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

You can actually grab it online through your Amazon account, and it’ll run you about $65. Just type the title into Google and see what comes up.

Benjamin Wilson7 said:I suppose you can just order it online through the Amazon account —it’s about $65. Honestly, just type the name into Google and see what comes up.

Any actual progress regarding sickle cell anemia?

Unfortunately, not yet. I honestly have no clue what I actually did or how I even managed to do it.
I'll try to post an example here later.

The file is right here:
Book11.xlsx

So, here's the weird part: when I hit Backspace to clear an entry, the text looks perfectly fine in standard black while typing, not this light shade. It works okay for me, but for the other people I'm doing this for? They can't see a single thing while they're entering data.

Benjamin Wilson7 said:Unfortunately, not yet. I honestly can't wrap my head around what I actually did there or how it even happened.

I pulled the file over, loaded it up in Excel 2003, and everything looks perfectly fine. 😕

The numbers look super faint in the cell while I'm actually typing them in (once I hit Enter and move on, everything looks totally fine—the numbers turn black).
So, while I'm actively entering data in A2 through A6, the numbers look washed out, but after that, they’re solid black.

Basically, there's this weird inconsistency where A2-A6 look light, but from A7 downwards, they look perfectly normal and black.

If you're saying things look fine on your end, then I honestly don't know why it's acting up like this for me.
Even other people who downloaded this program from me are running into the same issue; the numbers are barely visible while typing, and it's driving them crazy.

I know I might have made things sound more complicated than they are, but the problem is still there.

I'll attach a screenshot so you can see what I mean.




You can clearly see the difference in color that's bugging me.

Benjamin Wilson7 said:If everything seems fine on your end, then I honestly can't fathom why it’s acting up like this for me.

I still lean toward the idea that there's some sort of formatting glitch going on—both during data entry and constantly thereafter. Everything looks perfectly fine, black, and legible to my eyes.

I don't have Word 2007 handy right now to verify, so I can't check it myself. But maybe you could try exporting the file into the Excel 2003 format and then reopening it? That is, assuming you aren't relying on any specific features that Excel 2003 wouldn't support, of course.

Benjamin Wilson7 said:The numbers are barely visible in the cell. While you're busy entering the data... When I hit Enter to leave the cell, everything looks fine—the numbers show up in black like they should.
So, while I’m actively typing into cells A2 through A6, the numbers show up in a different color. But once I finish? They turn black. Why is that happening?

So, I’ve got a problem. The numbers in cells A2 through A6 aren't looking the same as everything from A7 downwards. In that first little stretch, they’re highlighted, but from A7 on, they’re just standard black. What gives?

I can see the color discrepancy that's bothering me.

You’ve got conditional formatting applied to those cells ($A$2:$A$6), and that's exactly where you're running into trouble.
Clear out that formatting and you'll actually have a usable entry.

Man, brightcyclist2, you’re a total lifesaver.
This was the fix:


Why didn't I think of this myself?
I hadn't even set up any conditional formatting in these cells, so there shouldn't have been any "rules" to begin with. Honestly, I have no clue how it even happened.
Phew, what a relief.

Huge thanks to Charles, Nicholas King, and John.

Benjamin Wilson7 said:I've been losing my mind over this one little issue for two days straight now:
So, I have these specific cells where I've restricted input to only certain numbers, right? But when I actually type something in, the cell looks completely empty. I can see what I'm typing up in the formula bar, sure, but the actual cell itself shows absolutely nothing.

The whole Sheet is locked down, except for those specific cells where I've allowed data entry.

And then there's a second problem, though it's not quite as big of a headache yet:
Whenever I open a drop-down list in one of the selection cells, the menu starts from the bottom instead of the top. I haven't even had the headspace to deal with that because the first thing is driving me absolutely insane.

Any ideas would be much appreciated. Cheers.

I honestly can't believe this is happening to you, but is there any chance you accidentally set the font color ( White to white and formatted the cells that way?

Benjamin Wilson7 said:I’ve been losing my mind over this one little glitch for two days straight:
So, I have a specific cell where I've restricted input so that only numbers can be entered. But here's the kicker—when I actually type something into that cell, the content completely vanishes from view. It's like it's invisible. The only way I can even see what I just typed is by looking up at the formula bar.

The Sheet is locked down, except for those specific cells where I've allowed data entry.

And then there's a second issue, though it's not quite as much of a headache:
When I click a cell that has a drop-down menu, the list starts scrolling from the bottom instead of starting right at the top. I haven't even had the energy to tackle that yet because the first thing is driving me absolutely insane.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Cheers.

