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In this video we’ll take a brief tour of Microsoft Access 2007. Access 2007 is a database management system or DBMS for short. You can think of a database management system as your phone book - listing people, addresses, and companies all sorted alphabetically.

Access can be used to create databases that track your home inventory to providing data entry screens and reports that access large quantities of company data.

The common objects that make up Access 2007 include:

• Tables
• Forms
• Queries
• Reports

Tables - Tables allow you to store data. A database could have one or more tables. A table could store names of people.

Queries - Queries allow you to extract data from your tables.

Forms - Forms allow you to enter, view and edit your data.

Reports - Reports allow you to present your data in the tables or queries in a readable and printable style. Access reports work well with other Office applications such as Word and Excel.

Like other Office applications, Access 2007 also provides wizards to help you get started creating a database quickly. For now, we’ll open the existing Nutrition database to view the various objects that you work with in Access 2007.

As you can see, the navigation pane allows us to work with Tables, Queries, Forms, and Reports.

Like other Office applications, Access 2007 uses the new Ribbon to navigate its features. The tabs on the Access 2007 Ribbon include:

• Home
• Create
• External Data
• Database Tools

Each tab contains groups of controls that allow us to manipulate our database while we create it and modify it.

The Quick Access toolbar allows us to add our favorite commands for quick access.

Don’t forget the Alt key for keyboard shortcuts. Pressing the Alt key will show “badges” that display the shortcut to a menu or command.

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In this video we’ll take a brief tour of Microsoft Publisher 2007. Publisher 2007 has been around for a while and has a rich set of design tools. These tools will allow you to build sophisticated publications for print or online.

Some of the new features of Publisher 2007 include:

• The new Content Library where you can reuse various objects
• You can customize templates before using them
• A new task pane called Publisher Tasks
• Convert publications to PDF (very cool)
• Formatting tools that offer effects such as drop shadow, reflections, glow colors, and more.

Publisher

When we first start Publisher 2007 we are presented with a work area that allows us to select different types of popular publications. The left side of the work area includes all the publication types as well as a “My Templates” area and a “Getting Started” area that will return us to the work area that we’re at right now.

So let’s select a publication type of “Business Cards”. Everyone likes to create business cards. After selecting this type of publication, we’re presented with the various templates of business cards to choose from.

You can see we have a “New Designs” area as well as “Classic Designs” and the Microsoft Office Online templates that we can download. If you’re a company that has an established brand look and feel, then starting with one of the blank templates will help get you going.

So let’s select one and click on the “Create” button in the lower right-hand corner. We are now presented with the “Format Publication” task pane.

The Format Publication task pane includes the Business Card Options area, the Font Schemes area, the Color Schemes area and the Page Options area. All these areas help you design your publication which in this case is a business card.

In Publisher 2007 we don’t have the Ribbon that we’ve been talking about in the other videos. We are back to the standard menu structure as well as the familiar toolbar structure.

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Below is the chart of the 2007 Microsoft Office Suites. This can be hard to find at the Microsoft website so I’m providing it here.

The chart shows you the different software packages provided in the various suites.

You can click on the image to get a larger view of the chart or click the link below the chart to go directly to the Microsoft website where there are valuable footnotes pertaining to licensing as well as other stipulations on the various software packages.

Here’s the actual link to the Microsoft website.

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In this video we’ll take a brief tour of PowerPoint 2007. PowerPoint 2007 has always been an easy application to use with very little training allowing you to create professional presentations.

New Features Include:

• Slide Themes – Slide Themes give you a consistent look across your presentation and can be accessed by the Design tab.
• More than 20 preset Color Schemes
• Nearly two dozen preset Font Themes
• Dozens of Styles for controlling the look of text, graphics, charts, and shapes
• Formatting Tools that offer effects such as drop shadow, reflections, glow colors, and more.

The Ribbon

PowerPoint 2007 is another application the uses the Ribbon to quickly access PowerPoint commands. For an overview of the Ribbon watch the videos Roaming Around The Word 2007 Ribbon and Exploring Excel 2007.

Tabs, Groups and Controls

To recap, the Ribbon has Tabs which have Groups that contain controls or commands that allow you to manipulate your PowerPoint presentations. There just happens to be seven tabs in PowerPoint, Excel and Word. Four of which have the same name – Home, Insert, Review, and View.

Just like the applications mentioned above the Ribbon contains extra tabs that are referred to as “Contextual Tabs”. These tabs appear when working with specific functions in PowerPoint like working with pictures.

In the lower right-hand corner of each group is a small button that is referred to as the Dialog Launcher. The Dialog Launcher allow you to open up a specific group that displays more commands or controls for that group.

Galleries

Galleries allow you to preview various effects and how they will look in your presentations. By hovering your mouse over the effect you want, the preview immediately displays the effect. This allows you to select the effect or try a different effect without applying it to the presentation you are working on.

Don’t forget the Quick Access Toolbar that also appears in Word 2007 and Excel 2007 next to the Microsoft Office Button. The Quick Access Toolbar allows you to add your favorite commands to the toolbar for - quick access.

Keyboard Shortcuts

The Alt key allows you to access commands by keyboard shortcuts. By pressing the Alt key ”badges“ will be displayed indicating keyboard shortcuts to the commands you can use in PowerPoint 2007.

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In this video we’ll take a brief tour of Excel 2007. Excel 2007 pretty much does the same things it always has done, like number crunching and displaying many types of charts such as bar and pie charts. But Excel now makes those charts easier to create and better looking as well.

