Presentations containing charts and graphs are a part of every business - some managers give presentations on a daily or weekly basis, while others do it once in a blue moon. The tool most business owners use to create and deliver presentations is Microsoft's PowerPoint. While PowerPoint is great, it isn't exactly easy to put a chart or graph into any presentation, or is it?

Here's how you can take data from spreadsheets in Excel and turn it into graphs and charts in PowerPoint.

Before you start

Before you can transfer data from Excel, you should take a look at the spreadsheet. If you have a ton of data and only want to take a certain chunk to make your graph, it would be best to copy and paste it into a new Excel workbook. This way, you can get the data from Excel to PowerPoint easily and turn into a graph or chart.

The key idea here is that you don't want to do a data-dump - putting every single number, most of which could be useless - into a slide. You want to take only the most relevant information from the spreadsheet. It's easiest to do this on a slide-by-slide basis, after you have setup the presentation outline. Copy the information only pertaining to that one slide. If you're not sure whether it will be useful or not, it likely isn't, so don't take it.

Create the graph/chart

Once you have only the data you are going to need for the chart, you can switch over to PowerPoint and go to the slide where you will put the chart. This can be done by:

1. Clicking on the slide's body field - where you enter the main text of the slide, below the title.
2. Selecting the Insert tab from the top of the screen and clicking on Insert Chart. Note: This will only work if the slide's layout supports Content. To change the layout of the slide, right-click on it and select Layout, then pick one that says Content.
3. Choosing the type of graph that's relevant to your data from the window that pops up and pressing OK.
4. Deleting the information in the dummy Excel spreadsheet that comes up by left-clicking and dragging over the content. It will be highlighted and pressing Delete will get rid of it.
5. Copying and pasting the information from the Excel spreadsheet you setup earlier into the window in PowerPoint. Be sure to click on A1 before you paste it.
6. Renaming the chart by double-clicking on the title above the cells.

You can click back to the slide to look at the chart. Often times the data will be opposite. For example, the date will show on the X axis, when it should be on the Y. If you click on the chart, and select Switch Row/Column in the ribbon above the slide, you will be able to re-arrange the information.

Time to format

It's highly unlikely that the graph you placed into the slide is formatted the way you want, or even optimized for your audience. Here are four tips to help you format it so it not only looks good, but can be seen when you give your presentation.

1. Don't get too flashy - Yes, there are a large number and variety of charts available. No, they are not all good for presentations. It's best to pick a simple layout - stick with the classics: Pie, Bar and Line. Don't pick 3-D charts as they are hard to read and can confuse the audience. Also pick colors that can be seen. For example, light green, yellow, grey, etc. can hardly be seen on most projectors.
2. Use big text - It may look big enough on your screen, but you can be sure it isn't going to be big enough for your audience. Use the biggest font size possible, and limit any explanation text.
3. Remove Gridlines - But Gridlines make it easier to determine amounts don't they? Yes, on reports. But this isn't a report, it's a presentation, so it's ok to be general. Gridlines will just confuse your audience, and make graphs look cramped. Remove them by clicking on any grid line in the middle of the graph, and pressing Delete on your keyboard.
4. Test it - Before you give the presentation, it would be a good idea to test the presentation on a screen that is similar to the size you will be presenting on. If that's not possible, get a colleague to look over it. They will likely be able to point some changes out - if need be.

Having attractive graphs in your presentations can go a long way in keeping your audience engaged, and it could increase the chances of your message sinking in. If you would like to learn more about how you can leverage PowerPoint or any of Microsoft's other programs in your office, please contact us today.

Microsoft Word has been an important business tool for many years and will likely continue to be so for many more to come. There are numerous features that are used on a regular basis that, while they should make things easier, can actually create more work. One such feature is copy and paste. However, Word has some interesting copy and paste functions that can truly make your job more efficient.

Here’s an overview of Word’s copy and paste feature.

Simple copy and paste
As you likely know already, you can copy by selecting/highlighting text, or pictures and either right-clicking and selecting copy; pressing Ctrl + C (Command + C on Mac) or selecting File followed by Copy.

You can paste by either right-clicking and selecting paste; pressing Ctrl + V (Command + V on Mac) or selecting File followed by Paste. When you copy and paste, the highlighted text or image will be placed where you have placed the cursor.

While simple copying and pasting works fine for most situations, there are times when you are copying from one word document to another and need something else. Many documents have different text and layout formats which can make copying a bit inefficient, as you will likely have to change some of the text or image settings. Word has four built-in features that can make this easier.

These settings can be found by first highlighting what you would like to copy. You should see a clipboard above the highlighted text when you hover your mouse over it. Pressing the down-facing black arrow will open the different copy functions.

