Advanced Tips and Tricks for Creating Business Diagrams with PowerPoint and Visio (Level 300)

Posted by Stephanie at 07:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hi everyone! Thanks for those who took the time to attend today's session. For those of you who wanted to but were not able to make it, the recorded version should be available by tomorrow.

Aside from a few unusual little technical difficulties (mostly when I had to mute out to cough because of a nasty cold :) I think we had quite a bit of fun. These programs are just so cool -- it's great to take advantage of tools that seem very advanced but are truly incredibly easy.

As promised, following are some links for more information.

On this blog: The Happiest Thing About PowerPoint: Perfect is easier than close enough -- article covering a lot of the tips we looked at today for using the precision tools available in PowerPoint (such as align or distribute) for creating great presentation graphics.

You can also visit the PowerPoint home page at Office Online for one-stop shopping to a bunch of free PowerPoint resources, including help articles, online training courses, and templates.

And, if you have my book ( Microsoft Office Document Designer (MODD)) and have installed the tools on the CD, you can also find a lot of the tips we covered - such as using edit points, ungrouping Clip Art to create custom graphics, creating sizing guides, and getting PowerPoint diagrams into Word - in the tip sheets available from the MODD toolbars in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint... as well as macros on the MODD toolbars in PowerPoint to help you get some of it done ...

As for Visio, following are links to several sources of free Visio help, information, and where to get a free trial if you haven't used it before:

For links and more info on creating a Visio org chart from Excel data, check out a recent article of mine on the Microsoft at Work site: Take your data traveling: use charts and diagrams in multiple programs

Additionally, for quick reference, following are links to lots of free help sources on Visio from Office Online:

Visio home page on Office Online for help topics, online training courses, templates, etc.

Once you are on the Visio home page, you can easily access and search for help topics with pretty deep information, such as this list of help topics about ways to use Excel data with organization charts ... including both adding it to your org charts and exporting data from org charts into Excel.

Click to download or order a CD of a free, fully functional 30-day trial of Visio.

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If these resources don't easily give you the answer to any lingering question you may have had from the webcast -- or if I promised to post information I've forgotten about (forgive the flakiness - it's the head cold :) ... please post a comment with your question and I'll post a response asap. If I won't be able to get you an answer to your post within 24 hours, I will send an email to let you know when you can expect the answer.

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

Posted by Stephanie at 03:39 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Monday, everybody! Just a quick reminder to join me if you can tomorrow for a tips and tricks session on creating business diagrams in PowerPoint and Visio.

This session assumes an advanced Office user - but does not assume extremely advanced PowerPoint or Visio skills. We'll look at when to use which program along with best practice tips for creating buisness diagrams (such as organization charts and flow diagrams) and some cool tips to get more out of both PowerPoint and Visio.

As always, webcasts are free and available to anyone. Click the link that follows to register:

Advanced tips and tricks for creating business diagrams with PowerPoint and Visio
9am Pacific, 12noon Eastern - this is a 90 minute session

Please keep in mind that, if you have not attended a LiveMeeting session recently, you might need to log in a few minutes early tomorrow to give LiveMeeting a chance to update your software. It's free, but can take a couple of minutes -- just a heads up so that you don't miss any tips :)

Also, if you have trouble hearing the audio when you log in, post a question in the LiveMeeting Q&A panel and request the dial-in number, so that you can listen to the webcast on the phone while watching on your computer. When you post that question, watch the Q&A panel for the producer's reply.

Look forward to seeing you tomorrow!

Posted by Stephanie at 03:27 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Advanced Tips and Tricks for Excel Charting: Financial Pitch Books Made Simple (Level 300)

Posted by Stephanie at 07:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

If you took the time to attend my Excel chart webcast today, thank you! If you were not able to make it but would still like to see it, the recorded version should be available on-demand by tomorrow. It was a lot of fun! I hope everyone found it useful...

As promised, following are some additional resources from today's session:

For a review of any charting basics ... creating and formatting charts -- there is an excellent series of short and easy-to-follow courses available free at Office Online Training:
Charts I: How to create a chart
Charts II: Choose the right chart type
Charts III: Create a professional-looking chart

For a review or more help with some of the topics we covered today, check out these earlier posts on this blog:

Sizing Excel Charts for Word
Linking Text Boxes, Chart Titles, and Data Labels Dynamically to Data
Show the Data's Exact End Date on a Line Chart X-Axis

To learn about using tables to create page layouts in Word, check out my course Tables II at Office Online Training.

