Business Productivity Tools

Frequently Asked Questions

June 2005

General

1. Not knowing how to show both toolbars and full menus.

Use the Tools Menu, Customize Submenu, Options Tab. Select “Show Standard and Formatting Toolbars on two rows”. Then select “Show full menus”. Next, select “Show ScreenTips on toolbars”. Finally, select “Show shortcut keys in ScreenTips”. Click on Close.

2. Not knowing how, and when, to turn off the drawing canvas.

Use the Tools Menu/Options/General Tab. Uncheck the box for ““Automatically create drawing canvas when inserting AutoShapes.” (It interferes with too many graphics operations.)

Word

1. Accidentally using a “fill” color for shading text instead of a pattern color.

Use the Format menu, Borders and Shading submenu, Shading tab. Select a style from the patterns area of the dialog box, then select a color from the patterns area (lower left pull-down box). Important: Leave the fill color set to “No Fill”! Make a selection from the “Apply to” box. Enter.

2. Not knowing, or understanding, how to change the indent settings for paragraphs.

Use the Format menu, Paragraph submenu, Indents and Spacing tab to set indentations to an exact distance. Positive numbers make the text area narrower, negative numbers widen the text area. Alternative methods are to use the Indent/Decrease icons on the toolbar, or click and drag on the polygons on the horizontal ruler.

Q. I’m not understanding the part about putting a "footnote or endnote" to the quoted paragraph. Can you elaborate a little more?

A. When using another person's work in an academic paper, you must indicate to the reader that this is not your own idea. Academic papers use endnotes or footnotes, or both, to give credit to the source of the idea. 

To create an endnote or a footnote, move the cursor so it is placed immediately following the source material. Then, from the Insert menu, Reference submenu, select Footnote. Word inserts a marker or a number in the document at the location of the cursor. A footnote or endnote area opens and Word shifts the cursor into this area. This is where the author/source information should be placed.

When citing a website, copy the website address. Then add a couple of spaces and type the date when you accessed the page. If you know the author of the material, list that first.

After you finish entering the source information, move the cursor back into the document area. Only source citations, nothing else, should ever go into the footnote or endnote areas.

Excel

1. Not knowing, or understanding, how to use dollar signs in formulas.

When a formula is copied to another cell Excel first checks for dollar signs in the cell references. If it doesn't see a dollar sign it adjusts the row or column reference. If it sees a dollar sign, it leaves the following letter or number reference unchanged.

Use a dollar sign in a formula when you want to create a set of formulas that will always refer to either one specific row (for example A$1), or one specific column (for example $B2). These are called Mixed Cell References. If formulas should always refer to a particular cell, use two dollar signs (for example $C$3). This latter form is called an Absolute Cell Reference.

When a formula containing a dollar sign is copied to another cell, the row or column of the cell address marked with the $ will not change. You can combine absolute, mixed, and relative cell references in a single formula. The dollar sign does not change the resulting value of the formula in any way. For example, both = A1+B2 and = $A$1 + $B$2 display exactly the same output.

Q. Where do I find help on writing formulas?

A. The bottom of this web page has samples of how to write typical formulas. www.cob.sjsu.edu/splane_m/ExcelFormulas.htm

4. I don’t understand IF Function. Can you tell me more about them?

IF functions are used to change what is displayed in the worksheet, depending on the outcome of a simple logic test.

The structure of the IF Function contains three parts, separated by commas.

The first part of the IF Function is an equation that compares a variable to a constant.

The “variable” part of the equation will always be a cell address where the variable is entered, or be a formula referring to that cell.

The “constant” can be text, a number, a formula, a date, or a cell reference.

Example =IF(C4 < 21 , , ) C4 is the cell address where the variable is entered. 21 is the constant.

The second and third parts of the function describe what to display in the cell which contains the =IF function.

If the equation is true, then the cell containing the IF function will show its second part.

If the equation is false, then the cell containing the IF function will show its third part.

You can use numbers, formulas, cell references, and text messages as the second and third part of an =IF function.

Let's see how this works.

Cell C4 contains your age. This would be a variable.

