Schrodinger’s Cat also makes great use of Microsoft PowerPoint as a valuable adjunct to his presentations; he feels that it really gives him an edge over his fellow felines, some of whom are still labouring in the archaic world of – perish the thought – overhead projectors. However, he is only too aware of the dangers that its misuse or abuse can pose. He discusses these issues at some length in this post:
From the very beginning, Word users have had the ability to create tables in their documents to easily organise information in neatly aligned rows and columns. Word tables can also be easily modified, if you need to add or delete rows or columns as your document evolves. You can find all of these actions readily available on the left of the Layout tab attached to the Table Tools at the top-right of the screen. (These actions are also available on the right-click menu when your cursor is positioned anywhere within your table.) Indeed, if all you seek is to add a new row on the end of your table, all you need to do is to position your cursor in the last cell of your table’s last row and then press the Tab key. Your table will immediately grow by one row.
However, you might find a problem emerges if your table needs to extend beyond one page, as might be the case with a longer catalogue or phone listing. As you table extends to a greater length, you may find that most of your table is lacking the context that is provided by the headings on your first row, as in the example below:
| First Name | Last Name | Department | Position | Start Date |
| Hugh | Twelftree | Administration | Accountant | 22/3/2015 |
| Carol | Wellings | Marketing | Director | 18/5/2017 |
| Kim | Magnussen | Production | Manager | 27/10/18 |
As your table extends over two, three or more pages, you will inevitably leave behind the headings in your first row on the table’s first page. What you need is to be able to have the same headings in the first row of your table on each successive page, so that you are able to meaningfully interpret your table data on whatever page you are viewing it. The obvious way of achieving this is to simply copy and paste the headings from the beginning of the table to the first row of the table on each following page.
But the drawbacks to this solution are also obvious. It would be tedious and time-consuming to do this in a long table that might run across numerous pages. And it also becomes problematic if you subsequently add or delete rows to your table, after you have pasted your headings to the appropriate new location. If you do modify your table in this way, it will inevitably mean that your headings will move around and will be out of place.
Happily, there is a better, faster and much more elegant solution. You can create and build your table to whatever length you need or wish. Then, just position your cursor anywhere in your table’s heading row. Go to the Layout ribbon at the top-right of the Word screen and select Repeat Header Rows. As a result, the first row of your table on each page will always display the same headings. And this will continue be the case, even after you add or delete rows to your table as your document evolves; there will be no need to modify your table to retain your headings in the right location. Of course, if you have greater ambitions for your table, particularly if your table is intended to contain numerical data and calculations, then maybe a better choicewould be an Excel spreadsheet. There is a strong argument to be made for using each member of the Microsoft family according to its strength, and for any task involving numbers and mathematics, Excel is really your go-to option Explore this option starting here.
Schrodinger’s Cat is the resident mascot and guiding spirit of this blog. Having “survived” , hypothetically of course, Erwin Schrodinger’s (in)famous thought experiment, his new mission is to provide expert advice, tips and solutions for users of the Microsoft Office suite of desktop applications.
A knowledge and mastery of the advice contained herein will, among other things:
give you much greater confidence, and much less frustration. in dealing with the numerous challenges that the routine use of the MS Office will confront you with
enable you to explore and utilise some of the approximately 70% of potential use of programs such as Word and Excel, which goes ignored and overlooked by the average user
earn you the lifelong awestruck respect and admiration of your colleagues, friends and family. (Well, maybe – other factors might influence this, so no guarantees.)
Explore my evolving archive of MS Office knowledge:
To read more of the musings and wisdom of Schrodinger’s Cat, go here.
In addition to his other accomplishments, Schrodinger’s Cat is also a dedicated cinephile. This accomplishment is all the more remarkable given that most cinemas today have strict prohibitions on the admission of hypothetical cats. This, of course, is just one of the many overtly discriminatory impediments that our society places in the path of imaginary beings.
Of course, the compensating advantage working in favour of Schrodinger’s Cat is that, being entirely hypothetical, he is also completely invisible, so sneaking into cinema screenings is a relatively straightforward matter.
Feel free to explore his musings and ruminations on these recent cinema releases:
Michael Moore’s exploration, and excoriation, of Donald Trump’s America in Fahrenheit 11/9
Ryan Gosling puts his best square jaw forward in the Neil Armstrong biopic First Man
Melissa McCarthy forges an extraordinary performance in Can You Ever Forgive Me
A tale of royalty and rivalry in The Favourite
Christian Bale disappears into the character of Dick Cheney in Vice
Bill Nighy in a finely tailored role in Sometimes Always Never
Taron Egerton becomes airborne, sometimes literally, in the Elton John biopic Rocketman
Quentin Tarantino contrives an alternative, “fairytale” version of recent American history in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Brad Pitt and Tommy Lee Jones are an estranged astronaut father and son in the sci-fi epic Ad Astra
Sam Mendes follows two young World War 1 soldiers on a perilous mission in a single shot in 1917
Frances McDormand hits the highway and crosses paths with fellow travelers in an anything but typical ‘road’ movie: Nomadland
Harry McQueen and Florian Keller produce contrasting portrayals of characters battling dementia in Supernova and The Father
Daniel Craig is finally shaken and stirred in his spectacular sign-off from the James Bond franchise in No Time To Die
Denis Villeneuve is the latest filmmaker to attempt to bring Frank Herbert’s reputedly unfilmable novel to the screen in his long-awaited version of Dune
Keanu Reeves as Neo and Carrie Ann Moss as Trinity are given a new lease on life (or something like it) in The Matrix Resurrections
Kenneth Branagh explores his own family origins in the semi-autobiographical Belfast
Baz Luhrmann offers his distinctive take on rock music’s original superstar in Elvis
One of the more impressive and dynamic feature presentation features in MS Excel is charting. However, in successive versions, the folks at Microsoft have been unable to stop themselves from expanding and complicating Excel’s charting feature to the point where it has become possibly the best exemplar of ‘program bloat’ in the Office family.