Slightly off-topic, but still on charting ... check out a recent article for Microsoft At Work: Take Your Data Traveling: Using Charts and Diagrams in Multiple Programs ... that's another resource on sizing Excel charts for Word -- as well as how to import Excel charts into PowerPoint and how to create a Visio organization chart from Excel data (which I'll also demonstrate in next Tuesday's PowerPoint\Visio webcast).

For more tips ...

If you have my book, Microsoft Office Document Designer (MODD), and you have installed the tools on the MODD CD, you have a set of 75 tip sheets and articles accessible from the MODD toolbars in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, with step-by-step instructions as well as tips and tricks covering a wide range of document production -- including much of what we covered today.... along with lots of document and chart samples.

And, for great Excel tips from a couple of Excel MVPs -- I can't say enough good things about these two guys:

Curt Frye, Excel genius (who was watching the session today - thanks, Curt! :) is the author of several Excel books. Find tips and tools and lots of fun stuff on his site: http://thatexcelguy.com/

Jon Peltier is a scientist and also an Excel genius. He takes a very different approach to charting than I do, being a scientist, rather than a presentation person like myself ... for a different perspective and lots of great tips, check him out:http://peltiertech.com/

If you need resources for anything I didn't post here, or have a question that you didn't get a chance to ask in today's session, please post a comment and I'll reply asap.

Meanwhile, hope to see you all on Tuesday for my next webcast, http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?EventID=1032287364&EventCategory=4&culture=en-US&CountryCode=US.

Happy Thursday everyone!

Posted by Stephanie at 02:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Advanced Tips and Tricks for Complex Word Documents: Financial Pitch Books Made Simple (Level 300)

Posted by Stephanie at 07:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hi, everyone! Thanks to those who took time to attend today's webcast. If you wanted to, but didn't get a chance -- it will be available for on-demand viewing as of tomorrow.

The session today was an advanced Word session focusing on financial pitch books -- very complex Word documents containing lots of formatting and layout, tables, and graphics.

What I hope you saw in this session is that by getting comfortable with just a few key features, you can do so much more than you might imagine - in less time than you might expect.

If you had a question that didn't get answered, or questions came up after you left the LiveMeeting, please post them as comments here and I'll respond asap.

Before I get to additional resources, I do owe one question response that I promised to post here. Shorcut keys for changing case:

To toggle between cases (actually change the characters from lower case to upper case to title case to initial caps): Shift + F3

To apply ALL CAPS font formatting: Ctrl + Shift + A

... and keep in mind that you can search for Keyboard Shortcuts in the 'Type a question for help' box at the top right corner of any Office program window for pretty comprehensive keyboard shortcut listings for that program. Or, for quick access to all of them across Office 2003, click here for an Office Online article that has them all accesible for you from one place.

Now for those additional resources, as promised ...

Additional Resources

For quick access to the links I gave you at the end of the session, as well as some of my other favorites, click here for the links page on this blog.

For those who would like to review core concepts, such as the three levels of formatting - check out an earlier post on this blog - Word Philosophy 101.

For a review of formatting essentials, check out two excerpts from my book that are available on Office Online:
Making Your Word Documents Behave
Paragraph Formatting Essentials for Unbreakable Documents

For help with table basics, try my Office Online Training course, Tables I

For help and practice creating tables as page layouts and working with nested tables, check out my course Tables II

To review the shorcuts and steps for working with fields that we looked at today, check out an earlier post on this blog - Let's Talk About Fields, Baby

For those who want to begin their adventure in VBA, here are a few links from this blog, as well as a link to an earlier webcast I gave on the basics of VBA (using the sample I showed in today's session) ... and a couple of links to free content on MSDN.

