Five tips and tricks for using Word for business

Every business needs an official letterhead. You don't have to buy it. If you know what you want you can create it in Word and save it as a template to

use time after time.

Keywords:

Small Business Ideas, Small Business Start Up, Small Business Plans

Article Body:

Most people don't use all the features of their software. We tend to pinpoint the most helpful and stick with them.

Here are five features in Microsoft Word that could save you time and money.

Create and Design Your Company's Letterhead, Templates and More

Every business needs an official letterhead. You don't have to buy it. If you know what you want you can create it in Word and save it as a template to

use time after time.

A letterhead doesn't have to be complicated. It can be as simple as the company name, address and telephone number. Word provides lots of fonts,

and you can change the size and style.

You may want to add art. You can scan in your logo and use it. Or alternatively make use of Microsoft Office's Clipart Gallery. There you'll find

thousands of royalty-free images available to users of Microsoft Office.

Microsoft also offers free templates for letters, labels and forms. They can be found in the Template Gallery.

Send the Same Letter to Many People Without Addressing Each Separately

Word's Mail Merge makes it easy to send the same letter to lots of different people.

It uses a list of names and addresses from a table. You can create the table in Word, Access (a Microsoft database program) or even Outlook. All are

part of Microsoft Office .

This works best with planning. You have many options; this example uses Excel but there are other ways to achieve the same thing.

Start by writing your letter. The same letter goes to everyone; you can't do much customisation. When you write it, leave space for the person's

address and the salutation.

When setting up Excel , you need the person's name and address. You'll also need a salutation field. If Rocky Jones is one of the people receiving the

letter, you might want the salutation to be Dear Rocky. If your relationship with Dr. Rocky Jones is more formal, the salutation might be Dear Dr. Jones. So

the names in the Salutation column would be "Rocky" or "Dr. Jones."

Now open your letter. Go to Tools > Letters and Mailings > Mail Merge Wizard . Follow the instructions on screen. You can

also make things easier by addressing envelopes and labels with Mail Merge.

Add a Watermark to a Document so Everyone Knows it's a Draft

If you are circulating a proposal to your staff, you don't want it mistaken for the finished product. A good way to avoid that is a watermark that says

"Draft".

A watermark is clearly visible on the document but does not damage the legibility of the writing. You can use text or a picture, black and white or

colour.

To use a watermark, go to Format > Background > Printed Watermark . Make your selections and click OK. If you expect to

use a watermark regularly, create a template (see above).

Be careful not to go overboard. There's a fine line between cool and irritating. If the watermark makes a document hard to read then people just won't

bother.

Keep an Eye on Changes that People are Making to Documents

When a document is returned to you, it can be difficult to see changes made by others. Word will highlight them so you can see what's been altered.

Here are the instructions for Word 2002/ 2003:

• First, open the newer Word document.

• Click Tools > Compare and Merge Documents .

• Browse to the original Word document.

• Click it once to highlight it.

• In the lower right corner, click the drop-down box and select "Merge Into Current Document."

For Word 97 and Word 2000:

• Click Tools .

• Go to Track Changes .

• Click Compare Document .

• Find the original Word document and click it once so it is highlighted.

• Click Open .

Sometimes developing a document is so arduous that we lose sight of what we're trying to do. Looking back at older versions can help.

That's easy to do in Word. Click File > Versions . Select "Automatically save a version on close." Every time you close the

document, that version will be saved.

When you want to look at an old version, follow the same path. All of the versions will be listed in the box. The most recent will be on top. Highlight the

version you want and click Open.

You can turn off this "versioning" feature by clearing the check mark from "Automatically save a version on close." Or, you can delete individual

versions. Just highlight the ones you want to lose and click delete.

Freelance Design tricks - How to get away with murder in the workplace

Every large design company whether it's a multi-national branding corporation or a regular down at heel tatty magazine publisher needs to fill holes in the workforce. If the canny freelance designer plays his or her cards right, he can earn a tidy sum while essentially loafing at home. Here's how...

Keywords:

graphic designer careers, graphics software, graphics tutorials, graphic designers, logo creation, freelancer resources, graphic designer jobs, employment, web page design, free graphics, website desi

Article Body:

Every large design company whether it's a multi-national branding corporation or a regular down at heel tatty magazine publisher needs to fill holes in the workforce. If the canny freelance designer plays his or her cards right, he can earn a tidy sum while essentially loafing at home. Here's how...

Have a handy repotoire of excuses lined up
Everyone has heard of the line 'the dog ate it...' or 'I left it in my jeans when it went into the wash' to avoid handing in an assignment but how often do we actually use them? Some of these old well worn excuses are due for a renaissance period. A boss is far more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt when you use one of these old dogs as they will question your sanity for attempting to use such an audacious excuse. Reverse psychology. Use it to your advantage

Backstabbing - Is it so wrong?
A favourite trick to pull on another member of staff is to sow the seeds of doubt in the rest of the full-timers minds about your chosen fall guy. Office politics can play a huge role in screwing with their heads. Why not try surreptiously planting somebody elses scissors or staplers in the victims drawer and asking to borrow them. When they can't find them say you saw so and so using them earlier. Sit back and watch the tension build.

An apple a day...
Being a teachers pet can sometimes work wonders when you haven't bothered to layout those pages that were given to you 3 weeks ago. Coming into the office armed with a nice rich chocolate gateau for everyone will smooth over any resentment for your tarde lackadaisacal attitude to work. Another good idea is to be the coffee gopher at regular half hour intervals. When you're gone they'll really miss you and because of the caffeine withdrawal will be snapping at one another.

Outsource and reap the rewards
Everybodies doing it so why not you? If you've landed a hefty long term design job that is a regular payer, why not bump your rates up and get somebody in India or China to knock out the work for you. Unethical? Perhaps but since when did you consider the plight of individuals in far flung places? You can explain away the discrepances in language and grammar by claiming you've been working all hours

Getting away with murder
There comes a time and place when despite your best efforts to cover your ass and blame others for your laziness and ineptitude, you are going to be found out. At this stage with disgruntled colleagues lining up to put in a bad word about you, there may be no other option left but to use the failsafe rear guard action of killing someone. This will have the effect of distracting attention from your less than honest approach to handing in graphic designs on time. It's probably best to avoid murdering the boss as questions are likely to be raised and you may find the new apointed editor will not see you as part of the new team format. No, go for one of the more replacable members of staff such as Ian the sub-editor, the resulting fracas will buy you enough time to work on some new scams at another organisation

So there you go, use these tricks as and when you feel they may benefit you. But be careful the cops are sometimes pretty keen to clamp down on office genocide - only use this last option under extreme duress.