Month: October 2011

Microsoft Word. The name’s practically synonymous with “productivity app.” If you’re reading this article at work (shame on you!) there’s a pretty decent chance you’ve got a Word doc open right now, and you probably think you’ve got a good handle on Microsoft’s word processor. We’ll bet you don’t know as much as you think you do.

Don’t believe us? Read on for 10 quick tips and tricks for Microsoft Word–we think at least a few will suprise you. If you’re such a Word expert that they don’t, hit the comments and share some of your favorites tips.

Be Selective with How You Select

You already know that double-clicking selects a single word, and you probably figured out that triple-clicking selects an entire paragraph. But if you just want to select a single sentence, hold down Ctrl and click on any word. To select an entire table, hold down Alt and double-click.

Add a Comment Box

When a friend or family member sends you a document to proofread, don’t waste your time writing a lengthy email detailing all the horrendous mistakes you found; mark up their Word file instead. Highlight a portion of text, click the Review tab in the Ribbon bar, and select New Comment.

Insert Bullets and Number Lists Using Your Keyboard

When inspiration hits, lifting your fingers off the keyboard to use your mouse can mess up your mojo, but what do you do if you need to insert a bullet or numbered list? It’s simple: type an asterisk and hit the spacebar to auto-create a bullet list. You can do the same with numbers and dashes.

Use the Built-In Thesaurus

You don’t need to hop online to use a thesaurus, the folks in Redmond had the good sense to bundle one in Word. To use it, highlight an entry and press Shift+F7. Pretty simple, right? Or maybe we should say it’s trouble-free, straightforward, effortless, uncomplicated, or painless.

Backup/Transfer Your Settings

Nearly every customization you make to Word gets saved in the Normal.dot template, a hidden file that you should keep backed up. You’ll find it by navigating to C:Users[username]AppDataRoamingMicrosoftTemplates. Be sure to enable viewing of hidden files, folders, and drives.

Extend Word’s Trial Period

Microsoft allows you to test drive Office 2010 free for 30 days; after that, you have to pony up for a license and activate. Or you can ‘rearm’ Office for another 30-day trial, up to 5 times for a total of 180 days. To rearm, open an elevated command prompt and go to C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedOfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform and run OSPPREARM.exe. If you installed the 32-bit edition of Office on a 64-bit OS, replace Program Files with Program Files (x86).

Insert Screenshots into Word

One of our favorite new features in Word 2010 is the ability to glue screen grabs right into the document we’re working on. Just use the Print Screen key as normal to grab an image, and then go to Insert > Illustrations > Screenshot.

Hop Back and Forth with Bookmarks

To add a bookmark in Word, position your cursor and go to Insert > Links > Bookmark. Give your bookmark a name and click Add. To jump back to that point, just go back to the Bookmark menu, highlight your entry, and click Go To.

Select Text Vertically

Did you mess up your numbered list? Maybe some funky symbols got placed at the beginning of each sentence when you copied over an email. Whatever your reason for wanting to select text vertically, you can do so by holding down the Alt key and using your mouse cursor.

Password Protect Work Documents

One of these days, you’re going to punch your obnoxious roommate square in the face for digging around your personal documents. Or better yet, just lock your docs. To password protect a Word document, click on File > Info > Protect Document > Encrypt with Password

Step The First: Your Peripherals

We’ll start with the easy parts.  Your mouse and keyboard might not be dust magnets, but they sure can attract all sorts of nastiness between their various buttons and surfaces.  Your keyboard is, perhaps, the easiest item to clean in all of your desktop system: Just slap it in the dishwasher.

   

We jest; You can do that, but it requires more preparation than we’re prepared to go into with this brief cleaning overview.  Instead, you’ll want to hold your keyboard upside-down and use short blasts of compressed air to remove all the fingernail clippings, food particles, hair, and other gunk that’s found a home between your keys.  If you’re facing a herculean amount of gross, you can also use a small wedged object (like a mechanical pencil or the edge of a nail clipper) to gently pop each key off.  Get in there with a nice damp cloth and wipe the crud out, and then test your geek skills at remembering a keyboard’s layout when you go to reattach the keys.

