Controlling Microsoft Word from the Keyboard 294 Table 1-17 Monetary Symbols Symbol Command € Alt + 0128 ¢ Alt + 0162 £ Alt + 0163 ¥ Alt + 0165 Table 1-18 Punctuation and Typesetting Symbols Symbol Unicode (Hex) ASCII (Decimal) i 00A1 followed by Alt + X Alt + 0161 Alt + Ctrl + ! ¶ 00B6 followed by Alt + X Alt + 0182 The symbolism of the keyboard How the ♦♥♠Ρ♣±⏐ do you get Microsoft Word to use symbols and special characters that are not on the keyboard? Earlier in this chapter I discussed how to use the Insert Symbols menu items. There are several other ways to use the extended character set of stan- dard fonts or any of the icons or symbols or non- standard letters that are part of special fonts. Using the mouse to insert a ® symbol 1. At the point where you want to add the symbol, take one of your hands off the key- board and find the mouse. 2. Click the Insert menu. 3. Click the Symbols tab. 4. Click and hold the slider arrow on the Symbol chart and pull down slowly until you see the (r) symbol. 5. Release the slider arrow and click the ® symbol. 6. Your choice: • Double-click the highlighted symbol. • Move the mouse and click the Insert button. 7. Close the Symbol chart. 8. Return your hand to the proper position on the keyboard so you can continue typing. Using the keyboard to insert a ® symbol 1. At the point where you want to add the symbol, press Ctrl + Alt + R. So, now, tell me again how using a mouse is quicker and simpler than using the keyboard? The key, to pardon the pun, is to know the key combinations; they’re not secret, but they are hidden. 20 140925-bk04ch01.qxp 4/8/08 12:39 PM Page 294 Book IV Chapter 4 Writing Documents Controlling Microsoft Word from the Keyboard 295 Symbol Unicode (Hex) ASCII (Decimal) 1 00B9 followed by Alt + Alt + 0185 2 00B2 followed by Alt + Alt + 0178 3 00B3 followed by Alt + Alt + 0179 Table 1-19 Business and Math Symbols Symbol Unicode (Hex) ASCII (Decimal) © 00A9 followed by Alt + X Alt + 0169 or Alt + Ctrl + C ® 00AE followed by Alt + X Alt + 0174 or Alt + Ctrl + R TM 2122 followed by Alt + X Alt + 0153 or Alt + Ctrl + T ° 02DA followed by Alt + X Alt + 0176 ± 00B1 followed by Alt + X Alt + 0177 µ 03BC followed by Alt + X Alt + 0181 1 ⁄4 00BC followed by Alt + X Alt + 0188 1 ⁄2 00BD followed by Alt + X Alt + 0189 3 ⁄4 00BE followed by Alt + X Alt + 0190 Table 1-20 Accented Characters Symbol Unicode (Hex) ASCII (Decimal) À 00E0 followed by Alt + X Alt + 0224 Á 00E1 followed by Alt + X Alt + 0225 Ç 00E7 followed by Alt + X Alt + 0231 È 00E8 followed by Alt + X Alt + 0232 É 00E9 followed by Alt + X Alt + 0233 Ê 00EA followed by Alt + X Alt + 0234 Û 00FB followed by Alt + X Alt + 0251 General keyboard shortcuts Think retro. Almost everything a mouse can do, you can do from the key- board, including manipulate text. Tables 1-21 through 1-23 show some of the most useful commands. 20 140925-bk04ch01.qxp 4/8/08 12:39 PM Page 295 Controlling Microsoft Word from the Keyboard 296 Table 1-21 Selecting, Copying, and Moving Text Function Command Select all Ctrl + A Select range of text in a document. (Press and hold Shift while using any arrow key) Press and hold with any of the arrow keys to highlight Ctrl + Shift a block of text Copy selected text or image to the Clipboard Ctrl + C Cut selected text or image Ctrl + X Paste selected text or image Ctrl + V Undo the previous action. Some programs have multiple Ctrl + Z levels of Undo Delete selected text or image Delete Delete selected item permanently without placing the Shift + Delete item in the Recycle Bin Rename the selected filename by typing in a new name F2 from the keyboard Table 1-22 Moving the Insertion Point Function Command Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next word Ctrl + → Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous word Ctrl + ← Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next paragraph Ctrl + ↓ Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous paragraph Ctrl + ↑ Table 1-23 Working with Programs in Open Windows Function Command Switch between open items Alt + Tab Switch to the previous open program Alt + Shift + Tab Cycle through items in the order they had been opened Alt + Esc Open the shortcut menu for the active window Alt + spacebar Display the shortcut menu for the selected item Shift + F10 Display the System menu for the active window Alt + spacebar Display the Start menu Ctrl + Esc or ˇ 20 140925-bk04ch01.qxp 4/8/08 12:39 PM Page 296 Book IV Chapter 4 Writing Documents Controlling Microsoft Word from the Keyboard 297 Function Command Display the corresponding pull-down menu Alt + underlined letter Perform a command from an open pull-down menu Underlined letter of a command name Open the next menu to the right, or open a submenu → Open the next menu to the left, or close a submenu ← 20 140925-bk04ch01.qxp 4/8/08 12:39 PM Page 297 Book IV: Using Common Applications 298 20 140925-bk04ch01.qxp 4/8/08 12:39 PM Page 298 Chapter 2: Crunching Data with Spreadsheets In This Chapter ߜ Going inside a spreadsheet ߜ Operating as if formulas and functions are your friends ߜ Entering data on a worksheet