Ramblings, ideas, problems, and solutions

Category: Microsoft Office

  • Adding a shared mailbox in Outlook

    A not infrequent question at work, is how to add a second mailbox in Outlook. Here’s how: Open Outlook Click File Go to Account settings, then account settings again Double click your current account Click “More settings” in the Server settings tab Go to the “Advanced” tab, and click add Add the mailboxes you want to…

  • Word: “Track changes” shows up as “Author” instead of author name

    A user called in, reporting that Word’s Track changes-function tagged her as “Author”, instead of her name. I opened a remote session, and started out by confirming that everything else was working correctly, and that her name had been set as the author in the settings for Microsoft Word. Stalling for time while I researched the issue, I…

  • Excel freezes on 10 MB file

    A few months ago, I had a user call in complaining that Excel would freeze and become completely unresponsive when she was working in a specific workbook. It was fairly large (10MB), but well within what the computer should have been able to handle. I opened a remote session to the computer, and started troubleshooting. My…

  • OneNote keeps asking for a password to sync with OneDrive

    One of the tools I use in my studies, is OneNote. I find it does a good job of being a place to sort my study notes, and offers the benefit of search, which lets me easily find what I’m looking for. While there are certainly other tools out there that could offer much the same…

  • Excel: Quickly remove blank cells

    From time to time, Excel worksheets fill up with blank cells interspersed among the content. While the judicious use of whitespace can be useful, it may also make reading the worksheet somewhat challenging. Luckily, Excel has a tool to help us get rid of the blank cells. Here’s how: Open the worksheet in question Press F5…

  • Outlook: Meeting invitations added to other mailboxes

    A while back, I had a user call in, telling me that all meeting invitations she received for some reason also showed up in the inboxes of a couple of shared mailboxes. I logged in to her computer remotely, and started poking about. I tried a number of fixes, including deleting her profile and recreating it, at…

  • Reducing the size of your Powerpoint presentations

    On a surprisingly regular basis, I get requests from users who want to send Powerpoint-presentations via email, but are stopped because the presentations are too big. 30 MB isn’t uncommon, and just the other day, I had someone with a presentation of a whopping 75 MB. The main culprit behind the issue they are seeing,…

  • MS Excel: Create PDF of active worksheet

    I recently had a user call in and ask me how he could export the contents of a single worksheet to PDF while working in Microsoft Excel 2010. As I told him, that is a simple feat to achieve. Here is how: Click File, then Save as… Change the format in which to save to PDF Click…

  • Hiding the scroll bar in Word

    So, you’ve minimized your menu ribbon. Now, let’s get rid of that pesky scroll bar. You’ve got a perfectly good scroll wheel on your mouse, and just don’t need it. It’s simple; here’s how: Go to File > Options In the Options for Word dialog box, go to Advanced Scroll down to the Display section…

  • Hiding the Office Ribbon menu

    For most of my time as a computer user, my main text editing tool has been Microsoft Office. I have grown accustomed to using, and even sort of liking the ribbon menu. However, as I often work on a laptop with its severely limited monitor real estate, I needed to find a way to hide…

  • Outlook: Delegate sending permissions

    Last week I showed you how to send as a different address. You might also want to allow someone else to send on behalf of you. Here’s how: Click on File Go to Info > Account Settings > Delegate Access Click Add Search for, and select, the person you want to grant permissions, then click…