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Communicating Using Technology
Vol. 2 Issue 21 October 14, 2003
Published and Copyright by Dave Paradi
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In this issue:
New PowerPoint Instructional CD
1. Advice on Upgrading to MS Office 2003
2. Cropping Graphics
3. Useful Resource - PC World Fixes for PC Annoyances
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e-mail or information to anyone.
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If you have received this as a forward from a friend, sign up
for your own copy at:
http://www.communicateusingtechnology.com/newsletter.htm
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**Special Announcement**
I have just released a new instructional CD for PowerPoint
titled "PowerPoint Slides - What REALLY Works". It contains
all of my best suggestions on creating and delivering
PowerPoint slides. And it is delivered in a new format. I
have put together a series of web pages that each contain one
of my slides, the text of what I say about that topic and an
audio recording of my advice. It is a great companion to my
"The 20% You REALLY Need To Know About PowerPoint" books
because the CD shows you how to use the skills from the book
to make effective slides. You can check it out (and see a
preview of one of the slides) at:
http://www.communicateusingtechnology.com/pptworkscd.htm
1. Advice on Upgrading to MS Office 2003
In just over a week or so, Microsoft will officially release
the latest version of their Office suite of applications -
Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook being the most common
programs. There will likely be a lot of hype about the new
versions of these popular applications. The big question you
need to answer is: Should I upgrade? My advice is not yet.
I have read many reviews about what is new in Office 2003 and
most of the changes benefit large organizations that want to
tie into corporate databases (Outlook 2003 is much better
than the previous version, but you can't just upgrade that
one application). When I look at any new version of a key
application, I consider the four ideas that I outlined in my
article about upgrading software on the web site (see the
full article at http://tinyurl.com/qtiw). And in this case,
the key issue is that there is not really enough in the new
version to make me upgrade from Office 2002. And with any
new release, I want to wait until the initial problems have
been ironed out. If you are currently using Office 97 or
Office 2000, I would suggest you consider upgrading to Office
2002 now because the older versions will get less support (I
see Office 97 not being supported much longer) and there are
enough new features in the now stable Office 2002 to be worth
it. If you upgrade before Office 2003 gets released, you
will also probably get a coupon for the new version at a
greatly reduced price or even free.
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Who else wants to sell more and boost their career with
better PowerPoint slides? Learn an easy 13-step process in
under two hours with this e-book. Click on this link:
http://www.kickstartcart.com/app/adtrack.asp?AdID=45805
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2. Cropping Graphics
If you use graphics in Word or PowerPoint, you will want to
know about the crop button on the Picture toolbar. This tool
allows you to crop, or cut the sides off of, a graphic. This
can be helpful if you only want to show a portion of a
certain graphic. To get to the cropping tool, click on the
picture to select it. If the Picture toolbar does not
automatically display, click on the View menu and click on
the Toolbars menu item and select the Picture toolbar. The
cropping tool is the icon on the Picture toolbar that looks
like two plus signs. When you click on it, it turns the
cursor into the cropping tool. You can then select a corner
of the graphic and move the corner into a new spot, which
will exclude any part of the picture outside of the new
boundary. When you are done, click on the cropping tool on
the Picture toolbar to return the cursor to the normal arrow
cursor. I have found this tool better than guessing at the
cropping sizes in the Picture properties dialog box.
3. Useful Resource - PC World Fixes for PC Annoyances
PC World recently had a great article on how to solve many PC
annoyances. Some of the topics they deal with are: how to
recover forgotten passwords and how to watch video files
again after seeing them on a web site. Check out all the
ideas at:
http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,112027,00.asp
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Would you like me to speak to your professional association
or chapter event? I am always looking for opportunities to
share my information with others and would consider speaking
to your group if you are in or near the following areas:
Rochester, NY, Buffalo NY, Detroit, MI, Cleveland, OH,
Pittsburgh, PA or Toronto, ON. Just e-mail me at:
dave@communicateusingtechnology.com for more info.
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Check out the books, e-books and other learning tools at:
http://www.communicateusingtechnology.com/tools.htm
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