Omnivorous Surfer

TechRepublic is a wonderful source for nearly all things technology for me, and this tip really will be useful. In a nutshell, it will do a quick look up for you in a matrix of data. For example, I have a huge...well, really large...spreadsheet of codes and other information for several hundred individuals. When I need to look up  specific data for one individual, I do a find for the name and then look across to find the data, which may be a few columns over. Using the tip in this TechRepublic article, I can prepare the spreadsheet in advance so that I can use drop-down lists for the particular individual and column I want, and the data I need, located at the intersection of that row and column, will "magically" appear at the top of the spreadsheet.

While this is not a beginner operation, it is something even a beginner can do; the directions are very specific and accurate. I had trouble grasping what it would do from reading the text, so I created an identical spreadsheet and followed the steps. It works like a dream. (See results, with my notes of what it does, at left.) If this is something you could use, give it a try. It could be a real timesaver.

Wow! I have put information in a Word table simply for the purpose of sorting. Or sometimes I have used Excel and then copied and pasted into Word. In Office 2007, at least, you don't even have to use a table to use the Table/Sort option. Check this blog post at TechRepublic for details. Cool!

This tip, "Use Word to type on a printed form without a typewriter," from Tech Republic offers a much better solution than the one I have used in the past. It does require a scanner.