Word offers several ways to indent and align text, such as using the
ruler, the Paragraph dialog box, or the Increase Indent toolbar.
You can also use keyboard shortcuts to indent or align text. The
following list provides eight commands and their corresponding
keystrokes. To achieve the desired results, select the text you
wish to indent and execute the appropriate keystoke.

Center [Ctrl] + E

Justify [Ctrl] + J

Left align [Ctrl] + L

Right align [Ctrl] + R

Left indent [Ctrl] + M

Remove left indent [Ctrl] + [Shift] + M

Create hanging indent [Ctrl] + T

Reduce hanging indent [Ctrl] + [Shift] + T

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You can create dazzling charts in Excel with graphics, arrows, and
data labels. But sometimes people aren't happy until they can look
at the exact data as well as the chart. In Excel 2000, you can add
a data table under your chart to satisfy those who need raw numbers.
Data tables can be added to line, area, column, and bar charts.

To add a data table to an existing chart, display the chart and the
Chart toolbar and click on the Data Table button. The data table
appears below the chart. This button alternately hides and displays
the data table.

If you are creating a new chart by using the Chart Wizard, in Step 3,
click on the Data Table tab and check Show Data Table.

If you want to remove the data table or just want to print the chart
without the data table, on the Chart toolbar, click on the Data Table
button.

You can format the data table by right-clicking on it and choosing
Format Data Table. To make it more attractive, change the text font,
font size, color, and grid pattern of the table.

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One of the new features in PowerPoint 2000 is auto-fit text in a
text placeholder. If you're typing in a placeholder (for a slide
title, body text, or bulleted lists) and you have a few extra words
or lines in a placeholder that won't fit on the slide, PowerPoint
will automatically change the size of the text to fit the slide.

To turn off this feature, choose Tools/Options. Click on the Edit
tab, and uncheck the Auto-fit Text To Text Placeholder check box.

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As you probably know, it's good practice to add comments, notes, and
explanations to your code. Other users can then easily understand
the purpose and logic of the code when they read it. (Plus, it helps
when you've forgotten what seemed obvious at the time the code was
written.) In addition to the commonly used apostrophe ('), a little
known feature is that Access allows you to use REM and line numbers
to document code. This is particularly nice for old-school
programmers that have spent years writing in DOS and BASIC!

As with the apostrophe, REM statements can be on their own line or
at the end of a line of code.<P>

EXAMPLE: Rem statement

Rem <--This is an example of the old REM statement

MsgBox "This is another example": Rem <--Comment goes here, after colon

Line numbers also help document your code. Line numbers especially
help when troubleshooting code with another person. The numbers
consist only of digits, must be in the leftmost column of your code,
and must be unique within the module. Note that you can't use line
numbers with beginning or ending Sub statements.
<P>
EXAMPLE: Line numbers

1 Dim x As Integer

10 For x=1 to 10

20 Debug.Print "Hello World"

30 Next x

Submitted by: Matt Perelstein
[directions@att.net]

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A weakness was recently found in Microsoft's Jet 3.51 engine that
could leave your PC vulnerable to attacks through the Internet.
Although the Jet engine is normally associated with Access, Excel
also uses these database drivers. Microsoft has dubbed this issue
with the catchy name Excel 97 "ODBC Driver" Vulnerability. In the
course of researching the Excel 97 problem, Microsoft uncovered a
similar issue with Office 2000.

Microsoft is being purposefully vague as to how an attack exploiting
these vulnerabilities would work, so as not to educate anyone with a
desire to do harm. However, a worksheet could theoretically be set up
as a Web page or email attachment that then uses the database driver
to destroy files without triggering any warnings. It's important to
understand that this type of attack isn't a macro virus, so the usual
macro warnings won't be displayed by Excel.

Although there haven't been any reports of these vulnerabilities
being exploited, Microsoft perceives a genuine risk and has created
a patch that solves the problem. The patch also includes a tool that
updates your system to require confirmation before Internet Explorer
opens any Office document. The patch and additional information can
be found at:

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/downloadDetails/excel2000odbc.htm

http://www.microsoft.com/security/bulletins/ms99-030.asp

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If you've ever tried to change the text in a worksheet hyperlink,
you may have found the process very tedious. Ordinarily, an Excel
hyperlink is followed as soon as you click in the cell containing
it. You may be aware that you can avoid this by clicking in an
adjoining cell and then moving to the hyperlink with the arrow
keys. However, there's an easier way. Just hold the [Ctrl] key
and select the hyperlink. You'll be able to enter the new
hyperlink text directly in the cell and not have to worry about
triggering the link.

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When you open your Outlook calendar, the default yellow color
might not be to your liking. To change the background color
of the calendar in Outlook 2000, choose Tools/Options/Calendar
Options. From the Background Color dropdown list, select a new
color. Then click OK twice. The background color will be
displayed only in the Day/Week/Month and Work Week views. Also,
this color only applies to your work week hours. Night and
weekend hours will have a darker version of the background color.

