Key
to Instructions
To help
readers follow the instructions in this
article, we use two different typefaces.
Boldface type identifies
the names of icons, agendas, URLs and
application commands.
Sans
serif type
indicates instructions and commands that
users should type and file names. |
icture this: You type a name into a document and
a tiny icon instantly appears next to it. When
you pass your cursor over the icon, a menu
unfolds that offers you options such as: Insert
the person’s address and phone number, send
him or her an e-mail or schedule a meeting. The
icon even gives you the opportunity to tell the
software never to interrupt you with these
suggestions again.
If you’ve upgraded to
Microsoft’s latest office suite, XP, chances
are you’ve seen the icons, called Smart
Tags, popping up uninvited in your documents and
spreadsheets. The goal of this article is to
introduce you to the new technology and show you
how, if you wish to use them, they can improve
your productivity. Or, if you object to such
high-tech intrusion, we’ll show you how to
get rid of them.
PERSONAL
ROBOT
Smart Tags are all
about providing quick access to information. They
recognize text, numbers, actions and objects that
frequently could be enhanced with more facts.
When triggered, they act like personal robots
that will cruise far and wide to seek data in
your computer or, if you’re connected, on
your network or the Internet.
| Say you’re in Word and you
type Jennifer
M. Mueller. XP
instantly recognizes the words as
someone’s name and triggers a Smart
Tag—the letter “i” inside
a small square—into action. It looks
like exhibit 1, at right, on the screen. |
| Exhibit 1 |
 |
|
If you decide the
targeted words don’t need further
attention—such as adding an address or
sending that person an e-mail—you simply
ignore the tag, type on and it will disappear.
But if you hover over the icon, a down arrow will
appear and if you click on it, the menu in
exhibit 2, below, will unfold.
| You don’t have to do
anything to launch the Smart Tag
function. It’s automatically turned
on when you install Office XP. Smart Tags
are not limited to Word; they operate in
Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and FrontPage.
 Paste. This function is evoked in Word,
PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and FrontPage.
In those applications a Smart Tag will
appear when you paste text or other
objects. It will offer various formatting
choices, depending on the application,
such as keeping the style of the source
from which the information was copied or
matching it to that of the destination.
|
| Exhibit 2 |
 |
|
AutoCorrect. It’s
been available in earlier versions of Office
applications—Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. A
Smart Tag appears when AutoCorrect
makes an automatic fix, offering to undo it and
even change the AutoCorrect
settings on the fly, so to speak. Before Smart
Tags, a user who was unhappy about an AutoCorrect
change had to go into the setup menu to alter the
default.
AutoFit in PowerPoint. Smart Tags appear when a user enters
text into a placeholder on a slide and offers
formatting options such as fitting the text to
the size of the placeholder or splitting the text
between two slides.
AutoFill
in Excel. It’s
triggered when you click and drag data from one
cell to others. The Smart Tags menu offers to
copy the contents, fill in the series, fill in
the format only, or fill in the series without
formatting.
Error
Checking in Excel.
It appears when a cell contains a formula error
or invalid reference and offers help on the type
of error in the cell and error-checking and
debugging options.
| Office XP contains quite a few
more Smart Tag functions, but
they’re “asleep” and need
to be awakened in order to work. Smart
Tags for recognizing names, addresses,
dates, times and stock symbols can be
awakened by checking the boxes for the
particular tags in the AutoCorrect
dialog box (more on this later). For
example, if Jennifer M. Mueller’s
e-mail and postal addresses were in your
Outlook Contacts file and you clicked on Insert
Address in her Smart Tag menu,
the text in exhibit 3, at right, would
appear. |
| Exhibit 3 |
 |
|
Clicking on Send
Mail produces the fully addressed e-mail
form in Outlook shown in exhibit 4, below.
| Exhibit
4 |
 |
If you want to
mark a calendar date, click on Schedule a
Meeting and you produce Outlook’s
partially filled-in appointment-creation screen
as shown in exhibit 5, below.
| Exhibit
5 |
 |
Within Excel,
the Smart Tag technology recognizes stock ticker
symbols and, at your command, retrieves a stock
quote, a company report, recent company news via
the Internet from MSN Money Central or even a
refreshable stock price (see exhibit 6, below).
Thus, CPAs doing financial planning can prepare
spreadsheets that track both trading and news
activity. Likewise, auditors could develop
spreadsheets that list their public audit clients
and easily retrieve daily company news.
| Exhibit
6 |
 |
A caveat to
using the stock symbol Smart Tag: It’s
limited in the information it can retrieve, and
the various functions are rather clumsy and take
several steps. For a more efficient way to
perform these functions, see “The
Limits of Smart Tags,”
below.
| The
Limits of Smart Tags Sometimes
Smart Tags aren’t all that smart.
For the time being at least, Smart
Tags can recognize only some stock
symbols. They can’t recognize most
symbols of mutual funds. Also, the
information returned about a stock is
limited both in what can be retrieved and
how it is displayed. Fortunately,
there’s a work around: You can
download a free add-in function for Excel
as an alternative, accomplishing the task
of inserting refreshable stock-related
information into a spreadsheet. Both the
function and the data are available from
MSN MoneyCentral at http://officemicrosoft.com/downloads/2002/Msnsqaspx.
