Category Archives: Tips and Tricks

Nudging around the PowerPoint Grid

September 14, 2018 – 9:17 pm

Using Gridlines for better positioning A little while back, we looked at the various ways of lining up images relative to each other (http://www.us4b.co.uk/2018/06/lining-up-images-in-powerpoint/) , however, there will be times when there’s only one image or you want to overlay a number of images & so that method won’t work. Fortunately, help is at hand […]

By colinfoster | Also posted in Microsoft PowerPoint | Tagged Gridlines, Images, PowerPoint, Presentation, Snap to Grid | Comments (0)

Using Wildcards in Word Find and Replace

September 14, 2018 – 9:13 pm

Wildcards to extend the Find & Replace options Last month, you’ll recall, I took you through the process of using Find & Replace to help complete a sorting process within a document (as a reminder… http://www.us4b.co.uk/2018/08/sorting-in-word/) In addition to the basic options, we can use Wildcards to represent certain characters within our search to quickly […]

By colinfoster | Also posted in Microsoft Word | Tagged Find and Replace, Wildcards, Word | Comments (0)

Errors in Excel and how to use them effectively

September 14, 2018 – 9:08 pm

Making use of errors OK, so logic says that you don’t want to have any errors in your spreadsheet & broadly speaking, that’s correct… however, there can be occasions when an “error” can be helpful. As we saw in last month’s tip, the #N/A error in a VLOOKUP Function means that the item that you’re […]

By colinfoster | Also posted in Microsoft Excel | Tagged #DIV/0! error, #NAME? error, #REF! error, #VALUE! error, ERROR.TYPE Function, Excel, Functions, Spreadsheet, VLOOKUP Function | Comments (0)

Screenshots in PowerPoint

August 14, 2018 – 10:48 am

Easily capture Screenshots in PowerPoint There may be occasions when the image that you need in your presentation is best served by screenshots of your screen – this can be especially true if you’re demonstrating some software. Ideally, you’d have the software itself available for an ideal demo, but perhaps this is part of the […]

By colinfoster | Also posted in Microsoft PowerPoint | Tagged PowerPoint, Presentation, screen clipping, screenshots, Snagit | Comments (0)

Sorting in Word

August 13, 2018 – 5:31 pm

What do you mean, Sorting in Word – that’s Excel, surely? Normally, I’d agree with you – we use Excel for “Number crunching”, working with lists, etc and we use Word for writing articles or letters – or even Blog posts – but occasionally, it can be very useful to take advantage of the ability […]

By colinfoster | Also posted in Microsoft Word | Tagged Find & Replace, Find and Replace, Normandy, Prisoners of War, Sorting, Wildcards, Word | Comments (0)

Dealing with Errors in Lookups

August 13, 2018 – 12:30 pm

The #N/A Error If we use the VLOOKUP Function to match between two sets of data – then occasionally, Excel will return an #N/A error where it can’t find the value in one list in the other one In this example, we have two lists of employee data where in the “Month #2” block, there’s […]

By colinfoster | Also posted in Microsoft Excel | Tagged #N/A Error, Comparing lists in Excel, Excel, Functions, IF Function, IFERROR Function, ISERROR Function, Spreadsheet, Text String, VLOOKUP Function | Comments (0)

PowerPoint connections

July 16, 2018 – 4:07 pm

Connections to make it work So, you’ve built your PowerPoint presentation, it’s looking good, you’ve even tested that the various effects work seamlessly… and then you turn up at the venue only to find that you’re unable to connect your laptop to the projector that the venue has available & this is in spite of […]

By colinfoster | Also posted in Microsoft PowerPoint | Tagged Epson EB-W05 WXGA, HDMI or VGA, laser pointer, PowerPoint, Presentation, projector | Comments (0)

Table of Contents in Word

July 9, 2018 – 3:24 pm

When do you need a Table of Contents? In my view, it doesn’t really make sense to go to the trouble of creating a Table of Contents (easy though the process is) until you’ve a document that’s a few pages long that incorporates a number of headings. Even multi page letters would probably look a […]

By colinfoster | Also posted in Microsoft Word | Tagged Styles, Table of Contents, Word | Comments (0)

Conditional Formatting in Excel

July 6, 2018 – 9:57 pm

Highlighting cells in accordance with a set of rules That is, in a “nutshell” what Conditional Formatting is all about – the formatting changes based on a set of rules that you specify. This could be whether a cell value is higher or lower than a target, or a date before or after another or […]

By colinfoster | Also posted in Microsoft Excel | Tagged Conditional Formatting, Functions, Heat Map in Excel, Spreadsheet, Traffic lights in Excel | Comments (0)

Lining up images in PowerPoint

June 1, 2018 – 8:00 pm

Images in PowerPoint As Telly Savalas used to sing (using the word “sing” in it’s widest context, and showing my age at the same time): “A picture paints a thousand words” and many of us, when designing PowerPoint presentations make use of images. In some cases, the image IS the slide & when delivering our […]

By colinfoster | Also posted in Microsoft PowerPoint | Tagged Alignment, Images, PowerPoint | Comments (0)

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Very helpful

Very helpful, lots of hints and tips to speed up working

Sara Turner

Excel Intermediate Course / Graham Wood & Co.

Very informative

Very informative, could not fault, assisted when required, capable & understanding, all content will be most useful if required, not too heavy, just right

Brian Moss

Excel Foundation course / Seddon Atkinson Vehicles

Very relaxed and friendly

Very relaxed and friendly. Lots of information available. Lots of useful new information to assist with everyday preparation of working papers, etc. e.g. negative figures in brackets

Sharon Hague

Excel Intermediate Course / Graham Wood & Co.

Master Craftsman

Colin is by far the best teacher of Microsoft Office I have spoken to. He makes everything sound so easy, which is the true hallmark of a Master Craftsman. He talks you through step by step, shows amazing patience and never moves on until you have understood each step. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Colin to anyone, at any level for his amazing knowledge and teaching abilities on this subject.

Eric Cooper

Technical Author / The ManualWriter

Tailored training

Open session tailored to our needs with good pace and useful handouts. With the ability to ask lots of questions

Helene Harris

Excel 2010 Advanced Course / Airbus Defence & Space

Excellent instructor

We spent extra time on what we wanted to learn most, so it was tailored to our needs enabling us to learn lots of new skills and several tips for speeding up everyday processes. An excellent instructor

Connie Clark

Excel 2010 Intermediate Course / Airbus Defence & Space

Recommended course

The tutor started the course by asking what particular areas we wanted covering first. Also particularly beneficial was the ability to be able to ask questions during the training session at any time & the course notes and memory stick will be very useful to practice examples.The VLOOKUP function will be valuable to use in practical tasks & overall, this was a good refresher course with good pace that I would recommend to colleagues.

Helene Harris

Excel 2010 Intermediate Course / Airbus Defence & Space

Off Piste benefit

Of particular benefit was the fact that Colin not only tailored the session to the Museum, but specifically to our needs, questions and niggles.Thanks for going "off Piste" with Pivot TablesI can use the principles of working within a financial remit on the course to improve our cataloguing, inventories and equipment surveys, etc.Thanks for giving us what we needed and not just ploughing through the manual

Ian L

Excel 2010 Intermediate Course / Museum of London

Great session

It was a great session and good to repeat some of the exercises as it helped me to understand the principles behind them better & I'm now ready to experiment with Pivot Tables. I will be able to manage my events listings better being able to group and colour coordinate them

Maria Rego