Microsoft Office 2010 Beta

The battle of the free office suites recently heated up with the release of Microsoft Office 2010 beta, which includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, OneNote, and Outlook, among other features. A boxed CD of this suite would be quite expensive. It's more full-featured than the free OpenOffice suite or Google Docs, but may ask you to sign up with other Microsoft services to use some of its features.

Also, MSOffice 2010 will want to replace your Outlook Express or Windows Mail with Outlook's email program. However, when asked if you want your OE/WM contacts and messages transferred to Outlook 2010 you can click NO and continue to use your preferred email client via Start>All Programs.

Personally, I'm less than thrilled with Word 2010 because it's similar to Word 2007 – I still prefer the earlier, less complicated versions. However, getting Microsoft Publisher for free definitely makes the download worth considering – especially if you are into creating documents that combine text and graphics in colorful, eye-catching ways.

Suite Appears To Be on Hard Drive – But Works Online

The suite gives the appearance of being an application installed on one's PC, but all tasks are performed via the Web. This means options exist for multiple users to collaborate on a task from different locations (as can be done with Google Docs).

In any case, this is a "beta" version, meaning it's a work in progress. Users can send questions, complaints, and suggestions to Microsoft.com. Download the suite from www.microsoft.com/office2010.

Moving Pictures on a Microsoft Word Page

Anne-Grethe Morris wrote that after creating a table in MSWord via Table>Insert Table, a picture she placed inside a cell, along with some text, would not stay where she put it. This is because a picture is treated like just another character within a line of text, location-wise. However, it will become moveable when placed inside a "Text Box."

Click on Insert>Text Box and your mouse cursor will change into a little cross. With your left mouse button depressed, use the cross to draw a rectangle of the approximate size you would like your picture to fit into. Next, click inside the box and use Insert>Picture to place your image within it. Now the image-bearing box can be moved around on a page by grabbing any edge and dragging it.

Next left-click an edge and choose Format>Text Box>Layout to establish a positioning option such as Left, Right, or Center, along with whether text flows around, behind, or in front of the boxed image. Under Format>Text Box>Colors & Lines, the box's outline can be hidden by choosing Color>No Line.

The above steps vary slightly among different versions of Word, but still work well in putting a graphic where you want it. Establishing text and image positions in Publisher, however, is easier and more reliable.

Print Size in Internet Explorer

Joann Stodghill called to say she made a Web page's tiny text larger by clicking on a sizing scale in the lower right corner of an Internet Explorer window. However, she said, text on other pages became too large. Right – IE size options remain at one's most recent setting until they are manually changed back.

© Donald Ray Edrington – All Rights Reserved

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Don Edrington - Computer Columnist for The Californian and San Diego's North County Times

Senior Computer Tutor
Don Edrington

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