Carol's Corner Office

Rather than just pasting raw numbers into a table, you can embed a worksheet into a document. Embedding retains the formulas that ride behind your numbers and all the functionality of Excel. You can create an Excel worksheet from scratch, or, if the ... worksheet already exists, you can insert it using the Paste Special command. Although an embedded worksheet behaves as a picture in the document, when you double-click to modify it, Excel opens within MS Word, allowing you to use Excel's formulas to calculate results. One drawback to embedding an Excel worksheet is that it increases the file size ... (view more)

After you've spent time creating a workbook, you'll want to print a copy on paper. Although many files are only viewed electronically, paper copies are still used for several reasons: To be able to examine the file away from the computer To keep a ... copy as a permanent record To send it in the mail or by fax As soon as you click the Print button, you might see these items on your screen: A dialog box opens explaining what is being printed. To stop the printing process, click Cancel. A printer icon appears on the right side of the taskbar, near the clock. A single copy of the worksheet you see ... (view more)

The Office Assistant provides help when you need to know how to do something in Excel. This help is available at the click of a button and in every dialog box. You can ask a question, or you can look through the table of contents or index for ... relevant topics. Sometimes the Office Assistant suggests ways to help before you even ask for it. You can get help four ways: Click the Office Assistant, if it's available. Click the Help button on the toolbar or in the dialog box. Choose an item from the Help menu. Press the F1 key. When you're looking for an answer, you don't have to ask someone else ... (view more)

You can type formulas in a cell to do all sorts of calculations. Formulas always begin with an equal sign (=). Then, to calculate the result, they combine numbers, cell references, and these arithmetic operators: + to add - to subtract * to multiply ... / to divide % to take a percent ^ to raise to a power (or exponent) ( ) to change the order of calculation Excel calculates formulas from left to right, following a set order of operations. Enclosing part of a formula in parentheses changes the order in which the items are calculated. Look at this example: =(48 – 12)*2/9 +1 This formula equals 9 ...<a href="/news/1334/enter-formulas-cell-ms-excel" class="more-link">view more

The Paste Special command can also be used to link an Excel worksheet. In contract to embedding, linking sets up a link between the worksheet cells in the document and the original Excel worksheet source. The MS Word document holds an image of the ... Excel worksheet and a shortcut to it but not an actual copy of the worksheet. Because of the link, any changes in the original are automatically reflected in the MS Word document. The advantage to linking the worksheet is that if the source worksheet in Excel changes, the values are automatically updated in the Word document. If you make a change in ... (view more)

You don't have to have two separate pages, one from MS Word and one from Excel, to display text and numbers in your document. This is because Word and Excel are built to work together, so that you can seamlessly bring your data from Excel into Word. ... Using Excel to generate your numeric data opens the door to more sophisticated calculations and numeric formatting. You can use all the features of Excel for making calculations, rather than being limited to the few formulas available on Word's Table | Formula command. Copying between Excel and Word uses the same techniques you know already: Open ... (view more)

Another method for linking Excel places the worksheet cells in a Word table. To do this, you insert the Excel selection as HTML (the universal text format used on the Web). Linking Excel data as a table offers two advantages: You format it using the ... familiar techniques you use with any Word table. Of course, you wouldn't want to change the numbers (although you could). Changes you make in the table do not affect the Excel workbook though. The information is lined so that it automatically reflects any changes made in the original Excel worksheet. Links are automatically updated when you open ... (view more)

You can type today's date quickly by using MS Word's AutoComplete. Word's nifty feature that anticipates what you're trying to do and types it for you. You can also insert the date and time from the menu bar. If you can't remember the date, it's not ... a problem. The computer keeps track and inserts the correct date for you. The way you insert the date depends on whether you plan to print this document once or use it regularly. Need to put a time stamp on a document? There's no need to look at your watch and type it by hand. For a One-Time Use Follow these steps to type today's date in a ... (view more)

When your spreadsheet has labels in the top row or left column to describe the data in the cells, you can freeze those rows and columns so that they always appear on screen even when you scroll down or to the right. Open MS Excel and in the first ... row type your headings (i.e. Category, Title, Author, Quantity, Costs, etc.) In the left-most column, type other data labels (i.e. Fiction, Non-Fiction, Sci-Fi., etc.) When you use the Window | Freeze Panes command, everything above the current row or to the left of the current column is frozen in place. This way, it's always visible to you, even ... (view more)

Word includes a Most Recently Used (MRU) Files List that displays the documents you have previously opened. The default number of files displayed is four but you can increase it to a maximum of nine files. There may be plenty of reasons why you may ... want to clear your MRU list. For example: If a document file is no longer available, but still appears on the list of recently used files, you may want to clear your MRU. To clear the MRU File List, you have to disable the recently used files list and then re-enable it. To do so: Within MS Word, click Options from the Tools menu. From the General ... (view more)