SHORTCUTS.

OUTLOOK FIND FILE
If you're working in Outlook and need to locate a file on your computer, you don't have to bother opening Windows Explorer--let Outlook explore for you. To use Outlook to explore your disk, click Other. This will open a menu that contains My Computer. Double-click My Computer, then expand the menu. Locate and double-click the folder you want to explore.

LONG FILENAMES
It's nice to be able to use long file names for your Microsoft Office documents. However, when you save them to a floppy to transfer to another computer (which may not handle the long file names), you may not get the file names you'd like. For example, if you name your files something like Inventory for June 1997 And Inventory for July 1997 the short file names will be Invent~1 and Invent~2.
To see what a short file name(the MS-DOS name) will be before you copy the file to a floppy disk, go to Explorer or My Computer, click on the file's icon, choose File|Properties and click the General tab. There you'll find the MS-DOS name. Knowing what the short file name is will help you adjust the name to make it more readable to another user.

PROPORTIONAL DRAWING
Can you make anything perfect? Sure you can--you can make a perfect square or a perfect circle in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Hold down Shift while you draw an ellipse or a rectangle. To draw a perfect circle or square from the center out, hold down Shift+Ctrl.

OFFICE UPDATE
If you've been having problems with compatibility between Office 97 and documents created in previous Office versions, you'll be glad to know a patch is now available that solves these problems. It's called the Office 97 Service Release, SR-1. SR-1 includes a Word 6.0/95 binary converter for Word 97, Outlook 97 enhancements, Access Snapshot technology, and MMX support. To download the patch, go to http://www.microsoft.com/officefreestuff/office/dlpages/sr1off97.htm
The file is 7 MB in length and requires about an hour to download at 28.8 K. You'll need at least 35 MB of free space on your hard disk to install the patch. The installation takes as much as 45 minutes depending on your hardware.

MICROSOFT OFFICE 97 AND DUAL-BOOT COMPUTERS
If you use a dual-boot setup--booting between Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0--you'll have Microsoft Office installed in each system. If you decide to install Office 97 Service Release 1, you'll need to run the installation once in Windows 95 and again in Windows NT 4.0. You won't have to go through the complete install both times--the second process will install only those files that didn't get modified during your initial install because their location is specific to the operating system. You can snag the Service Release at: http://www.microsoft.com/officefreestuff/office/dlpages/sr1off97.htm

LONG FILENAMES
If you're using Microsoft Office 95, you can assign long file names to your documents. All long file names have a corresponding short file name, one that you can use in MS-DOS and in applications that can't use long file names. The problem is that the short version of some file names can be difficult to interpret.
Let's say you're working on two files, one named Inventory for June 1997, and the other named Inventory for July 1997. The short file names are Invent~1 and Invent~2. If you'd like to see what the short file name will be before you copy the files to a floppy to give to someone else, name and save the file and then choose File|Properties and click the General tab. Look for MS-DOS Name to see what your short file name is.

FLOATING TOOLBARS
Office's floating toolbars can be handy at times. At other times, you'd rather have them docked. To quickly dock a floating toolbar, double-click its title bar. To turn a docked toolbar into a floater, grab it with the mouse (someplace between buttons) and drag it into the document window. To change a floating toolbar's position, grab it with the mouse and release the mouse button when you reach the desired position.

OFFICE ASSISTANT
If you've had enough of the Office Assistant and would like to get rid of it, here's how. Put the Microsoft Office disc into the CD-ROM drive, then click Start|Settings|Control Panel. Double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon to open a dialog box. Now select Microsoft Office 97 and click Add/Remove. Follow the instructions, then deselect Office Assistant. Follow through all the dialog boxes and Office Assistant will be removed from your installation. If you later decide that you miss the Assistant, you can follow the same procedure to restore it. This time select Office Assistant instead of deselecting it.

To turn off the Office Assistant, run Windows Explorer and go to c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Actors (assuming your installation is on drive C:--if it isn't, substitute the correct drive letter for C:). Right-click the Actors folder and choose Rename. Name the folder Ex Actors and press Enter. The next time you start an Office 97 program, the Assistant will not appear.

