PPT: Applying the Footer to All Slides

Sometimes you need to reapply the footer to all of your slides to get back missing page numbers and other footer-type information. To do this task:

1. Click on Insert -> Slide Number
2. Check the Footer box
3. Click Apply  to All

[Source Microsoft]

Word: Random Lorem Ipsum Text

Did you ever need to insert some random text into a document? Here are two magic ways to create random text in Word 2007 & 2010:

Random Text: 

Type "=rand(x,y)" in your document and then hit Enter.

Lorem Ipsum:

Type "=lorem(x,y)" in your document and then hit Enter.

x is the number of paragraphs.

y is the number of sentences per paragraph.

[Source GroovyPost or MS Support]

Macro: Repetitive Replacing of Table Cells

Here is today's time saver:

I had some tables (actually 1000 pages of tables!) where I needed to replace cells containing various text (denoted by comments from the SME) with a standard word (which was Reserved in this case). Normally, I would triple-click in the cell and then control-v to paste in the text (5 clicks/keys), but there were too many places that I needed to make this change.

Using the following macro this task was reduced to two clicks, once in the cell and then once on the button for the macro. There was one other requirement for this macro, which was that if the cell was in bold, it received slightly different text.

Sub makeCellReserved()
   Selection.SelectCell

   If Selection.Range.Bold = True Then
       Selection.Text = "RESERVED"
   Else
       Selection.Text = "Reserved"
   End If
End Sub

AIT: Highlighting Variants

This post describes how I use highlighting and release states in Author-It to make reviewing documents easier. This procedure assumes that you have a main book along with another book that uses variants of the objects in the main book. The variants are either variant topics or embedded variant topics. 

By using this procedure, the reviewer can review one complete document, and then just review the highlighted sections in the second document.

Setup

1. Open AIT Administrator
2. Select Security -> Release States
3. Add a new state:

a. Right click -> Add State
b. State name: HighlightVar
c. Right click over the new state, select Check Row
d. Click the box near the end of the row for HighlightVar / Review Color
e. Select yellow
f. Check that the boxes are checked for all relevant users

4. Do step 3 again to add the state DoNotHighlightVar, but skip steps d and e.

5. Close AIT Administrator
6. Open AIT
7. In your library, sort the objects by variant
8. Select (using Ctrl+click) all variants of the default object
9. Right mouse click, then select Change Release State -> HighlightVar

The variant of the main document can now be published with highlighted sections.