Tips & Tricks

Office 2003 compatibility with Office 2007

Microsoft Word 2007 saves documents with the extension .docx and these documents (if saved that way) are only able to be read by other computer users who also have the 2007 version.

A recent study shows that 50% of users have Office 2007, while 50% have 2003. When a user of 2007 sends a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint document to someone who has Office 2003, the default formats in Office 2007 cannot be read from Office 2003. To resolve this problem, the Office 2007 user needs to change the default to a format that lower versions of Office can read.

For MS Word 2007 Users:

1. Open Microsoft Word 2007
2. Click the "Office Button" (top left of your screen), then on the bottom of the list click "Word Options"
   MS Office 2007 conversion
3. The "Word Options" window will open. Now click on "Save" in the left panel
4. Change the top option (in the right panel) "save files in this format" from "Word Document (*.docx)" to "Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc)"
5. Click "OK" and you are done!

For MS Word 2003 Users:

If you have Office 2003, then you should click on "help" and scroll down to "check for updates" to download the "compatibility pack".

This will allow Users with Word 2003 to be able to read and save documents sent to them that were originally created by someone using Word 2007.

Following the above steps will give you the ability to save all your documents as *.doc files, and save you a lot of compatibility headaches!

If you have Word 2007 and still want to save a document in the new *.docx format, just select the new format when saving individual documents.


Designing a Custom Act! Layout

To modify an existing or create a new layout, display the Design Layouts screen.

1. Display the layout that most closely matches what you want. It's easier to modify an existing layout than to start from scratch.
2. Choose Tools, Design Layouts and select the layout type (Contact, Group, or Company).

The most recently selected layout displays in Layout Designer view. Opportunity views cannot be modified.
The Layout Designer window has its own Toolbar for controlling Field & Test Properties as well as Layout properties. The Splitter bar divides the top Detail panel from the Tab Panels below. The Toolbox at the left contains the tools for placing objects (fields, pictures, boxes, lines, text, etc.) on the layout. Notice the difference between a Field Label and a Field.

You can't edit any of the System Tabs (Notes, History, Activities, Opportunities, Groups/Companies, Secondary Contacts, or Documents). You can, however, choose to hide any of them from the end user or change the order of their display. You can edit, remove, or add to the User Defined Tabs.

Microsoft® Word

• LAST EDIT - To move back to the last place you made a change, press Shift-F5. Each time you press Shift-F5 it will move the cursor back to the previous change up to four changes.
• SHOW/HIDE - Instead of clicking Show/Hide in the Standard Toolbar, press Ctrl-Shift-8 to turn Show/Hide on or off.

Microsoft® Excel

• AUTOSUM - Instead of clicking Autosum in the Standard Toolbar, press Alt=(the equal sign).
• Today's Date - Instead of typing today's date, press Ctl;(semicolon).

Using Act!

• To set up appointments in Act! using specific criteria. Sometimes appointments are scheduled only for contacts working in one company in a particular city. You have the option of using the "Narrow Lookup" feature.
  • Use Lookup Command to find a set of contacts (Eg: Company in this case)
  • From the Lookup Menu, choose another Lookup command that you can use to narrow your current set of Contacts
  • In the Lookup dialog box, enter the value to be found (Eg: City in this case)
  • Select the Narrow Lookup Option
  Please note that these options are not available for some Lookup commands.
  
  
• To clear outdated activities in Act!
  • Choose the View menu, and click Task List
  • Select the first activity that you want to clear
  • If all the activities you want cleared are continuous, hold down the Shift key and select the last activity you want to clear. All activities in between the two you selected are also selected.
  • If the activities you want to clear are not continuous, hold down the Ctrl key and select each additional activity that you want cleared.
  • After selecting the activities to be cleared, right-click one of the selected activities, and choose Clear Multiple Activities from the shortcut menu.