SPELLCHECK
Microsoft Office spell checking isn't limited to Word. When you generate Excel, PowerPoint, and Access documents, don't forget to use the Spell checker. You can invoke the Spell checker in any Microsoft Office document by pressing F7. You could save yourself a lot of embarrassment during that slide show.

KEEPING YOUR OLD OFFICE
If you'd like to install Microsoft Office 97 and still retain (for a while anyway) your old Office 4.x or Office 95, all your have to do is tell Office 97 Setup not to delete your old version (you'll be asked--just watch for the message).
Because Office 97 will be placed into the Registry, double-clicking a document icon will open the appropriate Office 97 application. However, you can still open an older (Office 4.x or Office 95) application and then open documents by choosing File|Open.
Note, too, that the new ClipArt Gallery will be used by all your installed versions of Office. That is, if you choose to insert ClipArt into a Word 6 document, you'll be presented with the Office 97 version of ClipArt.

UNINSTALLING THE OLD OFFICE
Did you install Microsoft Office 97 while leaving a copy of either Microsoft Office 4.x or Microsoft Office 95 still installed for a test period? When you're ready to get rid of that older version of Microsoft Office, uninstall it instead of deleting it. Insert the Microsoft Office 97 installation CD and open it. Locate and open the ValuPack folder (by double-clicking on the icon). Now locate the Offclean folder and double-click on its icon to open it. Double-click on Offcln97.exe to run it. This program will lead you through the steps necessary to delete your old Microsoft Office installation. This should not bother any of your data, but copy that data to floppy disks anyway. Why take a chance?

TOOLBARS WHERE YOU WANT THEM Version 4.x, 95
Having your toolbars at the top of the window is usually OK. But there are times, especially in Excel or PowerPoint, when you'd like to have a toolbar in a different location to make it easier to access.
If you need to move a toolbar temporarily (or permanently), use the mouse to grab it someplace where there's no button and then drag it out into the window. Now you've turned it into a floating toolbar, and you can move it all around the window.
If you'd like to anchor it in a new position, use the mouse to drag it toward one side of the screen or down to the bottom. When you drag it to an allowed anchor spot, the toolbar icon will elongate. Find the position you want and release the mouse button. If it doesn't elongate, it can't anchor there.

MISSING TOOLBAR
If a toolbar is missing, chances are you accidentally right-clicked on a button and then deselected it. But, however it got lost, it's lost. To get it back, choose View|Toolbars and select the missing toolbar from the menu.
Alternatively, assuming you're not missing all the toolbars, right-click on an existing toolbar to open the toolbar menu.

IMAGE HELP Version 95
If you use images (clip art, photos, drawings, etc.) in your Office 95 documents, there's an image tool available that you just might have overlooked. Insert the Microsoft Office CD and locate the ValuPack folder. Double-click on the folder to open it, and then double-click on the Imager folder.
In the Imager folder, double-click on Setup to install the program. Note: We encountered some problems using the default installation folder. We suggest that you change the folder name to c:\Imager.
Imager will open almost any type of graphics file (GIF, JPEG, and so on) and allows you to crop, resize, and otherwise adjust the pictures. You can also use it to scan in and manipulate images if you have a scanner attached to your computer.

MICROSOFT BACKUP
Since making frequent backups is so important, let's take a quick look at Windows 95's Microsoft Backup. This is a simple (but free) backup program that ships with Windows 95.
You can use Microsoft Backup with a tape drive or with your built-in floppy disk drive. However, Windows 95 doesn't install during the standard setup. So, to use the program, you need to insert your Windows 95 CD and then choose Start|Settings|Control Panel. When Control Panel opens, double-click on Add/Remove Programs.
When the dialog box opens, click on the Windows Setup tab and then click on Disk Tools in the list. Click on Details and select the check box labeled Backup. Click on OK to record the selection and then click on OK again to start the installation.

OUTLOOK
If you're already using an e-mail program, you might want to consider switching to Microsoft Outlook. Since you can use Outlook to keep track of your contacts and appointments, and to keep track of all your mailing addresses, why not go ahead and consolidate all the features by using Outlook for e-mail?

