How to compress images in Word and Powerpoint

Inserted images in Word and Powerpoint may appear small, but they are actually stored as their original size unless compressed. This can cause printing to take a long time and needlessly increase file sizes. Thankfully there is a way to compress images in both these applications.

Office 2000, XP and 2003

Open the view menu and select 'Pictures' from the 'Toolbars' sub-menu. The picture toolbar, as shown below, should appear.

Click on the 'Compress pictures' icon (highlighted in orange on the above picture).

This opens the following window.


Select 'Web/Screen' for the highest level of compression, or 'Print' for a lower level. Make sure that 'Apply to' is set to 'All pictures in document', and click 'OK'.

You may then receive the following warning. If you do, click the 'Apply' button.



Office 2007 and 2010

Click on any image to enable 'Picture Tools', and click the 'Format' tab shown below.


Click the 'Compress Pictures' button (highlighted in orange on the above picture), to open the following window.

Select whichever level of compression best suits your purposes. Make sure that 'Apply only to this picture' is not selected, and click the 'OK' button.

How to print two pages per sheet

Cutting down on the amount of paper used in printing not only saves money, but is also more environmentally friendly. Some applications offer the option of printing multiple pages per sheet of paper. In this post I will show you how to print two pages per sheet in MS Word and Adobe Acrobat Reader.

MS Word
Open the print dialogue from the 'File' menu in older versions of Word, or by clicking the Office Button in newer versions (as shown below).


Simply set 'Pages per sheet' to '2 pages' and click 'OK'.



Adobe Acrobat
Open the print dialogue from the 'File' menu.
Change 'Page Scaling' to 'Multiple pages per sheet' and 'Pages per sheet' to '2'.



OpenOffice
I found no easy way to print two pages per sheet in OpenOffice, but you can save the file as a pdf using the 'Export as PDF' tool in the 'File' menu and then open it in Adobe Acrobat and follow the above instructions.

Linux commands for OpenOffice applications

In order to create a launcher for a particular OpenOffice application, or if you wish to run one from a terminal in Linux, you will need to know which command opens each application. Unlike Microsoft Office, for example, there is one command to run OpenOffice to which you can add a parameter to run a particular application.

Command to run the Writer word processor: openoffice.org -writer

Command to run the Calc spreadsheet application: openoffice.org -calc

Command to run the Impress presentation application: openoffice.org -impress

Command to run the Base database application: openoffice.org -base

Command to run the Draw vector graphics editor: openoffice.org -draw

How to copy charts into a word processor

When copying charts into a word processor, whether in Microsoft Office from Excel to Word or in openoffice.org from Calc to Writer, the software embeds a special object that links back to the original spreadsheet. If you then change the details in the Excel spreadsheet the chart in the Word document will change accordingly. In many cases this is advantageous; however, it can cause problems if the Word document cannot 'see' the Excel file, for example, if you email the Word file to someone without the Excel file. It is generally better to paste the chart as an image in the first place using the 'Paste special' facility.

I will start by explaining how to do this in Microsoft Office:

Once you have created your chart in Excel you select it and copy it, as shown here.


In older versions of Word you pull down the 'Edit' menu and select 'Paste Special'. You may have to wait a moment for all the menu items to be revealed.


In the latest versions of Word, 'Paste special' is in a menu underneath the 'Paste' button.


A box will open, from which you select 'Picture (Enhanced Metafile)', and click OK.

This will then insert the chart as a picture, which you can manipulate like any other imported image.
In openoffice.org, the procedure is pretty much the same as above, with 'Paste special' is in the 'Edit' menu, or alternatively you can use a keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + V. The major difference from above is that the following box will open when you select 'Paste special'. Simply select 'Bitmap' and click OK to paste the chart as a picture.

OpenOffice Keyboard Shortcuts

Writer, the word processor in OpenOffice.org, uses many of the same keyboard shortcuts as MS Word. The shortcuts for selecting, editing and formatting text follow established standards. Whereas Writer has a keyboard shortcut for 'Paste special' (Ctrl + Shift + V) - something missing in Word - it does not have one for changing the case of selected text. It is possible to set up new shortcuts in Writer, and I will show you how to set up one to make the selected text upper-case and another to make it lower-case.

In Writer pull down the 'Tools' menu and click 'Customise'.

Select the 'Keyboard' tab, as shown below.

You can see all the default keyboard shortcuts, and some spare key combinations.

I have chosen Ctrl + Shift + U to make selected text upper case, and Ctrl + Shift + L to make it lower case.

