Professional Development Resources: Technology Tips

Re-Using Prior Documents and AutoSave: How to Make It Work

AutoSave can be a wonderful feature—it can certainly be a time-saver if something happens to your computer (e.g. power outage) while working on a document that you had not actively saved recently.  AutoSave is the default setting for Office documents opened from/saved to Teams and OneDrive.  Since those are both cloud storage options, they are both more reliable and more accessible (from multiple devices/locations) than documents saved to your local device.

However, if you often base new documents upon old documents—and especially if you want to preserve the old document(s) for historical and/or comparison purposes—AutoSave can cause you to unintentionally lose part or all of an old document’s contents.  AutoSave works almost instantaneously as soon as there is a change to a document with AutoSave enabled.

There are a few simple steps to take to use an old document—with the AutoSave setting enabled—as the basis for a new one (e.g. using a prior meeting agenda as a template for the next meeting’s agenda) while still preserving the original document.

1. Open the original document.
2. Immediately, before making any changes/edits, go to File->Save A Copy and give the soon-to-be-new document a different name.  Choose where you want to save the file (if different from the original location), then click the ‘Save’ button.
3. Now you can make changes/edits without AutoSave overwriting the content in the original document.  (The original document, with the original name, will still be saved in the original location.)

Filtering Google Search Results

Did you know you can filter Google search results to just a particular timeframe or type of content?  
 
Once you type in search keywords and press Enter, tabs will display above your search results along with Settings and Tools buttons.  The exact tabs you see will vary depending on your search.  Common tabs include News, Videos, Images, Maps, Shopping, Flights, Books, and Finance.  Click the desired tab to see just one type of result.  Click More to see additional options.
 
To find results within a specific timeframe, click the Tools button then Any time to change the timeframe.  This can be helpful for searches like the one below where it is important to find instructions for the most recent version of Teams.  

The options available after clicking Tools can vary, too.  For example, if you click the Images tab then click Tools, you will have the option to filter by Size, Color, Type, Time, and Usage Rights.

How to Split Screens in Windows - Maximize Your Screen Space

This tip might be more useful for those of us accustomed to having 2 monitors/screens on their desk, but even if you've only ever had 1--you'll still probably use this tip on a regular basis.

It is possible to have 2 windows open on opposite sides of your single screen--this works in Windows 7 and in Windows 10.

1. Once you have at least 2 windows open (e.g. a web browser and a Word document), click on an empty area in the header of 1 of the windows, hold down the left mouse button, and drag the window to the right side of the screen. Move it all the way over, as far as you can go, until your mouse won't move anymore--you'll probably see a shadow appear into the center of the screen.
2. Let go of the mouse to snap that window to the right side of the screen. It should now fill half the screen.
3. Select any of the other windows that are now open on the left side to instantly snap it to the right side of the screen.

You can now work easily in either and/or both windows without switching between them. Both windows will stay active and visible.

Editing PDF Documents

Have you ever wished you could edit a PDF document without needing special software? In some cases, you can! Next time this happens to you, try opening your PDF in Microsoft Word. To do this, simply open Microsoft Word, go to File: Open, find your document, and click Open. The new Word document may not look exactly the same, but this is often a good jumping off point if you need to make changes to a PDF.

(Note: This won't work if your PDF was created as an image. For example: if you scanned a printed page, the document will appear in Word as an image, and you will not be able to edit the text.)

Microsoft Office Formatting Shortcut - Format Painter

Did you ever notice the paintbrush button in Microsoft Office apps and wonder what it does? The official name for this button is the Format Painter and it is an amazing time saver!

The Format Painter picks up formatting from a selection then allows you to 'paint' this formatting elsewhere. For example, let's say you've made a section of text italicized, bold, and red so it stands out. You could select the next section of text to be formatted the same way, click the three formatting buttons and repeat as needed. Or, you can use the Format Painter. 

To use the Format Painter: 
1. Select a section of text that has the desired formatting applied
2. Double-click the Format Painter button
3. Drag to select the next section of text where you'd like to use the same formatting and repeat as needed

When you're done using the Format Painter, either press the Escape (Esc) key or click the Format Painter button to turn it off.

Note that if you click the Format Painter button rather than double-clicking, the Format Painter is turned on for a single use. The mouse pointer will look like a paintbrush when the Format Painter is turned on.

The Format Painter can be used for text formatting such as bold, italics, font size, and color. It can also be used to duplicate paragraph formatting such as indentation and bullets. To pick up paragraph formatting be sure to select to the very end of the paragraph.

The Format Painter is available in many Microsoft Office apps. Look for it at the left side of the ribbon in the Clipboard section.

