Office 2016 For Seniors For Dummies (2016)
Part I
Getting Started with Office 2016
Chapter 1
The Two-Dollar Tour
Get ready to . . .
Start an Office Application
Start a New Document
Explore the Office Ribbon and Tabs
Understand the File Menu (Backstage View)
Create a Document
Type Text
Insert a Picture
Move Around in a Document
Select Content
Zoom In and Out
Change the View
Step right up for a tour of Microsoft Office, the most popular suite of applications in the world!
Here are some of the things you can do with Office:
· Write letters, reports, and newsletters.
· Track bank account balances and investments.
· Create presentations to support speeches and meetings.
· Send and receive email.
The Office suite consists of several very powerful applications (programs), each with its own features and interface, but the applications also have a lot in common with one another. Learning about one application gives you a head start in learning the others.
Chapter 3
Opening, Saving, and Printing Files
Get ready to . . .
Save Your Work
Open a Previously Saved File
Change the File Listing View
Email Your Work to Others
Share Your Work in Other Formats
Print Your Work
Recover Lost Work
All Office apps can create, open, save, and print data files. A data file stores your work in a particular application. If you don’t save your work, whatever you have entered disappears when you close the application or turn off your computer. Not good.
Each Office 2016 application has its own data file format. For example
· Word: Document files, .docx
· Excel: Workbook files, .xlsx
· PowerPoint: Presentation files, .pptx
· Outlook: Personal folders files, .pst
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint use a separate data file for each project you work on. Every time you use one of these programs, you open and save data files.
Outlook uses just one data file for all your activities. This file is automatically saved and opened for you, so you usually don’t have to think about data file management in Outlook.
The steps for saving, opening, and printing data files are almost exactly the same in each application, so mastering it in one program gives you a big head start in the other programs. In this chapter, you’ll see the basic skills that will serve you well for working with data files no matter which program you are using.
In this book, the pictures and steps show Office 2016 in the Windows 10 operating system. I provide alternate steps as needed where the process is different in Windows 8.1 and/or Windows 7.
Save Your Work
As you work in an application, the content you create is stored in the computer’s memory. This memory is only temporary storage. When you exit the application or shut down the computer, whatever is stored in memory is flushed away forever — unless you save it.
If you want to keep what you’re working on, here are some ways to save:
· Click the File tab and click Save.
· Press Ctrl+S.
· Click the Save button on the Quick Access toolbar.
The first time you save a file, the application prompts you to enter a location and name for it. The Save As page appears in Backstage view, as shown in Figure 3-1. From there, click one of the save locations, such as OneDrive - Personal or This PC and then click one of the recent folders in that location, or click Browse to start at the default folder.
Figure 3-1
For example, suppose you want to save the file in the Documents folder on your local hard drive. You would first click This PC. At that point, if Documents appears on the Recent Folders list, you could click it; otherwise you could click Browse to start in the default save location for your local PC (which is, incidentally, the Documents folder). Either way, the Save As dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 3-2.
Figure 3-2
When you re-save an already saved file, the Save As screen doesn’t reappear; the file saves automatically with the most recent settings. If you want to change the settings (such as the location or file type) or save under a different name, choose File ⇒ Save As to make the Save As controls appear.
To change the file type, open the Save as Type list in the Save As dialog box (Figure 3-2) and make another selection. In each of the applications, there are three important file types to know about:
· Default: The default format in each application supports all features except macros. The file extension ends in the letter X for each one: Word is .docx; Excel is .xlsx; PowerPoint is .pptx.
· Macro-enabled: This format supports all features, including macros. The file extension ends in the letter M for each one: .docm, .xlsm, and .pptm.
Macros are recorded bits of code that can automate certain activities in a program, but they can also carry viruses. The default formats don’t support macros for that reason. If you need to create a file that includes macros, you can save in a macro-enabled format.
· 97-2003: Each application includes a file format for backward compatibility with earlier versions of the application (versions 97 through 2003). Some minor functionality may be lost when saving in this format. The file extensions are .doc, .xls, and .ppt.
In addition to specifying a file name, you must specify a save location. You can stick with the default folder for the location you selected from the Save As screen, or you can browse to a different folder.
To understand how to change save locations, you should first understand the concept of a file path. Files are organized into folders, and you can have folders inside folders. For example, you might have
· A folder called Retirement
· Within that folder, another folder called Finances
· Within that folder, an Excel file called BankAccounts.xlsx
The path for such a file would be
C:\Retirement\Finances\BankAccounts.xlsx
The C at the beginning is the drive letter. The main hard disk on a computer is called C. The backslashes (\) are separators between folder levels.
At the top of the Save As dialog box, the parts of a path are separated by right-pointing triangles rather than by slashes. You can click any of the triangles to open a drop-down list containing all the subfolders (that is, the folders within that folder), and then click one of those folders to quickly switch to it. See Figure 3-3.
