• PC World
• » Software
• » Office

In my never-ending quest for Office XP shortcuts, advice, and general tomfoolery, I've put together a collection of odds and ends for you this week.

Sheets Happen

Each new workbook you open in Excel comes with three handy worksheets. You can toggle among them by clicking the tabs at the bottom-left corner of the window or by using Ctrl-Page Up and Ctrl-Page Down. If you want to add more worksheets, select Insert, Worksheet or press Shift-F11. Need two more worksheets? Select two worksheet tabs (Shift-click to select), then choose Insert, Worksheet. Want three more? Select three, then choose Insert, Worksheet. Now you've got too many, right? You can delete worksheets by selecting the sheet you want to delete and choosing Edit, Delete Sheet or by right-clicking the worksheet tab and choosing Delete.

As handy as these features are, you might find that upon opening new workbooks, you always begin by adding or deleting sheets. To change the default number of worksheets that Excel displays when you open a new workbook, here's what you do: Choose Tools, Options, and click the General tab. Find the section labeled "Sheets in new workbook" and change the number to your heart's content. You can insert as many as 255 sheets in a workbook--and if you actually use that many, well, God help you.

Now, before moving on to the next tip, say this three times fast: "I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit." It's much more fun if you've seen Steve Martin do it in the movie classic, The Jerk.

Drag 'n' Drop

Drag and drop is more than just a great name for a transvestite bungee club. It's also a great way to move or copy text or data in Excel. Instead of copying and pasting the old-fashioned way, try this: Click the cell (or select the cells, if more than one) that holds the contents you want to move. Next, point with your mouse at any edge of the selected cell or cells until the mouse pointer includes a four-pointed arrow. Click and drag to move the selection to a new location and let go. Want to copy instead of move? Hold down the Ctrl key as you drag and drop. Instead of a four-pointed arrow, the mouse pointer includes a plus sign.

Messy In-Box Results

In a recent newsletter, I asked you to send me the number of e-mail messages in your Outlook Inbox. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, the reader with the fewest messages was Letty Barnes of Redmond, Washington (who claims not to be an employee of you-know-who), with a meager count of three messages. If Letty makes you feel bad, don't take it too hard: Several readers said they had over 1500 messages! Reader Ryk McDorman of Denver, Colorado, suggested a tip that is more behavioral than technical: When you receive an e-mail, read it promptly and act on it immediately. Good advice, Ryk. From your lips to God's ears. Thanks to all of you who wrote.

Keyboard Shortcut Heaven

Hey, here's something handy: a Web compendium of keyboard shortcuts for various Microsoft software products. The Microsoft page lets you generate a list of keyboard shortcuts for Office apps (versions 97 through 2002) as well as for various versions of Windows and of Internet Explorer. Memorize them all--there will be a test next week.

The Clippy Fan Club

From time to time, I've poked fun at the animated Help paper clip known as Clippy. In response to a previous newsletter, several readers wrote to defend the much-abused little clip. If you are a fan of Clippy, you're not alone. In an uncharacteristically self-deprecating Web article not-so-subtly designed to promote Office XP, Microsoft reports on the feedback from users who were unhappy that Clippy is turned off by default in Office XP. The page also links to the Clippy Retirement Web site, which is a bizarre collection of Clippy paraphernalia, including a game, a song, and a movie. If you're a fan of Clippy (also known, Microsoft claims, as "Notorious C.L.I.P."), check it out at the links below.

Bugs and Fixes to the Rescue

The PC World Bugs and Fixes team has recently reported on some problems of interest to Office XP users. If you've had problems with the Office XP Activation Wizard freezing or looking for missing files, see "Bugs and Fixes: Microsoft Office Causes More Trouble."

Meanwhile, a potential security problem has come to light with Office XP's and Windows XP's "Send Error Report." And Excel and PowerPoint are vulnerable to macro-hacker attacks. You can read about both of these problems in "Bugs and Fixes: Holes Galore in Microsoft Programs."

• See more like this:
• Office XP Tips,
• Office XP,
• Office XP newsletter,
• Office XP Tips newsletter