Office handy hints - Selecting cells in Excel

There are a number of ways to select cells, rows and columns in Excel – these are explained in more detail in the following table:

To Select	Use
A single cell	Click the cell or use the arrow keys to move to the cell
A range of cells	Click the first cell in the range and then drag to the last cell or click the first cell, hold down the SHIFT key and use the arrow keys to extend the selection or press F8 and extend the selection by using the arrow keys (press F8 again to stop extending the selection)
A large range of cells	Click the first cell in the range, hold down the SHIFT key and click the last cell in the range
All cells on a worksheet	Click the Select All button (positioned above row 1 and to the left of column A or press CTRL+A (if the worksheet contains data, CTRL+A will only select the current data, press CTRL+A a second time to select all the data)
Non- adjacent cells or cell ranges	Select the first cell, hold down the CTRL key and click all other cells that you want to select.
An entire row or column	Click the column heading or the row number
Adjacent rows or columns	Click the first column or row heading and drag to select all adjacent rows or columns
Non-adjacent rows or columns	Click the first column or row heading, hold down the CTRL key and click all other columns or rows
The first or last cell in a row or column	Select a cell in the column or row, hold down the CTRL key and use the left or right arrow keys for rows or up or down arrow keys for columns
The first or last cell on a worksheet or an Excel table	Press CTRL+Home to select the first cell in a worksheet or list. Press CTRL+End to select the last cell in a worksheet or list
Cells to the last used on the worksheet	Select the first cell and then press CTRL+SHIFT+End to extend the selection to the last used cell
Cells to the beginning of the worksheet	Select the last cell and then press CTRL+SHIFT+Home to extend the selection of cells to the first used cell on the worksheet
More or fewer cells than the active selection	Whilst a range of cells is selected, hold down the SHIFT key and click the last cell that you want to select. The range will be extended to include (or exclude) cells
Cancel a selection of cell	Click any other cell on the worksheet

MatterSphere handy hints - Editing a document

Editing letters
Most MatterSphere templates have merge fields built into them that are used to display data recorded in the system. If you create a letter and notice that the address needs changing you should not change this information in the letter, although you can successfully make the changes when you print the letter the details will revert back to what they previously were. If any details are incorrect they will need to be corrected in MatterSphere and then the new details need to be re-linked to the letter.

With the document open in Word, click the Current Document ribbon and select the relevant icon for the details that you need to change.

 

 

If you need to amend Client details, click Current Client Info. If you need to amend Matter details, click Current Matter Info and if you need to make changes to any of the Associate information, click the Current Associate Info.

After making changes to the relevant information, click the Re-Link Fields icon.

 

 

NB: Some of the data that you make changes to will prompt you to relink the fields in the document when you close the MatterSphere window. If this doesn’t happen you should manually relink the data by clicking the Re-Link fields icon.

MatterSphere handy hints - Viewing only received or sent documents

On the Documents tab at Matter level you can filter the document list to show only those documents that have been received (or sent).

The Inward icon will filter the Document list to show only those documents that have been received.


The Outward icon will filter the Document list to show only those documents that have been sent.


The In/Out icon is the default view and will show all documents.

MatterSphere - Alerts

Alerts are a useful way of notifying colleagues about important information relating to Clients or Matters.

Client Alerts
Alerts at Client level are added on the Search/ Marketing tab.

Click the Client Information icon on the Matter Centre toolbar and search for the Client.

Click the Search/ Marketing tab.

To create an Alert at Client level, tick the 'Alert on Client' box.

Enter the text that you want to appear into the Alert Message Text field and click Save at the top of the screen. The Alert will be displayed at the top of the Client screen and will be visible each time the record is opened.

Matter Alerts
Matter Alerts use the traffic light colours of Green, Amber and Red.

To add an Alert, click the Matter Information icon and search for the Client. Matter Alerts are added on the Matter Notes screen.

Enter the text that you want to appear in the Alert Message text field, select the Alert level and click Save.

If both a Client and Matter Alert are added to the same Client, the Matter Alert will appear above the Client Alert when the Matter is opened.

Microsoft's next surprise is free Office for iPad, iPhone, and Android

 

Microsoft's Office suite for iPad, iPhone, and Android is now free. In a surprise move, the software giant is shaking up its mobile Office strategy to keep consumers hooked to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents. Starting today, you'll no longer need an Office 365 subscription to edit documents or store them in the cloud. The move comes just days after Microsoft announced a strategic partnership with Dropbox to integrate the cloud storage service into Office across desktop, mobile, and the web. You can now download Office for iPad and store all your documents on Dropbox without paying Microsoft anything at all. Microsoft is also releasing a brand new iPhone app today, alongside a preview of Office for Android tablets, all with Dropbox integration.

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Free mobile Office sounds crazy, but is it really?

Microsoft's plans might sound crazy to most, and at first glance it's easy to come to that conclusion, but the company argues it's a matter of moving its free web apps to mobile. "It’s an extension of the strategy that we’ve got," explains Microsoft's head of Office marketing Michael Atalla. "It’s not a total strategic shift, as much of an extension of the existing strategy." Microsoft offers free Office apps online, and Atalla argues that recent development model changes inside Microsoft have allowed the company to open up editing functionality to mobile clients. "We’re taking that same user experience we provide online to the native apps of iOS and Android. We want to make sure that our customers can be productive across all the devices they have."

While consumers using Office mobile will be able to access the apps for free, Microsoft isn't extending this free functionality to businesses. An Office 365 subscription will be required to edit documents that are stored on OneDrive for Business or Dropbox for business, a clear sign of how Microsoft will continue to generate money from the thousands of businesses that rely on its productivity suite and cloud platform. "There’s still premium value that we’ll add on top of that," says Atalla. "There will still be subscription value, most clearly and easily identifiable in the commercial space, but also in the consumer space around advanced authoring, analysis, presentation, and unlimited storage with OneDrive." Microsoft is also restricting some chart element customization and track changes to paid customers, making them premium features.

 

The key here appears to be a strategic move by Microsoft to keep Office competition out of the mobile space. It's all too easy for competitors to build rival products and ship them for free on iPad, iPhone, and Android, offering premium features on top. Microsoft's Office suite is dominant, which also means it's ripe for disruption. If there's a rival Office iPad app that's free and easy to use, that could tempt consumers away from their preconceived reliance on Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. CloudOn, a gesture-based app for editing Office documents, has seen some early success here. Apple also offers its own iWork apps on iPad at no extra cost, and several rivals, including the maker of the popular Paper iPad app, are emerging to threaten Office on mobile. The nightmare situation for Microsoft is that consumers realize soon that they don't need Office to create their resume or personal documents, so why should they pay for it on a smartphone or tablet where they're used to getting free apps.

While Microsoft will never admit it, it's that threat more than anything that has forced the company's mobile shift here. "By in large we want that core authoring experience in front of all the users that love Office on any device they choose," explains Atalla. That core authoring experience can help keep Office users hooked, and Microsoft doesn't want to face a future where consumers, and eventually businesses, are no longer obsessing over Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. There's also a play here to get consumers using OneDrive cloud storage and a Microsoft Account. Both of these can help Microsoft tempt consumers over to Office 365 for additional storage and the added benefit of Office for PC and Mac as part of a subscription. It's a bold move from Microsoft, but also a defensive one. Microsoft's competition will now have to look elsewhere to plot their Office attack.