A friend of mine asked me what software to install to print office documents to PDF. Microsoft provides an Add-In to allow Office documents to be save as PDF format.

Hope this is useful for people who don’t know about it.

Microsoft Save as PDF

When doing excel calculation, sometimes I want to display value as 1/3 instead of 0.33333. I just learnt that you can do that in Excel with just a few simple steps.

Microsoft Office Excel can display, and take data entry as, fractions as well as decimal numbers. To enter a fraction, simply prefix it with a zero and a space.

So to display the fraction one-third, type 0 1/3. This will display 1/3 but will have an underlying value of 0.33333333. The cool thing about this, is when you do a simple calculation, it will automatically convert it to fraction for you.

EG. 1/3 X 5 will convert to 1 2/3.

Try it out, I guess this is some of the hidden secrets of Excel that not many people know. At least I don’t, until now.

Everytime when I try to focus on doing work, I always got distracted by those pesky email notification. It pops up everytime there is any incoming email. Here is how you disable it.

Turn Off E-Mail Notifications
Because an e-mail notification icon appears whenever you receive new e-mail, it’s tempting to stop work and open new messages immediately. But you can turn off the notification and then check your e-mail when it’s convenient for you. Here’s how:

1. In Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, click Tools, click Options, click E-mail Options, and then click Advanced E-mail Options.
2. In the middle of the dialog box, clear the Display a New Mail Desktop Alert check box.

Spend a lot of time on duplicating formats of your Word, Excel or Powerpoint document? There is an easy way of doing this. Use Format Painter.

The Format Painter tool duplicates the formatting from one part of a document to another. So less manual work. How to use it?

1. Select the text whose formatting you want to replicate. Click the Format Painter toolbar button.
2. Then duplicate the text by selecting the target texts.

If you have time, do drop by. I heard there’s some freebies. Too bad I got class on that day…

Microsoft just announced that the next version of Microsoft Office will be available as browser-based tools . The online apps will include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote and will run on your browser.

From what i read, the office web applications are a lightweight versions of the desktop version. It will be shipped as Office 14 (Next Version of MS Office). Now that’s the power of Web 2.0, a few years from now i can use my keep my files online and access it through my mobile phone.

Get more information about it in the Channel 10 Blog and checkout the screencast on Channel 9

Accidentally deleted some emails? Here’s how to recover them:

1.       Navigate to the folder that you have accidentally deleted the email (ie. Inbox/Sent Item/Deleted Item)

2.       Go To Tools -> Recover Deleted Item

3.       Select the email that you want to recover and select Recover Selected Item.

Recover Deleted Files in Outlook 2007

I don’t know about you guys. But sometimes i find it very troublesome when i need to send files to someone with an older version of office. I need to frequently remind myself to save it in an older version.

But recently i found 2 ways to overcome this.

Tip #1

1. Click the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Word Options.
2. Click Save.
3. Under Save documents, next to Save files in this format, select Word 2003-97 Document (*.doc).

Tip #2

Ask your friend to install Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack. Then Office 2003 version will be compatible with Office 2007 files.

Hope this helps. Cheers