A. There are quite a few ways, but a hundred may be an exaggeration. Here are my favorites—one using keystrokes and the other using the mouse:

Keystrokes: If you want to get the sum of cells B5 to B12, you could use the slow way by writing out the full formula:

=sum(B5:B12)

Or you could evoke the shortcut and click on B13, hold down the Alt key, type in = and then press Enter.

Mouse: Place your cursor on B13 (one cell below the column you are adding) and click on the AutoSum icon: , producing this screen (notice the shortcut actually generates the same full formula):

Then press Enter.

While you’re at the AutoSum icon, click on the adjacent arrow and take note of the other quick functions you can perform (see screenshot below left). It’s a very handy button.

And you’ll find even more helpful functions if you click on More Functions (see result in screenshot at right).

A. In other words, you want to take a column of consecutive numbers or words, say, from 1 to 5 or Able, Baker, Charlie, and flip the order—running from 5 to 1 or alphabetizing the words in reverse order.

Excel’s Sort function can do that, but it can sort information only in columns, not in rows. Let’s reorder the sequential numbers 1 to 5. Begin by highlighting those cells. Click on Data in the toolbar and then on Sort, producing the screenshot at left.

To reverse the order, click on Descending and then on OK.

The process is different if each number is adjacent to, say, a list of names in column B, because Excel, in its wisdom, guesses that it’s possible the numbers and names are linked (see screenshot at right).

Let’s assume the numbers and names are indeed linked and you want to maintain the links—in other words, 1 is linked to Pat, 2 to Stan and so forth. Now if you highlight the numbers in column A, you will evoke this Sort Warning screen, which gives you the opportunity—by checking Expand the section—to maintain the number-name links when reordering column A.

If, on the other hand, Excel guessed wrong and you want just the numbers 1 to 5 resorted—not the names—click on Continue with the current selection.

Notice that column A is shown as the default column to sort (below center).

If you’d rather sort by B, just click on the arrow on the right until column B appears in the box at far right.

A. No, you’re not being shortchanged; it’s a shortcoming—not so much in Word as in some of the fonts in your computer. But before going into that, let’s see how the single-character fraction works and how you can control it.

With a few keystrokes you can program Word to change a fraction into a single character or to leave it alone. To make your choice, click on Tools, AutoCorrect Options and AutoFormat As You Type, which brings up this screen:

Notice a box labeled Fractions (1/2) with fraction character (12). If you check this box, Word replaces some fractions with a single-character version.

Why did I say some fractions? Because not all fonts have all single-character fractions, and some have more than others, which explains why, when you change fonts, some of your fractions don’t convert to a single character.

While you’re in the AutoCorrect section, consider what other defaults you want to change. One of the handiest is Hyphens (--) with dash (—). With that box checked, every time you finish typing a word, typing two dashes and then another word, the short hyphens will be replaced by a full dash—like this.

A. That’s correct. Hiding text is a two-step operation. And understand that you also have to set the default condition within Word so hidden text can be either viewed or hidden. We’ll get to that later. Let’s walk through the steps.

To demonstrate, I will create the following paragraph in which one sentence will later be hidden:

This material is top secret. With the click of a mouse, this sentence will be hidden. Now you see it, now you don’t.

Only highlight the sentence, With the click of a mouse, this sentence will be hidden. Now click on Format, Font, bringing up the screen at right.

Under Effects place a check in the Hidden box and click on OK. Notice the sentence you highlighted now has tiny dots under it; that’s the visual clue that it’s ready to be hidden.

Since Word normally defaults to show hidden text (that’s why the potentially hidden sentence contains those dots), I now will change the default by going to Word’s default screen: On the toolbar click on Tools, Options and the View tab. Under Formatting marks, remove the check next to Hidden text and click on OK (see screenshot below).

Now when you return to the paragraph, notice that not only is the sentence hidden, but the surrounding text closes over it so a reader has no clue text was ever there.

Shortcut: Clearly, this is a cumbersome series of steps if you use hidden text often. So here is a one-click shortcut to make it appear and disappear. Instead of going through the rigmarole of changing the default, we’ll use the Show All icon () to toggle between making the text visible and invisible. If the Show All icon is not already in the toolbar, click on Tools, Customize, then on the Commands tab, and under Categories, go to View and drag the Show All icon onto the toolbar.

Caveat: The hidden-text feature, while convenient, is not without danger. You may forget you have text on a page, and if you delete text in the area of the hidden text, you may accidentally delete the hidden text, too. Avoid this danger by making sure the hidden text is displayed only during the writing and editing stage.

A. That is a nice feature. It makes the screen less cluttered, and since the icons have more space, there usually is enough room in the file icon to fit at least some of the file name. Here is what the old setup looks like:

Notice they are squeezed in so tightly you can’t identify the files. Now the new way:

It’s much better.

To change the taskbar default so it stacks files, left-click on any unused blue space in the taskbar at the bottom of the screen, producing the screenshot at left.

Now click on Properties, generating this screen below:

Click on the Taskbar tab, and under Taskbar Appearance, check the box Group similar taskbar buttons and then click on Apply and OK.