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THE OFFICE LETTER
STANDARD EDITION
Tips, Tricks, Tools, and Techniques for Microsoft Office
Volume 4, Number 17 October 11, 2004
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IN THIS ISSUE
1) PowerPoint: Macro Removes Slide Notes
2) Excel: Power and Roots
3) Reader Feedback: Keeping Word Text On One Page
4) Review: Snoop-Free Surfing with StealthSurfer
Premium Edition Extra:
Outlook: Time To Mail-Merge That Greeting Card List
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1) POWERPOINT: MACRO REMOVES SLIDE NOTES
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The following tip, written by Charles Maxson, is provided courtesy
of Office Zealot (http://www.officezealot.com), a great resource
for Office-related blogs and commentary.
Did you ever get your hands on a PowerPoint slide deck from
somebody else and read all the (often amusing) slide notes? I
always like to make sure that I remove all of my slide notes so I
don't embarrass myself. You know... the "Click Here" and "State
Your Name" types of reminders. ;)
So to clean all the notes out, I use the following code to
instantly and thoroughly clean a whole deck before I push it out
the door...
Public Sub RemoveSlideNotes()
Dim objSlide As Slide
Dim objShape As Shape
For Each objSlide In ActivePresentation.Slides
For Each objShape In objSlide.NotesPage.Shapes
objShape.TextFrame.TextRange = ""
Next
Next
End Sub
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2) EXCEL: POWER AND ROOTS
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Recently we received this note asking for help with Excel:
Dear Sir,
I am a regular reader of your articles on tips and tricks in
Excel. Seems to be really very useful.
I have a small request: would you ask your team to provide a
solution to this if possible.
Finding the square of a number is easy using sumsq() function.
Is there any function/formulae to find the cube of the number
(e.g., 3 cubed = 27).
Using the ^ multiplication is one method. Is there a regular
formula to do that?
Thanks and regards,
Rajesh Venkataramani
The answer is yes. Excel includes a function called POWER that is
simple to use. The function needs two variables: the base number
and the power (exponent) to be applied.
For example, you'd write the formula to cube the number three as:
=POWER(3,3)
Likewise,
=POWER(3,4)
takes 3 to the fourth power (3*3*3*3=81)
As with other formulas, the power and exponent variables can be
cell addresses rather than the actual value you want to use.
Note that exponentiation takes strong precedence in a formula. The
order of precedence is: parentheses, negation, percent,
exponentiation, multiplication and division, addition and
subtraction, text concatenation, and comparison.
GETTING AT THE ROOT
Exponentiation, whether using the ^ operator or the POWER function,
can also be used to find the "root" of a number, such as the square
root or the cube root. The trick is to use a power less than one.
For instance, to find the square root of 9 you could use the SQRT
function or use this formula:
=POWER(9, 1/2)
or
=POWER(9, .5)
To find the cube root, use:
=POWER(9, 1/3)
or
=POWER(9, .33333)
Likewise, to find the 4th or 5th root of a value, substitute "4" or
"5" as the denominator in the first example in each of the POWER
function pairs above.
-- James E. Powell
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3) READER FEEDBACK: KEEPING WORD TEXT ON ONE PAGE
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Dozens of readers responded to last week's question from Mauricio
Mathov about overflowing text, headers, and footers. In part, his
question read:
My "perfect document" was created defining the first page as
"Section 1" and the second page as "Section 2."
The problem is that when I start typing in page 1 and I exceed
the available space, Word creates automatically a second page
that still belongs to Section 1 (and therefore has the Section 1
heading/footer) instead of using the already existent Section 2
for the text that did not fit in Section 1.
Office Letter reader Haig Johnson suggests the following procedure:
To create a template with a different first page header/footer
follow these steps:
1. Open a new document.
2. Insert a manual page break (Ctrl + Enter) or
Insert/Break/Page Break.
3. Open File/Page Setup, on the "Layout" tab under "Headers and
Footers" select "Different first page."
4. Create you headers/footers for the first page (it will be
labeled "First Page Header").
5. Create a header/footer on the next page (it will have no
label).
6. Delete the manual page break (to show the page break press
Ctrl + Shift + 8 or Ctrl + *).
7. Save the document.
This works on my Office XP Word.
