Ardito Computer Training

Excel Magic!

Consolidate workbooks in as easy as 1-2-3

1. Open ALL the workbooks and arrange them in Tiled layout. On the View tab, in the Window group, click Arrange All.
2. Go to your Summary Report workbook and click on a blank cell.
3. On the Data tab, in the Data Tools, click Consolidate to open the Consolidate dialog box.
4. While the flashing cursor is in the Reference field, move your mouse to the first data sheet, e.g. Gross Profit for 2006 workbook, and select the range of cells containing the data, including the row labels and column titles.
5. Click Add, move to the next workbook, select the table, and click Add. Repeat these steps until you have done the last workbook.
6. Check both the Top row and Left column checkboxes in the Use labels in section in the dialog box to display the row labels and column titles in the Summary Report workbook.
7. Check Create links to source data to allow for dynamic linking and updates across workbooks.
8. Click OK to view the consolidated report table in the Summary Report workbook.

Level: Advanced

Word Magic!

Remove unwanted paragraph breaks

1. Open your document.
2. Position your cursor at the beginning of the document and press Ctrl + H to open the Find and Replace dialog box.
3. In the first box, enter the two  “carat p” symbol as such ^p^p (the "p" must be lower case).
4. In the second box, enter ^p
5. Click Replace All to replace automatically two paragraph breaks with one. You can, however, specify other options, depending on the number of paragraph breaks you'd like between paragraphs.

As for line breaks, replace the “carat p” symbol with “carat l” (the “l” must be lower case) in the first box and specify the option you want in the second box.

Level: Intermediate

Photoshop Magic!

Keyboard and Mouse Tricks

Here are some of our trainers’ favourite keyboard-mouse tricks:

Increase / decrease brush size

With the Brush tool selected, you can increase / decrease the brush size by pressing the square bracket keys [ or ]. Press Shift + [ or ] will increase / decrease brush hardness.

Navigate layer blending mode

Alt (PC) or Opt (Mac) + Shift + "-" or "+" key allows you to navigate through the blending mode dropdown.

Change font size quickly

Select the text that you want to scale the font size, press Ctrl (PC) or Cmd (Mac) + Shift + > or < to increase / decrease font size.

Create a clipping layer

Move your mouse in between 2 layers, the top layer is an image while the bottom layer is a shape. Hold down Alt (PC) or Opt (Mac) and you'll see the cursor turning into an overlapping circle icon with an arrow pointing out to the left side. Left-click and that's it!

InDesign Magic!

Place multiple images in a grid of frames

1. Open your document and with nothing selected on the page, go to File > Place, and select multiple images by clicking on one image, and then ctrl-clicking (PC) or Cmd-clicking (Mac) on subsequent images.
2. Click the Open button. InDesign will import all the images you selected, and then display the "loaded place image (LPI) cursor" displaying the number of images you've imported.
3. In InDesign CS4/CS5/CS5.5,  hold down Ctrl+shift (PC) or Cmd+shift (Mac), and draw out a rectangle. As soon as you see a grid of frames appear, don't release the mouse button just yet, but you can release the ctrl-shift/command-shift keys.
   
4. Do any of the following while continuing to hold the mouse button down. 
   - Adjust the number of rows and columns, using the cursor (arrow) keys on the keyboard. The up/down arrows increase/decrease the number of rows in the grid, while the right/left arrows increase/decrease the number of columns in the grid.
   - Adjust the space between the rows and columns using shift + the cursor keys on the keyboard. Ctrl + the up/down arrows increases/decreases the vertical space between rows, while Ctrl + the right/left arrows increases/decreases the horizontal space between columns.
5. Finally, release the mouse button, and a grid of image frames will be created to your specifications.

Photo credit: Hamilton Council (www.hamilton.co.nz)

Level: Introduction