Outlook - Scheduling Assistant

Have you ever struggled to find a meeting time that will work for all parties involved? Perhaps you have been invited to attend an important meeting that conflicts with another important meeting already on your schedule. The use of the Scheduling Assistant in Outlook is a helpful tool to make meeting scheduling a bit easier and less stressful.

Of course, the Scheduling Assistant will be of no use if our calendars are not kept up to date. Thus, our first piece of advice is to make sure you add all your appointments to your calendar. If you are a faculty member teaching on-ground courses, putting the class meetings on your calendar is very helpful.  If you are a part-time employee, block out your calendar on the days and times that you are not scheduled to work. This should prevent others from trying to schedule meetings with you when you are not in the office. When scheduling or accepting an appointment, the time can be shown on your calendar as free, busy, out of office, working elsewhere, or tentative (for appointments that have been sent, but have not yet been accepted or declined).  

Here is a helpful tip sheet that will provide you with step-by-step instructions for using the Scheduling Assistant. If you are a visual learner, this video will be helpful.

As you can see in the screenshot, using Scheduling Assistant allows the person scheduling the meeting to see what days/times all attendees (or most attendees) are available.

Outlook - To-Do Bar

If you’re looking for a simple electronic task list option, if you occasionally have trouble finding emails that require attention in your inbox, or if you want to find a better system for keeping track of sent emails that you need to follow up on, today’s tip is for you! Outlook’s To-Do Bar is a simple way to create a task list, and it’s also a great way to keep track of emails that you’ve received and want to follow up on in the future, or emails that you’ve sent and want to remember to follow up on later.

To turn on the To-Do Bar in Outlook, go to View > To-Do Bar, and then select Tasks from the drop-down menu:

You’ll now see the To-Do Bar in your Outlook. To start with, you can create a simple task list. In the “Type a new task” box, you can type something in and click Enter to create a new task:

Right click the red flag to the right of your new task to change the due date if you want to remind yourself to work on something farther into the future. When you’re done with your task, left click the red flag to mark it complete.

To keep track of an email that requires follow-up, look for the email in your inbox, sent folder, or wherever it is located. Hover over the email toward the right until you see a red flag. Left click the flag to add that email to your to-do list today, or right click the flag for more options or to select a different due date:

Want to learn more? Microsoft Support has plenty of information on creating and assigning tasks.

Outlook - Creating Rules to Manage Incoming Messages

Do you ever feel like your Outlook inbox is so filled with automated messages and group emails that you have a hard time keeping your email organized? Using “Rules” in Outlook might be for you! You can create Rules that will automatically move new messages that meet certain criteria into a folder other than your inbox. This allows you to review those messages when you have the time and minimize what’s going to your actual inbox to help keep you focused and organized.

To get started, go to File > Manage Rules and Alerts. Then click New Rule. Select a template that makes sense for what you want to accomplish, and then click Next. From here, you can check and uncheck boxes to add more details to your rule about which messages it should apply to. Click on any of the blue underlined words or phrases to edit specific details about your rule and click Finish when your rule is ready to go. Make sure to make your rule as specific as possible so that you don’t accidentally filter out more emails than intended.

Here's an example. Advisors receive an automated email each time one of their advisees adds a course. Those emails need reviewed on an on-going basis but do not need attention immediately.  For emails like those--important but not necessarily time-sensitive, you can create a rule to file all of those emails into a separate folder. The automated emails come from recordsandregistration@centralpenn.edu, and the subject for each is something like “Advisee Mariah Carey has added a course to their 2022SU schedule”. In this example, since the name of the advisee and the term change, the rule identifies recurring text common to all emails (such as the middle section of the subject line (“has added a course”) and creates a rule that looks for those words in the subject line and for emails coming from Records and Registration. Here’s a screenshot of the completed rule:

Want to learn more about using Rules in Outlook? There are tons of resources online, but here’s one to get you started: Microsoft Outlook: Set Up Rules

Outlook - Shortcut for Creating Calendar Appointments

Many times we receive emails that contain information we would like to include when creating a new calendar appointment. You can always copy and paste the information. But did you know that you can easily create an Outlook Calendar appointment by dragging and dropping an email onto the Calendar tab on the navigation bar at the bottom of the Outlook window?

As soon as you drop the email onto the Calendar tab, an appointment window opens up with the email subject as the appointment subject and text from the email automatically included in the Details section. (You'll still need to add/modify the date, time, location, etc.)

Outlook - Open Calendar in Separate Tab

Are you tired of having to toggle between your email and calendar all day as you schedule and check your appointments? You can avoid doing so by having both open on your computer at the same time. This feature is available in both the desktop and web versions of Outlook.

