Microsoft Office File Names

If you can no longer open documents that were created in a previous version of Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint, it’s probably because of the file name. It may be too long or, it contains a slash or other no-longer-acceptable characters.

To change the name of a file:

1. Click once on the item

2. Press the Return key to highlight the file name

3. Type a new name. If you press the left or right arrow key it will move the cursor to the beginning or end of the text

4. Press the Return key when done

Now try opening the file and it will probably work!

iPad Tip of the Week

All About Sounds

You can control what sounds play when different things happen. Maybe you don’t like the sound when you unlock your device. Maybe you prefer NOT to hear a sound every time you receive or send an email or when someone sends you a text or leaves a voicemail.

It’s easy to choose which sounds and alerts you want to hear.

1. Tap Settings
2. Tap Sounds
3. Scroll through the list, choosing which you want on and which you want off

This is also where you can choose a different ringtone and make the Vibrate feature silent.

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Latest Update for Mountain Lion

If you are running OS 10.8, Mountain Lion, Apple just released an update to fix several bugs and issues in the software. Version 10.8.5 is available as a free download in the App Store. Under the Apple menu, choose Software Update. Install the OS 10.5.8 and any other updates that are available.

iPad Tip of the Week

Getting Ready For The New iOS7

Apple’s new iOS7 for iPhones and iPads is packed with a new look and lots of new features.

As with any upgrade, you may want to wait until they iron out some of the bugs before you jump in. Andbefore you rush to upgrade, you’ll want to do a little housecleaning first.

1. Confirm that your device will work with iOS7. It is compatible with:

• iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5s
• iPod touch 5th gen
• iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4, iPad mini

NOTE:

OSXDAILY highly recommends WAITING to update iPad2 and iPad 3,iPad4 and iPad mini as well as iPhone 4, iPhone 4S

2. Back up to iCloud:

• Tap Settings
• Tap iCloud
• Tap Storage and Backup
• Tap Backup Now

3. Delete any apps you don’t use:

• Tap and hold on any app to get them wiggling
• Tap the X to delete
• Tap the Home button when done to stop the wiggling

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Make Your Cursor Bigger

The bigger your screen, the smaller the cursor. But you can make it bigger so you can find it more easily.

In Mountain Lion

1. Under the Apple menu, open System Preferences

2. Click on Accessibility in the bottom right

3. Click on Display

4. Move the slider to adjust the Cursor Size

In Snow Leopard:

1. Under the Apple menu, open System Preferences

2. Click on Accessibility in the bottom right

3. Click on Mouse

4. Move the slider to adjust the Cursor Size

iPad Tip of the Week

Make the Text Bigger

You have a lot of control over the size of text and other items on your iPad and iPhone

1. Tap Settings
2. Tap General
3. Scroll down and tap Accessibility
4. ZOOM gives you choices for finger gestures to enlarge entire screens
5. LARGER TEXT allows you to choice a more readable font size

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Importing Contacts From Excel

Mountain Lion finally allows you to easily import lists of names from an Excel spreadsheet into Contacts.

1. In the Excel spreadsheet, from the File menu, choose Save As
2. Title the document
3. From the Format menu, choose Comma Separated Values (.csv)
4. Be sure to save the document where you can easily find it
5. Quit Excel. If you get a warning that the file may not be compatible, just say OK
6. Open Contacts
7. From the File menu, choose Import
8. Locate the .csv file you just saved and Open
9. In this window, match up the fields from Excel with the Contacts fields that you want to import by clicking on each one you want to import
10. Choose to Ignore the First Card since it contains the label names of the fields
11. Use the arrows on the screen to move through your data to confirm that things are in the correct fields
12. Click OK
13. You can now delete the .csv file you saved

iPad Tip of the Week

Importing Videos From iPhone and iPad to Your Mac

Perhaps you’ve noticed that photos that you take on your mobile device appear on your Mac via Photo Stream, but videos do not.

As my Apple Genius friend reminded me, it’s called Photo Stream, not Video Stream.

The easiest way to transfer your movies from your device to your computer is to email them to yourself, then drag the attachment from the email onto the iPhoto icon on your Mac.

To email a video:

1. On your device, tap Photos
2. Tap Albums to get to the Camera Roll
3. Because videos are large files, I recommend emailing them one at a time
4. Find the video. It will have a movie camera icon and the length time of the video
5. Tap the Share icon, the forward-facing arrow
5. Choose Mail
6. Address it to yourself
7. Send

 

Ram vs. Hard Drive Storage: What’s The Difference?

Computer memory is RAM. It’s like your physical desk. How much RAM you have determines how many apps you can have open at one time and work with efficiently.

If your computer is slow, or freezing, or you get the spinning ball, you need more working space–you need to install more RAM.

