Office handy hints - Drawing a perfectly straight line

If you use drawing objects in Word or PowerPoint and draw lines it may look like the line is straight on screen but when you print the document you'll realise that it isn't straight at all. Try holding the SHIFT key down whilst dragging to draw the line and it will be perfectly straight.

Office handy hints - Changing the case in Word really quickly

Have you ever typed something in Word and realised it's all in CAPITALS. If you've done this you'll be relieved to know that you can undo it without having to type all your text in again. Select the text that's in the wrong case and press SHIFT+F3 on your keyboard. Each time you press SHIFT+F3 it will cycle through UPPERCASE, lowercase and Sentence case - just stop when you get to the format you want.

MatterSphere handy hints - Attaching documents to emails

When sending attachments in emails the method you pick will depend on whether the document is already stored in MatterSphere.

If you want to attach a MatterSphere document, click the Create option and select To Associate. After selecting the Associate and clicking Proceed, click the Current Document ribbon. Click the Insert icon and then select Attach Document.

 

The MatterSphere Documents area will be displayed – click the document you want to attach and click Select.

 

If the document you want to attach is not already saved in MatterSphere click the Attach File icon on the Message ribbon.

 

Browse to the location that the document is saved in and click Insert.

When you send the email you will be asked if you want to save the attachment to MatterSphere.

MatterSphere handy hints - The Information Bar

The Information Bar is the area on the left hand side of the screen that contains information about the record you are viewing and also lists any actions that can be carried out for the selected tab.

If you prefer not to see the Information Bar, you can close it by clicking the Info Bar icon on the toolbar.

Or alternatively by clicking the double arrows at the top right of the Information Bar.

MatterSphere handy hints - Opening your most recent documents

After connecting to MatterSphere, click the File menu and choose Open. An OMS Document Dialog box will be displayed, which will display the last 50 documents that you saved to MatterSphere.

Select a document from the list and click OK to open it.

MatterSphere - Creating private emails whilst connected to MatterSphere

If you need to create an Email that’s not related to a Matter you don’t need to disconnect from MatterSphere to do this.

In Outlook, click the New Email button on the toolbar.

Create your email as normal and click the Send button.

The Select Associate screen will be displayed.

 

Instead of clicking Proceed to find an Associate, click the Private Email button.

An email will be created that will appear in your Inbox only i.e. not associated to a Matter.

MatterSphere handy hints - Windows Explorer save option

Windows Explorer can be used to save any file type to MatterSphere.

Open Windows Explorer and right click any document that you want to save to MatterSphere.

 

If the document has previously been saved to MatterSphere click the Save option – the Save wizard will be displayed.

If the document has not previously been saved to MatterSphere the Select a Client and Matter screen will be displayed, followed by the Save wizard.

If you’re not connected to MatterSphere when you select this option the login window will be displayed for you to login.

MatterSphere handy hints - Document properties

If you realise that you’ve saved a document with the wrong file name you can change it quickly on the Documents tab in MatterSphere.

Select the document that you want to change and click the Properties icon at the top of the screen.

 

You will be able to change the Document Description and the Wallet that the document is saved in.

 

After making your changes remember to click the Save icon.

NB: You may not see the new document name immediately on the Documents screen but if you click another screen and then go back to the Documents screen it will be updated.

Word - Format Painter

Have you ever applied formatting to text, got everything looking just how you want it and then needed to apply it to other text?

The Format Painter will become your best friend in situations like this. This feature will copy all formatting that has been applied to the selected text and apply it to any other text in your document – really useful if you’ve applied a lot of different formatting and can’t remember what you did.
 

Select the text that has the formatting you want to use. You don’t have to select all the text either – one word will be enough. The only time you would need to select an entire line or paragraph is when you’ve applied numbering or specific paragraph formatting.

Click the Format Painter icon on the Home ribbon.  

Select the text that you want to copy the formatting to.

Format Painter can also be used in Excel and Outlook and to copy formatting from one Word or Excel document to another.

Excel - Calculating totals without using Formulas

Sometimes you may need to check the current total for a group of cells but you may not be ready to create the formula at this stage.

When a number of values have been entered in a worksheet and these values have been selected a total will be displayed in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen. More often than not the total displayed will be a sum of the cells but this can be changed by right clicking the sum calculation and selecting another calculation option from the list e.g. Average or Count. The method explained below relates to Excel 2013 but the same principal works in all versions of Excel.

Select the figures in the worksheet that you want to use in the calculation. The taskbar at the bottom of the worksheet will now display the 3 most popular calculations – Average, Count and Sum.

 

 

You can also access another 3 calculations by right clicking the taskbar and selecting one of the options from the shortcut menu. If you click one of the additional calculations, this will also appear on the taskbar and will be available on the taskbar in each new worksheet or workbook that you open.

Excel - Creating a simple bar chart

Charts are a really effective way to provide a visual representation of data in Excel. Excel provides a number of different Chart types but if you’re in a rush and want to create one quickly you can use a keyboard shortcut to create a simple bar chart.

Select the data that you want to create the chart from.

 

Press F11 on your keyboard and hey presto a really simple bar chart is created on a new worksheet.

The chart can be customised and you can even change the chart type if you want to by using the chart tool bar and icons.

The screenshots above relate to Excel 2013 but the method for creating the chart applies to all versions of Excel.