After opening your email, simply right click on the Calendar name or icon (see screenshots) and choose "Open in New Window" or "Open in new tab." The calendar will open in a new window/tab so that both features can be easily accessible at the same time.

Outlook - Quick Parts

Do you ever feel like you're typing the same thing over and over in your emails? Save yourself a little time using Quick Parts in Outlook! Quick Parts is a feature that allows you to create canned responses to use in your emails for things that you repeat regularly. If you are regularly sending the same links/directions/information/etc. to your students and/or colleagues, you may find this feature useful.

Here's how you can get started:
1. Find a piece of text that you use regularly and copy it into a new Outlook email. Format it however you choose. Highlight the piece of text.
2. Go to the Insert tab in the ribbon at the top of your email. Click Quick Parts (located in the Text group) and then click Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery.

3. Choose a Name for your piece of text and click OK.

4. When you're typing another email and are ready to use that piece of text again, simply go back to the Insert tab, choose your piece of text, and it will inserted into your email. From there, you can edit your inserted text as needed and write the rest of your email.

You can use Quick Parts to save a whole email if you regularly send the same email to people, or you can use it to save a small chunk of text that you regularly use. Follow this process multiple times to create multiple Quick Parts!

If you need to delete a previously created Quick Part, go to the Insert Tab, click Quick Parts, hover over one of your Quick Parts, right click, and select Organize and Delete. From here you can delete Quick Parts that you are no longer using.

Outlook - Out of Office Replies

Out of office replies take just a few minutes to set up and are a valuable way to let your stakeholders know 3 things: 1) you are not currently available, but also: 2) when you will return and 3) who they can contact in your absence if immediate assistance is needed.

Example Message: Thanks for your email. I will be out of the office until 8am on Friday, August 28th and will have limited access to email. I will reply to your email as soon as possible after I return. If you require assistance prior to my return, please contact Jane Doe at janedoe@centralpenn.edu or call 717-728-xxxx

Depending on their role, some employees (e.g. those who spend large portions of their workday not logged in to their email, such as faculty teaching face-to-face courses) might also use out of office replies to notify anyone who contacts them when emails will be read and then returned.

Example Message: Thank you for emailing Professor McGonagall.  I am in the classroom between the hours of 8am and 3pm.  I will reply to emails within 24 hours (usually less) during the week and until 3pm on Saturdays.  

Basic Steps:
To set up out of office replies in the desktop version of Outlook, click on “File” in the top left, then the box (Automatic Replies) next to “Automatic Replies (Out of Office).”

Click on the radio button that says “Send automatic replies.” To avoid forgetting to turn off the out of office reply, click on the checkbox next to “Only send during this time range” and set the start and end dates/times when you want the system to send automatic replies. (This also allows you to set up your replies any time prior to when you’ll actually be unavailable instead of waiting until you want/need to leave.)

Finally, decide on the reply you want to send.  It can be the same for those inside your organization and outside the organization or different for each group, but you do need to specify a message.  If you want to send replies to those outside the organization, you need to turn that feature on—it is off by default.

If you want your email signature (or even part of it, such as your name and title) to appear in any auto-reply, you need to include it when you do the set up—the system cannot add it automatically.

If you want the same reply for each, type it once in either box, highlight the text, and press Ctrl+C to copy (right-clicking to copy and paste does not work). Then, click on the tab (Inside or Outside My Organization) to get to the other box, click inside, and press Ctrl+V to paste.

If you use the web version of Outlook, follow this path to get to the option to send out of office replies: Settings [top right, icon looks like a gear]> View all Outlook settings [bottom of pop-up box] > Mail > Automatic replies.

Tips for Customizing Your Replies:
In the examples in the screenshots shown on this page, the “inside” out of office reply is more detailed—directing senders to contact different alternate employees depending on who the sender is (and likely what their needs might be)—while the “outside” reply is more general.  

If you choose to auto-reply to senders outside the organization, you’ll probably want to click on the radio button next to “My Contacts only.” Then the system won’t send auto-replies to newsletters, group addresses, and/or other senders you don’t know.  However, if you routinely receive messages from senders not already on your contact list but whose messages you will want/need to return, then choose the radio button next to “Anyone outside my organization.”

It is also possible to apply Rules to your incoming email messages, even when you have out of office replies turned on—for example, if you want messages from a certain person(s) to be forwarded to a personal email rather than sending that person(s) your out of office reply.  For step-by-step instructions on how to do that, please visit “How to master Outlook's out-of-office automatic replies” and scroll down to the “How to create a custom rule for Outlook automatic replies” section (https://www.windowscentral.com/how-master-outlooks-out-office-automatic-replies).