The Productivity Hub

Add a background color to your Outlook mails

If you want your mail to stand out a little from the pack of messages invading your coworkers and...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 03/03/2011

Windows 7 Taskbar: All news, all the time, and constantly underfoot

The Windows 7 feature interview series continues: Yesterday I hit the cafe down the street for lunch...

Author: Jeff at MSFT Date: 03/02/2011

Formula Watch - Convert numbers to and from Roman numerals

Once you get past 20 or so, converting Roman numerals to Arabic (or vice versa) can be tricky. But...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 03/01/2011

Review changes by author in OneNote 2010

If you work in shared notebooks, it can be helpful to see what changes have been made by your...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/28/2011

Control the date format in your Outlook calendar

If you want to adjust the date display in your Outlook calendar, the place to make the change is not...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/25/2011

Copy all highlighted text in your Word document

You probably already use the highlighter pen tool to mark up favorite phrases or passages needing...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/24/2011

Get organized with Windows 7 libraries

There are those among us who carefully lay out hierarchies of folders, each clearly named, in which...

Author: Jeff at MSFT Date: 02/23/2011

Filter or remove duplicates from your Excel data

If you're wading through your Excel data and find a lot of redundant entries, you have two options...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/22/2011

Create a custom view of your data in Access on SharePoint

Awhile back, we shared how to publish your Access database to SharePoint. Once you and your team are...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/21/2011

Casual Friday: Using PowerPoint as a picture library

Most people think of PowerPoint as just a presentation tool, but it makes a great picture library as...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/18/2011

Make your Excel rows and columns consistent

As you enter data into cells in your Excel worksheet, you may notice that your rows change height -...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/17/2011

Keep your Windows 7 machine in the fast lane

Windows 7 is speedy—this we know the moment we fire it up the first time. With use, however, any...

Author: Jeff at MSFT Date: 02/16/2011

Turn Formula AutoComplete on and off in Excel

If you're a formula pro, you may find that the AutoComplete feature gets in the way more than it...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/15/2011

Have you ever wanted to print just the first page of an email message? Most of the time, right? You...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/14/2011

Improve the quality of your emails

Do you ever get the feeling that you send mails too quickly, before they are fully proofread and the...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/11/2011

You know that awkward pause during team presentations when one team member hands off to another, and...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/10/2011

Six handy keyboard shortcuts for Windows 7

Give hardworking mice the rest they deserve! Just about every Windows user develops a favorite set...

Author: Jeff at MSFT Date: 02/09/2011

Formula Watch: TRIM and CLEAN your Excel data

If you import data into Excel or just have a lot of different people working in the same worksheet,...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/08/2011

Create Search Folders in Outlook 2010

If you find yourself scouring your Inbox and various Outlook folders for specific types of mails,...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/07/2011

Save time with overtype mode in Office

Depending on your editing style, you may prefer overtype mode - which lets you type over characters...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/04/2011

Sleep and Hibernate in Windows 7: The Great Debate

And now, another instructive encounter with a Windows feature! Today I'm moderating one of the most...

Author: Jeff at MSFT Date: 02/02/2011

Move rows around quickly in Excel

If you're like me, when working with rows of data in Excel, you often find you want to reorder them....

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 02/01/2011

Send OneNote pages to email, blogs, even mobile phones

OneNote 2010 builds on past versions to offer more flexibilty in letting your access and share the...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/31/2011

Mastering tabs in Excel

If you store data on multiple sheets (or tabs), you may have noticed you can drag then into a...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/28/2011

Participate in 'Clean Out Your Inbox Week'

Taking control of your Inbox is a perennial topic, one that we’ve addressed several times with...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/27/2011

Speed up common browsing tasks with Accelerators

Copy. Change windows. Paste. Click. Repeat. Most of us follow this familiar routine hundreds of...

Author: Jeff at MSFT Date: 01/26/2011

Formula Watch: Turn off rounding with TRUNC

If you work with currency, you may have noticed that the default behavior in Excel is to round up...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/25/2011

Present to a remote audience over the Internet with PowerPoint 2010

If you want to let remote team members watch your presentation, PowerPoint 2010 has a great feature...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/24/2011

Add impact to your Word documents with Text Effects

Have you ever noticed that glowing button on your ribbon in Word 2010? It’s the gateway to a number...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/21/2011

Dress up your Excel documents with headings

Excel can be used for just about anything—lists, charts, tables, and more—but if you plan on...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/20/2011

Whom do you trust? Internet Explorer can help you decide

Like it or not, wariness is the watchword in cyberspace these days. There are just too many...

Author: Jeff at MSFT Date: 01/19/2011

Make universal changes quickly in PowerPoint

Do you spend a lot of time making your slides uniform in PowerPoint? If so, perhaps you’re not...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/17/2011

Formula Watch: Hide customer data with CONCATENATE

Privacy is an important watchword these days, and Excel can help you hide sensitive customer...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/11/2011

Use Clean Up to zap unnecessary mails in Outlook 2010

It's January, so you've no doubt resolved to take control of your Inbox (a perennial favorite that...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/10/2011

Casual Friday: Making eye-catching signs in Word

Most people think of Microsoft Word as an application for authoring business documents, but it can...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/07/2011

If you’re writing a manual or other form of documentation that discusses definitions or processes...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/06/2011

Hey! How come this won’t print???

According to my informal survey around the office, the number-one nightmare suffered by modern...

Author: Jeff at MSFT Date: 01/05/2011

New Year's resolutions you can resolve with Office and Windows

It's 2011, and if you're like me, you know there are some things you should have mastered last year...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 01/04/2011

Outlook Rules That Rule: Get important mails forwarded while on vacation

I know you're probably on vacation right now, trying not to check your mail. But what if an...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 12/30/2010

Words to the Wise from Internet Explorer SmartScreen Filter

Our next "Interview" with a Windows feature! Celebrities are a common site around the...

Author: Jeff at MSFT Date: 12/29/2010

Mark finished documents as final in Office 2010

Locking down Office documents isn't new, but Office 2010 offers a quicker, more informal method to...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 12/28/2010

Writing a good Out of Office message (and how to set it)

When you're on vacation or holiday, it's wise to set an Out of Office message (abbreviated as OOF)....

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 12/27/2010

Browser tabs: A faster, easier way to plan the office picnic

It's great to be having an office picnic... and really nice of you to volunteer to organize it....

Author: Jeff at MSFT Date: 12/22/2010

Using the typesetting features of Word 2010

If you're trained in design or typesetting, you'll be thrilled to know that Word 2010 offers even...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 12/20/2010

Casual Friday: Download next year's calendar today

It's almost the New Year, which means shopping for a new calendar. Or does it? Did you know that...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 12/17/2010

Inserting dates in Word

There are a few handy techniques for inserting dates into Word 2007 and Word 2010, which not only...

Author: Suzanne100 Date: 12/16/2010

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