Hard drive storage space is like your closet. You can store a whole lot more in your closet than would ever fit on your desk to work with at any given time.

Uninstalling Apps, deleting photos and documents creates more storage space. Buying and installing RAM will create more efficient working space.

To find out how much RAM and hard drive storage your Mac has:

Under the Apple menu, choose About This Mac

The RAM amount, measured in GB, is listed in this first window.

To see how much hard drive storage you have, click More Info

If you are running Lion or Mountain Lion, click on the Storage tab across the top and a graphic will appear, showing you how much you are using and how much is left.

If you are running an earlier version of the OS, in the left column of the More Info window, scroll down and click on Serial ATA and click on the hard drive listed for the information.

In my opinion, you need a minimum of 4GB if you are running Lion or Mountain Lion. Anything less than that, and things may run slow, or freeze.

Contact Apple or a third party dealer (MacMall, MacMemory) to find out how much more you can add to your particular Mac.

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

Free Apps

The cool, crisp weather of autumn is an invitation to get outdoors and spend some time in nature. This month’s free apps can enhance your experience.

LEAFSNAP

Have you ever found a leaf and wondered what kind it was? This virtual field guide lets you take a picture of the leaf, then matches it to the correct leaf in the apps database.

iBIRD LITE GUIDE TO BIRDS

This intro app is a pared down version of iBird, one of the most popular bird identifying apps. iBird Lite includes 31 species of birds, including search capabilities and bird songs.

RELAXING SOUNDS OF NATURE LITE

If you can’t get outdoors, you can bring the sounds of nature indoors with this free app. With 22 different nature sounds, you can create your own combination of sounds to relax, reduce stress and feel better.
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Reminders in Mountain Lion

Mountain Lion is packed with so many new features, like Smart Browsing in Safari, VIPs in Mail and Reminders.

Reminders, like Notes, sync between your iPhone, iPad and Mac. Unlike Notes, you can set an alert by date, time, even location in the Reminders App.

I’ve just added a whole new course to The Virtual Classroom so members can learn all about these great new features.

Click here to watch a free video from the Virtual Classroom that will show you how to use the new Reminders feature.

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

Quick Scroll To The Top

When you reach the bottom of an article, an email, or your Facebook posts, instead of scrolling all the way back to the top, just tap in the very top black horizontal menu space where the time and battery are displayed and you’ll zip right up to the top of the screen.

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Turn Off Facebook Notifications

Do you get an email every time something is posted or commented on in FaceBook? This can make for a very full and overwhelming Inbox.

Here’s how to turn them off:

1. In FaceBook, click on the down triangle in the top right next to HOME

2. Choose Account Settings

3. In the left column, choose Notifications

4. Anywhere you see an icon of an envelope, it means you are asking to receive an email notification

5. Click Edit

6. Click on the envelope to remove all checkmarks

7. Do this with each category

8. Now breathe….

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

Editing Text

Instead of deleting and retyping, you can edit text, just like you do on your Mac.

1. Tap and hold your finger near the text you want to edit. An onscreen magnifying glass appears, showing you where the cursor is positioned

2. Drag the cursor to the desired point

3. Now you can type, delete, and edit your text

Selecting Text to Copy and Paste

1. Use the same technique for positioning the cursor, and this time, tap and release, revealing choices to Select, Select All, etc

2. To select only some text, drag the corner grab points to surround the text you want to work with

3. Tap the now selected text to choose to cut or copy

4. To put the text someplace else, tap where you want to put it and choose Paste

Shortcuts:

To select a single word, double-tap it

To select a paragraph, swipe across the paragraph with two fingers

or

quadruple-tap the paragraph

or

pinch/pull on the corner handles with two fingers to change the range of text

Undo the Last Thing Your Did

To undo the last thing you typed or edited, shake the iPad and then click Undo

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Make an Email Really Stand Out

The Flag feature of Apple Mail is great for marking important emails. And you can quickly find any flagged emails quickly with the built-in Search tool.But sometimes an email is REALLY important and you want it to really stand out in the long list of messages in your Inbox. So why not make it a color?

1. Click once on the email

2. From the Format menu, choose Show Colors

3. Choose a color. You can change how you see the different color choices by clicking on the icons at the top of the window. The icon on the far right will show a simple crayon box for simplicity.

4. Close the color window and the email will now be highlighted in that color.

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

Inserting a Picture in Mail

The new iOS6 is filled with great new features, including the ability to now add a photo into an email directly in Mail.

1. Create a new mail message

2. When you’re ready to insert a photo tap and hold in the message area

3. Choose Insert Photo or Video

4. Choose where the picture is (Camera Roll, Photo Library, an album, etc.)

5. Choose the photo

6. Tap USE

To send several photos at once, either repeat the above steps for each photo or:

1. Open the Photos app

2. Tap Camera Roll or Photo Library, depending on where the photos are

3. Tap Edit

4. Select the photos you want to email

5. Tap Share

6. Tap Mail

If Mail is not an option, you have too many photos selected. So cancel and unselect several photos then try again.