OPEN A DOCUMENT
Ever wish you could open a document with more than one application? Well, you can. Let's say you usually open text files with NotePad, but sometimes you'd like to open them using Word for Windows. To do this, open Explorer and choose View|Options. Then click File Types and locate the Text Document entry. Double-click the Text icon and when the dialog box opens, click New. In the Action text entry box, enter Open and the name of the application you want to use. In this case, you can enter Open (Word for Windows). Now click in the "Application used to perform action" text box and click Browse. Locate the application you want to use (Winword.EXE) and double-click its icon. Click OK, then click Close twice to close all the dialog boxes. To open the .TXT file with NotePad, just double-click the icon as usual. To open it with Word for Windows, right-click the document's icon and choose Open (Word for Windows).

MAKE A FOLDER TOOLBAR
If you're working in Word (or one of the other Office programs), you might find it handy to keep the contents of a particular folder available for use at all times. One way to do this is to make a toolbar of the folder.
To make a folder toolbar, right-click on the Office toolbar (MOM) and choose Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click on the Toolbars tab. Now click on Add Toolbar and select the radio button labeled Make Toolbar for this Folder and click on Browse. Select the folder you want to add to the MOM toolbar and click on Add. Click on OK, and OK again

TOOLBARS YOUR WAY
Would you like to change the icon of one of the existing toolbar buttons? No problem in Office 97. Choose View, Toolbars, Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click on the Commands tab. Now go to the toolbar and click on the button you'd like to change. Now click on Modify Selection and choose Change Button Image. You can now select a new image and then click on OK. When you return to the Customize dialog box, click on Close to close the dialog box and save the changes.

MORE ON TOOLBAR ICONS
If you'd like to use some special icons in your Office 97 toolbars, try this. Locate an image that you think would make a good icon. You might be able to locate some images by inserting ClipArt into a PowerPoint slide. Once you've copied the image to the Clipboard, choose View, Toolbars, Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click on the Command tab, and then go to the toolbar and click on the icon you want to replace. Next, Click on Modify Selection and choose Paste Button Image. This will paste your copied image into the toolbar button. Click on Close to close the dialog box and record your change.

GETTING RID OF TEMP FILES Version 4.x, 95
Usually, you'll only get leftover temp files when your system has shut down abnormally. Office programs keep temp files while a file is open, then delete them when you close the file. If the system shuts down (or locks up) while the Office program is still running, the files don't get deleted.
Before you delete temp files, check your documents to make sure they're all intact. Or, since you probably have many documents and no time to check them all, copy the temp files to a floppy to keep around for a while. After you make the copy, go ahead and delete the temp files.

RESERVED WORDS
Although you can now use long file names, and almost anything goes, there are still a few names that look like valid file names but won't work. These names are reserved System words. When you attempt to use a reserved system name for one of your files, you'll be informed that you can't do it. Here's a list of the words that you might as well not try to use (unless you just want to see the error message).

CUSTOMIZE NOW
To select toolbars on the fly, locate a blank spot on any toolbar and right-click it. A pop-up menu will, well, pop up. From the menu, you can choose which toolbar you'd like to view, or which toolbar you'd like to stop viewing. You can also get to the Customize Toolbars command using the same technique. Right-click a blank spot on a toolbar and choose Customize.
Note: This works in any Microsoft Office 4.x (or 95) program.

E-MAIL AND MORE E-MAIL
Do you have more than one e-mail address? If so, Microsoft Office 97 includes a great e-mail program called Outlook. If you thought Outlook was only a calendar, you need to look again. Let's look at how to set up some e-mail addresses in Outlook.
Open Outlook and choose Tools, Services. When the Services dialog box opens, click Add. This will open the Add Service to Profile dialog box. Select Internet Mail and click OK. This opens the Mail Account Properties dialog box. Fill in your personal information under the General, Servers, and Connection tab. When finished. Click OK.

To add another account, repeat the procedure just described. With multiple accounts, choose Tools, Check For New Mail On. When the dialog box opens, select each account that you want to use to check for mail. Click OK to check for the mail.
If you choose Tools, Check For New Mail, Outlook will check for mail on all accounts.

