Window Pains

Events

• The Window Pains meeting meets on the third Friday of the month.
• Meetings start at 8:00PM at SPRS in Scotch Plains, NJ.
• Chairperson is John Raff.
• This meeting is the combination of the older PC Symposium, PC User Group and Random Access Session which are now defunct. The intent is to provide the members with Windows oriented application discussions both Microsoft and Linux style. The presentation will be directed toward the more heavy technological level of attendee, although newbies are welcome to come.

Events:

Paul Natanson gave a spell binding presentation about Excel and Word Macros. Ten attendees watched entranced with the power of macros. Anyone interested in the presentation can find it on Paul's web site.

How to Create Macros to Automate routine tasks in Excel and Word

Paul S. Natanson

Do you wish you could automate some of your routine multi-click tasks in Excel and Word so they could be executed with a single click?

For example, when using MS/Word, do you often highlight text by making it some combination of red, italics, underlined, bold, and large?

Or when using Excel, do you get frustrated each time you have to figure-out (again) how to reformat unruly text to make it fit within its assigned cell.

These tasks can require many mouse clicks (and a bit of trial and error) to get them just right. And if you can't remember how you did it, then you will condemned to re-figuring it out each time. But, by using macros, you can "train" your computer to re-do a complicated task with a single click.

Macros are powerful tools in all MS/Office applications (including Word, Excel, etc.) that let you record keystrokes for later playback. Tasks that would normally require many keystrokes and/or mouse clicks can be recorded for later playback with a single click.

Once the keystrokes (and/or mouse clicks) are recorded, the recording (called a macro) can be edited and fine-tuned until it does exactly what you want.

After your macro is complete, you can assign it to a new button on your toolbar, or to a key on your keyboard, thus allowing you to play it back with a single click, knowing that it will work correctly every time.

At our next ACGNJ Windows Pains meeting (on Friday November 18, 2005), Paul S. Natanson will show you how to customize your toolbars and how to build macros to automate routine tasks in Excel and Word.

To download an advance draft of Paul's presentation (as well as some of his planned demonstrations and code samples), go to PCSACP and click on the link entitled FREE COURSES.

Paul S. Natanson
paul628@concentric.net
+1-908-630-0406

Design Patterns

Solutions for Software Design Problems

Michael P. Redlich