Tech Tips include: Keyboard shortcuts; Hidden vs. non-printing characters; Status bar in Excel; Managing Tabs in Edge Browser; and Borders in Word.

Single-Click to Apply Bold, Italics or Underline in Word

When I am providing online support, I like to watch how people perform common tasks. I learn a lot, but I also see some inefficiencies that can be corrected. Did you know that you can apply Bold, Italics or Underline to a single word without selecting the entire word?

Simply click anywhere in the word and press the associated keyboard shortcut (Bold = Ctrl+B; Italics = Ctrl+I; Underline = Ctrul+U  What if it’s not working for you? That means you need to enable the setting for this feature.

Navigate to File / Options / Advanced. Place a checkmark in: When selecting, automatically select entire word. 

Quick Calculations – Status Bar in Excel

When you are reviewing data in Excel, you can get quick information about a selected range by looking at the Status Bar. If you have enabled any of the common functions, the values display and update as you increase or decrease the selection area.

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Managing Tabs in Edge Browser

When browsing the internet throughout the day, you may find you have lots of open tabs. There comes a point when you can barely see the icons associated with web pages. Or, you close a tab and quickly regret it and now can’t remember how you got there to reopen it.

If you’re using Edge, you have some tools that are readily available to help with tab management.

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Borders in Word

I think we all agree that borders are great for table cells or for entire pages in special documents like a Prospectus.

But, have you thought about using borders for paragraphs (or even words) that need to stand out? [Note the box around the words in the previous sentence.] Many of us are tempted to use text boxes (covered in another tip) or a one-cell table. But text boxes are meant to be floating items and tables are structurally isolated from the adjoining text. When you have text that should remain inline, but you want to call out or separate specific portions, a border is a great bet.

In case you haven’t used borders much or at all, here’s a basic primer. Just keep in mind that YOU can control where the border is applied – to the page, the paragraph, the line or the word. That’s a lot of power and it can all be found on the Borders and Shading dialog box. There are a couple of ways to get to this dialog box, so let’s review the box first and then talk about how to launch it.

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