Computeractive – 6 January 2016

Make Office Better
Expert tips for every program
POWERPOINT
Preview your presentation and
rearrange your slides faster
While playing your slideshow
from the beginning is the best
way to present it, it’s not
necessarily the best way to check your
presentation because you can’t rearrange
slides if you feel that you need to.
A better alternative is to use
PowerPoint’s Reading View option to
preview and check your presentation.
To do that, click the Reading View icon
at the bottom right of PowerPoint. Your
presentation will start playing in full
screen and you can use the left and
right arrow keys to navigate between
slides (just as if you were playing your
slideshow). Even better, you can
rearrange slides quickly in this mode.
To do that, click the icon with four
small squares (to the left of the Reading
View icon – see screenshot above). Your
slides will now appear as tiles. Simply
click and drag the tiles to rearrange them,
then click the Reading View icon again to
switch back to that mode.
EXCEL
Speed up navigation within a
longer spreadsheet
If you have an Excel sheet with
data running across hundreds
of lines, then getting to the top
or bottom using only the arrow keys
on your keyboard can be very time
consuming. Th is is because those keys
only jump one cell at a time. A faster way
to speed up the navigating process using
your keyboard is to keep the Ctrl key
pressed, then press and hold the up (or
down) arrow key. Th is will jump across
multiple rows at a much quicker speed,
making the process faster. You can also
use the Ctrl+ (left or right) arrow key
combination to move in that direction.
WORD
Use images as bullets points
It’s easy to add bullet
points to your text,
but did you know
that you can also use images as
bullet points? Th e process is
very easy and it can inject some
style into your documents. To
do this, fi rst click the Bullets
dropdown menu (at the top
left of the Paragraph section
in the Home tab), then click
Defi ne New Bullet (see
screenshot right). Now click
the Picture button. You’ll see
two options – ‘From a fi le’ and
Bing Image Search. To add an
image from your PC, click
Browse beside the fi rst option,
navigate to the image, then click
Insert and OK.
To add an image from Bing,
click inside the Search Bing fi eld
and type what image you’re looking
for. By default, you won’t see proper
high-res images of your term. For
example, if you searched for ‘Big
Ben’, then you’ll see sketches
or drawings of Big Ben because
OFFICE
Make Office programs easier
to use on a touchscreen
Laptops with touchscreens (such
as the Microsoft Surface) and
convertible laptops (such as the
Lenovo Yoga and Microsoft Surface Book)
are becoming very common. Th ese let
you type using your keyboard or by
bringing up the onscreen keyboard. If
you tend to use the touchscreen more
than your keyboard, then you should
these are more appropriate to use
as bullet points. If you want to see
the actual image, then simply click
‘Show all web results’ at the bottom.
You’ll now see high-res images.
Select the image that you want,
then click Insert and OK
Th e images you’ve added will now
appear as options within your Bullets
dropdown menu.
activate Microsoft Touch Mode to make
your Office programs easier to use.
Doing this will make your Office tab
buttons bigger and add more space
between the various options on your
Ribbon, so there’s less chance you’ll
accidentally tap something else.
To activate this mode, open Word,
Excel or PowerPoint and look at your
Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) at the top
left. You should see either a circular
icon with a border or an icon of a fi nger.
Tap either icon, then
tap Touch to turn on
the mode (its set to
Mouse by default –
see screenshot left).
If you don’t see these
icons, then press and
hold any item on the
QAT until you see a
menu of options.
Next, tap Customize
Quick Access Toolbar,
tap Touch Mode, then
tap Add.
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