Cell D4 contains the number 21, the minimum age to buy alcohol. This would be a constant.

Cell J3 contains text. The text says "Can I buy drinks?"

You want the answer to that question to appear in cell J4

You would write an IF statement in cell J4.

=IF(C4<D4, "No", "Yes") or

=IF(C4<21, "No", "Yes")

If the value in cell C4, your age, is less than 21, than the answer to "Can I buy drinks?" is No. This will be displayed in cell J4. (I'm assuming you do not own a fake ID.) Otherwise the answer in cell J4 will be Yes.

Charts

1. Selecting labels and data before building the chart.

Use the mouse to highlight (Accent) cells in the worksheet. First highlight the row or column of labels. Your row or column of labels should start with a blank cell. This tells Excel that the highlighted row is the labels row.

Now highlight your data. Each row of data should start with a name for the data. The selected rows or columns (including the labels) must contain the same number of cells.

If the rows or columns are not next to one another, hold down the Control key while highlighting.

For example: highlight cells C3 to I3 for the labels, hold down Control, highlight cells C6 to I9 for four rows of data, keep holding down Control, and highlight cells: C12 to I12 for a fifth row of data.

Be sure to highlight the labels first. The labels row (or column) must start with a blank cell. If your finger slips and you don’t completely highlight all the desired cells in a row or column, start over.

I have a question regarding the Excel Charts assignment. For some of the charts, the legend appears and says "Series 1," "Series 2," etc. I have no idea how to change what the text says. All Excel lets me do is format the font or move the legend. Is there any way to change the text?

Answer: You didn't highlight the cells in column A when you highlighted your labels and data, so the legends in the charts will say series 1, series 2, etc. You can fix this by going back into the wizard. Here's how:

Right click on the chart background. Choose Source Data. A dialog box opens. Choose the Series Tab. To the right of the box that shows series 1, series 2, etc, you'll see an empty box next to the word Name.

Click on series 1. Click in the Name box. Now click on the tab of the worksheet that contains your data. Find the cell with the name that matches the row of data and click on it.

Go back to the wizard dialog box. Click on Series 2. Click in the Name box. Now click on the tab of the worksheet that contains your data. Find the cell with the name that matches the row of data and click on it.

Keep going until you have given each series a name.

Be careful, sometimes the series names are upside down, in the reverse order from the way you highlighted them.

PowerPoint

Q. How do I Create a Table of Contents or Agenda Slide?

A. Excel calls the Table of Contents slide a Summary slide. PowerPoint can build this for you from the text you have entered into the slide titles. Create it last, after the other slides have been created and have titles. Go into the Slide Sorter View and select all of the slides. Control-A is a shortcut. Click the Summary Slide Button on the Slide Show Toolbar. (Alt-Shift-S also works) Presto! Now click and drag the summary slide to its desired location in the presentation. You can edit the Summary Slide’s title to create Agenda or Table of Contents Slides.

2. Adding both date and time to a slide.

From the View Menu, Header and Footer submenu. Select Date and Time, Update Automatically. Choose a Date & Time format. Select “slide numbers”. Select “Apply to all”.

A Business 189 Instructor Comments:

Let me note several common mistakes that I'm seeing in my graduating Bus 189 students in their use of Excel -- both charts and tables:

1) They don't show units, or don't show them correctly. They might say 4. Or they might say $4, or 4,000. But they really mean $4 billion.

2) They get the decimal point wrong. On a chart, their axes are

$4,000.00

$3,000.00

instead of

$4,000

$3,000

whereas in a table they might have

4% 4% 4%

which obscures any trends, instead of

4.1% 3.9% 3.8%

or

4.12% 3.86% 3.84%

So they should show 3 significant digits, not 1, but drop the cents in most cases.

3) They don't understand the concept of %. A return on sales etc. (ROS, ROA, ROE) or interest rate is ALWAYS given as a %, e.g.

9.2%

not

.09

By the time I get graduating seniors, they've done these things wrong for so long that they can't break the habit. So 91L is where I'd like to fix these mistakes.