Learning My Tools

The only New Year's resolution I'm doing well at is "learn more about Microsoft Office." I've been using Microsoft Word and Excel for many years. I take their presence for granted. In fact, I haven't once cracked open a book about Word (although I do own Word 97 for Dummies).

Last year, I saw someone (OK, my wife!) doing a highly repetitive task in Word 97. Her task was to search for a word denoting a section, delete the next twenty lines, then reformat the remaining 'block' (something along these lines). There would be as many as thirty sections in this document. During that weekend, I copied her document, and tried to get Word to do this task for me. That weekend, I scratched the surface of Word macros.

Fast forward to today: I subscribe to Woody's Office Watch. This e-mail newsletter is chock full of nifty behind-the-scenes stuff on Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook. I try to learn a new 'feature' every time I'm in one of these Office tools.

This is the crux of my New Year's resolution: learning my tools. Microsoft Office is a big beast. I'm on an ancient version (Office 97). But it's a beast that's worth learning, because it's ubiquitous, and it contains features that can often save you time.