Office 2007 Help
Ag IT Advisory Group Info
E-mail Friendly Web Links
PowerPoint Design Tip #2: Simplify
Printing Adobe Acrobat Files
Web Design Tips
Write the Right Word
New and Revised Publications
Office 2007 Help
Need help with Office 2007? Here are resources you may find useful:
Free tutorials for Office 2007 are available at http://office.microsoft.com .
Office 2007 can show you how to perform tasks you used to do in Office 2003.
* Open the application (Word, Excel, etc...).
* Click the Help button (looks like a question mark in a blue circle).
* Type "interactive" in the Search box, then click Search
* Click the link to the Interactive 2003 to 2007 Command Reference
Guide
* In the next Help window, click 'Start the Guide.' The interactive guide will
open in a browser window.
* Click the 'Start' button. You'll see the Menu Bars and Toolbars. Click on
the steps you would take in the 2003 version, and the interactive guide
will show you how to do the same process in the 2007 version.
Lorna Olsen, (701) 231-6328, lorna.olsen@ndsu.edu
Ag IT Advisory Group Info
Your colleagues on the Agriculture Information Technology Advisory Group
(AITAG) provide planning input, policy recommendations and program review.
Check out the AITAG Web site at
http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/policy/it/index.htm to see AITAG's purpose, membership, hardware and software baselines, IT Plan 2007-09 goals, meeting minutes, and quarterly reports to Vice President Coston and CIO Gerst.
E-mail Friendly Web Links
Ever send a Web page link via e-mail that is so long it ends up taking two or more lines of text? Sometimes the links just don't work because the e-mail program doesn't recognize anything past the first line. This can be frustrating, especially if the recipient has to copy and paste or type the entire URL in manually.
TinyURL (www.tinyurl.com) has the solution. If you have a really long URL, enter it on their Web page to have a much shorter link created. You can then paste the shorter link into your e-mail message without having to worry about its length.
For example, this link leads to a Web page about fatal exception errors:
http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles/archi
ve /r0803/39r03/39r03.asp
This link leads to the same page but is more e-mail friendly:
http://tinyurl.com/2p9lgo
A drawback is that TinyURL hides the original Web page link. In many cases, especially where we are working with NDSU information, it is considered good manners to use the full Web address when possible instead of the TinyURL shortcut. Otherwise it is a handy little tool that can help prevent a lot of e-mail frustrations.
Jerry Ranum, (701) 231-6395, gerald.ranum@ndsu.edu
PowerPoint Design Tip #2: Simplify
Simple is always better when designing visuals. It's easy to write too much. Once you've set up the initial presentation, go back and edit to simplify your visuals.
* Take out sentences and replace them with key words and phrases.
* Take out visuals you can live without.
* Take out clip art if you've used more than you really need.
* Take off punctuation.
* Keep visuals simple and uncluttered. The audience should not have to
struggle to figure out what it's trying to show.
* Have open space (also called white space) to allow for easier reading
and visual breaks.
* Vary the look of the visuals for interest. Mix up text slides, charts,
bulleted lists, graphics and photos.
Remember, visuals should support what you have to say, not say everything for you.
Deb Tanner, (701) 231-7891, deb.tanner@ndsu.edu, or John Grindahl,
(701) 231-7898, john.grindahl@ndsu.edu
Printing Adobe Acrobat Files
Have you ever printed a brochure file from Adobe Acrobat and, when you fold it, the margin spacing doesn't come out right? That's because Acrobat print defaults are set to reduce the page to fit inside your printer margins.
This reduces the entire document so it's printing at about 90 percent of the original size. To fix this and have the file print with the correct margin spacing, when you get to the Print menu screen, be sure that "Page Scaling"
is set to "None."
Web Design Tips
Home pages need to download fast and have a clear message. Think of your home page as a billboard. Everything should fit on one screen. You don't see scroll bars on the billboards you go by on I-94 at 75 mph, do you?
Make the information easy to find and understand, including simple navigation that will take your users to where they need to go.
David Haasser, (701) 231-8620, david.haasser@ndsu.edu
Deb Tanner at (701) 231-789, deb.tanner@ndsu.edu.
Write the Right Word
Prepositions indicating location, such as "in," "at" and "on," can cause writers problems.
In general, use "in" for area, "at" for a specific point or place, and "on" for a surface.
For example:
In: "The meeting will be held in Minot." "The Extension Service office is in the county courthouse."
At: "Her car is at the mall." "He left his briefcase at the office."
In/at: "The workshop will be held in Carrington at the NDSU Research Extension Center."
On: "The book is on the table." "He piled the grain on the ground."
"On" also should be used to separate proper nouns and days/dates. "The meeting will be held at the Radisson on Oct. 10." "He reported the leak in the roof to Smith on Monday."
Ellen Crawford, (701) 231-5391, ellen.crawford@ndsu.edu
New and Revised Publications
AE966 (Revised) -- A Guide to Plugging Abandoned Wells North Dakota has about 100,000 abandoned wells. This 16-page publication by Tom Scherer and Roxanne Johnson deals with the many details of plugging abandoned wells.
EC1345 -- Rural Community Housing Authority Public Housing Projects Kathy Tweeten, Jodi Bruns, Gary Goreham and Larry Leistritz have collaborated on this four-page publication outlining the steps to develop a Rural Community Housing Authority Public Housing Project.
SF1122 (Revised) -- Fertilizing Canola and Mustard This eight-page color publication, authored by Dave Franzen and John Lukach, provides necessary recommendations for canola and mustard.
Sharon Lane, (701) 231-7883, sharon.lane@ndsu.edu
Let's Communicate
Past issues and topics from Let´s Communicate are at www.ag.ndsu.edu/agcomm/letscomm/letscomm.htm. If you have questions or comments, or would like to submit information or make a suggestion for Let´s Communicate, please contact
Becky Koch, (701) 231-7875, becky.koch@ndsu.edu
