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10 Simple Ways To Do More With Microsoft Office 365 Apps

How Can You Do More With Microsoft Office 365 Apps?

You may have been using Microsoft apps like Word and Excel for years and years at this point, but you still may not be an expert. Given how much these apps are updated and improved year by year and version by version, there are likely features you haven’t learned to take advantage of.

Failing to do so may mean that you’re overlooking ways to improve what you’re creating, or wasting time on unnecessary steps. Check out the following 10 tips to improve the way you use Microsoft Office 365 and its many apps.

10 Tips For Improving Your Microsoft Office 365 Experience

Microsoft PowerPoint

1. Learn keyboard shortcuts for navigating through your presentation.
When you’re giving a presentation, you don’t want to be struggling to get through it because you don’t know what button to push on the keyboard.

  • Next slide: Press N, Enter, Page Down, Right Arrow, Down Arrow, or Spacebar
  • Previous slide: P, Page Up, Left Arrow, Up Arrow, Backspace
  • Specific slide: (number)+Enter
  • Black screen: B or Period
  • White screen: W or Command

2. Good design is timeless.
As great as the many flashy transitions and other design features available in PowerPoint are, they are no substitute for clean, effective design. All the way back to the first iteration of PowerPoint, a number of simple rules of design have applied to the way you should put a slide together:

  • Use a sans serif font for body text, as its easier to read.
  • No more than three bullet points per slide – keep it simple.
  • Only use flashy fonts for titles – and even then, err on the side of caution. No more than two font styles and two font sizes per slide.
  • Use dark text on a light background. Be sparing with your use of text color.
  • Use consistent text alignment and justification.

3. Your presentation is not your script.
You should not be reading your slideshow word for word. Remember, you and your presentation should complement each other. It provides a visual aid and you provide the details. Use the brief points on the slide to direct the presentation and discussion, ask your audience questions, and expand where needed.

Microsoft Word

1. Hyperlink to add extra info.
If you’re ever referencing an external source of information, specific company, or other item that has an associated web presence, then be sure to hyperlink that text to the source. You can do so by highlighting it and pressing Crtl+K.

2. Track changes with ease.
Tracking changes is an easy way to run a document through multiple rounds of editing without getting lost in the many iterations and drafts. Instead of trying to navigate through multiple drop-down menus to turn on the Track Changes feature, simply press Crtl+Shift+E to enable it.

3. Recover documents you thought you lost.
There’s no worse feeling than closing Microsoft Word and realizing you didn’t you’re your work. But don’t worry – simply click File> Info> Manage Version> Recover Unsaved Documents to bring up the most recent version for you to save.

Microsoft Excel

1. Make sure your sheets are consistent.
Tired of having to copy formatting between your multiple spreadsheets? There’s a better way – hold CRTL while clicking the tabs of the sheets you want to group. While grouped, any formatting you apply to one will apply to all of them.

2. Expand your spreadsheet as needed.
If you need to add rows or columns to your spreadsheet, you have a number of options available to you:

  • Insert>Rows or Columns
  • Right-click Rows or Columns and click Insert
  • CRTL and +
  • CRTL and + and Shift

Microsoft Outlook

1. Make use of web-based integrations.
The later few versions of Microsoft Outlook offer a web-based view of your calendar, inbox, and contact list, all of which can be accessed on any device.

2. Categorize your content.
Categorize works across the platform, allowing you to color-code your calendar events, group contacts into appropriate sub-groups, and automatically organize every email that comes into your inbox.

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