 Often our network locations at work are not as private as we think we are. For example, staff in IT departments often have quite wide ranging access rights which will include your files! This is how to keep those documents secret in Word 2007: With your document open, go to the Office Home button: Select Save As and select the desired save option. You will then get the Save dialogue box.  Click on the Tools button at the bottom left, and then choose General Options.  Enter a password in the desired field. Password to Open means that people will have to enter the password before they can see the document, Password to Modify means that people can open it but need to enter the password to make changes. You can use either of these or both together. Using Password to Open will give the maximum encryption of the file. Password to Modify offers no encryption. Click on OK. You will be asked to retype the passwords to confirm them. Do this and click on OK. You may be asked if you want to replace the existing document, in which case click Yes. Make sure you keep the password safe, but don’t forget it. If you are unable to remember the password you will not be able to access the document, and neither your ICT Department or Microsoft will be able to help you. To remove password protection just follow the instructions above, remove the password(s) leaving the fields empty and click on OK. Add Comment Inducting new staff 17/11/2010
Recently I was asked to 'induct' a new member of staff. It is not unusual for secretaries and admin staff to be asked to do this, or at least to draw up an induction plan for new staff. This is what I came up with.  First of course you want to make them feel welcome. Introduce yourself and the people in the near vicinity, perhaps offer them a tea/coffee and set some time aside for an introductory chat. It depends a bit on how formal your office culture is, but you use this time to get to know this person, find out how they travelled there, what they did before, and other informal pieces of information that will help you to help the person settle in easily. I would recommend writing yourself a brief list of what you want to cover, just to make sure you don't forget anything. In some organisations there is an induction policy in place and this list will already be drawn up, in which case follow it! First on my list would be showing the person where they can leave their belongings, where the toilets are, and what the usual procedure is for breaks. If they need keys and passwords to get around then you need to make them aware of these too. Next I would give them a tour of the workplace and introduce them to key people. They may not remember everyone, but the staff will know the person is a new member of the team and will be more likely to help if they have been introduced. Make sure that the person is familiar with lunch areas and staff rooms. These can be very useful places for the new person to get to know new colleagues. Before the person starts it is probably useful to get together all useful documentation such as policies and procedures, background articles and company documents and bulletins. Internal and external newspaper articles might also be useful. Leave the person with time to read and assimilate the material. At the end of the day, ask the person how the day has gone. If possible outline the plan for the following day. At this point the person's line manager may have taken over. If you are the person's line manager then you can let them know what to expect yourself. I think it is important to identify a person that the new member of staff can go to if they have questions. This can ease the transition into the new role and may pick up important issues or difficulties early on. If you think back to when you were new, what things do you wish you had known back then? Changing your default font in Word 23/09/2010
At some point when your office software was installed your default font was set, for example Times New Roman, 12 pt. It's very easy to change this default setting. Here's how to in Word 2007. Go to the Font section of the Home ribbon and click on the little arrow in the bottom right hand corner.  Change the font to the desired style, size etc, then click on the button that says 'Default' at the bottom left. Click on Yes in the dialogue box that appears. In Word 2010 you start the same way right down to where you click on the Default button but you get a different dialogue box. Select the second option 'All documents based on the normal.dotm template?' and click on OK. Editing pdf files 08/09/2010
As promised, this post is about editing pdf files. How many times has someone sent you a pdf file which you have then had to edit it? Happens to me all the time. Put simply, you cannot alter a pdf document. You have to create a new document, copy the text across, make the relevant changes and save it as a pdf again, using one of the methods mentioned in my last post. This is a step by step guide to this process. When you open the pdf file it will open in Adobe PDF Reader. You need to copy the text you want and paste it into your word processing software. To select the text click on the select button on the tool bar (see image below). Click and drag over the text you want to select.  Alternatively, go to Edit-Select All then use your normal method to copy to the clipboard (e.g. go to the Edit menu and select copy, or use ctrl-c). A quick way of selecting and copying the text is to go to Edit-Copy file to clipboard. Go to your word processing programme and paste the text into the document. Make the desired changes and when done, save your document as a pdf again (see previous post). Another way to edit pdf files is to use an online pdf converter like this one: http://www.investintech.com/. The programme will convert into a range of file formats which you can then edit to your heart's desire. Note that you will probably lose formatting information whichever method you use. Finally, you can use Google Documents, which I have written about before. Click here to learn how to upload a pdf. Make sure you tick the box next to 'Convert text from pdf....' Google will extract the text from the pdf which you can then edit. When you are ready, you can choose File-Download to export the file to your computer as a pdf. I have heard about programmes that allow you do edit a pdf directly, but feedback from these has been poor, especially if you are wanting to make substantial changes. When creating pdfs make sure you keep the original so you can edit it easily without losing your formatting. Creating screen shots 31/08/2010
Someone has asked how I do the screenshots in these posts. These are the images of the menus and toolbars you see on a computer screen. Even if you are not planning to write computer manuals, these tools can be useful when you are trying to demonstrate a problem with an IT technician. Instructions are as follows: PC You can simply press the key to the right of the keyboard the says Print Screen or Prt Scr. This will give a shot of the entire screen which you can then edit later in Word or in an image editing programme. See here for instructions on how to edit images in Word. If you hold your finger down on the Alt key when you press Print Screen you will get a screen shot of just the active window. This is very useful and can save valuable editing time. You can then go to your document or email, select paste or use Ctrl-V on the keyboard and the window will be pasted in to the right place. MAC You have a lot more options with a MAC: Hold down Command-Shift-Option- to get a screenshot of full screen placed as file on desktop. Hold down Command-Shift-Space Bar-4, then drag and drop mouse over selected area: Screenshot of selected area is saved as a file on the desktop. Hold down Command-Shift-4, then press the space bar, then click a window. A screenshot of selected window placed as file on desktop. To have the images copied to the clipboard follow the above but replace the shift key with the control key. Sharing files with Google Docs 30/08/2010
