Office XP Tips: File Management, Excel Tabs, Junk E-Mail

Here are three tips that will make your coat shiny and your breath as fresh as a daisy.

Expand the Recently Used File List

Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have a handy feature for retrieving files you've recently opened. It's appropriately known as the "recently used file list" and it's located at the bottom of the File menu in each application, as well as in the New Document (or New Workbook or New Presentation) Task Pane. By default, the File menu and the Task Pane let you choose from the four most recently opened documents. To retrieve a recently opened file, just choose its name from the bottom of the File menu or from the top of the Task Pane.

Call me greedy, but four just isn't enough for me. Without revealing too much about my personality, I'll tell you that I like to store files in exceedingly logical, albeit deeply nested, folders. I use a couple of these files every day, but when I open more files later on, these guys get bumped from the list. The result is that it sometimes takes more clicks than I'd like to retrieve files using the File Open dialog box.

Fortunately, you don't have to live with just four recently used files. You can choose any number up to nine.

Here's how: Choose Tools, Options, and click the General tab. In the box next to "Recently used files list," type the number of files you'd like your File menu or Task Pane to display (or click the cute little arrows to increase or decrease the amount). If you don't want recently used files to appear on the File menu or in the Task Pane (some people do have secrets), uncheck the box. Click OK to lock in your choice. If you've increased the number, you'll need to open more than four files to notice the change.

By the way, you can use the Windows Start menu to retrieve recently used files from any Windows application. Select Start, Documents, then choose a file from the resulting list.

Add Colors to Excel Workbook Tabs

If you commonly use multiple worksheets in your Excel workbooks, keeping track of what's where can be hard. By default, each new workbook you create includes three worksheets, Sheet1, Sheet2, and Sheet3. You can toggle among these sheets by clicking the tabs at the bottom of the screen, and you can add more sheets by selecting Insert, Worksheet or by right-clicking a tab, choosing Insert from the pop-up menu, and double-clicking the Worksheet icon in the Insert dialog box.

To give your worksheets logical names, double-click any tab and type the new name. Now, that's a perfect workbook, right? Wrong. Excel 2002 also lets you color code your tabs, which makes them easier to identify. Plus, what workbook wouldn't benefit from a splash of color?

To add color to a worksheet tab, right-click it and choose Tab Color from the pop-up menu. Choose a color from the palette and click OK. When that tab is selected, Excel underlines the sheet name in the color you chose (to indicate it's the current sheet). When you click to a new tab, the old one will appear in living color. Remember: Pink is for girls and blue is for boys.

Put the Kibosh on Spam

Do you receive a lot of junk e-mail? If so, consider letting Outlook help you deal with it. Outlook 2002 offers a couple of filters for dealing with unsolicited junk and adult e-mail messages. Outlook examines incoming messages for specific keywords and makes a guess about whether the message is spam. For example, a message with the words "extra income" or "erotic" in the Subject line tells Outlook the message is junk e-mail or contain adult content. Using Outlook's Organize pane, you can set Outlook to automatically do one of the following:

1. Color-code these messages in your Inbox for easy deletion.
   
   
2. File the messages in a folder you designate.
   
   
3. Send the messages to the trash.
   
   

It's probably best to use option 1 or 2; it's a bit risky to automatically delete messages without double-checking to confirm they're truly spam. Color-coding the messages lets you quickly check them to make sure they're unwanted. Or if you file them in a "Junk" folder, you can periodically scan the folder before giving all those messages the boot.

Here's how to set up the filters: With your Inbox on screen, choose Tools, Organize. When the Organize pane appears, click Junk E-Mail. Two filter rules appear, one for Junk and one for Adult Content. Each rule includes a drop-down list that lets you select either Color or Move. To assign a color to junk e-mail or adult messages, choose a color from the appropriate list and click "Turn on." (An interesting choice of button names for adult content, but I digress.) Once you make this change, all messages that match Outlook's keyword rules will be color-coded in your Inbox.

To tell Outlook to automatically file spam, choose Move instead of Color from the drop-down list. Once you do, the color drop-down list changes, giving you three options: Junk E-Mail, Deleted Items, or Other Folder. Make your choice and click "Turn on." If you chose Junk E-Mail, Outlook presents the Create New Folder dialog box, in which you can create a new folder. Assign a name, choose a location, and click OK. If you chose Other Folder, Outlook presents the Rules Wizard dialog box, where you can choose an existing folder in which to file your spam. Once you've made your choice, Outlook restates your rule in the Organize pane (such as "New Junk messages will be moved to Junk"). At this point you can close the Organize pane and wait for the junk to roll in.