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Word Shortcut - Rearranging Paragraphs (PC and Mac)

If you ever want to rearrange the paragraphs of a document, this tip is for you.  It eliminates the need to cut a paragraph, move to a new location and then paste it.  It is especially useful if you are only moving the paragraph a short distance. (Cut and paste is still the best choice for moving a paragraph a long distance).  It works in Word, Outlook messages and on PowerPoint slides.

Here's how to move a paragraph:

1. Click anywhere in the paragraph you want to move (no need to highlight the whole paragraph).

2. Press and hold down the Shift and Alt keys together. (Shift and Control on Macs)

3. Use the Up-Arrow or Down-Arrow key to move the selected paragraph up or down, one paragraph at a time.

     Additional Uses:

You can also select multiple adjacent paragraphs and move them up or down as a group.
This technique is also handy to  rearrange the rows of a table.   Click anywhere in a cell in the row, press and hold down the Shift and Alt keys,  and then use an arrow key to move the row up or down.
It can be used to rearrange items in a bulleted list.

Note:  A paragraph ends when you press the Enter key.  You can see the symbol when you have Show Formatting symbols enabled.

Outlook - Sorting on 2 Keys (PC)

Most people know that you can sort your messages based on the content of any column in Outlook by clicking on the column header.  For example, if I click on From, I can sort my message by sender.  If I click on From again, Outlook reverses the sort order.  If you want to do a secondary sort based on another column, sort on the primary field, hold down the Shift key and click on the secondary column header (Received - for example)  Your messages will now be sorted by sender, and for each sender, they will be ordered by the date received.

Shrink to Fit in Word

If, when you complete a document, it leaves a small amount of text on the final page, you can reduce the number of pages by 1.  This is especially nice if you are using duplex printing and don't want to waste a sheet to print a few words.  You could reduce the font size or decrease the margin size to shrink the document.   However, there's an easier way that cuts out any guess work on font size or margin size.
 

From the Print menu, select Print Preview

On the Print Preview tab, click on Shrink One Page in the Preview Group. You're done!  Here's the result. 

Excel - Using Text to Speech (PC)

This is a feature that instructs Excel to read out loud the contents of a range of cells.  It is handy for proofing data - comparing what's on the screen to a paper copy.  You can free up your hands to point to the data on paper while Excel reads the values.  You don't need to move the mouse or cursor to move from cell to cell.  It can be used to speak numbers or text in cells.

To gain access to the necessary commands, you must add them to the Quick Access Toolbar.   Here are Microsoft's recommended steps.

In step 4,  here are the commands from which you can choose.  I'd suggest selecting all 5 of them.

 

You can see these icons below on the Quick Access Toolbar.

Now you are ready to try the commands out.

• Enter some data into you spreadsheet.

• Highlight any range of cells with data.

• Click on either Speak Cells by Columns or Speak Cells by Rows, and then click on Speak Cells. 

• Excel will begin to read the cell contents one at a time till it gets to the end of the selected range.
  To stop the speech, click the Speak Cells - Stop Speaking Cells button.

• Here's a link for further information:
  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/288986

• Even thought the article is based on Excel 2002, it still has helpful information about the default behavior or these commands.