• Keep Source Formatting – Pressing this will keep the formatting of the text/document you copied from. This is the default option.
• Merge Formatting - This will keep the text’s format, without changing the format of the document you paste into. E.g., if the text you copied is a different font and size, it will be posted into the new document at the same format, but the next word typed will retain the previous format.
• Use Destination Style - This will change the text you copied to the same format as the document you copy into.
• Keep Text Only - This will copy only the text. All graphics, tables, charts and formatting will be discarded. When you paste into the new document, the text will be changed to that document’s formatting.

This feature can help make it easier to copy and paste from one document to another. Office has many features that can assist in improving your productivity, or make your job easier. If you are interested in learning more Office tips and tricks, please contact us today.

Email is a crucial component that many businesses have come to rely on, so much so that when the program they use has a problem the whole business is hamstrung. Many companies use Microsoft's Outlook, which does stop working from time-to-time. One of the most common issues is when your emails aren't being sent.

Here's three tips on what to do if there is an email stuck in your outbox.

Re-send it From Outlook's main window, click on the Send/Receive tab (usually located beside Home), followed by Send All. This will tell the program to try and send any email in the inbox again. After you press this, check your outbox to see if the email is still there. If it isn't, you know it has been sent.

Check the attachment If you notice an email is still sitting in your outbox, check and see if you attached a file. As a general rule of thumb: Larger files will take longer to send. Is the attachment a big file? If yes, try waiting a few minutes (it could take upwards of 10 minutes depending on file size).

Another problem may be that the file size is above the attachment limit, which is ordinarily set by the email server. If the attachment is over the limit, Outlook will continuously try to send the message, but it won't be able to send it. You often won't be able to change the email once it's in the outbox. The easiest way to remedy this is by:

• Clicking on the Send/Receive tab.
• Selecting Work Offline from the ribbon.
• Opening the message and deleting the attachment.
• Making the attachment smaller.
• Re-attaching the file and sending the email again.

There are many ways you can make attachments smaller. One of the most popular is to zip it using a program like WinZip, or PeaZip. If the attachment is still too large, you may be better off trying one of a  number of cloud storage solutions which allow you to upload and share larger files. You will just have to let email recipients know the link of the file in the email.

You're offline If the email still isn't being sent take a look at the bottom of the window in Outlook. There should be a grey bar, called the Status Bar. If you see a yellow warning triangle with an '!' in it and the words Disconnected beside it, that  means either your Internet connection isn't working or the email server is offline.

To check if your Internet connection is working, try loading any webpage. If this doesn't load, most browsers will display an error message, telling you to check your Internet connection. If the Internet is working fine, it's probably a good chance your email service is offline. When the server comes back online, the warning triangle should be replaced with the Outlook logo and a note stating you are connected.

To learn more about how to ensure Office and all of the related products are helping make business easier, please contact us.

Take a look at computers in almost every business and it's guaranteed that a large percentage of them will be running Microsoft Office. There are many different versions of Office, and Microsoft will officially release a new version of Office - 2013 - in Q1 2013, and businesses will be looking to upgrade. Those who do upgrade will undoubtedly have questions - one of the more common being how to change the default location where your documents are saved.

Here's how you can change the default save location, (where documents are saved), in Office 2013. By default, Office 2013 will save your documents to SkyDrive. Some users will want to change this so that documents are saved to their PC.

1. Open Microsoft Word and select a blank document.
2. Click File followed by Options.
3. Select Save.
4. Click the box that says Save to Computer by default.
5. Click Browse beside the Default local file location and select the file where you would like to save your documents. If you don't change the location, your files will be saved into your Documents folder.
6. Select Ok.

After you set the save location, you will notice that other Office programs will also be set to save in that location as well. If you're interested in upgrading to Office 2013 when it arrives please contact us.

There are many tools in a business's arsenal that can help give it a competitive edge, or help employees be more efficient. One of these tools is Microsoft Office, as without it many companies would likely be largely inefficient and struggling to keep up with the Joneses. While it is fairly easy to use products like Excel, it can be challenging to master all it has to offer. If you have spreadsheets with a lot of data, it can be a bit of a chore to navigate, while keeping track of where you are. Luckily, there's a feature that makes it easier to keep your place.

Here's how you can easily keep track of your place in spreadsheets through the use of freezing and splitting panes.

Freezing panes Freezing panes is often used when you want to keep a number of specific rows or columns in view whenever you scroll up/down/sideways. This often makes it easier to see important data without having to scroll up/down constantly.