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Have you ever hesitated to print your calendar because you don't
want your private appointments to show? Outlook 2000 enables you
to print your calendar without printing the titles of your private
appointments. The times will still show on the calendar, but instead
of the title, such as Doctor's Appointment, only the words Private
Appointment will print. Of course, for this feature to work, the
Private check box must be selected in the appointment form. First,
open your Calendar folder. Then, choose File/Print. In the Print
Range panel, select Hide Details Of Private Appointments. Then click
OK to print.

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Do you use a specific size for most of your pictures and then constantly change the PhotoDraw default picture size? Save time
by setting the default picture size to your own measurements.
First, choose File/Picture Setup. Click on the New Picture
Defaults tab and select your picture size from the dropdown
list, or type in a specific height and width. Click OK. Once
you've set this, all new pictures will use these measurements.
To apply the new default size to your current picture, choose
File/Picture Setup. On the Active Picture tab, click Use Defaults
and click OK.

If you decide to return to the original default picture size for
all pictures, choose File/Picture Setup. Click on the New Picture
Defaults tab. In the Picture Size dropdown list, select Default
Picture. Then click OK.

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You can easily add variety to PowerPoint's user interface by
changing the Menu Animations setting. This setting determines how
PowerPoint opens menus and submenus when you choose them from the
menu bar. There are four settings to choose from: Slide, Unfold,
Random, and (None). The Slide setting opens PowerPoint's menus
from top to bottom, the Unfold setting opens menus from the upper-
left corner to the lower-right corner, the Random setting
alternates between the Slide and Unfold settings, and the (None)
setting opens PowerPoint's menus without any animation. To change
the Menu Animation setting, select Tools/Customize from the menu
bar, or right-click on any toolbar and choose Customize from the
resulting shortcut menu. In the Customize dialog box, click on the
Options tab. Then, select a new setting from the Menu Animations
dropdown list and click Close.

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Have you ever wanted to rotate or flip a clip art object, only to find that the Rotate Or Flip features on the Draw menu are unavailable? The Rotate Or Flip feature is available for use with drawing objects, but not clip art objects or pictures. However, you can easily remedy this situation by converting the clip art object to a drawing object. To do so, select the clip art object, then choose Ungroup from the Drawing toolbar's Draw menu. When you
do, PowerPoint asks you to confirm whether you'd like to convert the object; you do, so click Yes. Next, regroup the object's elements by selecting Draw/Group. PowerPoint now considers the object to be a drawing object, and you'll find that the Draw menu's Rotate Or Flip features are now available for use.

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If you are constantly editing today's date in a Word document,
consider using a Word date field code. The field code will
insert the current date (based on your system clock)
automatically without you typing it. This is very useful
in headers or footers when you want to automatically print
the date the document was printed. Another use is in standard
form letters that you send out periodically and need to
change the date each time you send it out.

To insert an automatic date field, place your insertion point
where you want the date to appear. Then, choose Insert/Date
And Time from the menu bar. In the Available Formats list box,
pick a date format. To have Word insert the current date,
check the Update Automatically check box, then click OK.
If you open an existing document with a date field code,
place your insertion point in the field code and press [F9]
to update the date. If you don't update the field before you
print, that's OK. Word will automatically fill in the current
date when you print.

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A commonly used tool in presentation development is PowerPoint's arrow tool, which is located on the Draw toolbar. To add an arrow to your slide, you simply click on the tool and use your mouse to draw an arrow on your slide. This may suffice in some situations, but you can also customize the look of the arrow. Just right-click on the arrow and select Format AutoShape from the shortcut menu. In the Format AutoShape dialog box, click on the Colors And Lines tab. In the Line panel, you can select a new color for your arrow, several types of solid or dashed lines, a style and a weight (which increases the thickness of the arrow). In the Arrows panel, you can choose a new starting point design, a new endpoint design or arrowhead, and alter the size for both ends of the arrow

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In these days of email viruses, you can't be too careful about attachments. However, if you do have an Outlook message with a safe attachment enclosed, you can easily print both the message and the attachment all at the same time. To do this, either select the message in your Inbox or open the message. Then, choose File | Print from the menu bar. In the Print Style list box, select Memo Style (if it's not already selected). Then in the Print Options panel, select the Print Attached Files With Item(s) check box. Now click OK. The message will print with the attachment icon followed by the attached document

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Named ranges provide a convenient way to reference cells in a workbook. However, you may have a hard time keeping track of what cells the individual range names apply to. Instead of repeatedly displaying the Define Name dialog box to double-check the range addresses, you can easily create a list of all the named ranges in a workbook and the worksheet addresses that they refer to. To do so, select a cell in a blank area in the workbook. Then, choose Insert | Name | Paste. When the Paste Name dialog box appears, simply click the Paste List button to generate the list

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