I had a situation recently where I sent some large files to an individual and because they had a slow network connection they were unable to download them. So I thought about a way around this and decided to use Google Docs which I have written about before. This is how I did it. You need to visit the Google search page and sign up with an email address and password - it's free! If you are on the Google search engine page you will go to more at the top of the screen and select Documents from the drop down list.  Click on the Upload button on the left and then search for your files. When you have all the files listed click on Start upload at the bottom of the screen. You will then be given a window confirming that your files have been uploaded. Click on Back To Google Docs on the left.  You will see the uploaded files in the window. Select the files you want to share by clicking in the small box at the beginning of the row for each file. Then click on the Share drop down. Choose Sharing Settings.  Enter the email address of those you want to share with. Decide whether you want them to view or edit the file and select the appropriate choice from the drop down. Type a message underneath if required. I would advise you to leave ticked 'Send email notifications' so that the person will receive a link to the file by email. You will then get a window showing who has permissions to view and/or edit the selected files. Note that this person cannot see or edit the other files in your Google Docs. Voila! Another use for this great free online resource. Emailing a scanned document 26/08/2010
As promised, today’s post is emailing scanned documents. I will be using Microsoft Outlook in Windows, but the steps are similar in most PC email programmes. Create a new email and address it to the recipient. Complete the subject field and any other information and message you need. At the very least you should mention in the message area that a file is attached.  Click on the attach button on the toolbar (In most programs it is in the form of a paper clip): You will then be given a Find File window where you need to search for the scanned file. Once you have found it, click on insert and you will be taken back to the email. Complete any message and send the email. Some email systems have limits on the file sizes they will accept. These days most will accept up to 10mb but over that is less common. You may need to edit the image to make it smaller. I will cover this in another post!! Scanning documents and images 25/08/2010
In an earlier post I covered how to scan in a signature. In today’s post I am looking at the scanner operation generally. These notes are based on an HP scanjet 2400, which provides a fairly typical experience of scanning. Let’s say you want to scan in a signed form and email it to someone. This is what you do: Place the letter face down on the scanner. Look for markings around the edge of the glass to see how to place the document. It works in a similar way to a photocopier in that you find the corner you need to align. Close the scanner lid and press the scan button on the scanner (on the front in this model). The Scanner and Camera Wizard appears and you should click on Next in the first window. In the next window you can select your preferences. Choose the picture type (colour, grayscale etc),  The custom settings allow you to change the brightness and contrast of the image. You can also change the resolution. Here is a guide to how much resolution you should have: 72: for emailing where the file is unlikely to be printed out. 150: for images that will probably be printed, on most low to medium quality printers. 300: for images that need to be printed out at high quality. I would opt for 150 usually as a standard setting.  You can click on preview to get an impression of what the scan will look like. It may take some time to scan depending on how high your resolution is. When you are ready, click on Next. In the next window you can give the file a name, choose the file type, and set it’s location (you may need to keep a note of where you are saving it so you can find it later):  File types: BMP JPEG TIFF PNG This is a link to a good, and extensive summary of image file types. I would stick with JPEG if you have not been given instructions to use another one. This gives the best possible image quality with a compressed file size. The next window is the progress window. You are then given a completion window where you are asked what you want to do next, and I generally choose Nothing! Click on Next and then Finish. Your scan is done. In the next post I will show you how to email a scan. Creating automatic signatures in letters 16/08/2010
I do large mailouts and I would like to print them out with the signature in place, instead of asking the person sign each letter, or photocopy the signed letter. How do I do this? This is a great idea, and a brilliant time saver for both you and the person signing the letter. It is really very simple if you have the right equipment. Basically just get the person to do their usual signature on a blank piece of paper. Use a scanner to scan it in. If you don't have one in your office see if the IT department has one. Failing that, a local print/photocopy company might be able to do it for you - it might be worth buying a scanner in this case as they are pretty cheap. Here is a selection available from Amazon (I have used both these and found they were up to the job): I have found I get a better quality result if I ask the person to sign very large in thick pen on A4 paper, scan it, and then reduce the size down to their normal signature size. These gets rid of any imperfections in the image. Whichever way you do it, you can then use an image editing programme to crop the white space away from the edge and re-size if necessary. Your scanner may well come with some software to help you do this, and Microsoft Photo Editor comes with Office. You could also download a free application such as Google's Picassa image editing programme. Once the image looks good and is the right size and shape you can save it as an image file (e.g. a jpeg, tiff or gif). Back to your letter, assuming it is in Word, go to Insert-Picture, find the file and insert it into the letter. You can of course add a signature to a template so that it opens already signed!! Not all managers will be happy about that, so best to check. They might still want to review the letter.  I wouldn't be tempted to use the boss's signature to give yourself a pay rise. Chances are you wouldn't last too long in the job. A good PA secretary can be trusted with such valuable items as someone's signature (and where the chocolate Hobnobs are kept!). Help! I have to write a letter! 11/08/2010
Hi. I've just been moved into a job that involves administrative work. I am a bit anxious about some of the secretarial aspects like letter writing. Are there rules on how you should layout letters and envelopes? How many lines between different parts and formatting? I'm a bit confused about what is best practice. Nina Hi Nina Sometimes the skills and experience of secretaries is not fully appreciated, and I think it is in this sort of area where this becomes more apparent. You can spot a poorly laid out letter a mile off, but it can hard to appreciate why it doesn't look right. Here are some tips.
 My own layout tips are:
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