You can freeze both rows and columns by:

1. Selecting the row/column below/beside the field you want to freeze, e.g., if you want to freeze rows A1-3, select A4. You can select the row/column by clicking on the row indicator on the side.
2. Clicking the View tab and pressing the arrow beside Freeze Panes which is located in the Window group.
3. Select either:
   1. Freeze Top Row - This will freeze the first row.
   2. Freeze First Column - This will freeze the first column.
   3. Freeze Panes - This will freeze the selected columns and rows.

After you've frozen panes, you will notice that the Freeze Panes option has been changed to Unfreeze Panes. Pressing this will unfreeze the rows or columns you have previously frozen. The only issue with this is that you can only freeze rows or columns on the outer edge of the workbook, you cannot freeze panes in the middle of the workbook.

Splitting panes If you need to work in the middle of a large spreadsheet, while still looking at existing information in the same sheet, you can split panes. Splitting panes will allow you to scroll in a selected area, while the rest of the worksheet will be frozen.

You can split panes by:

1. Mousing over the split box which is located above the vertical scroll bar on the right side of the screen. It's a little grey box just above the upward pointing black arrow.
2. Clicking and dragging the bar over to where you want the split to start. e.g., if you want the split to happen at C23, drag the split box to C23.

This will create a vertical split. If you want to create a horizontal split pane, you can drag the split bar located beside the horizontal scrollbar - located in the bottom right beside the right-hand facing black arrow - to the area you would like to split.

By either splitting or freezing panes, you can easily keep track of important cells while navigating to other parts of your spreadsheet. You should be aware however, that you can't split and freeze panes at the same time. If you have split a pane, and then click on Freeze Panes, Excel will turn off the split pane, and freeze all rows and columns above and to the left of the start of the split pane.

If you would like to learn more about how Excel and Microsoft's other products can help you and your employees, please contact us, we can help.

One of the most important business tools is email. It allows us to stay in touch with the office and each other regardless of our location. While email is useful, it's not perfect. One issue is that we receive so many emails, with up to a 100 a day or more. This has led to many an overload and meltdown; there's just simply too many emails to get through. So, what do most people do? Delete them. However, this deletion could lead to problems.

When it comes down to it there are usually two options for users to keep their inbox from overflowing. They can either archive or delete emails.

Archiving or deleting emails These are features that are available to most email clients. By archiving email you essentially remove them from your inbox, usually into another folder. When you archive emails, they are still retrievable, and you are still able to search for them and access the information within them.

Deleting emails on the other hand is different. Yes, your emails are removed, but they will usually not disappear instantly. Most email programs move deleted emails into a trash folder. Some clients are set up to empty the folder on a daily basis, while others delete instantly or when they've set the program to. However, once you empty the trash, it's very hard to get these deleted emails back.

To archive or delete? The issue of whether to delete or archive emails is a bit cloudy. For personal accounts it's a little easier: If the email is junk, spam, or contains useless information, it's safe to delete it. For businesses, you can go ahead and delete junk emails, but for many other emails it may be a better idea to archive emails. Here's a number of reasons why:

It's the law Depending which country and industry your company operates in, there may be rules and regulations that state how long you should keep emails in your system for. For example: The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FCRP) in the US state that if a company can anticipate legal action from information contained within a message, or series of messages, it must keep/store (archive) them.

The EU has similar, yet slightly more complicated rules. The Data Protection Directive (DPA) of the EU states that, "Personal data must be stored, but no longer than necessary...The subjects of emails, the “Data Subjects,” have the right to access information about the storage and access to their personal data and to request accurate copies. If you operate in the EU, you must furnish personal information stored in email or otherwise, if asked for it. The kicker is: If you've deleted emails with such information, you are obligated to provide these as well.

Most other countries have laws similar to these, so it's better to err on the safe side and check with a lawyer to ensure you know exactly what the rules are.

Storage isn't an issue In the past, emails took up precious storage, so you really had no other choice but to delete messages. Nowadays, that's not an issue, especially for users of services like Gmail who get upwards of 10GB (more than enough to store all of your emails). This allows you to archive emails while keeping your inbox clean, and not having to worry about the law.

Email is a form of data Data is becoming big business. While it's highly likely that many small to medium businesses won't be implementing Big Data practices anytime in the near future, data in emails is still important. Say for instance you get an order for X amount of Y last year, and you were so busy you just filled the order but didn't fill in the proper records. When that client emails again, the only other information you have is from previous emails. If you delete it, that information is gone.

Beyond that, many decisions are made through and recorded in email these days, delete that important email with next year's budget decision on it and you could be in trouble.