HYPERLINKS
You can enter a hyperlink of any kind into a Microsoft Office 97 document. And it doesn't have to be a link to a Web site. Let's suppose that you'd like to use a hyperlink in a Word document to open a specific Excel file.
Choose Insert, Hyperlink. When the Insert Hyperlink dialog box opens, enter the Excel file name. Or click Browse and locate the file. Now click OK to close the dialog box and save your addition. When you click the hyperlink, the Excel document will open.
You can also use the hyperlink to open a specific sheet in the Excel workbook. To do this, right-click your new hyperlink and choose Hyperlink, Edit Hyperlink. Click the text box labeled "Named location in file (Optional)" and enter Page_2  Now click OK.
At this point, you need to tell Excel what you're doing. So start Excel and open your test worksheet. Navigate to Sheet 2 and choose Insert, Name, Define. When the Define Name dialog box opens, type Page_2  into the Names in Workbook text entry box. Click Add to add the new name and then click OK to record the change and close the dialog box. Now exit Excel and go back to your Word document. Click the hyperlink, and Excel will open displaying Sheet 2.

SHRINKING THE ASSISTANT
If you use Office Assistant, you might like to make it just a bit smaller than the default size. All you have to do is click Help to activate the Assistant and then use the mouse to drag it to a smaller size.
Even with the smaller size, you may not want the Office Assistant to open all the time. If you'd like to seek some help without the Assistant's input, choose Help, Contents and Index.

Here's another way to make the Assistant less obtrusive. By default, the Assistant makes noises when it appears and disappears. At first, you might think this is cute. But, when you get sick of the noises, click the Assistant Options button. When the Office Assistant dialog box opens, click the Options tab. Now locate and deselect the check box labeled Make sounds. Now click OK to save your selection and close the dialog box.
You can also move the Assistant up to the top of the screen in the toolbar area. If you close the Assistant in this position, it will appear there again the next time it opens

BETTING FAVORITES
Want to get to that commonly used folder or file very quickly? Here's a trick that works in all Office 97 programs.
Choose File, Open. Now navigate to a folder that you'd like to access quickly in the future. Click the Add to Favorites icon (it's the one with the plus sign in its upper-right corner). Note that you can add folders and individual files.
To quickly open a folder that you've added, Choose File, Open and then click Look in Favorites (it's the button with a star in the centre of the folder icon). Your favourite selections will appear in the dialog box.

HYPERLINKS
In Word, PowerPoint, or Excel, you can very easily add a Hyperlink to an AutoShape. The only real requirement is that the shape be something other than a line, connector, or freeform figure.
Draw your AutoShape and then, while it's still selected, choose Insert, Hyperlink. When the Insert Hyperlink dialog box opens, type the URL (or bookmark or file) into the Link To File or URL entry box. You must type in the complete URL. For example, type http://www.pcworld.com and then click OK. The entire shape is now the Hyperlink, so clicking anywhere in the shape will send you to the URL. If you wish to add text to the AutoShape, right-click it and choose Add Text.

RELOCATING BUTTONS - Version 4.x, 95
To relocate the toolbar buttons all you have to do is hold down the Alt key and use the mouse to drag a button to a new location. You can also use this method to get rid of those buttons that you never use. Hold down the Alt key and drag the unwanted button onto the document window.
This method works in Word and PowerPoint but not in Excel or Access. In Excel and Access, choose View, Toolbars, Customize. While the Customise dialog box is open, you can use the Alt key plus the mouse to drag buttons to new locations. To delete buttons, drag them to the document window--Alt key not needed.

READY-MADE MACROS
Microsoft Office 95 Professional Version contains some Word macros that you may want to use. The only problem is that they aren't available unless you make them available.
To locate the macros, choose Tools, Macro and click Organizer. When Organiser opens, you'll have two views of Normal.dot. Click the Close button on the left side of the dialog box to close Normal.dot. Now click Open and then go to the Office folder. In the Office folder, locate the Winword folder.
Double-click Winword to open it. Now you should now see a folder named Macros. Double-click it. In the Macros folder, you should see a list of macros: Convert7.dot, Layout7.dot, Macros7.dot, Present7.dot, and Tables7.dot.