Excel has been tuned-up so to speak under the hood to allow for bigger spreadsheets, up to 1 million rows and up to 16,000 columns. Excel can now take advantage of newer computers that have dual processing chips and multithreading by splitting the processing up for quicker results.

The Ribbon

Like the Word 2007 video where I talked about the Ribbon, Excel 2007 has the Ribbon as well. Like Word’s Ribbon, Excel’s Ribbon also has 7 Tabs. Within the Tabs are Groups. Within the Groups there are different types of Controls that we can use to manipulate our spreadsheets.

Dialog Launcher

The Dialog Launcher allows you to open up a dialog box that contains more features of a group. The dialog launcher is a button in the lower right-hand corner of a each group. When you mouse over the button, you will see a preview of that dialog box. By clicking on this button you will pop-up the appropriate dialog box for that group.

There are Toolbars after all

You can also add and remove your favorite commands on the Quick Access Toolbar. The Quick Access Toolbar sits to the right of the Microsoft Office Button.

Commands, Commands, Commands

To add commands, use the customize button to the right of the Quick Access Toolbar or right click on a command and select Add to Quick Access Toolbar.

To remove commands from the Quick Access Toolbar, right click on the command and select Remove from Quick Access Toolbar.

You can also hide and unhide the Ribbon by double-clicking on any tab on the Ribbon.

Don’t forget the keyboard shortcuts as well. If you hold down the Alt key you will see “Badges” that display the keyboard shortcuts.

The New Page Layout View

There is a new view called the Page Layout View and you can access it two ways. This allows you to work with headers and footers and almost gives it a look and feel of working in the print layout mode in Word.

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In this video we’ll take a tour of The Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Edition. We’ll do a brief introduction of the following applications:

• Access 2007 – Access is a database management system
• Excel 2007 – Excel allows you to perform calculations in spreadsheets
• PowerPoint 2007 – PowerPoint allows you to create presentations
• Word 2007 – Word allows you to create various types of documents

These are the stalwarts so to speak of Microsoft Office. They’ve been around a long time but have a new face.

In the Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate Edition we also have the following applications and tools to work with:

• Groove 2007 – Groove allows you to create workspaces for sharing information
• InfoPath 2007 – InfoPath is a form designer that allows you to gather data
• OneNote 2007 – OneNote allows you to take notes and organize them
• Outlook 2007 – Outlook allows you to send and receive email; provides scheduling, managing your contacts and tracking your tasks
• Publisher 2007 – Allows you to create newsletters, brochures, flyers and websites
• Office Tools – Digital Certificate for VBA Projects; Clip Organizer; Language Settings; Diagnostics; and a Picture Manager.

I’ll be providing more detailed videos of each application and tips and tricks on using Office 2007.

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Welcome to the first video post of my Office 2007 video series. To skip this post and go directly to the video click here.

Word 2007 offers many new features and changes. It is a desktop application that allows you to create different types of documents. In fact, Microsoft has introduced a new type of document that we’ll talk about in another video.The biggest change Microsoft has made in their Office suite of applications is what’s known as the Ribbon. The menus and toolbars in previous versions of Word have been replaced by the Ribbon. So lets take a look.Tabs, Groups, Commands - Oh My!!

There are seven basic tabs (click image for larger view):

Home

Insert

Page Layout

References

Mailings

Review

View

As you can see, each tab has several groups. Within each group are commands. Commands include buttons, boxes and menus to enter and select different actions.

The Dialog Launcher

For each group, you can click on the dialog launcher. The dialog launcher will display more good stuff that pertains to each group.

There are additional tabs that appear when you work with specific functions of Word. For instance, when you insert a picture into your document, you will see the picture tab that contains different groups of actions pertaining to pictures.

The Mini Toolbar and Quick Access Toolbar - “Hey, I thought there weren’t anymore toolbars?”

When you highlight text, you will see a faded mini toolbar. Once you move your mouse to the mini toolbar it will become active.

The quick access toolbar allows you to add and remove commands.

You can hide and unhide the ribbon by double-clicking any tab on the ribbon.

Keyboard Shortcuts

For all the folks out there that love to use the keyboard as much as possible instead of the mouse, there are keyboard shortcuts that are revealed when you press the Alt key. You will see what are called “Badges” that display the keyboard shortcuts for different actions.

So there you go. Now go play!! Enter some text in Word 2007 and play with all the above topics.

Topics covered in this video:

• Tabs, Groups and Controls
• The Dialog Launcher
• Additional Tabs like the Picture Tab
• The Mini Toolbar
• The Quick Access Toolbar
• Hide and Unhide the Ribbon
• Keyboard Shortcuts

Click here to view an image of Word 2007.

Click here for the video that corresponds to this post.

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Welcome to the first post on The Spinning Donut!! My name is Bill Stevens and apparently I have no face…yet.

This blog will help you with various aspects of information technology such as using your computer, blogging, software development, online media, internet marketing, and making money online.

Given the name of the site I hope it makes you chuckle. I named it after the spinning blue “wait” icon we Microsoft users see everyday.

I’m looking for a Caricature artist so I can put a picture up. So if you know anyone, please drop a comment or email email me at billstevens2000@gmail.com.

I’m also looking for someone to design an image that spins like the blue “wait” icon (the donut part) and subtly turns into a dripping Krispy Kreme donut and back.

The spinning would start when you click it and end in one cycle. However there could be a repeat/stop option for people who would like to be mesmerized by it.

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