Figure 3-3
Here’s a Tricky Thing About Save Locations …
Each Windows account has its own separate Documents folder for the local PC; the version of Documents that appears depends on which Windows account is signed in.
Each user also has his or her own OneDrive; the OneDrive that appears depends on which Microsoft account is signed into Office. In Figure 3-1, notice the email address under OneDrive - Personal; this is the email address associated with the user who is currently logged into Word. The signed-in user’s name appears in the upper-right corner of the Word window.
In Figures 3-1 and 3-2, the same user is signed into both Windows and Office, but that’s not always the case. You can have a different Microsoft account signed into Office than into Windows itself. For example, suppose that Faithe is signed in to Windows and Vick is signed into Office. When browsing the This PC location, the user folders such as Documents are Faithe’s, but when browsing OneDrive, the user folders are Vick’s. To change the signed-in user in an Office application, click the user name in the upper-right corner of the application window and then click Switch Account.
Paths are also shown as the collapsible/expandable tree, with the drive on the top and all its folders and subfolders beneath. You can double-click a folder to collapse (hide) or expand (show) its contents. Figure 3-4 shows This PC expanded in the navigation pane and the Documents folder selected.
Figure 3-4
You have several ways to navigate between folders:
· Click a shortcut in the Quick Access list (Windows 10) or Favorites list (Windows 8.1 and 7) to jump to a certain folder. If the list is collapsed in the task pane, as it is in Figure 3-4, double-click it to expand it.
· Click This PC in the Navigation pane (or the Computer pane, if you’re using Windows 7) to display a list of all the drives on your PC. From there, double-click to move through the levels of folders to the area you want.
· From the Address bar at the top of the dialog box, click the triangle to open the list for the folder level you want to see the subfolders of, and then click the one you want.
· Click in the Address bar. This changes its display to a traditional path (like C:\Foldername); you can manually type in a path and then press Enter.
You can create a new folder in which to save files. Just click the New Folder button in the Save As dialog box, type a name for the new folder, and then press Enter.
If you find yourself changing the save location frequently, you can set a different location to be the default. Follow these steps in Word, Excel, or PowerPoint:
1. Choose File ⇒ Options.
2. Click the Save category.
3. In the Default File Location box, enter a different path.
You can use the Browse button to browse for it if needed.
4. Click OK.
Open a Previously Saved File
Saving your work stores it for later use. When “later” comes, you can open the file in any of a variety of ways.
When you start the application, links to recently used files appear on the app’s Start screen. You can click one of those links, or click Browse to browse for a file. You can also access the list of recently used files by choosing File ⇒ Open. Choose Recent if it is not already selected, and then click the desired file on the list. See Figure 3-5.
Figure 3-5
As you open and save more files, the list of recently used files changes. If you want to make sure that a particular file remains on the list, click the pushpin icon to its right.
If the file you want to open doesn’t appear on the Recent list, from the Open screen (refer to Figure 3-5) click a location, such as OneDrive - Personal or This PC, and then click Browse to navigate to the desired file using the Open dialog box (see Figure 3-6).
Figure 3-6
Change the File Listing View
In both the Save As and the Open dialog boxes, you can change how files are displayed. Click the Change Your View button to toggle between the available views, or click the arrow next to the Change Your View button to see a list of the available views. This list has a slider on it (seeFigure 3-7); drag the slider up or down to a different setting, or click directly on the choice you want.
Figure 3-7
Email Your Work to Others
One way to share your work with others is to send them a copy via email. There are a couple of different ways you can send electronic files:
· Open your email application (such as Outlook), start composing a message, and then use the email application’s Attach command to add one or more files to the message before you send it.
You can attach any file — not just Office data files. For example, you can send family photos that way, or even video clips. I show you how to do this in Chapter 11, where I cover the basics of Outlook.
· From Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, send the active data file as an email attachment.
Follow these steps to email a file from the application in which you created it:
1. Open the data file that you want to send, in whatever Office app you created it.
2. Choose File ⇒ Share ⇒ E-mail ⇒ Send as Attachment. A new message window appears, with that data file as an attachment.
3. Fill in the email recipient(s) in the To box.
4. The subject line is prefilled with the filename. Change it if you want, as I did in Figure 3-8. The file is listed as an attachment in the Attached field.
5. (Optional) If you want to type some explanation of the file, do so in the message body area.
6. Click Send.
Figure 3-8
You can also copy and paste data from one of the apps directly into the body of an email message that you’re composing. This lets you avoid sending an attachment, which might be helpful if you’re sending a document or a photo to someone who isn’t very experienced with email and might not understand about attachments. Chapter 2 shows how to copy and paste between applications.
Share Your Work in Other Formats
When you’re sharing an electronic copy of your work, such as via email attachment, there’s a problem if your recipient doesn’t have the same application in which to view it. For example, if you send a PowerPoint presentation to a friend who doesn’t have PowerPoint, he might not be able to open it.