For the average Excel user, henceforth, chart creation and modification can be, at best, a time-consuming diversion and, at worst, a confusing and confused labyrinth of excessive choice. There is, happily, good news for user who is time-poor and seeking to adhere to the sacred principles of KISS.
It is possible to generate a useful chart in Excel via just one keystroke. You need only select the range of cells in your spreadsheet containing the labels and values that you wish to portray on your chart. Then, just press the F11 function key on your keyboard and stand back to be amazed!
Excel will instantaneously create a brand new sheet in your workbook, containing a chart based on your selected range of data
You will immediately have a default 2 dimensional column chart. Of course, this chart might not be be of a type or format that meets your needs; if so, you can then modify your chart by employing the vast and diverse range of tools to be found on the Chart Tools tab that will appear at the top of the screen whenever your chart window is active.
But if the default chart is enough to meet your needs, very possibly the F11 key is all that you will need. A knowledge of this little-known simple Excel maneuver is also likely to impress your colleagues and workmates, who will likely view you with a new respect and, dare one hope, awe.
For more on charting and other Excel presentation strategies, look for upcoming posts…
The most recent incarnations of Microsoft’s Office desktop software boast a large and ever-expanding array of commands and features. The enduring problem is: how to find and activate all of these fantabulous features? With enough patience and perseverance you can track them down, hidden away in Microsoft’s typically labyrinthine nest of tabs and ribbons, but all too often this can be a frustrating hit-and-miss endeavour, for it seems the choice of location for many commands doesn’t seem to conform to any recognisable system of logic known to homo sapiens.
Happily, there can be another way for Office users to circumvent Microsoft’s intimidating tabs and ribbons, especially for “old-school” PC users and veterans of the ‘pre-mouse’ era. Most of the commands in your mainstream MS Office program (e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook et al) can be activated via an equivalent keyboard shortcut; many of these are familiar and can be used to the same effect in most MS programs. (for example Ctrl+ C for copy, Ctrl + X for cut, Ctrl + Z for undo). The problem is: how is the average new user supposed to know what keyboard combinations do what?
Fortunately there exists, at least in Microsoft Word, a clever, “hidden” way of easily and instantly generating an exhaustive listing of keyboard shortcuts.
Word offers its users a means of automating and standardising routine procedures, via macros that the user can record and then play back as a single action. However, there are also pre-designed macros that are built into Word by default in a library called Word commands. You can locate this library by selecting Macros from the right of the ribbon attached to the View tab. (Why is it found on the View tab? See my earlier observation regarding Microsoft logic.) If you select Word commands from ‘Macros in..’ menu half-way down this dialogue box, you will find one of the macros therein is called “ListCommands”. If you select this macro, and then click on the Run button on the upper right,you will be prompted to create a document that lists all the keyboard settings in Word. This macro will actually a produce a brand new document containing a large table with a comprehensive listing of all of Word’s keyboard settings. You can then readily print out the resulting document, and by so doing, create a resource that might mean that you never need go near a Word tab or ribbon again.
The Guardian’s Jason Wilson has joined has joined the large chorus of critics and commentators who have condemned Microsoft Word as a tool used by students, journalists and writers of all types. Rather grandiloquently, not to say prematurely, he has declared that “we” are winning the war on Word.
He makes some entirely reasonable points. The success of Microsoft Word owes more to its ubiquity as a key element of the dominant MS Windows platform during the PC explosion of the late 80’s and 90’s than demonstrable advantages in design or end-user responsiveness. As a long-term Word user, I’m well-acquainted with the frustrations of “feature bloat” wherein the newer versions contain features that replicate or supersede existing features (i.e Quick Parts vs AutoText), and yet the superseded features are still retained to keep faith with existing users. The result is that Word can seem at times an unwieldy beast that has far outgrown the needs of most writers, stacked with metadata, invisible code and largely redundant features that can distract and antagonise the average user.But the bile and invective in Wilson’s piece seems hyperbolic at best. True, Word’s intuitive features such as the (in)famous AutoCorrect and autoformat, that attempt to second-guess and interfere with the “pure” writing process, can be maddening. But they can readily be inactivated with a few moments’ attention. If this need is irksome. the Windows environment contains scaled-down, stripped back apps such as NotePad and WordPad, that surely satisfy the need for a more pure, text-based environment. Wilson’s protestation that the inclination to search for solutions on Google, inevitably leads the writer to the myriad distractions of the internet, seems to me more of a comment firstly on of the user’s inadequate training, and secondly, frustration with their own writing process. Word itself is a convenient, inanimate target for writers, tormented by the tyranny of the blank page, who, in a former age might have shattered their tablets on the ground, snapped their quills or consigned their parchment to the flames.
Thus, Wilson would do well to be wary of declaring “victory” in this way. Such a victory is likely to be Pyrrhic at best.