Top Tips For Office Productivity

Microsoft Office is the most widely used and powerful office software collection to date, and many have followed in its footsteps. Office boasts an impressive variety of powerful features to make life easier, but there are many features that users disregard or do not know about at all. In order to be more productive when using a product like Office, users should take advantage of its many features. Not everyone will use all the features available, but there are a few that no one should overlook.

Spell check in Word is one of the most simple attributes that Office has to offer to users, yet there are so many that don’t take advantage of it. You can turn it on so it automatically tells you when you’ve misspelled something, or you manually go in and use the feature when you’re done with the file you’re working on (the shortcut for spell check is F7). It’s your choice. If you opt for the automatic version, a squiggly red line will appear under any word you’ve misspelled. It’s simple!

One feature that boosts productivity throughout every Office program is the AutoCorrect feature. If you often type a certain phrase or sentence, then this feature will come in handy for you. For example, if you type “Apple iPhone” often, you can set up an AutoCorrect entry so you only have to type “AIP” or something similar in order to get the program to fill in the text automatically. There is an AutoCorrect for every program in the Office bundle, usually under proofing options.

The format painter is yet another great feature that is available in almost every Office program. If you want to duplicate any text formatting, including font, size, or borders, select the text you want to copy the format of, click on the format painter button (it’s a little paintbrush), and then select the text you want to apply the format to. If you want to apply the format to multiple items, be sure to double click the format painter, and when you’re done applying, press the ESC key. This is the most quick and efficient way to apply formatting to many individual items.

These features are just the beginning of many useful tools that Office provides for its users. Things such as the Quick Access Toolbar, the Fill handle in Excel, and Word and Powerpoint’s simple way of clearing any formatting (select the text and press spacebar) prove that Office is packed with extremely useful resources.