Also, as mentioned in the session today, I will be giving an Office VBA basics webcast in just a few weeks - that will cover much of the content you'll find in the earlier webcast link below, along with additional tips including translating that information to VBA in Excel and PowerPoint as well. Stay tuned for links and info on that upcoming webcast. Meanwhile, here are your VBA links:

Webcast: Basics of using Word VBA every day
For the link where you can download samples used in that webcast, click here

Selected VBA posts on this blog:
Favorite everyday macros: using the Immediate Window
VBA does have some limits: understanding constants
Empower your macros with loops

MSDN links:
The MSDN library - where you can look up help on most any VBA question you have
Download the Word VBA language reference ... at the bottom of the page you'll get with this link, you will also find links to other Office program VBA language references

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If the additional resources above didn't answer your question or you would like help or information on another topics, please post a comment and I'll be happy to help if I can. Meanwhile, hope to see you all on Thursday for some fighter-pilot-cool advanced Excel charting tips (I love this stuff! :) Here's the link to register for that one:

Advanced Tips and Tricks for Excel Charting
Thursday, January 26th at 9am Pacific, 12p Eastern. 90 minute session.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Posted by Stephanie at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Monday everyone! Just a quick reminder that I'm giving a 90 minute, level 300 webcast on complex Word documents tomorrow. Please join me if you can!

This webcast will focus on financial pitch books ... essentially marketing documents that contain lots of formatting, tables, charts, and diagrams ... Tuesday's session is the Word portion ... formatting and layout for complex documents that look great and are easy to manage. The Excel charting portion is coming up this Thursday ... PowerPoint and Visio diagrams follow next Tuesday. I'll give you more details about the charting and diagramming sessions during tomorrow's Word session.

Here's the registration link. As always with Microsoft webcasts, it's free and open to everyone -- so please come along and invite your friends :) The more the merrier!

Advanced Tips and Tricks for Complex Word Documents: Financial Pitch Books Made Simple (Level 300)
Tuesday, Jan 24th - 9a Pacific, 12noon Eastern (90 minutes long)

Even though this will be an advanced session -- if you are not already a Word power user, but would like to learn about complex documents ... you can still feel free to join us. It might feel like I'm going really fast, but you'll be able to go back on-demand and review any of the tips whenever you like. I'll also give you additional resources during the session for those who want to review some prerequisites to the session ... so don't be scared off by the advanced warning :)

Please keep two logistical points in mind when logging in to the session:

- if you have not recently attended a Webcast or other LiveMeeting event, please log in a bit early in case LiveMeeting needs to update your installation. If you need the upgrade, it's totally free, but will take a few minutes to complete.

- once you're in the session, if you have trouble getting sound or can't hear well, post a question in the Q&A panel on your LiveMeeting screen requesting the toll-free dial-in number, so that you can listen by phone while watching on screen. The producer will respond and post that number back to you in the same Q&A panel. The producer and I both log in several minutes early, so if you want to check your sound in advance ... come in a bit early so that you can check your sound and dial in if necessary without missing anything (there should be background music playing for almost 1/2 hour before the session starts, so it will be easy to tell if you are getting sound correctly.)

Meanwhile, have a great day!

Posted by Stephanie at 11:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hi, everyone! Starting next week, I'll be giving a series of three very advanced (level 300) webcasts on creating complex documents.

The webcasts titles and descriptions talk about financial pitch books ... but you do not need to have anything to do with finance to get something out of them. The focus on financial pitch books is great for any advanced Office user who wants to kick their skills up a notch, because those are the most complex of Office documents ... incorporating complex page layouts, tables, charts and graphics. Basically - they are advanced marketing documents that you can easily apply to whatever your business is. (and, for those who have my book - they are the type of document used for most of the MODD document samples).

These will each be 90 minute sessions focusing on tips and tricks to get the best result with the least amount of work. Session 1 will focus on Word document layout and troubleshooting, session 2 on Excel charts, and session 3 on PowerPoint and Visio diagrams.

Please join me if you can ... I'll be sharing lots of tips and tricks from some of the best document production professionals in the business. And of course, like all Microsoft webcasts, they're free and open to anyone :)

Here are the links where you can register to attend:

Advanced Tips and Tricks for Complex Word Documents: Financial Pitch Books Made Simple (Level 300)
Tuesday, Jan 24th - 9a Pacific, 12noon Eastern (90 minutes long)

Advanced Tips and Tricks for Excel Charting: Financial Pitch Books Made Simple (Level 300)
Thursday, Jan 26th - 9a Pacific, 12noon Eastern (90 minutes long)

Advanced Tips and Tricks for Creating Business Diagrams with PowerPoint and Visio (Level 300)
Tuesday, Jan 31st - 9a Pacific, 12noon Eastern (90 minutes long)

... keep in mind that, if you haven't attended a LiveMeeting session recently, you might be prompted to update your LiveMeeting installation when you log in on the day of the webcast, so please try to log in a few minutes early.

