superguide » 60 Office tips
General Office tips
SAVE TO COMPUTER BY DEFAULT
Microsoft is incredibly keen for you to
save directly to OneDrive in later
versions of Office, but it’s sluggish and
slow. Open File > Options > Save and
ensure ‘Save to Computer by default’ is
ticked, then pick a default folder. From
the February 2019 update you can do
this via the new Save This File dialog
that pops up when saving a new
document: click the Location drop-
down menu for a list of recent folders,
right-click one and choose ‘Set as
Default Location’.MORE DEFAULT SAVE OPTIONS
File > Options > Save is where you go to
also change the default location for any
personal templates you create in each
separate Office application – here,
however, you need to manually type (or
copy and paste from File Explorer) your
chosen location into the ‘Default
personal templates location’ box.
Things are easier in LibreOffice:
select Tools > Options > Paths where
you’ll find a host of folders covering My
Documents, templates, dictionaries,
autocorrect files and more can be
moved – select your chosen setting and
click ‘Edit...’ to change it, then Apply.MAKE USE OF STYLES
Most office applications provide some
form of Styles or formatting tool to
help you make your documents look
consistent. Get in the habit of using these- favouring Body Text over Normal if
you make use of the various Headings –
as opposed to manually styling up each
element. In Office, press Ctrl-Alt-Shift-S
to bring up the Styles pane (press F11 in
LibreOffice) – drag it to the right-hand
side of the window to anchor it if needed.
Right-click an existing style to modify it - In Office, you can also style up some
text in your document, then select it,
right-click the target style in the Styles
pane (or on the Ribbon) and choose
‘Update... to Match Selection’.
ENABLE THE RIBBON
LibreOffice now has a similar tabbed
Ribbon-like interface to Microsoft Office- switch to it by selecting View > User
Interface > Tabbed (a Tabbed Compact
option is also available). Once enabled,
click the Settings button in the top-right
corner to access key functions including
the User Interface option to switch back.
Sadly, it’s not (yet) customisable.CUSTOMISE THE RIBBON
You can easily customise all aspects
of the Ribbon in Microsoft Office –
including removing and adding
elements to each tab: right-click on
some empty space on the Ribbon and
choose ‘Customise the Ribbon’ to tweak
existing Ribbon elements by adding
and removing as required.
If you frequently switch between
tabs to access favourite commands,
why not go one step further and copy
them all to a single tab? Click ‘New Tab’
followed by Rename and enter a name
for your tab. You can also create groups
within this tab in a similar way to help
organise your commands logically.
Select the tab and group that you want
to customise and pick a tool from the
list on the left. Click ‘Add’ to add this to
the group. Next, click ‘OK’ to review
your changes and perform more
tweaks (like rearranging the tab’s
position on the Ribbon) as necessary.MAKE USE OF THE QUICK ACCESS
TOOLBAR
Office’s Quick Access Toolbar sits above
the R ibbon as a handy alternative to a
new Ribbon tab, and by selecting More
Commands from its drop-down menu
you can place more commands within a
single click’s reach. Click the ‘Choose
commands from’ drop-down menu to
target those not in the Ribbon or hidden
away behind multiple clicks like the
Keep Text Only option under Paste
(particularly useful in PowerPoint).
You’ll notice some items come with a
generic circle icon, which makes them
hard to distinguish. It’s possible to
customise these icons, although thisinvolves some editing of hidden files in
a text editor. If that doesn’t put you off,
visit tinyurl.com/APC471TWEAK for a
full step-by-step guide.CUSTOMISE THE LIBREOFFICE
TOOLBAR
If you don’t switch on the Ribbon in
LibreOffice, you will find the controls
for customising its toolbar work in a
similar way to Office’s tools: choose
Tools > ‘Customise...’ > Toolbars to do so.VIEW DOCUMENTS SIDE-BY-SIDE
Want to view different parts of the
same document in the same window?
The solution lies in splitting the screen:
in Word and Excel, switch to the View
tab on the Ribbon. Scroll to the point in
the document where you’d like the split
to appear and click Split under Window.
Each one now works independently of
the other and you can click and drag the
split to make one side larger than the
other. When you’re finished, double-
click the split line to remove it and
return to a single-paned view. The
feature is also available in LibreOffice
Calc: choose View > Split Window.COMPARE DOCUMENTS
If you have two different versions of
the same document, you can compare
the differences between them even if
you forgot to switch Track Changes on.
The feature is available in both Word
and PowerPoint as well as LibreOffice
Writer: look under the Review tab on
the Ribbon of all three apps for the
Compare button. You can then either
step through the changes between the
two versions of your document, or view
them with additions, deletions and
other edits clearly marked.LINK PICTURES
When you traditionally insert an image
into a document, a physical copy of that
image is created and embedded in yourMake use of the Quick Access Toolbar to place
favourite commands at your fingertips in Office.