To work with these macros, click one to select it and click OK. Now click the macros inside the DOT files and click Copy to copy them to the Normal.dot (on the right side of the Organizer dialog box). Repeat this process for each of the macro-containing DOT files in Winword\Macros.
After you copy all the macros to Normal.dot, click Close in the Organizer dialog box. Now you can choose Tools, Macro, Macros to view the newly loaded macros. Select a macro and click Edit to see what the macro does.

SCHEDULE +
If you want to use Schedule+ on a network, select Group-Enabled Mode from the dialog box that opens the first time you run the program. If you select Don't Ask Me This Question Again, you'll have to reinstall Schedule+ to change the mode.
When you're running in Group-Enabled mode, you can use the Planner to check the blocks of time that other users have scheduled.

POINT SIZE
The point size of a font refers to that font's height, and there are 72 points to an inch. Therefore, a 72-point font will be 1 inch high, and a 36-point font will be one-half inch high. Although most TrueType fonts show 72 points as the maximum size, most will look OK even larger. If you need a 2-inch tall headline, select the text you want to set to 144 points and choose Format, Font. When the Font dialog box opens, double-click in the Size entry box to select the current contents and then type in 144. Click OK, and your selected text will appear in all its 144-point glory.
This works because TrueType fonts are vector drawings rather than bitmaps. This allows Word to expand the size while retaining the same resolution you have at smaller sizes. If you try this, you'll find that 144-point fonts will print quite nicely.
Note: Bitmapped fonts will look jagged when expanded. The TrueType fonts have TT before the name for easy identification.

KEEP TRACK OF IT ALL
If you'd like to keep track of your daily computer work, try Microsoft Outlook's Journal feature. Run Outlook by clicking Start and choosing Microsoft Outlook. Choose Go, Journal. Next choose Tools, Options and then select the check box labelled E-mail Message. This will keep track of all your e-mail. If you select all the check boxes in the Also Record Files From area, the Journal will keep track of your Microsoft Office usage.
After you make all your selections, click OK to close the dialog box and then choose File, Exit to close Outlook. Now, continue working with Office programs and then later go back and run Outlook again. Choose Go, Journal, and you'll see a record of what you've been up to.

PRINTING FROM A FILE.
When you need to print several Word (or other Office) documents, you can do the job quite easily if you right-click the document file and choose Send To, Printer. This will send the document directly to your printer. The only problem with this is that the printer may not be an option in the Send To menu. So let's look at how to make it an option.
Run Windows Explorer and navigate to \Windows\SendTo. Now, click Start and choose Settings, Printers. When the Printers window opens, use the right mouse button to drag your printer's icon to the SendTo folder in Windows Explorer. When you release the mouse button, choose Create Shortcut(s) Here from the menu. In the SendTo folder, click the shortcut's name once, then wait a second or so and click it again. Type in Printer and press Enter.
Now, when you right-click a file and choose Send To, one of the options will be Printer.

HIRE A NEW ASSISTANT.
If you like the Office Assistant (many people do), you might like to see what's available in the way of new assistants. Are you tired of the default leering animated paper clip? All you have to do is press F1 to open the Assistant and then click Options. When the Office Assistant dialog box opens, click the Gallery tab. Now, click the Back and Forward buttons to see what assistants are available to you. When you find one you like, just click OK to select the new assistant.
If you'd like to try something other than the assistants currently available, you can go to the Microsoft site and download some new ones. You'll find them at http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldWord.htm All you have to do is select the ones you want to download.
You can either install them while online, or save them to disk and install them later. We recommend saving them to disk so you'll still have them if you need to reinstall Office.

RELOCATING CLIP ART.
Rather than inserting the Office 97 CD when you need extra artwork, you can put the extra clip art onto your hard disk. In these days of superlarge hard disk drives, there is usually plenty of room available. However, rather than just copy the clip art files to the hard disk, you need to install them. When installed properly, the additional art is available anytime you use the Gallery.
To install the clip art, put the Office CD into your CD-ROM drive. If you have AutoStart enabled, the Office 97 window opens. Click Browse. Locate the ClipArt folder and double-click it. In the ClipArt folder, double-click the Setup icon. Follow through with the Setup, selecting the files you want to install. When Setup finishes, you'll have all the selected pictures available to you in the Clip Gallery.

