What is art? It’s not an easy question to answer, especially with new techniques and mediums being developed all the time. By definition, art can be basically summed up as the creative expression of an individual through some medium.

For Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi, that medium is one that is familiar to those in and out of the art world.

As a manager, some of the administrative work can be, if not the worst part of the job, easily the least engaging. For instance, having to create all the different folders for the employees under your purview, projects, and other organizational needs. Fortunately, Microsoft Excel offers a relatively quick and easy way of doing just this.

Microsoft Excel is a great way for data to be visualized, particularly as it offers various features to highlight the context of the data you’re trying to communicate with. Today, we wanted to walk you through how you can use one such feature—People Graphs—to do so particularly impactfully.

Let’s go over how to set up this capability. As a disclaimer, it will require you to edit some of your menu options, so reach out to your IT resource to confirm that it is okay to do so and to assist you if need be.

You should also know that Track Changes won’t work if a spreadsheet contains a table that hasn’t been converted into a range. To make this conversion, select the table, navigate to the Design tab, and click the Convert to Range option. If you want others to be able to collaborate on your workbook, it needs to be saved in a shared location.

In actuality, you’ve used a template every time you’ve opened a Microsoft Word document… the Normal template. However, you may want to use a different template to meet your different needs. If that’s the case, you’ll need to adjust some settings as you create your document.

As you select New from the File tab, you will be presented with a few options. One of them will be Blank document, but you also have the opportunity to utilize a huge variety of other templates that can be found in the application and then downloaded. Once you have done so, select your chosen template and your new document will be generated with that template’s contents. These can include:

• Boilerplate text
• Styles
• Images and logos
• Table of contents
• Sections that split the document into different parts, with appropriate numbering
• Table and chart boilerplates

Of course, this isn’t a comprehensive list of your options. Feel free to explore the different templates and their options to see all that these documents can do.

Once you have a few templates downloaded, you can even edit them to better fit your needs. To do so, all you need to do is open the template you want to edit (File>Open>This PC>My Documents>Open) and make your desired changes. Once that’s done, just Save and Close.

Why Bother with Templates at All?

There are a few advantages to using templates that you should see significant benefits from, such as:

1. Templates can be shared amongst your staff and unify your business’ style.
2. Templates can be used to make forms much easier (and less expensive) to reproduce.
3. Templates can reference your other applications to simplify additional tasks.
4. Templates allow you to quickly reformat your documents if need be.

So, do you think you’ll do any investigating into templates in the future? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments, and let us know what other tips you would find helpful!

What’s the Difference?

The biggest difference between the two services is how they are delivered. Microsoft Office 2019 is the productivity suite in its traditional sense. You download the software solutions, like Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which you can then access on your desktop. Since the programs are stored locally on your computer, you don’t need an Internet connection to access them.

On the other hand, you have Microsoft Office 365, which is the cloud-based variant that Microsoft is pushing these days. Office 365 has all of the software solutions that you expect from a productivity suite, but the primary difference comes from how they’re accessed. Office 365 can be delivered through the Internet rather than being found locally on the computer, meaning that it requires a solid Internet connection in order to work as intended. Furthermore, since the solution is found in the cloud, it can be accessed on any device through a web browser, meaning that it’s more accessible than it’s ever been.

What’s Best for You?

As we mentioned before, the solution you’ll want to invest in will vary depending on various factors. If your Internet connection isn’t reliable, for example, your capacity to get work done might be limited with Microsoft Office 365. For a full list of what you should consider when planning out your productivity suite infrastructure, be sure to contact professional IT technicians who can run you through scenarios that you might not even foresee initially.

Coleman Technologies can provide your organization with a free consultation to determine which Microsoft Office solution works best for your specific needs. To learn more, reach out to us at (604) 513-9428.

The following apps are included in Office 2019:

• Outlook
• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint

Here are some changes that have been brought to these applications.

Outlook

Most people use Outlook for email, but it’s more of a personal information manager, since it can be used as a calendar, task manager, and contact manager. Changes to Outlook 2019 include:

• One-click fixes for accessibility issues - Enhanced accessibility options are updated to new international standards.
• Focused inbox - Outlook now features more options to keep you focused on the information you need and less on the glut of email that you may get. 
• Outlook reads your emails to you - Outlook now offers a text to voice option that will read your emails to you. 

Word

Microsoft Word is the Office suite’s word processor, and Word 2019 is looking to be a great upgrade from Word 2016. Here are some of the best changes:

• Real time collaboration - Work side-by-side with others to collaborate on documents in real time.  
• Integrated translation - Microsoft translator gives workers the ability to translate words, phrases, and sentences in many languages.
• Enhanced reading options - Instead of straining your eyes, choose options to help make it easier on them, including page color, column width, text spacing, or have Word read your document to you.
• Easier navigation - You can now flip through documents quickly with side-by-side view.

Excel

Excel is a spreadsheet software that comes bundled with Microsoft Office. The latest version gives users plenty of opportunities to take advantage of new and interesting features, several of which give Excel the ability to act as a database. Here are just a few of the new features:

• New Charts - Users can now create a series of new charts, including map charts, funnel charts, and more. 
• Precision selecting - Now users can deselect cells that aren’t relevant to their query without having to frustratingly start over.  
• New and improved connectors - Now there are integrations that allow Excel to be front and center on any of your organization’s analytics initiatives.

PowerPoint

PowerPoint is Microsoft’s presentation-creator app. The software has hundreds of other functions, of course, and PowerPoint 2019 expands PowerPoint’s effectiveness in the long run. Some functions include:

• Zoom for PowerPoint - Provides custom navigation inside a presentation for more presenter-friendly interaction.
• SVG image compatibility - You can now insert and edit scalable vector graphics (SVG) images for clearer, more defined imagery. 
• Export to 4K - Now you can export your presentation to 4K format, slightly better than Ultra High Definition. 

Other software

Office 2019 is also built with a much-improved Microsoft Teams collaboration app--and SharePoint--the industry standard in project management and coordination. Additionally, the ever-popular Microsoft Office 365 now uses Office 2019 as a base for their cloud-delivered products. 

Microsoft lists OneNote as a part of their Microsoft Office platform, but the software giant is starting to move away from OneNote as a part of the productivity suite, building it instead as a part of Windows 10. 

If you would like to talk about what Microsoft products are right for your business and/or personal computing needs, the IT professionals at Coleman Technologies are available to answer your questions and give you suggestions. To speak to one of our certified consultants call us today at (604) 513-9428.