The function is defined as follows: 
For example, if the ticker symbol for the
Fidelity Capital and Income mutual fund
is typed into cell A1 as FAGIX, and you
wish to return the last price to the
neighboring cell, B1, the function would
be entered into B1 as =MSNStockQuote(A1,
“Last Price”, “US”).
When you download and install the
add-in function, an optional toolbar
becomes available in Excel with buttons
for entering it into a cell through a
wizard. The spreadsheet in the screenshot
below illustrates the toolbar and the
function that is entered into D3.
 The add-in
function can retrieve 25 types of
refreshable information—including
last price, day’s high, size of last
sale, earnings per share and
price-earnings (P/E) ratio.
|
EVEN SMARTER TAGS
So far we’ve
illustrated how to work with the built-in,
default versions of Smart Tags. More specialized
and powerful ones are available but may require a
subscription fee. Various companies have
partnered with Microsoft to create Smart Tags for
a variety of information needs. Although some
Smart Tags are very specific to certain
industries, several can help CPAs in public and
industry accounting. All are available for
download from the Internet. Here are some of the
more popular ones:
BridgeInSight. When
you type an InSight vehicle symbol (for example,
us; IBM) into Word or Excel, Smart Tags provide
continually refreshed stock price data on the
company that vehicle symbol represents: stock
history, analytical charts and Bridge Financial
News headlines. BridgeInSight provides
information from more than 200 exchanges in over
100 countries (http://insight.bridge.com).
WestCiteLink. By
typing a law citation in a Word document, the
Smart Tag can retrieve the full text, the history
for a case or statute, and other cases and
statutes. It can also provide a table of
authorities and convert the citation to a Westlaw
hyperlink (www.westlaw.com/citelink).
LexisNexis. Three
types of Word Smart Tags work with LexisNexis.
The Legal Case Name tag can search for a case
name, news articles, law reviews and verdict
information. The Person Name tag adds to Outlook
Contacts results of searches for a legal
biography, property records, judgments and liens,
bankruptcy records or addresses. And the Address
tag adds to Outlook Contacts results of searches
for addresses of people, property records,
judgments, liens and bankruptcy records (http://support.lexisnexis.com/lndownload).
Euro Currency Converter. This Microsoft product tracks 12
European currencies and the euro. Its conversion
function works in Word, Excel and Outlook. The
Smart Tag menu then provides various conversion
options (http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/Eurost.aspx).
In addition, there also are
downloadable City Name Smart Tags for general
news and weather about a city provided by MSNBC (www.msnbc.com) and flight, hotel and other travel
information from Expedia (www.expedia.com).
Microsoft’s eServices Web
site (http://office.microsoft.com/Services) offers links to more than 20
downloadable Smart Tags, some of which are free.
CLOSE
TO HOME
Smart Tags also
can link to your own company or client
information. Microsoft provides a free Smart Tag
software development kit complete with code
samples in Visual Basic or Visual C++. However,
if you aren’t proficient in those programs
or would prefer not to write code, Keylogix (www.activedocs.com) has developed software (ActiveDocs)
that lets you customize Smart Tags through a
wizard format. The process is analogous to
developing a Web site using FrontPage rather than
manually coding the HTML. The wizard takes you
through a series of steps to define the location
of the data, the data fields and the Smart Tag
menus.
Distracted by Smart Tags
popping up in documents? With a few exceptions,
most Smart Tags can be disabled in the AutoCorrect
dialog box. To get there, go to Tools
and AutoCorrect Options. Select
the Smart Tags tab to see a
listing that includes those you have downloaded
or developed. Clear the check boxes of any Smart
Tags you wish to disable (see exhibit 7, below).
| Exhibit
7 |
 |
If you decide to
keep Smart Tags, several other settings may help
suit your preferences. One formats how the
recognized information is visually tagged. In
Excel, you may choose either to have the action
icon appear whenever you point to the recognized
cell, or in addition to the icon, you may want to
flag the cell with color to identify it easily.
In Word, recognized text will be marked with a
faint dotted underline that remains visible at
all times. You may decide to have the action icon
appear when you point to recognized text. For
details on how to evoke those defaults, see
“Smart Tags Available in Office XP,”at the end of this article.
In both Word and Excel, you can
choose whether to save or embed the Smart Tags in
the document or workbook. If you choose not to
embed them, Smart Tags will not tag previously
recognized information when the file is reopened.
You may adjust this setting by clicking on the
Save Options button beneath the Smart
Tags tab within the AutoCorrect
dialog box.
Finally, at any time, you may
remove all Smart Tags from the document or
workbook or choose to recheck the document or
workbook for any recognized information. That may
be useful before sending the document to someone
else or when checking one you did not create.
If you have not already
upgraded to Office XP, the new Smart Tag
technology may persuade you to take the step. If,
however, you’re already on the XP track,
check out Smart Tags; they are well worth a
test-drive. You may find the tags put valuable
information right where you need it—in a
specific document or spreadsheet. 
JENNIFER M. MUELLER, PhD, is an
assistant professor at Auburn University’s
School of Accountancy in Alabama. Her e-mail
address is jmueller@business.auburn.edu.
|
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