PLEASE TURN THAT ASSISTANT OFF!
The Office Assistant is an appealing little tool--at first. But after a while, the fascination wears off and everyone seems to want to get rid of the Assistant.
To turn off the Office Assistant, run Windows Explorer and go to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Actors (where C: is the drive on which Microsoft Office is installed). If your system doesn't use C:, substitute the correct drive letter. Right-click the Actors folder and choose Rename. Name the folder Non-Actors and press Enter. The Office Assistant will stop trying to assist you.  

WORDART IN THE GALLERY.
You can add any picture file to the Clip Gallery. The catch is that you need to get your WordArt into a file before you can put it in the Clip Gallery. Here's one method.
Run PowerPoint and open a blank slide. Choose File, Page Setup and set the page to 3 inches by 3 inches. Now insert your WordArt. When finished with the WordArt, choose File, Save As. When the Save As dialog box opens, type a name for the file and click the arrow at the right side of the Save As Type list box. Select GIF (*.gif) from the list, and click Save to save the new file.
Now choose Insert, Picture, ClipArt. When the Clip Gallery opens, click Import Clips. In the Add Clip Art To Clip Gallery dialog box, locate your new GIF file and double-click to import it and close the dialog box. The Clip Properties dialog box opens now. Click the category in which you want your WordArt to appear, then click OK to close the dialog box and save your selections.
To use the added WordArt, click Pictures and locate the category. You should now see your new addition. Click to select it, then click Insert to place it into a slide. Note that you can also use the new Clip Gallery addition in Word and Excel.

MY DOCUMENTS FOLDER.
We suggest you don't get rid of the My Documents folder permanently, because programs other than Microsoft Office use it. This doesn't mean you can't store your Microsoft Office data in another folder, though.
In Word 97, choose Tools, Options; when the Options dialog box opens, click the File Locations tab. Select Documents and click Modify. Now choose a new folder and click OK to record your change. Click OK again to close the Options dialog box and apply your new setting.
Now run Excel and choose Tools, Options. When the Options dialog box opens, click the General tab. In the Default File Location entry box, type your new folder and its path (for example, c:\data\mystuff). Click OK to close the dialog box and save your changes.  
Next run PowerPoint and choose Tools, Options. When the Options dialog box appears, click the Advanced tab. Type the new folder and path into the Default File Location entry box and click OK to close the dialog box and save your settings.
Finally, in Access, choose Tools, Options and click the General tab when the Options dialog box opens. Type the new path and folder into the Default Database Folder entry box and click OK.

SWITCHING BETWEEN DOCUMENTS.
You have three Word documents open and are working on them simultaneously, perhaps you are copying portions of one to the other. Normally, to switch from one to the other, you would choose Window and then select the next document to work on, but the fast way to switch between Word (or Excel or PowerPoint) documents is to press Ctrl-F6. This will let you toggle between open documents in the same Windows program.

PREVENTING OFFICE SHORTCUT BAR FROM SHOWING.
There is a way to set up the MS office shortcut bar for those who do not want it to open each time the system starts. First, run Windows Explorer and navigate to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office. Now, hold down Ctrl and drag the Microsoft Office shortcut bar to the Start button. Next, close the MS Office shortcut bar, and when you see the message You are closing the Office Shortcut Bar The Office Shortcut Bar will start again automatically when you start Windows Do you want the Office Shortcut Bar to start automatically when you start Windows? answer No.
From now on, you can open the MS Office shortcut bar from the Start menu. Closing it will no longer give you the message, since the shortcut is no longer in the Startup folder.

SHORTCUTS USING SCREENTIPS.
If you'd like to have the ScreenTip also display the shortcut keys, in Word choose View, Toolbars, Customize. When the Customize dialog box opens, click the Options tab. Now, select the Show Shortcut Keys In ScreenTips check box and click Close to dismiss the dialog box and save your changes.