ߜ Making your work fit to be printed I f electronic spreadsheets had been available in the Victorian Era of 150 years ago, one of the first buyers would have been Ebenezer Scrooge. No matter that he would have had to invest in a computer and software: Even the most miserly of bosses can quickly see how valuable a product like Microsoft Excel is. Way back at the dawn of time — about 1980 — the first spreadsheet (not the first word processor) was the “killer application” that suddenly made buying a personal computer a no-brain decision. The first computer spread- sheet was VisiCalc, which helped move the Apple II from hobbyist’s toy to business tool. By the time IBM released the first official PC in 1981, the concept had won the attention of accountants, financial officers, and entrepreneurs: the people with the authority to sign the purchase orders. Think of an electronic spreadsheet as a data processor. Note that I didn’t call a spreadsheet a number processor. One of the strengths of an elec- tronic spreadsheet is that, right from the start, it went way past the simple accounting books that Bob Cratchit worked with by candlelight in Scrooge’s counting house. Starting the Incredible What-If Machine An electronic spreadsheet uses the computer’s power to create, organize, and format data: numbers, words, and symbols. Then it adds computerized formulas that you can apply to that data in a multitude of ways. At its most basic level, then, you can look at an electronic spreadsheet as an automated calculating and accounting machine: Enter the number of widgets in one cell, the price in another, the sales tax rate in a third, and look for the sum. See Figure 2-1. 21 140925-bk04ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:47 PM Page 299 Starting the Incredible What-If Machine 300 But in the hands of a creative user, electronic spreadsheets are a what-if? machine. What if you decrease the price by 5 percent but increase shipping costs by 50 cents a unit? Based on your experience over the past 12 years of business, what’s the expected effect of increasing the discount rate to your biggest customers while raising prices for small orders? And one other thing: Spreadsheets are marvelous tools for creating lists and tables. They can function as a basic database for information that you can sort, format, search, and change. I’m a word guy, myself. I leave the accounting to my accountant. But I do use spreadsheets all the time to help keep track of stuff. I have one Excel spread- sheet that I use to track my investments in mutual funds, bonds, and stocks; I feed it numbers once a week so I can watch my progress toward becoming a billionaire. (I’m not quite there yet.) I also have a spreadsheet that includes the artist name, album title, and inventory number for my substantial collection of music on CDs. The inven- tory number correlates to the slot number in my automated CD player. I can search for any CD, or sort the list by genre based on the codes I’ve assigned each disc. Row Worksheet Column Cell (Cell J12) Figure 2-1: A simple Microsoft Excel spreadsheet calculating travel expenses, a common and useful tool for road warriors with laptops. 21 140925-bk04ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:47 PM Page 300 Book IV Chapter 2 Crunching Data with Spreadsheets Spreading out an Excel 2007 Sheet 301 Spreading out an Excel 2007 Sheet In this chapter I use Microsoft Excel, in its most current version, as the example of how a spreadsheet works. Excel is by far the market leader in this category, although — just as with other Microsoft Office components — you can find shareware and even free software (freeware) that come close in their range of offerings. Working the books A spreadsheet is structured like a huge assemblage of boxes. Here’s the organizing principle: ✦ The vertical lines that descend from the top of the page define columns. (Think of the columns that support the roof of a great building.) Each column is topped by an identifying letter; the first column is A, the second is B, and so on. ✦ The horizontal lines that move from one side of the page to the other define the rows. (Think of rows of books on a shelf.) At the left side of each row is an identifying number, starting with 1 at the top-left corner and increasing in value heading down the page. ✦ The box created by an intersecting column and a row is called a cell. Each cell is identified with a label consisting of the column letter and row number. Therefore, the first cell on the page is A1; if you move four rows in and four rows down, you’re at cell E5. In Microsoft’s implementation of an electronic spreadsheet, an Excel file is called a workbook. Each workbook can then contain one or more worksheets. Figure 2-1 shows these elements. It’s not quite as confusing as it sounds. The advantage of this design is that you can create multiple spreadsheets on the same subject and switch among them by clicking the tabs at the bottom. You could devote one worksheet to one product, to one customer, or to one employee. They can exist as independent entities, or you can link the