   

As for your mouse, we’ll assume that you’re rocking a pretty typical design.  If so, you can also gently pop off the left and right mouse buttons without harming the mouse. Now that you have access to the dirt traps underneath, wipe these areas clean.  Once you’ve reattached your buttons, give the mouse a good overall wiping – and don’t forget about the nonstick pads on the bottom of the mouse.  These can be prime targets for accumulated grime.

Step The Second: Your Monitor

   

Why invest so much money in a beautiful, huge, possibly LED-backlit monitor if it’s covered in dust, dirt, and who-knows-what-else-you’ve-spilled-on-it? Goodbye, picture quality. But before you bust out the Windex and the rag, hear us: You can clean your LCD monitor with a simple damp cloth. Wet part of the cloth, gently use it to rub your monitor’s screen, and use the dry part of the cloth to dry it off. Easy.

   

Resist the urge to use paper towels. And, please, don’t just attack your monitor with a bevy of Windex sprays. In fact, don’t use Windex or any other cleaner with ammonia in it, and don’t spray any kind of cleaning solution directly onto your screen. If water just isn’t doing the trick for you, make a 50/50 mix of water and isopropyl alcohol and gently apply it to a wet rag before you give your screen some elbow grease.

Step the Third: Your Desktop PC

   

Roll up your shirtsleeves: It’s time to become the Mike Rowe of computer cleaning. Let’s start by talking about the easy method for de-dusting a filthy desktop computer: compressed air.

Tempting as it might be to just buy a few cans and just blast the heck out of your system’s insides, you’re just going send dust flying all around your desktop or, worse, all over your nice, carpeted floor. You need a battle plan.

   

For the most thorough clean, you really will want to remove every part and piece inside of your PC. You can then use compressed air to target all the nooks and crannies that you might otherwise miss, and you’ll be able to wipe down some surfaces (like an optical drive, your tangled mess of power supply cables, or even the outside of a video card) to catch all the dust that even compressed air can’t send flying. You’ll also be able to give the entirety of your case a thorough wiping to get rid of all the dust and grime that’s collected over time: Feel free to once again use the 50/50 mix of water and isopropyl alcohol we mentioned earlier for a quick-drying, disinfecting clean.

   

Now, you might be tempted to do that age-old trick where you blast compressed air against one side of the blades on your system’s fans (or, worse, your videocard or CPU cooler’s fans), get them spinning nice and fast, and then blast air in the other direction to send dust flying every which way. Don’t do that. It’s a great way to damage your fans. Instead, you’ll want to keep the fan blade stuck firmly in place (by way of a pen or some other creative device) before you attack the dust. If you’re especially sensitive to grime, use a cotton swab to wipe the dirt off of the blades manually.

   

When you’re ready to reassemble your computer, you’ll want to give yourself plenty of time for outfitting your system with proper cable management. Here’s why: Cables strewn about the middle of your system deliver inefficient airflow and serve as magnets for dust. You might have noticed this fact if you just spent the last hour wiping down all of your dirty power supply cables.

   

The more you can tuck your cords out of sight (between the motherboard and your case’s side panel, for example), the prettier and cleaner your PC will look. And even if you can’t hide your cables within your case, at least you can use Velcro strips or twist-ties to bundle them together into one giant chunk. It’s not the most satisfactory solution, but it’ll at least help you keep your desktop’s insides a little cleaner than the alternative spiderweb of cables. A little foresight goes a long way toward reducing the time you spend during next quarter’s big clean!

Corrupted system files don’t have to ruin your day

Nothing will put a crimp in your computing style quite like a Windows error. Although Microsoft’s OS has gotten exponentially more stable over the years, it’s still very possible for Windows system files to become corrupt, which can cause your system to slow down, freeze, or (in the worst case) refuse to load your operating system at all.

When you encounter a Windows error, your first instinct may be to back up your data, grab the ol’ installation disk, and weep silently as you press the Reformat button. We’re here to tell you there’s another way. Still back up your data, of course, but by following this guide, you might well be able to repair your Windows install without dropping the nuke.

Note: Though these guides are written for Windows 7, a very similar process will work for Vista or XP.

