Software Tools Getting More from Office 1
Microsoft Office Additional Tools Most of you are skilled in using Word and Excel to do the basics, but as an university student, there are a few more advanced features and functions that you will want to learn to improve your own efficiency. These features demonstrate that office productivity tools can be used together and in fact, are powerful research and project tools when used together. Writing Equations in Word Mail Merge with Word and Excel Templates, Hints and Best Practice for using Word for Research Writing 2
Microsoft Word Equation Editor The Equation Editor is used to insert mathematical equations into MS Office documents, and the procedure for inserting an equation is Open a new Word document Click where you want to insert the equation. On the Insert menu, click Object, and then click the Create New tab. In the Object type box, click Microsoft Equation 3.0. 3
Microsoft Word Equation Editor 4
Microsoft Word Equation Editor The MacOffice version 5
Microsoft Word Equation Editor Build the equation by selecting symbols from the Equation toolbar and by typing variables and numbers. From the top row of the Equation toolbar, you can choose from more than 150 mathematical symbols. From the bottom row, you can choose from a variety of templates or frameworks that contain symbols such as fractions, integrals, and summations. If you need help, click Equation Editor Help Topics on the Help menu. To return to Microsoft Word, click the Word document. NOTES: You can change the size of an equation by first clicking on the equation then grabbing and dragging a corner. To edit an equation after entering it, double click on the equation. 6
Microsoft Word Equation Editor 7
Microsoft Word Equation Editor 8
Now that you can equate can you merge? 9
Microsoft Word Mail Merge In this lecture, we will discuss how to use Excel with Word to create form letters. Although the manner in which this is done varies with the version of MS Office, there are generally six steps involved when using the Mail Merge Wizard (found generally under Tools-> Letter and Mailings -> Mail Merge Wizard): Select the Document Type (the type of form you would like to create which is Letters for this example). Select the Starting Document (the document into which you would like to merge the data which is Use the current document.) 10
Microsoft Word Mail Merge Select Recipients (generally the file that contains the information that you would like to merge into the Starting Document chosen in Step 2 is found using the Browse feature). Write your letter, which includes inserting the fields from the Recipients file you chose in Step 3). Typically, this is done by choosing More Items at the bottom of the Wizard dialog box and then inserting accordingly. Preview your letters. Complete the merge. You can either merge to a file or directly to a printer. 11
Microsoft Word Mail Merge Why is this handy for research and academic pursuits, you might wonder? It is an excellent way to label all sorts of samples water quality, soil samples, pretty much anything in a jar, box, or other container. Works good to send out surveys and mailers for social science data collection Also fantastic for resumes and cover letters, grant writing And of course, the only way to get your Christmas cards out on time! 12
Microsoft Word Mail Merge or Really Data Merge. 13
Microsoft Word Mail Merge or Really Data Merge. Its own sub-toolbar Read it left to right, mostly or at least to begin Use Preview Results (a lot!!) Expect to start over a few times until you have it perfect Expect to test print for envelopes and labels For large repetitive tasks, it is a life saver 14
Microsoft Word Mail Merge or Really Data Merge. 15
Microsoft Word Mail Merge or Really Data Merge. The basic process Decide what you are going to build Collect and format you source data names, addresses, samples, etc in Excel or Access Use the wizard Be sure to input the merge fields on the form Save the created document for future use. 16
Microsoft Word Mail Merge or Really Data Merge. 17
Microsoft Word Mail Merge or Really Data Merge. 18
Microsoft Word Mail Merge or Really Data Merge. 19
Microsoft Word Mail Merge or Really Data Merge. 20
Microsoft Word Mail Merge or Really Data Merge. 21
Templates and Style Templates, Style Gallery, Hints for Writing Research Papers with Word This section of the lecture is just some hints and tips for writing papers and in particular, writing research or other academic papers Document templates provide a consistent and predefined set of style for heading, normal text, table of contents and the like. The style gallery then gives you the preset styles for these document elements that you can either adapt for your document or just apply. 22
Templates and Style MS-Word supports automatic table of contents generation and to get that feature you must apply the styles correctly. For example, to get chapter titles and headings to appear automatically with the right page in your table of contents (TOC), you must apply that style to the actual text in your document. This feature alone will save you hours and hours of creating and changing TOCs. There are several other handy automatically generated "reference" objects such as table of figures and index (indices), each is maintained by Word as you change the body of the document. In Word, you should review carefully the items under the insert menu, there are several very useful elements that you can use to help you in creating a polished looking document. 23
Research Papers Let's look at a few research paper templates, these are available at the following location: Research paper templates - From Wright State - http://www.wright.edu/~martin.maner/rptemp.htm Sample Research Paper Template - SampleResearchPaper.dot There are word processing tools one could use to create their papers Tools such as openoffice.org's Writer software and Google's Docs. You can check these both out online and compare them with the feature set provided by Word. For your work here at Pacific, Word is the defacto standard for documents. 24
Research Papers Key Points Large papers do not work well in Word (more than 50-100 pages), be careful when trying to build a large project. Consider breaking your work into chapters Use a bibliographic tool, I wish I had found these earlier. Most integrate directly into Word and manage all your references. Literally, getting a free or open source version will save you time. Biblioexpress is one that I have but there are many. As always, save often and save your work to a USB drive or persistent storage device. Assume your laptop will break (because as soon as you don't it will) 25
Research Papers Key Points Use a consistent template and style gallery, don't redefine them once you get a good professional look. If you struggle with writing, add a front page to your word document and every time you write, save the word count to that page. Set yourself a goal of 500, 1000 or whatever number works. Watch that number and you will improve just by monitoring your progress. 26
In-class exercise 10 27