(Tech Tip: Office) How to password protect a Word / Excel document

Microsoft Office documents can be protected in several ways.

Opening the document requires a password (via Save As)

Modifying the document requires a password (via Save As)

Note: There is another area that offers template-style protection (via the Review tab) that only protects changing certain cells or sheets from modification.

Here's how to protect your document

1. In the Save As dialog box look for the Tools dropdown menu

2. Select General Options

3. In the Password to open area enter the password for opening the document

'Password to open' will encrypt the file and you would need the password to see its contents.

'Password to modify' will still allow anyone to see the contents of the file even without the password.

Don’t struggle getting number formatting like $ signs, to show up correctly in a Word mail merge. This happens because Word looks at the underlying numeric value and ignores the cell formatting.

For what I consider the commonest of mail merge methods (Word sourcing Excel) , this is way harder than it should be.

Which option should you use?

If Option 3 works then use it. Option 3 is not intuitive to set up but it’s the easiest once it is set up because there are no formulas involved – your cell formatting is used.

Option 1 is also fine and is actually easier to set up since it’s just following the natural Word mail merge. But you have to get those “=TEXT” formulas in Excel.

Only use Option 2 if you have no ability to change the Excel file.

Option 1: Format the numbers in Excel, but as TEXT

Probably the Right-click the merge field and choose "Toggle field

Create some columns to the right of your numeric columns and use a formula like =TEXT(B2,"#,###;(#,###);-")

If you use these columns in your mail merge they will come out exactly as they appear in Excel because they are text values instead of numbers.

Option 2: Format the numbers in Word

Right-click the merge field and choose "Toggle field codes" (alt-F9) to show the underlying source of the number

Then you will see the name of the field (which you can adjust if you want)

Shortcut keys you should know:

Alt-F9 Toggle field codes

Ctrl-F9 Insert curly field codes (you can’t just type {} marks)

Ctrl-Shift-Space ‘Hard’ space – treats a phrase like a word.

Then you should type (or paste) in the formatting text just in front of the '}' mark.

the format being used is {MERGEFIELD "Performance" \# positive;negative;zero}

where you would put a format string for positive numbers in the positive slot, negative numbers in the negative slot, and zeros in the zero slot.

e.g.

{MERGEFIELD "Performance" \# $ #,##0.00;$ (#,##0.00);'-'}

would result in numbers like

$ 3,344.34

$ (65.00)

- (for 0)

Example1: A typical currency format (without decimals and with parens around negatives) would look like this:

to yield

Example2: Or with decimals and $ signs:

to yield

Example3:

This is the only way I could get zero values to print with ‘- ‘ formatting (hard spaces after the hyphen for right-justification)

When you are done, right-click and choose update field

Option 3: Use DDE between Word and Excel to preserve cell formatting

1. Make sure ‘Confirm file format conversion on open’ is checked in Word Options… General

2. Start your merge and select your Excel file as the data source. When you get this dialog , choose Show All and choose MS Excel Workseets via DDE

3. If things go well, you will now be able to paste fields with the cell formatting intact.

4. However on some machines, I got this unsolvable error and had to resort to Option 1.

Here’s how create a desktop shortcut that opens Outlook to a specific folder.

1. Get properties of that folder in Outlook and copy the Location field and put the name of the folder at the end

\\Public Folders - jsimotas@rethinkit.com\All Public Folders\rethinkit.com\Public Contacts

2. Right-click on your desktop and create a shortcut to notepad.exe (trust me it’s easier)

3. Then edit the target of that shortcut to have the following format note all the quotes and the “outlook:” in front

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\OUTLOOK.EXE" /select "outlook:\\Public Folders - jsimotas@rethinkit.com\All Public Folders\rethinkit.com\Public Contacts"

Hint: If you want an expanded folder list then create a shortcut to any child of the folder you want expanded.

The address book is what you see when you click on ‘To’ in Outlook. Most people want to see their contacts in that list. Outlook defaults to showing your corporate global address list (GAL). Here’s how to switch it.

1. Choose Tools... Address Book (or press Ctrl-Shift-B)

2. Inside that window, choose Tools... Options

3. Show this address list first:  Choose Contacts.  This is what first comes up when you press To:.

You don’t really care about these:

Keep personal addresses in: Choose the same list.  This isn't really used anymore.
Check names in this order: Use the up and down buttons to prioritize.  The server lists should come first, then your lists.

