Technology Q&A
Open
multiple e-mails simultaneously…Wrap Excel text with
just a double-click…How to remove (or spare)
cookies…Enlarge the tiny text in the Comment and
Track Changes balloon text…Replace the missing
msconfig file…A better way to make a copied Excel
formula constant…Excel and Word shortcuts.
Key
to Instructions
To help readers
follow the instructions in this article, we use
two different typefaces.Boldface
type is used to identify the names of
icons, agendas and URLs.
Sans serif type indicates commands and instructions that
users should type into the computer and the names
of files.
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On
occasion you may find that you cannot implement a
function we described in this column. More often
than not it’s because not all functions work
in every operating system or application. We try
to test everything in the 2000 and XP editions of
Windows and Office. It’s virtually
impossible to test them in all editions and
it’s equally difficult to find out which
editions are incompatible with a function. We
apologize for the inconvenience. —The
editors
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OUTLOOK
Q. Is there a way to open a couple of
Outlook e-mails at one time so I can browse
quickly from one message to the other? |
 A. While you’re in the Inbox
screen hold down the Ctrl key at the same time
you click on each e-mail item. Then, once the
group is selected, press Ctrl+O (that’s the
letter O, not a zero) and the items will open
minimized, ready to read. Icons representing the
minimized e-mails will appear in the toolbar at
the bottom of your screen. If you use Office XP,
the minimized e-mails will be stacked in one
toolbar icon (see the screenshot below).If you use Outlook 2000 and earlier
versions, the icons will appear, one next to the
other, in the toolbar.
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EXCEL
Q. When I’m entering a long name in
an Excel cell, I have to go through all the
format steps to wrap the text in the cell and
then I have to adjust each line so it wraps
properly. It’s not a problem if I just have
to adjust a few cells, but often I have to format
so many cells it’s a hassle. Is there a
shortcut? |
| A. There is a very easy and fast way, but
before I show it to you, I want to describe the
handy wrap-text feature for those who are unaware
of it. Let’s say
you have a situation in which you want to place
lots of text in one cell and you don’t want
it to appear on just one long line like this:
Instead, you want the words to
wrap around like this:
Here’s how to do it: With
your cursor in the cell containing the words you
want to wrap, right-click and select Format
Cells. Then click on the Alignment
tab, which brings up this screen:
Next, just under Text
control, click on the Wrap text box
and the words in the cell will wrap.
Now for the shortcut: Enter the
first line of text you want to appear in the cell
and then press Alt+Enter. Notice how the cursor
automatically drops down to the next line. Type
the text for the second line. You can keep
pressing Alt+Enter for each new line and Excel
will adjust the cell height to accommodate all
the text. After you enter all the text, you may
want to adjust the width or length of the cell to
improve the appearance of its contents.
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INTERNET
Q. Is there a way to get rid of the
accumulated cookies on my computer?
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A. Yes, but don’t be too
quick to get rid of them all. Many of
these small files, which are put on your
computer by Web sites you visit, are
often very helpful. Because they are
stored in your computer, they speed the
reloading of revisited sites. In
addition, if you wish, they will remember
passwords to those sites if one is
required. However, it’s true that
other cookies are simply an invasion of
privacy, used by the site to collect data
on visitors.
So
I’ll not only show you how to get
rid of those you don’t want but also
how to recognize those beneficial ones
you wish to keep. Assuming you’re
using Internet Explorer and a Windows
operating system earlier than XP, begin
by right-clicking on the Explorer
icon and on Properties.
Then click on View files,
which opens a folder that contains all
the cookies on your system. If you see
file names from sites you know and trust,
leave them alone. The others you can
selectively delete the same way you
delete other files.
If you use
XP, right-click on Explorer
and then click on Internet
Properties, which opens the
screen at right.
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You have the option to delete
all your cookies in one step, or, if you
click on Settings, you
can set cookie defaults or view all of
them for selective deletions.
