Carol Bratt

"I have several Word files that I must combine for a book. The largest file has headers and footers. When I combine files, the footer and header spreads throughout the combined document. How can I combine and isolate headers and footers to one ... section? Thank you for your assistance!" My Response: If you just want the text from a document to be inserted into your current document, you can use an include text field. Follow the steps below to learn how: Insert a pair of field braces by clicking CTRL + F9. Do not insert the braces manually as it will not work. Within the field braces, key in: ... (view more)

A reader recently wrote with a PowerPoint inquiry: " I often receive lovely PowerPoint files and when I open the file it automatically starts as a slide show. But I would like to view each slide on the "Presentation" panel (on the left) in order to ... save a few individual slides. How do I turn off the feature that makes my presentations auto start in a slide show? " My Reply: The reason your PowerPoint files open automatically is because they were saved as a .pps file (PowerPoint Show), rather than a .ppt file, (PowerPoint Presentation). The .ppt file extension is the default file extension for ... (view more)

A reader recently wrote to me regarding a problem with Line Spacing in MS Word: "Having trouble with single and double line spacing, especially when starting in double and inserting a heading, and then further text in [single], spacing is not equal ... between heading and text. Do I swap [to single] line at end of heading?" My response: Some heading styles in MS Word employ spacing before and after and this is most likely what you are referring to when you say the spacing is not equal. If you highlight your heading and then right-click on it and select Paragraph, under Spacing you will see that ... (view more)

A reader recently wrote with the inquiry: " I like comments to appear in the right-hand margin of a Word document. Sometimes the comments appear there, but other times they appear in a separate comment pane. How do I tell Word to put the comments in ... the right-hand margin? " My response: I will assume that you are using MS Word 2003 for the purposes of my response. When you say comments, I will assume that you are talking about using Track Changes in MS Word. If your comments sometimes appear in a separate "comment pane," and you are using Track Changes, you can simply click on the ... (view more)

A reader recently wrote to me with this query: " I want to start my number (1) at page seven, leaving the first six pages with no numbers. How do I do this? " My Response: You must employ section breaks to accomplish this. Position your cursor at ... the end of page six and click on Insert | Break | Next Page. Now, at the beginning of the next page (page seven), click on Insert | Page Numbers. Format your page numbers to your liking and click on OK. You should now only have a page number starting on page seven. I hope this has been helpful to you. When you become a member at ... (view more)

A reader recently wrote: " [In regard to the article ' Insert Rows and Columns in Tables in MS Word '] ... your article forgets to mention that one must right-click on a cell above or below where the inserted row is to go. There is no Table | Insert ... menu item in Word 2007. I appreciate what you are doing at this site but this article was confusing because of the omission." My response: I do apologize if you were confused by my article. You are quite correct; I did not mention that you could right-click on a row above or below to insert a row. Note that I said "could" and not "must." ... (view more)

A reader recently wrote: "[A previous article that you submitted] shows how to make a custom tool bar for labeling outlook flags. The article does not tell how to get the flags to be different colors. Please advise." My response: Below you will find ... the steps to change the Flag color in MS Outlook: Select the messages for which you would like the color to change. Right-click the existing message flag. Click the new flag color that you would like. Changing the Default Flag Color: Changing the default flag color will apply to any new messages that you flag. Existing message flags will not ... (view more)

Sometimes you would just love to have a comment that would make things clearer for the person using the worksheet in MS Excel, wouldn't you? Well you can use this handy little trick to add a comment to a formula in MS Excel: At the end of your ... formula, add a plus sign (+), to the N function, and an open parentheses. Key in your comment in quotation marks. Close the parentheses. You can view the comment in the formula bar whenever you select the cell. When you become a member at CarolsCornerOffice.com, you have access to this and many, many more articles that include screenshots. Don't delay: ... (view more)