Monday, August 27, 2007

The Top Ten Reasons to Love Word 2007

When Word 2007 was first introduced last fall, there was a collective groan as people worried they would have to learn to use their word processor all over again. But to our surprise, even though there was a learning curve, Word 2007 provided editing and reviewing tools for creating polished documents more easily than ever before.

Here are the top 10 ways Office Word 2007 can help you create professional-looking content faster.

Spend more time writing and less time formatting

The Office Fluent user interface presents the right tools when you need them, making it easy to format your documents quickly. Now you can find the right features in Office Word 2007 to make your documents communicate more effectively. Using Quick Styles and Document Themes, you can quickly change the appearance of text, tables, and graphics throughout the entire document to match your preferred style or color scheme. The new Ribbon, a component of the Office user interface, groups tools by task, and the commands you use most frequently are close at hand.
  1. Tabs are designed to be task-oriented
  2. Groups within each tab break a task into subtasks
  3. Command buttons in each group carry out a command or display a menu of commands
Communicate more effectively with SmartArt diagrams and new charting tools

New SmartArt diagrams and a new charting engine help you create great-looking content with
3-D shapes, transparency, drop shadows, and other effects.

Quickly assemble documents using Building Blocks

Building Blocks in Office Word 2007 can be used to assemble documents from frequently used or predefined content such as disclaimer text, pull quotes, sidebars, cover pages, and other types of content. This will help ensure you don't spend needless time recreating content or copying and pasting between documents; it also helps ensure consistency across all of the documents created within your organization.

Save as PDF or XPS directly from Office Word 2007

Office Word 2007 offers you a choice for sharing documents with other people. You can convert your Word documents to Portable Document Format (PDF) or XML Paper Specification (XPS) format without the addition of third-party tools to help ensure broad communication with users on any platform.

Publish and maintain blogs directly from Office Word 2007

You can now publish blogs directly from Office Word 2007. You can configure Office Word 2007 to link directly to your blog site, and use the rich Word experience to create blogs with images, tables, and advanced text formatting features.

Master your document review processes using Office Word 2007 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

With built-in workflow services in Office SharePoint Server 2007, you can initiate and track document review and approval processes from within Office Word 2007 to help accelerate review cycles across your organization without forcing people to learn new tools.

Connect your documents to business information

Create dynamic Smart Documents that update themselves by connecting to your back-end systems using new document controls and data bindings. By using the new XML integration capability, organizations can deploy intelligent templates to assist people in creating highly structured documents.

Remove tracked changes, comments, and hidden text from your documents

Detect and remove unwanted comments, hidden text, or personally identifiable information using the Document Inspector to help ensure that sensitive information doesn't escape when your documents are published.

Use the tri-pane review panel to compare and combine documents

Office Word 2007 makes it easy to find out what changes were made to a document. A new tri-pane review panel helps you see both versions of a document with deleted, inserted, and moved text clearly marked.

Reduce your file sizes and improve corrupt file recovery

The new Ecma Office Open XML Formats offer a dramatic reduction in file sizes as well as improvements in recovery for damaged files. These new formats provide a tremendous savings to storage and bandwidth requirements, and reduce the burden on IT personnel.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Hate spam?

Click Here.

Do you receive lots of junk email messages from people you don't know? It's no surprise if you do. As more people use email, marketers are increasingly using email messages to pitch their products and services. Some consumers find unsolicited commercial email - also known as "spam" - annoying and time consuming; others have lost money to bogus offers that arrived in their email inbox.

Use a unique email address: Pick an address that is hard for spammers to guess and easy for you to remember. Also, if chatting online, use a unique screen name that is not associated with your email address.

Use multiple email addresses: Consider creating separate addresses or accounts that can be used for online purchases, chat rooms and other public postings. You can also use a free forwarding address.

"Mask" your email address: If you post your email address online, consider masking your address. There are several ways to correctly mask your address and thwart spammers.

Check the privacy policy when you submit your address to a Web site: Always be familiar with a Web site's privacy policy before submitting any information.

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is: Fraudsters, scammers, and crooks take advantage of people via unwanted email.

Learn more about "pop up spam": Recently, a new form of spam has developed via the Microsoft Windows operating system feature Messenger Service. It is a stream of "pop up" messages that stop you from using your home computer until you close them.

Use tools to help prevent spam: Consider tools or programs that can filter or tag spam before it fills your email inbox. (www.ftc.gov)