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| Q. I just upgraded to Word 2002 (in Office
XP) and, with just a few exceptions, I find it
quite an improvement. But one of those exceptions
is literally giving me a headache. If I insert a
comment in a document, Word encircles the comment
with a balloon off to the right of the text and
runs a red dotted line to the point in the text
where I added the comment. So far so good. But
the default comment’s font is so small I
have to strain to read it and I can’t seem
to change it. |
| A. You’re not alone. It’s one of
the leading complaints by Word 2002 users and
Microsoft has done an exceptional job of hiding
the default-changing process under many
unintuitive layers. By the way, if you command
Word to keep track of changes to a document (Tools,
Track Changes), any text you delete also
appears in a similar kind of balloon. It looks
like this: 
Fortunately, I just read about
a way to change the default. I found it in Woody’sWatch
online newsletter (http://woodyswatch.com).
Before I describe how to alter
the default, some readers might find it useful to
know how to use the add-comment feature: Click on
Insert, Comment. Here’s
what an added comment looks like:
| I use the
add-comment feature so often as I edit
articles that I’ve placed a Comment
icon in my toolbar for convenience. To
add the icon, click on Tools,
Customize, Commands, and then,
under Categories, move
your cursor down to Insert
and, in the Commands
column, drag the Comment
icon up to your toolbar. Now, patient reader, here’s
how to change the default balloon type:
Click on View, Task Pane
and bring up the Styles and
Formatting pane. Then, at the
bottom of the screen, next to
Show:, click on Custom.
In the Category list, pick All
Styles. Check the box marked Balloon
Text and click on OK.
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Then click on
the down-arrow next to Balloon Text and
select Modify, which takes you
to the familiar Format screen,
where you can change the text font as you wish.
But if you want to change the format of the
balloon text to default for all your future
documents, be sure to check the box marked
Add to template and then click on OK.
Although the process takes lots
of steps, it’s sure worth the effort.
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WINDOWS
Q. In the January 2002 column you
mentioned using msconfig to deselect startup
applications when Windows becomes unstable.
However, while Windows 98 and XP have the msconfig file, for some reason I can’t find
it in Windows 2000. Can you help?A. My apologies. You’re right, for
some mysterious reason Microsoft left that handy msconfig file out of Windows 2000. However,
there are at least two work-arounds.
First, if you can get a copy of
msconfig.exe from an old Windows 98 copy, it may work
just fine in Windows 2000. You’ll find it in
c:\windows\system;
place it in c:\winnt\system32. Ignore the error messages when it cannot
find config.sys,
autoexec.bat, win.ini and system.ini. Then just click on the startup tab and
proceed to check or uncheck the check boxes of
the programs you want to run or not run.
The second option is to go to http://thetechguide.com and download a link for the XP version
of msconfig; that should also work with Windows 2000.
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Shortcuts
 Excel: To rename a
worksheet in Excel, instead of right-clicking on
the worksheet tab and choosing Rename,
simply double-click on the tab, type in the new
name and then press Enter.
Word: When you’ve finished your work and you
have a bunch of open files, you don’t have
to close or save them one at a time if you use
Word 2000 or later. If you press the Shift key as
you click on the File menu in
the toolbar, you’ll see that the Save
and Close command now gives you
the option of saving or closing all of them in
one fell swoop (Save All, Close All).
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A BETTER WAY
In the October 2001 “Technology
Q&A,” we described how to use the
dollar symbol ($) in Excel formulas to make
formulas constant—so if you copy them to a
different cell they won’t automatically
change to reflect their new location. An
easier way is to double-click on the cell to be
moved or duplicated and type an apostrophe
(’) in front of the formula. This transforms
the cell into a text—not a
formula—cell. Then, after you copy or move
it, you simply delete the apostrophe and the cell
reference will remain unchanged.
From Lanny D. Levin of the
Lanny D. Levin Agency in Highland Park, Illinois.
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| Do you have technology questions for
this column? Send them to Senior Editor Stanley
Zarowin via e-mail at zarowin@mindspring.com. Because of the volume of mail, we
regret that we cannot individually answer
submitted questions. However, if a reader’s
question has broad interest, we will answer it in
a forthcoming Technology Q&A column. —The
editors
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