Outlook 2007 Addressing Options

Outlook 2010 Addressing Options

Microsoft Office documents can be protected in several ways.

Opening the document requires a password (via Save As)

Modifying the document requires a password (via Save As)

Note: There is another area that offers template-style protection (via the Review tab) that only protects changing certain cells or sheets from modification.

Here's how to protect your document

1. In the Save As dialog box look for the Tools dropdown menu

2. Select General Options

3. In the Password to open area enter the password for opening the document

'Password to open' will encrypt the file and you would need the password to see its contents.

'Password to modify' will still allow anyone to see the contents of the file even without the password.

If you are a New Yorker going to London and have a 5pm meeting (UK time), it's tempting to schedule your appointment at 5pm (in NY time).  Don't do that!

Schedule them in New York time (noon) and once you get there , tell your computer, Blackberry, whatever that you are in a new time zone (some devices do it automatically).  Then your appointments will all appear correctly AND you will know in local time about things happening in NY.  Might want to turn those alerts off at night!

You should always schedule the time in the 'real' time (that is,  in the actual time it occurs in your own time zone) and not try to 'trick' the calendar.

Fortunately, Outlook 2007 gives you an easy way of doing it.  This is not required but makes it easier for you than doing the mental calculations .

The result will be the same - the appointment shows up in local time on your calendar and also in the correct local time on the traveler's (or foreigner's) calendar.

1. Click on the 'Time zones' button to show the time zones next to the times.

2. Change the Time zone to the local time zone of the meeting and set the time according to the local time.

3. An optional trick is to pick one time zone for the start and a different one for the end so you can 'see' what it means on both sides.

When your IE browser starts acting strange there are two things you can do: Clear the cache and Reset your configuration

Clear your cache in Internet Explorer

In order to speed things up, browsers keep a local file cache of your recent sites. However, a stale cache can cause problems so use this procedure to clear it.

• Click on Tools -> Internet Options
• Under the General tab, click "Delete…"
• Under Delete Browsing History click “Delete”

Reset your configuration in Internet Explorer

This is a more drastic procedure that will bring you back to the factory defaults for Internet Explorer.

• Click on Tools -> Internet Options
• Under the Advanced tab, click "Reset…"
• Check “Delete personal settings” and click “Reset”

The tool: http://www.grc.com/files/securable.exe

The site: http://www.grc.com/securable.htm

Windows 7 32 bit vs Windows 7 64 bit: Which one?

Basically, you want Windows 64 bit because it doesn’t have the 4G (really 3.5G) memory limit that exists with 32 bit operating systems and memory addressing.

So why WOULDN’T you get 64 bit:

- If you have some strange hardware that doesn’t yet have 64 bit drivers.

- If you have some even rarer software that won’t run on 64 bit even with the compatibility property set on the icon.

- If you have less than 3G, there’s kind of no point EXCEPT you can’t upgrade the Windows software later. So if you do get more memory later you will have to re-install the computer and all the software.

Here's how you can use the ID info from PCI devices to figure out the model of the card.  From this info you can search and find drivers.

Start Device manager (Control Panel… System… Device Manager) and look for those yellow question marks.

Look at the properties... Details... Hardware Ids  and you will see vendor and device codes like this:

Do you see …VEN_10EC&DEV_8169&…

So the Vendor ID is 10EC (the company that made the device)
the Device ID is 8169 (the code for the device)

Now go here to look up these numbers:

PCI Vendor and Device Lists

http://www.pcidatabase.com/

In this case I entered the device ID and had to guess that I really needed the Netgear vendor since realtek simply makes the chip on the card.

In reality, either vendor probably has good enough drivers.  Now you can go get the right drivers!

DriverMax

If all the above sounds too hard or you do this type of thing ALOT (we do) then you should definitely check out DriverMax from Innovative Solutions.  It automatically detects your missing hardware and even offers to download the correct drivers. 

What’s more it will let you know if your drivers are out of date and will keep track of your system on-line.

1. Right-click on the Start button and choose ‘Open’

Note: for Win 7 / Vista , right-click the startup folder in the start

menu

2. Double-click Programs then double-click Startup

3. Drag your Icon into the Startup folder

Note: If you drag using the right mouse button you will get a popup menu asking if you want copy or move