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Setting Margins in Microsoft Word

Many of my clients have been using Microsoft Word for years, yet they admit they don’t know how to properly set margins.

It’s NOT by sliding the triangles on the ruler!

Here’s a free video lesson that will show you how easy it is to properly change your margins.

This tip is just one of the many things you can learn in the newest course in Mac to School’s Virtual Classroom, Tips for Microsoft Word. To gain access to the entire course and all of the other great video lessons, join the classroom!

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

Maps vs. Google Maps in iOS6

It’s true. The new Maps app in iOS6 DOES include turn by turn directions but it does NOT include mass transit or walking directions. BUT you can still use Google maps!

1. Open Safari

2. Go to maps.google.com

3. Tap the Share button and choose to save it as an icon to your home page

 

Count Your Words

If you write articles or have to submit your bio for something, they often suggest a limit to how many words you can use. NO, you don’t have to count them by hand. Built into Microsoft Word and Pages is a word count tool.

In Word, click on the Tools menu and choose Word Count

In Pages, click on the Inspector, click on the left icon for information about the document and click on the Info tab.

iPad Tip of the Week

Are You Missing Your Bookmarks Bar?

By default, Safari does NOT show the Bookmarks Bar, but, if you’re like me, it’s where all of your frequently visited website are, and you’d like to be able to access them from your iPad and iPhone too.

To see the Bookmarks Bar in Safari

1. Tap Settings.

2. In the left column tap Safari.

3. In the top section on the right, next to Always Show Bookmarks Bar, slide to On.

4. This is also where you can control whether Safari opens New Tabs in the Background.

5. If you’re not sure what this does, turn it on, open some pages in Safari, and you’ll see that each page stays opened as a tab that you can X to close or tap back onto to reopen.

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4 Ways to Highlight Text

Dragging across a word or a sentence or paragraph is one way to highlight the text so that you can delete it, copy it or cut it.

But here are several alternatives, depending on what you are selecting:

~ To highlight a single word: double click in the word

~ To highlight an entire paragraph, triple click on any word

~ To select a long section of text, click at the beginning of the section, hold down the Shift key and click at the end. Everything between the two clicks will be highlighted

~ In Microsoft Word (not Pages, sorry) you can select two unconnected blocks of text to copy and paste! Highlight one sentence, then hold down the Command key while highlighting the second sentence. Both will be selected. You can copy or cut them and when you paste them, they will appear together, as two separate paragraphs.

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

Apps to Help You See Better

iMagnifier: iMagnifier is just one of several free apps that magnifies text, making it easier to read menus and other printed materials.

Use the Search feature of the App store to see all of the choices and compare their different features and user ratings.

Combine the magnifier with a free Flashlight app, and you can really see better.

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File Names with Microsoft Office 2011

If you can no longer open documents that were created in a previous version of Microsoft Word, Excel or PowerPoint, it’s probably because of the file name. It may be too long or, it contains a slash or other no-longer-acceptable characters.

To change the name of a file:

1. Click once on the item

2. Press the Return key to highlight the file name

3. Type a new name. If you press the left or right arrow key it will move the cursor to the beginning or end of the text

4. Press the Return key when done

Now try opening the file and it will probably work!

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

All About Sounds

You can control what sounds play when different things happen. Maybe you don’t like the sound when you unlock your device. Maybe you prefer NOT to hear a sound every time you receive or send an email or when someone sends you a text or leaves a voicemail.

It’s easy to choose which sounds and alerts you want to hear.

1. Click on Settings.
2. Click on Sounds.
3. Scroll through the list, choosing which you want on and which you want off.

This is also where you can choose a different ringtone and make the Vibrate feature silent.

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Important Tips for Gmail Users

If you send and receive your Gmail mail using Apple Mail’s postage stamp, there are a few settings you need to check.

1. In Mail, under the Mail menu, choose Preferences

2. Click on the Accounts Tab

3. Click on the Gmail account in the left column

4. Click on the Account Information tab to determine if this is a POP account or an IMAP account

~ If it’s IMAP account

1. click on the the Mailbox Behaviors tab and

2. Remove the check mark so that:

3. you DO NOT store Drafts on the server

4. you DO NOT store Sent messages on the server

5. you DO NOT store Junk messages on the server

6. you DO NOT store deleted messages on the server

~ If it’s a POP account

1. click on the Advanced tab

2. Put a check mark next to Remove copy from server and choose When moved from Inbox in the pull down menu. This will help minimize the emails that you delete on one device from appearing on other devices if you haven’t recently checked mail on them.

