Chances are you’ve probably used a Microsoft Office product at some point in your life, but when you get to working a full-time job, you’d be surprised how complex using these programs can get. Suddenly your boss is talking about things like Mail Merge, functions and filters, and you have no idea what it means.
Don’t fear, recent grads, we’ve got you covered: I’ve constructed a guide to the top three Microsoft Office programs you’ll likely see at your job (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) and the helpful resources, tips and tricks that’ll make you seem like a pro as soon as you walk through the door.
Ah, Microsoft Word. You type, fix your spacing and add some page numbers, right? To an extent, sure. However, there are a few underutilized features that will make your life easier and are key when collaborating on the same document.
Styles can be used to make a document look cohesive and to put together a table of contents super easily (even if Microsoft makes it sound pretty hard in this article). All you have to do is highlight your section titles and assign them the appropriate heading or subheading style. Go to the Reference tab to insert your Table of Contents, and voila! Done.
Additionally, you’re not limited to styles that Microsoft Word has determined for you. To edit a style or create your own, right click on the style and click “Modify.” You can also go the Design tab, and choose from multiple preset themes that will change the formatting of all your headings.
If you have to, for example, print 500 letters with everything the same except for the name of the recipient, be confident in knowing that there is an alternative to copying and pasting 500 times and going back to change the names. Mail Merge, though often associated with sending out multiple emails with different names to different email addresses, can also be used within Word to make multiple copies of the same document to print.
Say someone sends you a document to look over and edit for spelling, grammar and style. Professional etiquette demands the use of Track Changes (in the Review tab) in order to highlight the changes you’ve made so that the person you ultimately send it back to doesn’t have to have two versions of the document open to compare them side by side.
If you’re asked to put together any type of report, chances are you’re going to start off in Excel. Unless you studied something quantitative, it’s understandable that you wouldn’t spend so much time in Excel, and it can be intimidating.
The thing to know about using Excel in the workplace is that unless you’re some type of statistician, you’ll probably only need to know a few ways to manipulate or summarize data, which you’ll spend 20% of your time doing, and the other 80% is formatting it to make it look nice. Here’s a breakdown of the basic concepts you need to know.
Functions are used within a cell to either calculate or manipulate data. You know, things like SUM, PRODUCT, AVERAGE and COUNT. These can get complicated, especially if you’re doing multiple calculations at a time, so don’t forget your order of operations.
Additionally, there are functions like VLOOKUP, CONCATENATE and TODAY that will make your life so much easier but don’t come to mind naturally. Also, IF statements are really important pieces of logic to understand how to use to tell Excel, “If this cell says x, use the space in this cell to spit back y; otherwise spit back z.”
Go ahead, click on those tabs up top; they won’t bite! Up here (A/N: the row of tabs and all the stuff in them is called the Ribbon) is a veritable treasure chest of tools that Excel has already built in. Some important ones to know:
Now that you have the calculations you want, you need to make it presentable! A lot can be done using colors and text formatters (bold, italic, etc) on the home tab, but some parts need further elaboration.
I’ll be the first to admit that Excel charts can be infuriating when Excel can’t read your mind about what you want your chart to look like. It helps to figure out some details beforehand:
After you determine these two, you should go ahead and make your chart. You can add or take away elements like data labels or trend lines by clicking on the Design tab that appears when you’ve clicked on your chart and clicking on “Add Chart Element.”
Conditional formatting: Looking at lots of numbers is generally unhelpful and occasionally nauseating, so when you add colors to direct the viewer’s eye to what’s important or out of the ordinary, it’s immensely helpful. Rather than go through each cell and select just the right shade of green for each cell (and then inevitably have to go back and change it), you can use conditional formatting to do your highlighting with the click of a button, and keep it dynamic based on revised calculations.
I highly recommend learning keyboard shortcuts to be able to navigate Excel more easily (and seem like an Excel wizard!). I won’t bother with Googling “Excel shortcuts” for you, but here are some absolute essentials [Mac options in brackets]:
With these tips at your disposal, you’re well on your way to becoming an Excel guru!
When it comes to PowerPoint, the golden rule is less is more. In a professional setting, under no circumstances would you want the design of your presentation to overpower the content.
To that end, here are some tips to make sure that happens:
Armed with all these tips, there’s nothing Microsoft-related your boss can throw your way and faze you. You’ll probably be teaching your co-workers a thing or two instead of the other way around.
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