I honestly can't believe this is happening to you, but is it possible you accidentally set the font color ( White to white and formatted the cells that way?

I still can't quite wrap my head around it... Of course, I figured that was the culprit. All the fonts and colors looked perfectly "normal" (set to automatic, and I even tried switching to black, but nope, nothing worked...), so yeah, we all know how that goes.
Some kind of colored "rules" must have been active, though I had absolutely no reason to use them, and I honestly don't remember ever touching conditional formatting.

Since I spent two months working in this software, it’s hard to recall every single little detail of my daily workflow—even though I keep a log of all my changes—but I definitely didn't make any notes about something like this.
But hey, at least Charles remembered it.

It’s actually great being here because there are a few "pros" (kind of like the guys over at Best Buy) who are absolute experts at handling this stuff. 🙂

I followed that tutorial step-by-step. I set up my sections and numbering, but now I’ve hit a snag. For some reason, I can't get those page numbers to disappear from the first two pages.

How do I hide or just delete them entirely?

I’m still out here losing my mind over this cursed numbering and section stuff today 👎
Honestly, I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm probably gonna end up needing some help anyway for a paper I'm working on...

Maybe I'm just thick or something, because even after digging through everything online, something always goes sideways with the sections. Like, I want to write something that's maybe 100 pages long, and let's say the first 6 pages shouldn't have numbers, and maybe the last few shouldn't either.

How, though? I'm using Word 2007. I feel like I've watched every tutorial under the sun, but things either break or they turn into a total mess, kind of like what happened to Betty Watson90.

Karen Cook51 said:Wait, what do you mean by "how"?

- Set up three distinct sections (start without page numbers, middle section with them, and an end section without any page numbers).

- In the footer of the second and third remove "same as Previous" (it might be labeled differently in 2007—that’s how it shows up in 2003);

- Once that's done, you can mess around with the pagination in each section however you see fit.

Betty Watson90 said:I followed that tutorial... but how the hell do I hide or just get rid of those numbers?

You didn't follow the tutorial exactly. If you're putting numbers in the Footer, click on Footer Section 2 and hit "Link to Previous" to kill that "Same as Previous" thing for that section. Then just wipe out the numbers in the previous section (those first two lists).

The tutorial shows where to put the numbers in the Header so the screenshots actually look clear and easy to follow.

Karen Cook51 said:Wait, what? It’s Word 2007. I've already scrolled through every single one of those tutorials.

I don't know what you were looking at, but if you just set up your sections and uncheck "same as Previous"—like Nicholas King was saying—you can number every section however you want.

- How to start page numbering on the third page in Word 2003.
- How to start page numbering on page three in Word 2007
- How do you number multiple sections in Word 2007?

Just a heads-up: these tutorials focus on the Header. If you're actually messing around in the Footer, make sure you apply everything there instead.

If you're still running into issues (and there’s absolutely nothing in your Header), just go ahead and kill all those "Same as Previous" settings in the headers for each section. You can do that easily by hitting the "Link to Previous" button.

And that's a wrap. Just grab that Word file and set it up to start numbering from page three. (first two without numbering and last two without numbering)

Download the file and just double-click anywhere in the Header or Footer to pull up the Sections. Otherwise, you can just hit that "Draft" button on the Status Bar—it's shown in the tutorial.

I was wondering if there's any way to save an Excel spreadsheet or just a specific worksheet as a JPG image while making sure it keeps its exact layout and high quality, almost like it was originally saved as an XLS file

Thanks, Nicholas King and Kyle Johnson2 👍 😘

I think I actually nailed it—spent a good chunk of time messing around with it late last night! 😁😁
Anyway, just saving this all under my bookmarks just in case.

rustycrane86 said:I was wondering about all the different ways one could save an Excel spreadsheet—or just a specific worksheet—as a JPG image, while somehow maintaining the exact same layout and quality as if it were saved directly as an XLS file.

You’re always going to lose some level of quality when you do that.

Honestly, why would anyone even want to do something like that in the first place? 😕

Nicholas King said:Quality will always be sacrificed.

So why would anyone even bother? 😕

But there actually is a solution—it’s just not true that you always have to lose quality.
I’m looking at a table right now from a printed journal that hasn't lost an ounce of its clarity.
Using JPG tables is pretty standard when you're publishing work in academic literature.

Personally, I’ve found one way that works pretty well: you just open a window containing an Excel worksheet right on your PowerPoint slide, paste the table you need directly into it, and then save the slide as a JPG. It does require tweaking a few things here and there, though, to get it looking just right.