... also note that, if you have trouble with the audio, you can post a question (in the Q&A panel in LiveMeeting once you join the session) requesting the dial-in number to listen to the audio by phone instead. Once you post your question, just keep an eye on that Q&A panel for the producer's response.

Look forward to seeing you there! Meanwhile, Happy Monday :)

Posted by Stephanie at 04:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hi, everyone! Macworld is great :)

Okay, I'm having fun ... but I also got a little sick, so I'm a bit pathetic this evening :( Unfortunately, I lost most of my voice ... so they had to cancel half of my presentations today. But, lots of tea, honey, steam, and rest and I'l be back in action 100% tomorrow ... and back in search of great new restaurants to tell you about by tomorrow evening...

If you are at the show or going to the show ... you MUST come by the Microsoft area. First of all, the presentations are lots of fun -- in addition to mine, there are 2 terrific presenters talking about Virtual PC and giving an overview of Office 2004. Several of Microsoft's Mac MVPs are also there -- and they're a great group of people (not to mention super-knowledgeable!)

But ... perhaps the best reason you MUST come by is that Microsoft is giving away a lot of great stuff! The presenters get to give away a copy of Office 2004 professional at the end of EVERY presentation (I love doing that! :) and at the end of the show, Microsoft is giving away a few total desktop makeovers (brand new systems).

Anyway ... I'll try to post more about the show again ... Fingers crossed that I'm back to 100% functionality tomorrow :) and I can check out all the fun stuff going on across the show, in between my presentations ...

Meanwhile, happy Wednesday :)

Posted by Stephanie at 08:46 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hi, everyone and happy Sunday!

I'm headed out to San Francisco to for Macworld 2006, which starts on Tuesday.

If you'll be at Macworld -- stop by the Microsoft area for a presentation schedule ... I'll be presenting on creating great documents easily with Office 2004.

It's my first Macworld and I'm really excited. I'm also excited to be going to San Fran -- the die-hard wine geek and foodie that I am, I love any city with great restaurants (of course, it doesn't get better than living in NY -- but San Francisco is a tough competitor :)

I'll post as much as I can this week with updates on Macworld and any important restaurant or wine alerts :) I'll probably also post a bit of whining on how much I miss my kitties (it's the only thing I hate about travel!) ... so supportive comments will be appreciated ;-)

Happy Sunday everybody!

Posted by Stephanie at 10:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Hello, all and happy New Year! Hope everyone had a terrific, restful holiday.

I myself got to finally start beta testing on Office 12 ... I was quite a bit behind the start of the beta because of work deadlines, but I'm having lots of fun now :) Still too early to blog on it here - but just a reminder, if you haven't seen these yet - lots of Microsoft Office team members are blogging on Office 12 already and sharing a lot of cool information for those who aren't on the beta (and for those who are). Check my links page (newly accessible from top-right of this main page) for a few of my favorites ... those guys also link to each other's blogs, so this is a good starting off point.

I've done a bit of redesign in the past couple of weeks. Actually - Michelle Jones (the talented artist, photographer and blog designer who does all the stuff I don't know how to do on this site) did the redesign ... but that redesign gives me lots more room to add more links ... inlcuding making all of my published articles, webcasts, and courses more eaisly accessible. You'll see links to 'more articles,' 'more webcasts,' etc ... after the few most recent of each lower down in the right column of this main page.

Meanwhile, I have a new article that was just published last week on Microsoft At Work ... the second part of a pair of articles called 'Take Your Data Traveling' ... this one is on using charts and diagrams across multiple programs... includes the steps to some of my favorites - including importing an Excel chart into PowerPoint, sizing an Excel chart for a Word document, and creating a Visio organization chart automatically from a simple Excel worksheet. Check it out!

More technical tips later this week. If you didn't visit during the holidays, please check out the first part of my 'Favorite Everyday Macros' series that I'll be posting here on the blog. That's below -- posted last week - and it's an introduction to the Immediate Window. The second installment of that series will post by early next week ... with at least one unrelated tip post in between.

Meanwhile, happy New Year and happy Monday everyone :)

Posted by Stephanie at 11:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)