con- tents of one sheet (or one or more cells on one sheet) to a cell on another sheet. It’s the sort of thing that would have given Bob Cratchit — or you or me — a tremendous headache if we had to maintain it in a handwritten book or even on a set of word-processing files. But with a computer and spreadsheet soft- ware in charge, it’s an organized thing of beauty. The contents of any cell in a spreadsheet can be one of four types of data: 21 140925-bk04ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:47 PM Page 301 Spreading out an Excel 2007 Sheet 302 ✦ Text. This includes labels for columns or rows, names of individuals or products, or any other characters with no numerical value. ✦ Values or constants. Any number with a specific value. This includes prices, costs, and counts, as well as dates and times. ✦ Logical values. A determination of whether a particular proposition or calculation is true or false, correct or incorrect, valid or invalid. ✦ Formulas. A mathematical calculation or expression that you can apply to a constant to yield a new value, a logical value, or text. Counting on simple formulas The basic mathematical operators (slightly updated from Bob Cratchit’s time) are still used in a spreadsheet. All of the symbols are directly available from the computer’s keyboard. They include those in Table 2-1. Table 2-1 Mathematical Operators Symbol Function Result + Addition If you ask the system to work on 2+2, it returns a calculated value of 4. – Subtraction The returned value of 63–27 is 36. * Multiplication The asterisk is for multiplication; 45 * 32 returns a value of 1440. / Division The slash symbol is for division; 1440/32 yields a value of 45. You must take one extra step, though: You must indicate to Excel (or any other spreadsheet program) that what you entered is a mathematical for- mula and not just some text. In Excel, you do this by preceding the entry with an equal sign, as in =2+4. You can apply the same formulas to the contents of a cell. Say you want to apply a 75 percent markup to the wholesale price of the product included in Cell F26. The formula would be F26 * 1.5 or 1.5 * F26. (Again, though, you need to precede the formula by an equal sign, as in =F26 * 1.5.) Showing compunction with functions How about instructing the system to calculate the sum of all the values in cells from A10 through A25? What if you want to sum A10 through A22 and add that value to the sum of cells B36 through B72? Perhaps instead of the sum, you’d rather average all the values? 21 140925-bk04ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:47 PM Page 302 Book IV Chapter 2 Crunching Data with Spreadsheets Spreading out an Excel 2007 Sheet 303 The sum and average of all fears For many users, the most commonly used function is SUM, which adds the values of specified cells or a range of cells. The basic syntax is thus: =SUM(first value, second value) In a SUM function, blank cells return a value of 0. If you include a text cell in a SUM function, the spreadsheet refuses to go along and proclaims an ERROR. The values can be a constant, an individual cell, or a range of cells. You can sum up a range of cells these ways, among others: ✦ =sum(B1:B20). Adds the sum of all cells from B1 through B20. ✦ =sum(B1:B20, C5). Adds the sum of cells from B1 through B20 plus the value of C5. ✦ =sum(B1:B20, C4:C16, 1250). Sums the range of cells from B1 to B20, plus the range of cells from C4 to C16, and adds 1,250 to the total. Excel’s Average function works in the same way. A formula that averages a range of cells sums them all up and then divides the total by the number of cells. The function follows: =Average(first value, second value) ✦ The Max function examines a range of cells and returns the largest (maximum) value it finds. ✦ The Min function locates the smallest (minimum) value in the range. ✦ The Count function reports the number of cells that contain numerical data in a specified range of cells. Blank cells or text aren’t included in the result. Weird science (and math and logical functions) You could let the computer apply complex functions built into its library. Here’s a random sampling of some financial functions: ✦ ACCRINT. Accrued interest for a security that pays periodic interest. ✦ DB. Depreciation of an asset for a specified period using the fixed- declining balance method. ✦ YIELDMAT. The annual yield of a security that pays interest at maturity. 21 140925-bk04ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:47 PM Page 303 . prices for small orders? And one other thing: Spreadsheets are marvelous tools for creating lists and tables. They can function as a basic database for information that you can sort, format, search,. opened Alt + Esc Open the shortcut menu for the active window Alt + spacebar Display the shortcut menu for the selected item Shift + F10 Display the System menu for the active window Alt + spacebar Display. spreadsheet uses the computer’s power to create, organize, and format data: numbers, words, and symbols. Then it adds computerized formulas that you can apply to that data in a multitude of ways.