A. Positioning a graphic with a mouse is like trying to sign your name with a five-inch paintbrush. What you need is a way to nudge it to the right spot. The best way is to highlight the graphic and then use the arrow keys—not the mouse. Pressing the left arrow key moves the graphic to the left. Likewise, the up, down and right arrow keys move it accordingly. If you want even finer control, hold down the Ctrl key as you press an arrow key; that moves the graphic one pixel at a time.

A. Fortunately, Word can do that rather easily using two tools—Bookmark and Hyperlink. Begin by creating a blank document. Place your cursor on a page that will eventually contain resource material that starts with the letter A and create a bookmark by clicking on Insert and then on Bookmark. Place a check in the box next to Hidden bookmarks and type A in the space under Bookmark name and click on Add.

Move down the page and do the same—only this time use B as your Bookmark name.

Later you can add the rest of the alphabet using the same technique—and eventually, if you wish, you can move the bookmarks to other pages in the document. In the meantime return to the top of the page and we’ll begin to construct the main menu—with the letters of the alphabet lined up across the top of the page.

Click on Insert, Hyperlink (shortcut: Ctrl+K) and then click on Place in This Document and highlight the A under Bookmarks and click on OK.

That will place the hyperlink for A in the document, and the page now will look like this:

Then move your cursor to the right—to the place where you’d like the letter B to appear—and repeat the process. The Insert Hyperlink screen should now look like this:

After you click on OK, add your resource material—the A material under the A bookmark and the B material under the B bookmark. To add an artistic touch, you can format the letters. When you’re done, the pages should look like this:

Now every time users want to access material, all they have to do is place their cursor over the letter of choice, hold down the Ctrl key and click—and they’ll be taken directly to the letter where the resource material is stored.

Thanks to the following people for suggestions on this topic: Mark Friedman, CPA, of the University of Miami; Jeff Lenning of Click Consulting; Paul Goldwater of the University of Central Florida, Orlando; Jacob M. Rose of Montana State University, Bozeman; Mark G. Simkin, CPA, of the University of Nevada, Reno; and Theo Callahan of I Get It! Development, Los Gatos, California.

A. My apologies. I should have warned you. Excel’s on-screen instructions are incomplete when it comes to describing how to turn off its speech engine, and I failed to provide an alert about that.

Here’s how to get Excel to stop its chatter: First evoke the Speech toolbar by clicking on Tools, Speech and then on Show Text To Speech Toolbar…bringing up this toolbar.

Now, here is where Excel provides incomplete clues about turning it off. If you click on the far right icon (Speak On Enter), you’ll see it acts like a toggle switch. Each click on the icon toggles the speaking function on or off. But the only alert you get that it’s on or off is Excel’s spoken message; so listen carefully. The text doesn’t change: The text continues to read Speak On Enter.

I also should note that the speech function is available only on Excel 2002 and later versions.

A. I can appreciate that. Microsoft doesn’t offer a solution. However, I can show you an “undocumented” way to accomplish what you want.

But before I do, here is some information for those who are unaware of the “most recently opened files” option. If you’re in Word, for example, and you click on File, a list of the most recently opened files will drop down (see the bottom portion of the screenshot at left).

You can adjust the number that appears by clicking on Tools, Options and the General tab and then placing a check next to Recently used file list and selecting the number of entries (maximum of nine).

My undocumented way is much more powerful. It can open an unlimited number of recently used files no matter where you happen to be in the computer. Unlimited may be an exaggeration: I haven’t had the patience to test the upper limit, except to say it’s more than 50. And for real convenience, you have only to be on the desktop—not even in an application—to access this recently opened file shortcut. Also, I know it works in Office XP, but I’m not sure whether it works in earlier versions of Office.

Here’s how to set it up: In any vacant space on your desktop, right-click and then click on New and Shortcut. In the space under Type the location of the item, type

E:\\Documents and Settings\your user name\recent.

My user name is Stanley Zarowin, so the location in this case would look like this (see screenshot at right):

Then click on Next and type a name for the shortcut—such as Recent Files. Now click on Finish.

If you want to customize an icon for the shortcut, right-click on the Recent Files icon, then on Properties and Change Icon and click on the icon of your choice and follow the screen directions.

A. That’s a good question, and quite frankly, I don’t have an answer. If anyone does have a practical solution—other than to send all sensitive messages individually using To or Forward instead of Bcc—please send it to me at zarowin@mindspring.com and I’ll share the solutions in a future column.

CREATE A MULTIPLE-SIGNATURES OPTION IN OUTLOOK If you’ve had trouble creating the multiple-signature option in Outlook (March 2004, page 75), it’s not your fault—a paragraph was accidentally dropped from that column.

Here’s how to achieve that option: In Outlook’s Mail tab, click on Tools, Options and the Mail Format tab. Click on Signatures at the bottom of the screen, producing this:

Then click on New and follow the screen instructions.

As you’ll see, you can create multiple signatures—from nicknames to a formal signature with your professional affiliation. You also can establish different default signatures for original e-mails you send and for replies or messages you forward. And by right-clicking on your automated signature that appears at the bottom of your outgoing e-mail screen, you have the option of using any of the signatures you composed. For example, my default signature is Stanley Zarowin, but by right-clicking on my name I can change it to any of my other options (see screenshot at right).

If you want your signature to appear in any font other than the style of your e-mail text, you must prepare for that by commanding Outlook (Tools, Options, Mail Format tab) to Compose in this message format: Rich Text (see screenshot below).

STANLEY ZAROWIN is a freelance writer in Zionsville, Indiana. Mr. Zarowin retired from the JofA in 2003. His e-mail address is zarowin@mindspring.com.