ThinkFree: Web Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel)

MakeUseOf has a post on ThinkFree: Web Office Suite (Word, PowerPoint, Excel).

ThinkFree is an online Office-like suite of applications.

Feature Overview

• Create, Manage, Edit, Share and Collaborate on office documents online.
• Microsoft Office compatibility: View/Edit your M.Office docs on ThinkFree and vice versa
• Storage: 1 GB of free online storage.
• Share documents with others and assign different user privileges (viewer, contributor, etc)
• Version management: Detailed history of document changes, revert to any previous version when needed
• Document editing: Quick Edit and Power Edit modes.
• Search within all documents in your account.
• Embed docs on your blog, website (or on ThinkFree Doc Exchange)
• ThinkFree Premium (non-free): online and offline file synchronization, document archiving, full-scree mode, online/offline access, …

More MRU (Most Recently Used) magic

Office Watch has a post on More MRU magic.

The Most Recently Used list in Microsoft Office can be handy, but it can also have a lot of stuff you don’t need or want again.  This post tells you where to find the lists and remove the unwanted items.

UBitMenu for Office 2007

UBitMenu is the answer for those who just can’t get used to the “ribbon” menus in Microsoft Office 2007.

UBitMenu gives you menus like the old Office 2003 to use with 2007.

Recommended by Office Watch.  The regular UBitMenu is freeware protected by a Creative Commons Licence (CCL) for individuals.

Monitors, efficiency and Microsoft Office

OfficeWatch has a post on Monitors, efficiency and Microsoft Office which concludes that in some cases,  a second monitor can improve efficiency, especially with Microsoft Office.

Take a look at it, however many monitors you use to do it.

Keep Office 2007 Documents Readily Available

Mysticgeek has a post on how toKeep Your Office 2007 Documents Readily Available the Easy Way .

“How many times have you been looking or a Word of Excel document and what should be an quick retrieval takes several minutes? Sure, you can always search, but for frequently used documents that’s not the best solution.

Today we will look at an easy way to keep your most important documents readily available within Office 2007. This trick works with Word, Excel and PowerPoint just the same… there’s a push pin icon next to each item in the recent documents list.”

Microsoft Office student discount

While this site normally doesn’t promote commercial software (companies have budgets of their own for that!), the Microsoft Office Suite is the campus standard software and many students would like to get it at a discount.

Try the student discount for the ultimate package here.

Office 2003 and XP SP3 changes

Office Watch has some warnings about how the Service Pack 3 for Windows XP changes things in Office 2003.

“Microsoft had a pile of security problems with Office 2003, the corporate answer is to disable features with security risks instead of fixing them.”

“So before you rush off to install SP3 you need to be aware of the changes it brings. Most of them might be considered minor but they might cause a problem if you’re not aware.”

BTW (By The Way): Office Watch is a regular e-letter which is free and very useful to Office users.

Here is the Office Watch list of SP3 changes in Office 2003:

Traps in Office 2003 Service Pack 3

Here’s a summary of the major changes in Service Pack 3 which may strike you at some stage. In many cases the changes won’t be immediately apparent but at some time in the future you’ll spend time trying to work out why something won’t work.

Many file types are blocked

Many older file types that could be opened in Office 2003 and earlier versions of Office will suddenly stop opening with Office 2003 SP3. There’s no warning message or explanation.

The file types blocked by Service Pack 3 include:

• All Word documents created before (but not including) Word 6 for Windows. The includes all Word 1 and Word 2 documents, Word 4 for Mac plus early versions of Word for some Asian countries.
• All Powerpoint files created before Powerpoint 97.
• Excel 4 binary files in .xlc format.
• dBase II files – the once very common .dbf format.
• Lotus and Quattro files “.wk1, .wk4, .wj3, wk1 FMT, .wks, .wk3, wk3 FM3, .wj2, .wq1, .fm3, .wj1 “
• Corel Draw .cdr

This was done because of the security risks in converting older file formats. Instead of dealing with those problems, Microsoft took the easy way out and just blocked access to the older formats.

While the formats might seem old and even archaic they are important when you want to retrieve old files from years past. Most people and companies don’t convert all their documents to the latest format – documents are opened as needed and then re-saved to newer formats. When you go digging into your archives you might find documents you can’t open with SP3. That might not happen often but could be quite confusing when you try.

You can reverse these SP3 changes in various ways that are detailed here.

Can’t save to some formats

Linked to the restriction on File Open are new limitations on formats you can save to. SP3 imposes restrictions on saving to Powerpoint pre-97 formats, Lotus & Quattro formats, Excel 4 binary formats and .dbf formats.

Most of these aren’t a real problem since there are presumably other formats you can use instead. But the .dbf format was once very commonly used and is very handy for transferring data across older systems.

You can reverse these SP3 changes in various ways that are detailed here.

No Fast Saves in Word 2003

Fast Save is a Word feature to speed up saving your Word documents. SP3 disables this feature – the check-box option is still there but the ‘choice’ does nothing.

Some Add-ins don’t work

ActiveX controls, and COM add-ins are checked by SP3 when they load up – if SP3 believes them to be security risks they’ll be disabled. That’s somewhat reasonable but it means that an add-in that worked fine in Office 2003 will stop unceremoniously once you install SP3.

Office Document Imaging changes

The Document Imaging part of Office 2003 changes with SP3 – some you can change back and others you can’t.

1. The Microsoft Office Document Image Writer printer driver may be reset to the TIFF output format.
2. .Tif files and .mdi files are no longer associated with Microsoft Office Document Imaging.
3. Save a .tif file using JPEG compression isn’t available.