Archive or delete? We're not suggesting you should keep all of your emails. In fact, the above reasons for archiving all have one thing in common: Useful information. This is key, as if information in an email isn't useful to you, your company or colleagues, or is stored in another location, you can probably delete messages.

Some people disagree with this view though and in fact some lawyers advise deleting emails due to the fact that they could turn out to be a liability one day. There are tons of stories of someone sending an inappropriate email to friends, only to have it leak to an unintended recipient. Situations like this could ruin your company.

What do you do/think? Do you delete your emails or archive them? Let us know.

These past few months of 2012 have been big for Microsoft, with the officially announcement of Windows 8, two new tablets and new versions of nearly every Microsoft product. The Redmond, WA based company has indeed been busy. One of the more recent developments is a new version of Office, Office 2013 or Office 15 as the technical preview labels it. Office 2013 is promising to bring about some big changes.

Here are the major changes you are going to see with Microsoft Office 2013:

Overall changes With Office 2013, all of the major Office components have been updated to take advantage of the new layout in Windows 8. This means that the whole Office suite is now set up with a tablet friendly layout.

At this time, there are five different plans available for users who want to buy Office 2013.

1. Office Web Apps. A free web based version of Office that is integrated with SkyDrive, Outlook.com and Facebook Messages.
2. Office Home Premium. The consumer version that comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, OneNote and Publisher. This version can be installed on up to five computers at once, and comes with 20GB of storage space on SkyDrive.
3. Office 365 Small Business Premium. Has the same programs as the consumer version, but instead of SkyDrive, uses Office 365. This version also has Exchange email, SharePoint and Lync.
4. Office 365 Pro Plus. This plan has the same programs as Small Business as well as InfoPath.
5. Office 365 Enterprise. Enterprise is the most complete plan, with all accounts being 365 Enterprise accounts and the full version of Exchange.

You’ll also be able to subscribe to Office, which will allow you to take your account anywhere and access/stream Office software and documents. Office will download/stream the program you need while you’re using it and then delete it afterwards. Almost every major program of Office has also been updated.

Word Word has been cleaned up a little and the ribbon at the top of the window (where all your editing options are) has been modified slightly to make it more useful. Laying out your documents has been made a lot easier with the ability to insert images directly from the Internet without having to download them first. You’ll also be able to adjust images more quickly due to enhanced alignment tools.

It’s obvious that Word 2013 has been designed for tablets by default, and the window is slightly taller but a lot wider. Some functions like Spell Check also take up a lot more space, which can make it tougher to edit/navigate documents. This could take some getting used to, but shouldn’t pose much of an issue for your employees.

PowerPoint PowerPoint shines with the new layout, with your project or presentation taking center stage with tools fading into the background. If you’re editing a presentation and you close the program, you’ll get a pop-up offering to take you directly to where you left off last time when you restart the program.

Embedding images and videos is a lot easier with the ability to search for media within PowerPoint and embed it directly, without having to mess with code and downloading images. Media also has quick formatting options which are easily accessed from where show up as a small box beside the media element.

There are also some great new presentation tools, including a preview of the next few slides that only you can see, the ability to zoom in/out on slides, and better ability to jump between slides.

Excel Excel has also had a similar facelift, with the latest features aiming to help users with their spreadsheets. Select a range of cells and Excel will give you a Quick Analysis option which can suggest ideas about what you may want to do with that data. When creating a chart or graph, Excel will make a suggestion as to the most appropriate chart/graph for the data. With complex data that can be analysed using pivot tables, Excel will build the tables automatically. Editing of charts, tables and data has also been made easier.

Excel has been made to look more ‘alive’. If you make a change you will visually see the results (if you change data, the resulting chart will update). If you make an error, Excel will now give you detailed explanations about the error, not just the usual error code from previous versions.

Outlook Outlook has been updated to be more efficient too, and you’ll be able to view and reply to emails directly from the main screen, without having to open emails in a new window. Instead  your emails open in a new pane that’s part of the main screen. You’ll also be able to quickly view all of your unread emails, by simply clicking Unread.

The address book has also received an overhaul, to bring it closer to the one on Windows Phone. It will try to put similar accounts together into one card and addresses can be more easily viewed.

There is a slight downside though, as notifications stack up on the right side of the window. If you’ve been away on vacation and return to 100s of emails, you’ll be flooded with notifications that take up a large portion of the screen. They do fade after a few seconds, but they could prove to be a nuisance.

There have been lots of changes made in Office 15, and no doubt more will be made before the retail release of Office 2013. You can sign up to preview Office 2013 here. While you can try it, we recommend that you don’t implement it as the new office suite in your office until the retail version is released. If you’re as excited as we are about Office 2013, and would like to learn more about implementing it after the release please contact us.