Microsoft Office Q&A: General Discussion (Word, Excel, PowerPoint...)

Just go ahead and install OpenOffice instead. It’ll save you from blowing a few hundred bucks on a legitimate home version you could pick up at Best Buy.

Why on earth would you bother spending money on Microsoft Office when there are much better options available? You should simply download OpenOffice, which is completely free and handles all document types, including those .doc files from Office, without any issues at all! In my honest opinion, it is far superior and significantly more user-friendly than anything else.LINK

Thanks so much. 🙂

Does anyone know if there is an online version of Excel that actually works properly?

I messed up my friend's Office 2003 while trying to install an original version of Office 2007. We lost the product key, so we tried a fake one from the internet. It installed, but now it won't activate. He just keeps getting this error: "your software cannot be activated because the product key used to install software is not valid."
He has a midterm in three days and currently has no way to practice Excel.

Could someone please offer advice on this installation issue or what to do when a key is lost? Feel free to PM me. Also, if anyone has a link to a functional online Excel, please share it. 🙂

If you need a product key, give Microsoft a call—otherwise, just grab the Office 2010 trial if you want to get some practice in.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/he...001150834.aspx

Benjamin King2 said:Call Microsoft for a product key, or just download an Office 2010 trial to practice.

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/he...001150834.aspx

Thanks. I assume the Excel functions will work the same as they do in the full version?

As for the key, there isn't much else to do. I'll try using a crack to get Office running this time. Will it actually work?

I'm working on a document and need to build a Table of Contents at the start. I just can't seem to get the page numbers to look right—specifically, I can't get them to align perfectly along the right margin.

My current process is going through Format > Tabs > Tab stop position, setting the alignment, and choosing leader option 2 (those little dots).

Even after I hit Select All before diving into the formatting, the right margin still looks completely messy. It won't align.

Is there actually a better way to do this?

Create Table of Contents

Sarah Adams48 said:Even if I hit select all before messing with formatting, that right margin is still totally wonky.

Check this link out—it’s got a full tutorial with screenshots to help you out.
How to Create Table of Contents in Word 2007

Kyle Johnson2 said:This link has a full tutorial with visual aids included.
How to create a Table of Contents in Word 2007

So you're telling me I should have been applying styles while I was actually writing the text, rather than trying to fix everything after the fact? Did I basically do this entire thing backward? 🙈

I tried running it on my messed-up document and it worked well enough, except every single page number shows up as "1." Makes sense, right? Since I didn't bother tagging the styles within the actual text.

Should I go back now, tag every single heading and subheading in the document, strip out the chapter numbers, and then try generating a proper Table of Contents? Or what?

Thanks a lot!!

You can actually play around with your text formatting—and yeah, I’m talking about styles too!—whenever you feel like it. Once you've got that formatted just right, you can basically tell Word to go ahead and whip up a Table of Contents for you. Just one little tip, though: don't go deleting those numbers. You know, the ones you're using to label your chapters and sections? Keep those in there.

Hey there...
Does anyone have any recommendations for a free converter I could use to switch
docx > doc
xlsx > xls
doc > pdf

I've been getting by using online tools like Zamzar, but I’d much rather have something running locally on my machine.

Converting doc to pdf

http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp

If you need to convert a docx to doc or an xlsx to xls, you can actually just save them directly within Microsoft Office 2007 using the Office 2003 format option. Alternatively, if you're still running Office 2003, you should be able to open those newer file types without any trouble if you just
install OpenOffice.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/e...displaylang=en

Thanks!

You’ll probably figure it out just fine, but it's worth noting that Adobe Acrobat works essentially like a virtual printer. So, you just open up the Microsoft Word document you want to convert, head over to the print menu, and select Adobe Acrobat from your list of printers. Once you hit print, it'll prompt you to choose a save location, and you're all set.

Sarah Adams48 said:So, should I just highlight all the headings and subheadings, strip out the chapter numbers, and then generate a proper table of contents?

If I'm following you, you've already manually numbered all the chapters, headings, and subheadings.
1
1.1
1.2
2.
2.1
2.1.2

Just kill 'em.
Tag those specific headings and subheadings using styles like that tutorial showed you.
Once you do that, Microsoft Word will handle the numbering for you when you build the TOC.

You could also just use Adobe Acrobat, which functions pretty much the same way as the one > mentioned, and it gets the job done quite well, I guess. 🙂

Just when I thought I finally had all my bases covered, some guy sends me a document in a .odp format! Seriously, can people just pick a lane? We don't need five different file types just to send over a simple memo...

Honestly, it’s such a headache when companies decide to migrate everything over to OpenOffice.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/odf-converter/files/

Edit: I haven't actually tested this myself, so I can't personally vouch for whether it works perfectly or not.

Kyle Johnson2 said:If I’m following you correctly, you’ve already manually typed out all those chapter numbers, titles, and subheadings.
1
1.1
1.2
2.
2.1
2.1.2

Just delete them.
Apply specific styles to your headings and subheadings based on that tutorial we discussed.
Once you set up the Word TOC, the software will handle the numbering automatically.

Yeah, that's right. I manually numbered the chapters while I was drafting the text. I'll fix it that way.