Almost everyone uses Microsoft applications, especially Word and Excel. These applications have been serving us for decades, and at this point, it is safe to say that the global economy stands on the shoulders of these software giants.
You probably have been using these applications all your life, but do you know how to make the most out of them?
With these tips, you’ll surely love Word and Excel more! Here are life-saving, and time-efficient life hacks for you:
Microsoft Word Life Hacks
Know everything about ANY word.
If you want to know about the definition, origin, synonyms, and pronunciation of a certain word, select it and right-click on it. After that, select the tool called Smart Lookup, and the word is in your hands!
Quickly access your most-used tools.
Your “Ribbon” is where you can see the tools that you use in Word, and you can edit that by going to the File menu, clicking on Options, and selecting the Customize Ribbon option. With this, your workflow will be faster and smoother because you’ll have your most-accessed tools one click away!
From ALL CAPS to lowercase, and vice-versa.
Did you accidentally type or copy-paste something that’s in all caps, and you want them to be in lowercase, but it’s such a hassle to retype everything? Don’t fret! Just click Shift F3 on PC /FN Shift F3 on Mac, and it will toggle through uppercase, lowercase, and even title case.
Save the format you’re always using.
Do you have a document that you’re creating in the same way and using often? This applies to weekly reports, journal entries, documents with table formats, you name it! To save your formatting preferences so that they’re good to go, highlight the text you have formatted, and visit the “Styles Pane” menu in Home. Then click the button that says “New Style,” rename it as you please, and it will be there for future use!
Find error words and replace them with the right ones.
If you made a consistent error in your documents, such as a misspelled word or name, you don’t have to read through the document, find each word, and retype the corrections every time. To make things easy, Word has a “Find and Replace” feature! Go to the main “Edit” menu, scroll down to “Find,” and then click “Replace.” Input the error you want to find and the correct version alongside it. Select the “Replace All” button, and the error will be corrected within the whole document!
Make all your copy-pasted text uniform.
When you copy and paste something on the document that doesn’t fit the overall font and format, select that certain text and hit the Ctrl + Space simultaneously on your keyboard, and it will be the same format as everything else.
Make it a habit to save.
Hitting the Ctrl + S (Command + S for Mac) on your keyboard will save your document where it’s currently at, so make sure you get into the habit of clicking this every few minutes in case of a power outage or “not responding” error.
Microsoft Excel Tips for Beginners
You can sum up all the cells that you select.
Through Autosum, you can add all the numbers by selecting all the cells and hitting Alt and = on your keyboard simultaneously.
Know all the cells that are covered by a certain formula.
If you apply a particular formula and want to see which cells are covered by it, select any cell with that active formula and hit Ctrl [ simultaneously on your keyboard.
Quickly add a border to selected cells.
It takes several clicks to apply a border to certain cells, but with this shortcut, it’ll be so quick! Just select the cells you want, and then hit Ctrl Shift & on your keyboard.
Select all cells (in two ways!)
If you have several rows and columns of data and you need to select them all, you don’t have to spend so much time clicking and scrolling through them all. You need to hit Ctrl-A on your keyboard OR click on the light gray triangle that appears in the top left corner of your sheet. Yep, it’s that simple!
No cut-off text anymore!
The default setting for Excel when you type something into a sheet is that it gets cut off, and you might have felt the need to extend the cell. However, you can wrap the text so that the cell will adjust no matter how long your words and sentences are! Click the Wrap Text option under the Home tab, and this will do the trick. To apply this to the whole document, select all cells before writing and input this option.