There are two basic ways around problems of incompatibility: Either the recipient acquires an application that can view the files, or the sender (that’s you) can save the file in a format that the recipient can already view.
If you are going to tackle the problem from the recipient side, the easiest way is to have the recipient use the free PowerPoint web-based application, found at https://office.live.com. (A Microsoft account is required, which is free.) Web-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote are all available. They are not as full-featured as the originals, but they work well for viewing and making simple edits. If you are going about the solution from the sender side, first find out which file formats or applications your recipient uses, and then determine a matching file format that your application will save in. You find the file formats available to your application via the Save As dialog box, from which you can select a different file type.
For text files, Rich Text Format (.rtf) is a great choice. It’s a near-universal format that almost any word processing program can open, and Word users commonly save in that format when they want to exchange documents with someone who uses a very old or obscure word processing program that doesn’t support Word files. Figure 3-9 shows RTF being selected as the file format in Microsoft Word.
Figure 3-9
Changing to a different file format can result in the loss of some formatting. Some features in Office 2016 applications work only when documents are saved in the application’s native format, such as fill-in fields, macros, certain types of editable artwork, and formatting themes. That’s why most people don’t save in other formats unless it is necessary.
If the recipient will not need to edit the document, your best bet might be to save it in a special format designed for read-only sharing of laid-out pages: a page description language. That way, the recipient sees the page exactly as you intended it, without having to find and download a separate viewer for that specific file type.
Office 2016 supports two major page description languages:
· PDF: A format created by Adobe, widely used all over the Internet for distributing documents. It doesn’t come with Windows, but a reader for this format — Adobe Reader — is free to download from www.adobe.com. Yes, the recipient does still have to download Reader, but it’s just one program, and it will work for the content from all Office apps, plus many other documents.
· XPS: A format created by Microsoft, supported natively in Windows Vista and higher. Anyone who has Windows Vista or later already has this viewer available.
You can save in PDF or XPS format directly from within an application. Follow these steps:
1. Choose File ⇒ Save As, and then browse to the desired save location.
2. In the Save As dialog box, from the Save as Type list, choose either PDF or XPS Document. The dialog box changes to show some additional controls. See Figure 3-10.
Instead of following Steps 1-2, you can choose File ⇒ Export ⇒ Create PDF/XPS Document ⇒ Create PDF/XPS.
3. (Optional) Change the filename if desired. By default, it’s the same name as the data file you’re working with.
4. Make an Optimize For selection.
· For documents that might also be printed on paper, choose Standard (the default).
· For documents that will be shared only online, choose Minimum Size.
5. Click Save. The saved file opens in its native program, which is either Adobe Reader (PDF format) or the XPS Viewer or Internet Explorer (XPS format).
Figure 3-10
Print Your Work
To print from within any Office applications, choose File ⇒ Print or press Ctrl+P. That displays the Print Settings in Backstage View. Set any print options desired and then click the Print button.
The exact settings found in the Print Settings vary slightly between the applications. Figure 3-11 shows the settings available for Word. Later chapters of this book cover each application’s printing process. The common features are
· Copies: The default is 1; you can choose to print multiple copies instead by specifying some other number.
· Printer: Choose from a drop-down list of the printers installed on your system. (If you have only one printer, it’s used automatically.)
· Settings: Specify which page(s) you want to print, if not the whole thing. You can print all, the current page, a custom page range, or a sheet containing the document’s properties. You can also choose collation options, duplexing (one-sided or two sided copies), page size and orientation, and margins.
Figure 3-11
Sometimes when you print something, it doesn’t look exactly how you expected. The view that you work with onscreen isn’t the same as the view that will be printed in many cases. (That’s especially true in Excel, for example.) Print Preview is a special view in which you can see your pages exactly as they will appear when printed. This can help you avoid needlessly printing extra copies and wasting ink and paper. Print Preview appears to the right of the Print Settings in Backstage View, as shown in Figure 3-11.
Recover Lost Work
Computers lock up occasionally, and applications crash in the middle of important projects. When that happens, any work that you haven’t saved is gone.
To minimize the pain of those situations, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all have an AutoRecover feature that silently saves your drafts as you work, once every ten minutes or at some other interval you specify. These drafts are saved in temporary hidden files that are deleted when you close the application successfully (that is, not abruptly due to a lockup, crash, or power outage). If the application crashes, those temporary saved files appear for your perusal when the program starts back up. You can choose to either
· Save them if their versions are newer than the ones you have on your hard drive
or
· Discard them if they contain nothing you need
To change the interval at which AutoRecover versions are saved, follow these steps:
1. Choose File ⇒ Options.
2. Click the Save category.
3. Make sure that the Save AutoRecover Information Every xx Minutes check box is selected. See Figure 3-12.
4. If desired, change the value in the Minutes box to another number.
5. Click OK.