Points 1 and 2 can be reversed by changing the settings to your wishes. See http://office-watch.com/kb?938813

Access issues:

Microsoft made two important changes to Access 2003 with Service Pack 3. It’s a sign of the flawed judgement used by Microsoft that these changes were considered acceptable in a publicly released product. Service Packs are meant to fix bugs not introduce new ones.

While SP3 wasn’t fixed there is now a hotfix available to reverse these ‘improvements’ here.

Access: Combo box and List box errors

A combo or list box populated with a SQL statement can return no values. You can workaround these problems as described here or apply the hotfix mentioned above.

Access: Bit data columns in SQL tables

Access 2003 SP3 dropped support for bit data columns ( 0 or 1 ) in Access projects linked to a table on Microsoft’s own SQL Server.

DocSyncer for Google docs

Somebody had to come up with a way to synchronize the documents you edit in Microsoft Office so they are available in Google Docs.

Try the free service at DocSyncer to migrate files to Google.

Best academic discounts for students, faculty & staff

Windows Secrets had instructions on how to get Microsoft Windows software at an academic discount for students, faculty & staff.  Requirements on what they want differ from vendor to vendor.  This article was dated April 12, 2007 so check current prices starting with these sites, and then perhaps elsewhere.

Where to shop for academic discounts

“Using your favorite search engine, you should have no difficulty finding software retailers that offer academic discounts. The ones I’ve found that have the best prices and selection are, in alphabetical order:”

• Academic Superstore
  Campus Tech
  Creation Engine
  CCV Software
  JourneyEd
  School World
  VioSoftware
  

OpenOffice for Macs = NeoOffice

While OpenOffice is the open source answer to Microsoft Office on Windows, for Macs you can use the alternative NeoOffice.

“NeoOffice is a full-featured set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing, and database programs) for Mac OS X. Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office.

Released as free, open source software under the GNU General Public License (GPL), NeoOffice is fully functional and stable enough for everyday use. The software is actively developed, so improvements and small updates are made available on a regular basis.”

Speech recognition in Office XP

If you installed speech recognition with Microsoft Office XP or if you purchased a new computer that has Office XP installed, you can use speech recognition in all Office programs.

Internet Fixes has advice on checking for it and using it if you have it.

Here’s looking at you, Office

Microsoft Office viewers are available if you don’t have Microsoft Office programs. Click here for the download page for viewers for all MS Office products, Word, Powerpoint, Excel, Outlook, Access, and Visio.

Remember: you can see the files with these viewers, but you cannot edit them in any way.

You can also use OpenOffice (freeware compatible with MS Office Suite before 2007) to view Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and Access files (before 2007) as well as edit and save them to MS Office formats such as 97-2003 formats.

Remember: you must not use 2007 formats (ending in “x” such as “.docx“) if you want to use other programs such as OpenOffice, WordPerfect, etc. to view or edit them reliably.

Document & PowerPoint templates to download

[updated 2009.8.11]

Why reinvent the wheel? If somebody else has already created a template for the kind of document or PowerPoint you’re working on, why not use that if it suits your needs? Many of these are free.

Here are some sources, recommended by MakeUseOf.com :

DocStop : “Extremely useful community-powered service for sharing all kinds of business document templates. If you need a professional document, Docstoc is the first place to check out. Whether it’s a legal document, a business form or whatever is out there. Docstoc was launched just recently but already counts over 65.000 user-submitted documents, covering legal, business, financial, technology, and education areas.”

Gazhoo – “Unlike Docstoc, Gazhoo is a marketplace for legal, financial and business documents, case studies and research papers. Mainly it’s a place to buy and sell professional documents. However, with the exception of few scarce document types (i.e. market research papers) most of the listed documents are free. So, it’s a pretty good resource as well.”

Scribd – “Scribd has the biggest document collection, but it’s not focused on professional documents alone. It’s more like a virtual document library, where anyone can freely upload and share any kind of text documents (jokes, facts, stories, legal, presentations, etc.). Although, there is a good deal of useless stuff, it still has lots of legal forms and document templates.”

BusinessForms “has an inventory of over 500 FREE business forms and FREE business templates available in Excel and Word formats.  All of the free business forms and free business templates are organized into categories according to the type of business form or business template.  The free business forms and free business templates can be previewed and downloaded individually.  Don’t spend hours trying to create and organize your own business forms and business templates when you can download these free business forms and free business templates. You can customize these free business forms and free business templates to fit your specific needs.”

Online Word Processors

Online Word Processing

Caution: Putting your data online means opening up your information to a third party. Even if the company is honest, it could have legal action taken against it to reveal your information. Use online software at your own risk.

• Google Docs a free Google product (formerly known as Writely)
• Writeboard free collaborative document production

Office 2007 tutorials

Access Librarian Joni Stine recommends the Office 2007 tutorials at Microsoft Online.

Saving money on Microsoft products

Windows Secrets has advice and links on how to save money on Microsoft Windows and other products. Use at your own risk.

WARNING: Student/Faculty, aka “Academic” versions of Microsoft products, may NOT qualify you for cheaper “upgrade” versions later.
For example, the Office Suite’s academic version for 2003 may not be eligible for the discounted upgrade to the 2007 version, even if it
says “all versions” on the box. You may need to buy another complete academic version instead.

Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 manuals

USC Marshall tutorials on PowerPoint 2007 (copies of these PDFs are posted in the Library too — they’re very good).

Microsoft Excel utilities

Sources of helpful utilities for Excel versions 97 through 2003 are http://www.excel-extools.com and http://www.asap-utilities.com/. Freeware. Recommended by Gizmo’s Tech Support Alert.

Microsoft Excel 2003 cheat sheets for 2007

USC Marshall has some excellent cheat sheets for Excel 2007 giving the equivalents for Excel 2003.

Office 2007 add-ons

[updated 2009.10.24]

Download Free Office 2007 Software from Microsoft is a list of freeware to enhance MS Office 2007.