it immensely. For less than $18 month, Netflix sends us three DVD’s at...

Give Your Digital Pictures an Artistic Flair

Whether you use a digital camera, scanner, get your film developed on disk, or just collect digital photos from your friends and family via email, learning to work with and edit your photo’s with your computer is great fun. One of my favorite (and easy) tricks to do with digital photos is convert them to black and white. Black and white photos offer a unique perspective and effect to almost any photo but work...

Disable or Change Clippy

Who is ‘Clippy’? He’s the little paper clip guy that pops up in Microsoft Word, Excel or any other Microsoft Office program in their 97 and 2000 versions. In the computer world, he appears to be like the Dallas Cowboys…people either love him or hate him. If you are on the dislike side of the fence, follow this procedure to disable him once and for all: 1. RIGHT Click on Clippy 2. Click on Options...

Customize Office Toolbars

Starting with Microsoft Office 2000 and the XP version afterward, software engineers in Redmond decided that showing an entire menu in Word, Excel or any of the Office programs would confuse software users. Instead of showing the entire menu when clicking on File, Edit, Format, etc, from the menus, we are presented with an abbreviated menu showing only two or three options. In order to view the entire menu, we can either wait...

Create a Watermark in Microsoft Word

Believe it or not, the post office is capable of mailing a real letter! Letter writing in this era of email is slowly becoming a lost art. However, if you had some nice stationery to write on, you might be more willing to write letters. Even if you want to ‘write’ your letter on your computer, learning how to do so with some nice self-designed stationery would be nice. Watermarks are the very lightly printed...

Become an (Word) Artist

Microsoft programmers provided users of their products a fun little tool called WordArt. WordArt transforms your text into…well, works of art. If you use Microsoft Publisher, Word, PowerPoint, or even Excel and need to spruce up a document, learn to use WordArt. The headline on today’s tip is an example of WordArt. WordArt can be used as headlines in newsletters or headings for a chart in Excel and of course in...

Customizing the Windows XP Start Menu Part II

If you RIGHT click on your Start button in Windows XP and click properties, you will be presented with the “Taskbar and Start Menu properties” box.  From here, you can further put your own personal touches on the new Windows XP start menu. Fist click on the “Customize” button next to the Start menu option. From this screen, you can choose either large or small icons for Start menu display, select...

Customizing the Windows XP Start Menu

Windows XP introduced us to the two column start menu. While the new menu evokes some uncomfortable feelings because it’s, well, new, open your mind to the possibilities.  First, because of the new Start menu, the only required desktop icon is the Recycle Bin. That’s right, you don’t have to stare at Network Neighborhood (now Network Places), My Computer or even My Documents any more. They are all...

CTRL+ALT+DEL in Windows XP

With all previous versions of Windows, save Windows 2000, pushing Ctrl+Alt+Del on a keyboard would bring up the Close Program dialog box.   In Windows XP, pushing this combination of keys brings up the multi-tabbed Windows Task Manager. A much more ominous looking version of the former Close Program box. The only tab where you will want to occasionally end a program is the "Applications" tab. The programs...

Control Your Recycle Bin

Just to get all of us on the same page, remember that when you delete a file from your computer (like a photo or Word document for example), the file does not leave the computer, it gets moved to the Recycle Bin. If you want to free up the space used by the file, you must delete it from the recycle bin. However, did you know that you can control how much space can be used by the recycle bin, stop the “are you...

Changing Shortcut Icons – Video Tip

Lately many of our tips have focused on Internet and computer safety and security. As important as these topics are, computers still do have a fun side. In fact, Adam and I often refer to computers as the ‘hot rod’ of the new millennium…you can customize it to your own liking. In today’s tip, you will learn how to customize boring old shortcuts on your desktop. Since Windows 95, Microsoft gave users...

Automatically Starting Favorite Programs

In the past, we have discussed how to stop certain programs from automatically starting in Windows.  Listener, James G. points out that he would like certain programs to start automatically in Windows.  For example, you may want your computer to automatically open and check for email in the morning when you turn on your computer.  Or, maybe you have a daily routine with your Quicken that you complete first thing and you...