- - -
Reader Lou Melton came to much the same conclusion, but his use of
random text helps you better visualize the document. He suggests
the following steps:
1. Open a new template file.
2. Set up Page Layout as Different First Page, apply to whole
document.
3. Select View-Header/Footer, switch to footer and insert footer
for page 1. Close Header/Footer.
4. Go to top of template document.
5. Insert random text into the template (type the following:
=rand(5,25) then press Enter, which will make the template 2
pages).
6. Select View Header and Footer. Go to page 2, insert desired
info into header and/or footer. Close header/footer.
7. Delete random text.
8. Save Template
= = =
To keep page one's text restricted to page one, so that there's no
flowing of text to page two, TOL reader Terry Farrell suggests:
He could use a fixed, borderless frame on page 1 (with locked
anchor, exact size, and positioned relative to the page). The
text would not spill onto page 2, but it would disappear below
the bottom of the frame. The excess could be retrieved by
selecting all text in the frame and reducing the font in 1 point
increments - press Ctrl + [ until the contents fit.
It is a very dirty solution, but I cannot think of anything else
to stop the text from spilling to the next page.
Alternatively, consider using a single celled table, as Bill Coan
suggests:
A borderless, single-cell table with the row height set to an
exact amount under Table>>Properties would also do the trick.
By the way, Bill's wordsite.com sells the slick document automation
tool DataPrompter (see our review at
http://www.officeletter.com/blink/dataprompter2003.html) that's
worth checking out.
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4) REVIEW: SNOOP-FREE SURFING WITH STEALTHSURFER
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Leave no traces behind. That's the idea of surfing the Web with
StealthSurfer, a tiny USB device with a built-in browser that keeps
all evidence of your browsing off your system. Whether you want to
check e-mail on the road or surf from a public computer,
StealthSurfer is a hardware-based security device that will keep
your moves private.
The StealthSurfer plugs into any USB port. It's a USB 2.0 device,
but it worked fine (though noticeably slower) on a USB 1.1-equipped
system. On Windows 2000 and above, no additional drivers are
needed. (You'll have to install a driver to use it with Windows
98, making it less plug-and-play painless for such systems.)
The operating system recognizes the device as a hard drive. Open
any file management program and click on the only executable file
listed in the folder of the drive, enter your password (which you
can reset whenever you like), and then the drive's contents are
unlocked. Click the "Start" icon (to run start.exe from the
device) and Netscape 7.0 loads.
All history, cookies, and cache are kept on the device itself, not
your system's hard drive, so when you're done and you unplug the
gizmo, everything goes with you. For most download sites, Windows
pops up with the destination drive already set to the drive letter
of the device. Unfortunately, saving files from
office.Microsoft.com seemed coded to be saved in your Documents and
Settings folder of your C: drive, so you'll have to take the extra
steps to select the device drive letter instead.
During boot up, the StealthSurfer checks to make sure its files are
up to date and that all files needed are present. If, for example,
you delete the cache folder (by mistake or on purpose), the
StealthSurfer will recreate the folder structure for you before it
launches Netscape. Speaking of settings, whatever you control
through Netscape (such as deleting the cache) updates the files on
the StealthSurfer itself. Thus, once you plug in the device, surf
the Web, and disconnect, there are no traces of your activity left
behind on the PC you just used.
The StealthSurfer comes in four models: 128MB ($99.29 -- the
version we tested), 256MB ($159.29), 512MB ($199.29) and 1GB
($299.29). On the 128MB edition, 32.4MB were consumed by the
software, leaving 90.2MB free for downloads, cache, cookies, and
other system files.
If you use public systems (my local libraries have banks of PCs) or
want to check your e-mail at work, the StealthSurfer does a good
job of maintaining your privacy.
For more information, visit http://www.stealthsurfer.com. A
company spokesman told us that a version that includes support for
Firefox should be available before the end of the year.
-- James E. Powell
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----------- THE OFFICE LETTER ----- www.officeletter.com ----------
Tips and Tricks for Microsoft Office - Published Weekly
Copyright 2004 Masterware, Inc. All rights reserved
Now In Our Fourth Year - ISSN: 1543-5768
Editor in Chief: James E. Powell
Contributing Editors: Jim Boyce (www.boyce.us)
Dick Archer (www.diseno.com)