OFFICE 2000 TOOLS AND UTILITIES.
The Microsoft Office 2000 Resource Kit is now available and you can find information online at http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2000/default.htm
If you think the Resource Kit is just for network administrators and IT professionals, check out this Web site and you'll find several tools, utilities, and support documents. You'll also find a few treats for the average user - wizards, sample files, and tons of information. There's even a white paper on the new Office 2000 Web components.

OFFICE ERROR MESSAGES.
Microsoft offers an Excel worksheet that lists all the Office error messages and their corresponding values. The name of this workbook is Errormsg.xls and it's available by download at http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork/2000/appndx/toolbox.htm#custalrt
Once you've downloaded the file, run the EXE file, which you should find in the folder Program Files\ORKTools\Download\Documents\Cstalert The EXE file will install several files, including Errormsg.xls. At that point, simply open the workbook in Excel. Each Office application has its own worksheet--just click the appropriate tab to view the error messages for an application. Since you're working with an Excel workbook, you can easily add your own notes and information to each record.

PROBLEM WITH COMPRESSED GRAPHICS.
If you run an OEM version of Office for Windows Version 4.3c-CD, you may have a problem inserting pictures into a document. When you attempt a picture insertion in Word, you might get the message Word cannot start the graphics filter (C:\WINDOWS\MSAPPS\GRPHFLT\GIFIMP.FLT) where the filename shown in parentheses is the graphics filter name that you would use to read the picture file. In Excel, you might not get an error message, but the picture won't be inserted. In PowerPoint, you get the message Sorry, C:\WINDOWS\MSAPPS\GRPHFLT\EPSIMP.FLT is not a valid filter. You should reinstall it.
This happens because some of the graphic filters that are installed during Setup are still in compressed format. These files are as follows:
CGMIMP.FLT    DRWIMP.FLT    EPSIMP.FLT     GIFIMP.FLT    PCXIMP.FLT    PICTIMP.FLT
TIFFIMP.FLT    WPGEXP.FLT    WPGIMP.FLT  You'll find all these files in the \Windows\MSApps\Grphflt folder.

To extract the files, first find and then copy EXTRACT.EXE to the root directory of your hard disk. Go to the MS-DOS prompt and type the following (all on one line) in this format: extract /Y D:\ /L c:\windows\msapps\grphflt D: is the drive that contains the Microsoft Office CD. To this, directly following the /L switch, add the path for the directory and .CAB file that contains the filter you need to extract. The line that begins c:\windows should be your Microsoft Windows directory and the name of the graphic filter you're extracting.
Let's suppose that you're extracting CGMIMP.FLT. You'd type on one command line extract /Y d:\setup.adm\disk27\msoff27.cab /L c:\windows\msapps\grphflt cgmimp.flt -
Note: Using the /Y switch will allow Extract to overwrite the existing compressed file. The space before the filename is important--make sure you don't omit it.

MEMORY PROBLEMS USING MICROSOFT OFFICE 97.
If you use Copy And Paste to insert a very large number of pictures into a slide. Then need to open Word for Windows. Instead of getting Word, you get a dialog box that the system is low on memory (the dialog box suggests you shut down some programs and try again.) Only to find that you still can’t run Word?
What apparently happens is that huge operations take up the memory. When you stop the program, Windows 95/98 doesn't release all the memory, so you get the low-memory dialog box. When you restart the computer, the memory starts from scratch and all of it is available for your programs.

ADDING OFFICE COMPONENTS FROM A NEW DISK DRIVE.
Offhand, you wouldn't think adding a second hard disk drive to your computer would have any effect on your Microsoft Office installation. Here's a potential problem though: Suppose you decide to add some Office components after you install the new disk drive. In this case, you probably installed Office from a CD in drive D. Now the CD-ROM drive is drive E.
Office knows from whence it came, so when you attempt to modify your installation, Office will tell you that it can't find the requested files on drive D. The solution is to use the Setup on the CD rather than the one in your Office folder. When you do this, Setup will completely reinstall Office. Choose Custom to make sure you get all the components you had originally. From now on, Office will look for its files on drive E.

