Bob's Software Tips Blog

Cool things you can do with Word’s page numbering

info@nerdybooks.com (Bob Flisser) — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 07:24:00 PDT

Numbering pages in Microsoft Word might seem simple, but you can control it in ways that aren't obvious. (The tips in this blog post will work in any version of Word from 97 to 2003.) There are a few things to understand, first: Word uses sections to number pages. You can restart the numbering by inserting a section break. All pages have numbers, but the numbers will be displayed only if you

Understanding and managing USB devices in Windows XP

info@nerdybooks.com (Bob Flisser) — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 13:36:00 PDT

I know I haven't blogged for a while, but now I hope to be back on something at least resembling a schedule. One subject that often comes up is how Windows handles USB (Universal Serial Bus) devices and what you can do when USB devices don't work as you expect. First, let's talk about the two versions of USB that you'll probably encounter: USB 1.1: these were the first widely-available devices

Create PDFs for free (or cheap) from your Office documents

info@nerdybooks.com (Bob Flisser) — Sun, 26 Mar 2006 15:00:00 PST

Most people I know outside the corporate world have experience with PDFs -- Adobe's Portable Document Format files -- as users or consumers of the technology. They can read PDFs, but aren't sure how to create them. Fortunately, there isn't any big secret or mystery to PDFs. But before I tell you how to create your own on the cheap, let me explain why there's even a need for this file

How to Avoid Phishing Scams

info@nerdybooks.com (Bob Flisser) — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 09:11:00 PST

That's phishing as in strange, bogus e-mail messages. We've all seen them, we get some e-mail message from a bank we've never done business with, maybe from eBay or PayPal or some financial institution and with a dire warning, it says something to the effect of "Your account may have been compromised" or maybe "Someone tried unauthorized access" or maybe even "We seem to have lost your ID and

Aligning and positioning in PowerPoint

info@nerdybooks.com (Bob Flisser) — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 18:16:00 PST

If you use any graphics in PowerPoint, you need to know how to position and align them -- to each other, to the page or to text. Other than bad spelling, nothing screams Amateur more than graphics that look crooked or scattered or positioned unevenly. Here are some handy features that will make it easier to deal with graphics, so you don't have to eyeball them. Use the grid. The grid is a

Video: AutoFill and absolute references in Excel

info@nerdybooks.com (Bob Flisser) — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 17:10:00 PST

Two features of Excel you have to know if you want to use the software effectively are ways of using AutoFill (there are more than one) and absolute references. You can watch the Flash version here, which is bigger and easier to see than the smaller, iPod version.

Creating tables of contents in Word, part 2

info@nerdybooks.com (Bob Flisser) — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 14:02:00 PST

In my last blog post, January 9, 2006, we talked about creating a Table of Contents in Microsoft Word 2003 using built-in styles. In this post, we'll talk about the other methods of creating TOCs in Word: creating them from custom styles, from marked text and from outline levels. Creating TOC entries from custom styles is similar to creating TOC entries using the built-in styles. The difference