5 Microsoft Office Tips to Improve Your Work Performance
Anybody who utilizes Microsoft products on a daily basis should know basic keyboard shortcuts and the methods used to make life easier. However, there have been several functions in Microsoft Office and Microsoft products that have slipped under the rug. Here are five Microsoft Office tips to improve your work performance.
1. Microsoft Snipping Tool
Microsoft Vista and later operating systems come with a tool called Snipping Tool. This tool allows you to copy anything that is on your screen. When you click “New”, the program will ask you to draw a box around whatever you are wanting to copy. Then, you can paste what you copied anywhere where pasting is appropriate. This is extremely useful if you are showing article snippets or designing a presentation. For more information about Windows products, see thewindowsclub.com.
2. Use Categories in Microsoft Outlook
Categories are essential for organizing the hundreds of emails one might receive on a daily basis. Outlook’s categories allow one to create his or her custom folders to store emails. Outlook also allows the user to sort and manipulate those folders.
3. Microsoft Excel “IF” Functions
Data scientists already know about the “IF” functions in Excel. The three main ones are SUMIF, AVERAGEIF, and IFERROR. SUMIF and AVERAGEIF are similar in that they will sum cells or average cells, respectively, under whatever criteria one imposes. For example, one can tell Excel to average a list of numbers if the majority of the numbers are greater than ten. Excel will then check to see if the majority of numbers are greater than ten and then average the selected range of numbers if the argument is true. If false, excel will not average the numbers. The IFERROR function is routinely used to check for value errors that arise and replace the horrendous message with whatever the user chooses. For example, if one loads text into cells that expect numbers, then Excel will produce a VALUEERROR in each cell. If one purposefully did that, they can then use IFERROR to replace “VALUEERROR” with whatever should be in those cells.
4. Microsoft PowerPoint Shapes
PowerPoint shapes are heavily underutilized. Most people think these shapes are only there for designing your own slides. While this is one use, the shapes can be used to manipulate illustrations, figures, and tables. For example, if you were to create a graph in excel, but you do not like how the graph was designed, you could copy the graph into PowerPoint and use the shapes to make the graph look publication worthy and professional.
5. Microsoft Edge Smart Copy
For those that have ever referenced a webpage, you know the formatting can be awkward. Microsoft Edge has a feature called Smart Copy that allows you to have more control over the formatting of text copied from a webpage and pasted into a document.
By taking time to learn more about how to best use Microsoft Office, you will be able to increase your work productivity and become more efficient in your job responsibilities.