Method 1: Repair Windows Even If You Can’t Get To Your Desktop

The first method will allow you to repair corrupt system files, even if the problem is so severe that you can’t boot all the way to your desktop. For this method, you’ll need a Windows installation DVD, so track down yours or borrow one from a friend—it doesn’t matter if the DVD’s version matches your license, as long as it’s the correct bit count.

Step 1: Insert the Install Disc and Reboot

If your system won’t boot into Windows, you’ll need to boot from somewhere else—in this case, the installation DVD. Your computer should be set up to boot from your optical drive before your hard drive, but if it’s not, you can always change the boot priority in the BIOS. When the system starts up, make sure you press a key when prompted to boot from the Windows installation disc. When you do, you’ll see the familiar Windows installation language-selection screen (image below).

Step 2: Get to the Command Prompt

The recovery tool we’re going to use is run from the command prompt, which can (thankfully) be accessed through the Windows installation disc. To get there, don’t click Install Now in the middle of the screen, but instead click Repair Your Computer in the lower left. Click Next on the first menu that pops up.

The next menu will have two radio buttons. Make sure the first one is selected, and note that in the text box, your System drive might not have the drive letter C. If that’s the case, make a note of the drive letter used. Click Next, and on the following screen (image above), select the bottom option, marked Command Prompt.

Step 3: Scan Your System

Finally you’re ready to scan your system files for errors. To do that simply run the following command:

sfc /scannow /offbootdir=[DRIVELETTER]: /offwindir=[DRIVELETTER]:windows

Substitute the drive letter you noted earlier for [DRIVELETTER]. There should be no square brackets in the command (image below).

Windows will now attempt to find and repair any errors in your system files. If the scan finds errors, you may need to repeat the steps in this guide until it finds no more errors. To restart your computer, enter the exit command, then click the Restart button. When you’re ready to try booting into Windows again, remove the install disc and restart one final time.

Method 2: Reinstall Windows Without Losing Any Data

If you are still able to get to your desktop, you’ve got additional options. You can still use the command prompt to scan as in the previous method, but there’s another way that may be more thorough: reinstall Windows.

Wait, didn’t we say you wouldn’t have to reformat? We did, and you don’t. It’s possible to do an in-place, nondestructive reinstall of Windows, which will restore all your system files to pristine condition without damaging any of your personal data or installed programs. All you’ll need is a Windows install DVD and your Windows CD key. Hopefully you still have your key written down somewhere, but if you don’t, you’re not out of luck. You can use a program like ProduKey, available for free, to quickly recover your Windows product key from the registry.

Important: Before continuing this process, note that it can cause problems with your installed programs, so don’t do it just for fun, and make sure to back up your important data and create a restore point before continuing.

Step 1: Do Some Prep Work

Before you can get started, there’s one important consideration: You can’t repair a Windows 7 SP1 install with a pre-SP1 install disc. The ideal solution is to borrow a newer install disc with SP1 included (or download it, if you have access to a TechNet account), but it’s also possible to uninstall SP1. To do this, open the Control Panel, select Uninstall a Program, and then choose the option to view updates (image below). You can right-click the Service Pack update to uninstall it.

Step 2: Insert the Install Disc

We’re once again using the Windows install disc, but this time we’re not going to boot from it. Simply insert the disc, and when the autorun menu pops up, choose to run setup.exe. Once again, you’ll find yourself staring at the Windows 7 install screen. This time, do click the Install now button (image below).

Step 3: Reinstall Windows

Finally, it’s time to get down to business. After the installer gets past the Copying Temporary Files… screen, you’ll be asked about getting updates for installation files. Go ahead and do this, as long as your computer’s network connection is still working.

When the installer asks what sort of installation you’d like to perform (image below), ignore your natural instinct to choose Custom, and instead click Upgrade. Sure, you’re not technically upgrading from one version of Windows to another, but we do want to do the kind of nondestructive install that the update option performs. Think of it as upgrading from a broken version to a non-broken version, if you must.

After that, all that’s left is to sit through the usual Windows 7 installation process, with its multiple reboots and endless progress bars. When it’s done, you’ll have to reactivate Windows by entering the product key that you found or wrote down earlier.

All that’s left to do is to let Windows install any security updates or service packs that it’s missing, and reboot. All your system files should now be fully restored!