Find Ctrl + Shift + U in the 'Shortcut keys' list. Select 'Format' from the 'Category' list, and then 'Uppercase' from the 'Function' list. Click the 'Modify' button to make the change.

Repeat the process selecting Ctrl + Shift + L, the 'Format' category, and the 'Lowercase' function, not forgetting to click the 'Modify' and then the 'OK' buttons when you are done.

Linux applications: Part 1 - Productivity

As I mentioned in a recent post, I have recently switched to a Linux distribution as my operating system of choice. Many other users may be put off from making a similar switch because they are concerned that they may not be able to use the applications that they know from the Windows environment. While some applications are not available on Linux, there are a number of alternatives that offer all the most important features and have the benefit of not costing a penny.

Office Software
OpenOffice.org from Sun Microsystems is a decent replacement for Microsoft Office. It includes a word processor called Writer, a spreadsheet package called Calc, presentation authoring software called Impress, a database management system called Base, and a vector graphics program called Draw, which doubles up as a simple desk top publishing package. Using OpenOffice.org you can open and save files in Word, Excel and Powerpoint file formats and even save them in pdf format too. So far I have had no problems transferring files between OpenOffice.org and Microsoft Office, although you may be advised to install the default Microsoft fonts. For Ubuntu users the MS font package is called msttcorefonts. OpenOffice.org is not only available for Linux, but also for Windows and Mac OS.

PDF Reader
While Adobe Acrobat is available for Linux, it is as bloated as its Windows equivalent. Evince is a good lightweight alternative, with the added benefit of support for djvu files. If you use KDE as your windows manager then you may also want to consider KPDF.

Graphics software
As with OpenOffice.org, GIMP is available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS; although I have had problems using it on Windows in the past. It is a feature rich graphics manipulation program that supports all commonly used image formats.

In the next part I will look at for entertainment software available for Linux.

Customising the Quick Access Toolbar

In a recent post about adding buttons to the toolbars in Microsoft Office applications I pointed out that there is no way to add buttons to the new 'ribbon' that has replaced the old toolbars. Nevertheless, it has come to my attention that there is still one customisable toolbar in the latest versions of Word, Excel and Powerpoint. This is called the 'Quick Access Toolbar'. If you wish to add extra buttons to this toolbar you can do so by following the instructions on the 'Microsoft Office Online' pages. [http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/word/HA012341051033.aspx]

I do not have a copy of MS Office 2007 myself, so I do not know whether you can add a button for the useful 'Past Special' function. If you have a copy of any of the Office 2007 applications, please let me know how you have got on when adding buttons to this toolbar.

Putting new buttons on toolbars in MS Office (before the 2007 version)

A while ago I published an article that suggested that rather than printing directly from web browsers, such as Internet Explorer, it is better to copy the information that you want into a word processor and print it from there. In that article I mentioned the use of the 'Paste Special' in Word, which enables you to remove formatting from the information that you paste. In this article I will explain how to put a button for 'Paste Special' onto the toolbar in Microsoft Word 2003 and other earlier versions. This technique can also be used to add any of the other available buttons onto any toolbar.

Open up Word and right-click on one of the toolbars, which are at the top of the screen below the menu and look something like this:


From the menu, select 'Customize...', which will open a dialog box. Click on the 'Commands' tab.


Select 'Edit' from the left-hand menu, because the 'Paste Special' tool is listed in the 'Edit' menu. Scroll down through the list on the right-hand until you see 'Paste Special' then left-click on it and hold the mouse button down. The mouse pointer should change to an arrow pointing at a rectangle with a square to the bottom right, which will have an X in it initially.

Move the pointer up to the toolbars and release the mouse button when it is in a suitable position: next to the normal paste button for example. You will notice that the mouse pointer changed appearance again when you hovered over the toolbar, with the X being replaced with a + to let you know that the new button can be placed there.

Your toolbar should now look something like this:

If you wish to remove a button from the toolbar, follow the instructions above for opening the 'Customize' dialog, but rather than drag from the dialog box to the toolbar, click on the button you wish to remove from the toolbar and drag it into the dialog box.

This process also works in the other Microsoft Office applications such as Excel and PowerPoint. With Office 2007, Microsoft have replaced the old tried-and-tested menu and toolbar arrangement with something called 'ribbons' (as pictured below) and there is no way to customise these in the same way as detailed above.

This is an edited version of a post that first appeared on Bloody Computer! on 19th November 2007.