5. Close the Preferences window and Save your changes

6. You might also want to log into your Gmail account via the internet and be sure that you don’t have a large number of old emails in the Trash there… If you do, take the time to delte them all.

iPad and iPhone Tip of the Week

Split the Keyboard

If you find the keyboard on the iPad to be too cramped, you can split it, separating it so that it fits your typing hands better. This works in both portrait and landscape modes.

1. From the Home screen, tap Settings

2. Tap General

3. Scroll down to Keyboard and tap

4. Turn ON Split Keyboard

To use the split keyboard,

1. Tap any APP that requires typing

2. When the keyboard appears, use two fingers on the keyboard and pinch it open

3. Pinch it closed again to return to the standard keyboard

To move the keyboard around so that it isn’t covering your text

1. Tap and HOLD and drag on the Keyboard Toggle button in the bottom right corner of the keyboard

2. If you hold it too long before dragging, you’ll get the choice to Dock and Merge, meaning put the keyboard back together at the bottom of the screen

 

 

Selecting Items

One of the fastest ways to work more efficiently is to learn how to select more than one item at a time.

For example, instead of selecting and deleting one email at a time, you can select some, or all and then delete them all at the same time.

These steps will work for selecting items on the Desktop, in a folder, as well as in Mail, iPhoto, iTunes.

To Select All:

From the Edit menu, choose Select All, or hold down the Command key and type the letter A for All.

To cherry pick, meaning selecting this one and this one, not this one and this one:

1, Click on the first item

2. Hold down the Command key

3. Click on the next and the next and the next

If you accidentally click on one by accident, keep the Command key down and click on it again and it will un-select it.

To Select a Series, meaning many in a row:

1. Click on the first item in the series

2. Hold down the Shift key

3. Click on the last item in the series and all will be highlighted.

Bonus: You can combine these tricks to select MOST:

Select All or Select a Series Hold down the Command key and click on the items you DON’T want to include.

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Creating Page Breaks in Word Processing Documents

Many of my clients create word processing documents that are longer than one page. They press the Return key to create enough blank lines to have certain text begin on the next page. The only problem with this is that, when you add, delete or change anything, your pages are messed up.

Whether you use Microsoft Word or Pages, there is a simple way to create the desired breaks in your pages.

1. Click your cursor where you want the new page to begin.

2. In Pages, click on the Insert menu and choose Page Break.

In Word, click on the Insert menu, choose Break and slide over to select Page Break.

3. A new page will appear.

To delete the page break, click the cursor beyond the page break and press the Delete key.

Now your pages will always be perfect, no matter how you edit.

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Seeing Fonts in the Font Window

We all know that you can change the fonts of text in Mail as well as most other Apple programs by highlighting the text and then clicking on the Fonts tool.

The Fonts window shows a list of grouped fonts (Collections), the family of typefaces, the possible styles of each typeface and a size to choose.

To see what the font actually looks like, you can reveal the Font Preview Pane. There is a barely noticeable circle below the word “Fonts” and above the “T” tool. If you move your mouse onto this circle, it becomes a tool with arrows.

Drag the tool down to reveal the Font Preview Pane.

You can make the entire window bigger by dragging on the the diagonal lines in the bottom right corner of the window.

Now you can see your font choice and decide if it’s the one you want to use.

Too many steps to read and follow?

The ALL ABOUT MAIL Video Training Series SHOWS you how to work with fonts and so much more. Instead of READING the steps, you can WATCH and PRACTICE on your own. Click here for more info.

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Add Your Signature to Emails

A signature automatically appears at the bottom of your email. It can be your name, your contact information, even a favorite quote. You can create several different signatures and choose which one you want for a particular email.

To create a signature:

1. First, create a new email message so you have a place to type
2. Type everything you want to appear, including choosing the font, size, color
3. Highlight it all
4. From the Edit menu, choose Copy
5. Then, under the Mail menu, choose Preferences
6. Click on the Signatures icon
7. Click the “+” sign at the bottom of the middle column to create a new signature
8. Title it in the middle column where it is highlighted in blue
9. In the right column, delete the text that appears there
10. From the Edit menu, choose Paste

Your typed text will appear.

To actually USE the signature, you have to now assign it to an email account.

1. Drag that named signature from the middle column to on top of the email address in the left column that you want to use it with.

2. Click on that email address and, at the bottom, under Choose Signature, decide whether you always want that signature to appear or, if you choose None, then you can select the signature when you want to use it in a particular email.

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Open at Login

If you turn on your computer and always open the same programs when you start, consider having the Mac open them for you.

In the Dock, click and hold down on the icon of the program, click and hold on Options and choose Open at Login.

If you have programs that mysteriously open when you turn on the computer, you probably have accidentally chosen this option.

To turn it off, click and hold on the icon in the Dock click on Options and reselect Open at Login to remove the checkmark.