Online Technology Training Available to Staff

Frequently, oet-help receives requests for sources of online technology training. The University of Delaware subscribes to two services, Virtual Training Company (VTC) and Lynda.com that provide convenient on-demand video training on a variety of technology topics including Office 2007, Adobe Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, and Drupal (Lynda.com).

Although the total length of a course may span several hours, courses are broken into smaller, more manageable video segments that allow users to target information that interests them, and users can bookmark a section to return to later.

Information on how to access these services, which require a login and password, is available on IT’s web tutorials site. In addition, this site lists a variety of online Office 2007 tutorials from Microsoft.

Outlook Autocomplete Tip

As you probably know, Outlook has a feature which builds a list of email addresses you have used before.  This list is used for automatically completing the address when you begin typing into the “TO:”  or “CC:” box on a new message.

Over time, the list can become rather long and might contain addresses that you no longer need in the list. 

To delete an address from the list:

• Open a new message and begin typing an email recipient’s name or address in the “To:” box.  Keep typing until the address you want to remove appears in the autocompete list.
• Using your arrow keys, highlight the address you want to delete.
• Hit the Delete key.

File Converter Available for Office 2004 for Mac

If you use Office 2004 for the Macintosh and cannot open files created in later Office versions, a file converter is available from Microsoft that will allow you to read most files.

The Open XML Converter allows Office 2004 users to open Excel, PowerPoint, and Word files created in Office 2008 (Macintosh) or Office 2007 (Windows). In addition, to enhance Office stability, Microsoft recommends that Office 2004 users install an Office 2004 for Mac Update.

There are some known issues with the file converter for working with Excel, PowerPoint, and Word files in Office 2004 and only specific file types are supported. See the Microsoft article, Information about how to work with Open XML Format files in Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac, for further information.

Viewing Shared Calendars with Outlook Web Access

Outlook Web Access (OWA) is great for accessing your mail and calendar from anywhere on the web.  However, viewing someone else’s shared calendar with OWA is not as straight forward as it is with Outlook.  With OWA you don’t have the convenient check boxes in the navigation pane to choose the shared calendars you want to see.  You can view a shared calendar by keying in the necessary information into the browser’s address line:

Example:  When you’re in OET Webmail, your address line will show as follows:

https://webmail.oet.udel.edu/exchange/ 

After the final slash, key in: Smith/calendar

Like this: https://webmail.oet.udel.edu/exchange/Smith/calendar

Where Smith is the Windows user name sharing the calendar.

How to Export Outlook Contacts

If you want to move or copy your Outlook Contacts to another email system, there are a few options from which to choose.  For instance, if you’re moving the contacts to another Outlook environment, the best way to port the data would be to save the data in an Outlook “.pst” file.  This file type saves the data in exactly the same format as the original contact information.  If the new email system is not Outlook, you would choose one of the following file types: Comma Separated Values, Tab Separated Values, MS Access or MS Excel.  If you’re unsure of the file type your new email system expects, your best bet is to use Comma Separated Values (.csv).  This file type can be easily converted to many other file types, if necessary.

1. On the Outlook file menu, choose Import and Export…
2. In the Import and Export Wizard select Export to a file.
3. On the first Export to a file window, select your file type.
4. On the next Export to a file window, locate and select your Contacts item under Mailbox – yourname.
5. On the next Export to a file window, key in or browse to a place to save the file.
6. On the final Export to a file window you have a chance to Map Custom Fields, in case your new email system requires different field names for the contact information.  If not, just hit Finish, and you’re done.

Changing Your Outlook Font Size

There are many display settings in Windows to change the font size on various components.  You might have used some of these and find that your Outlook Inbox is still too small to read.  Outlook has its own settings for “Outlook Views”.  To enlarge the font in your favorite Outlook view:

1. On the View menu, select Arrange By.
2. On the Arange By submenu, select Custom…
3. In the Custom View dialog box, choose Other Settings…
4. The Other Settings window has options for changing the fonts sizes by Column, Row and the AutoPreview pane.

This works the same way in Outlook 2003 and Outlook 2007.

Microsoft Office License Now Includes Non-University Owned Computers

The University’s Microsoft Office license has been extended to include installation on non-University owned computers that are used for University-related work.  So if you are a faculty or staff member who works at home, you will be able to download and install Office without purchasing a license. Previously, under this agreement, staff and faculty could download and install Office only on University-owned computers.

Office is available for download by faculty and staff from UDeploy software distribuition site at https://udeploy.udel.edu/. Students are not covered under this license agreement. For further information on the details of the license agreement, see UDaily or contact oet-help@udel.edu.

Managing the Size of Your Exchange Account within Outlook

Exchange account users on the Office of Educational Technology (OET) domain each have a mailbox on the OET Microsoft Exchange Server. Exchange mailboxes have a physical size limit imposed by Microsoft which cannot be overridden by any Microsoft-supported settings. Therefore, to ensure that you have continued e-mail service through the Exchange Server, you need to maintain your mailbox within the established size limits.

If you are an Exchange client, the OET mail storage limits are set to warn you when your mailbox reaches 1.4GB in size. If your mailbox continues to grow, you will not be able to send mail when your mailbox reaches 1.75GB, and you will not be able to send or receive mail when your mailbox reaches 2GB. However, you can easily manage your Exchange account within Outlook.

For details on how to manage your Exchange account e-mail within Outlook, see How-to-clean-up-your-exchange-account (PDF). If you’d like to meet with an OET technician to manage your Exchange account, just send a note to oet-help@udel.edu.

It’s Easy to Save as a PDF with Office 2007 and 2008

The new Office versions give Windows and Macintosh users options to save in portable document format (PDF). 

If you have Office 2007 installed on your Windows XP or Vista computer, a free add-in from Microsoft allows you to save files in PDF or in XML Paper Specification (XPS) format.  This add-in works with eight 2007 Microsoft Office programs, including Word, Access, Excel, Publisher, Visio, InfoPath, OneNote and PowerPoint. Files saved in PDF format can then be read by Adobe Reader.  Since this add-in does not come with Office 2007, you can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4D951911-3E7E-4AE6-B059-A2E79ED87041&displaylang=en.

In Office 2008 for the Macintosh, there’s nothing additional to download; the PDF file format option is available in the Save As dialog box on the file menu in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Office 2008 Available Now on UDeploy

Office 2008 for the Macintosh is now available on UDeploy for full-time staff and faculty to download and install for free on UD-owned computers.  To see if your Macintosh can run Office 2008, you can view the system requirements at Mactopia, Microsoft’s Macintosh support site. 

If you would like OET to install the software for you, or if you have questions about system requirements, contact us!