USING MS-DOS LONG FILE NAMES.
The file names in MS_DOS are limited to 127 characters by default. If you have names longer than this, you may need to change the setting. Open the MS-DOS window and type: shell=c:\windows\command.com /u:255 then press Enter. This will tell MS-DOS to allow names up to 255 characters long. When you enter long file names that contain spaces in the MS-DOS window, you need to enclose them in quotes. For example, c:\data\This is my very long file name with many spaces.doc won't work, but "c:\data\This is my very long file name with many spaces.doc" will work.

PRINT WORD'S FONTS.
All these fonts are in the c:\Windows\Fonts folder. To get a printout, click Start, Run, type command and press Enter. Now enter cd\windows\fonts and press Enter. Next, type dir > Font.txt and press Enter. Type Exit and press Enter to close the MS-DOS window.
To print the font information, run Windows Explorer and go to the \Windows\Fonts folder. Locate Font.txt and double-click its icon. When the list opens in Notepad, choose File, Print to print the contents of the Fonts folder.

GET MORE HELP WITH ERROR MESSAGES.
PowerPoint 2000 can check Microsoft's Web site for updated help information when it runs across an error it doesn't know what to do with
To get access to this additional help, you need to download and run EXTALERT.EXE, a small (139KB) file that installs Microsoft Office 2000 Customizable Alerts. You'll find details and a download link at http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/2000/downloadDetails/alerts.htm
Once you install it, PowerPoint 2000 and the other Office 2000 programs will, in some instances, offer you a Web Help button when they display error messages. Click Web Help and you're on your way to Microsoft's site for the latest help information.

INSTALLING ALL THE CLIPART.
To install ClipArt, insert the Office 97 CD into your CD-ROM drive. If you have AutoStart enabled, the Office 97 window opens. Click Browse, then find the ClipArt folder and double-click it. In the ClipArt folder, double-click the Setup icon. Follow through with the Setup, selecting the files you want to install. After the setup finishes (it may take a while), your Office 97 programs can access all the ClipArt you elected to install on the hard disk.

PRINTING FONTS.
In addition to printing out a list of fonts on a system, want to print a list that shows what the fonts actually look like?
Then go to http://www.ozemail.com.au/~scef/ and download Sue Fisher's program, The Font Thing. This well written freeware program will do exactly what you want and much more.

DOWNLOAD OFFICE ASSISTANTS.
Want a more entertaining Assistant? Head over to Microsoft's Office Update Web site for more options: http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/downloadCatalog/dldoutlook.asp
Select one of the Assistants (look for the word Assistant in the Type column), such as Office 97 Assistant: Earl The Cat; then follow the download and installation instructions.

RESOLVING COMPRESSED GRAPHICS PROBLEM.
To eliminate the problem with compressed pictures, use the Extract utility to extract the graphic filter files. You'll find the files in the following directories/CAB files:

CGMIMP.FLT--SETUP.ADM\DISK27\MSOFF27.CAB
DRWIMP.FLT--SETUP.ADM\DISK27\MSOFF27.CAB
EPSIMP.FLT--SETUP.ADM\DISK27\MSOFF27.CAB
GIFIMP.FLT--SETUP.ADM\DISK27\MSOFF27.CAB
PCXIMP.FLT--SETUP.ADM\DISK27\MSOFF27.CAB
PICTIMP.FLT--SETUP.ADM\DISK24\MSOFF24.CAB
TIFFIMP.FLT--SETUP.ADM\DISK27\MSOFF27.CAB
WPGEXP.FLT--SETUP.ADM\DISK20\MSOFF20.CAB
WPGIMP.FLT--SETUP.ADM\DISK28\MSOFF28.CAB

To extract the files, first copy EXTRACT.EXE to the root directory of your hard disk. Go to the MS-DOS prompt and type (all on one line): extract /y D:\ /L c:\windows\msapps\grphflt
D: is the drive that contains the Microsoft Office CD, L is the directory and .CAB file that contains the filter you need to extract; c:\windows is your Microsoft Windows directory and is the name of the graphic filter that you're extracting.

Let's suppose that you're extracting CGMIMP.FLT. You'd type extract /y d:\setup.adm\disk27\msoff27.cab /lc:\windows\msapps\grphflt cgmimp.flt 
Note: Using the /y switch will allow Extract to overwrite the existing compressed file. The space before the filename is important, make sure you don't omit it.

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