IT Queries: Computer problems answered

I work on a Mac computer.  In the program Microsoft Word, I have accidentally hit a key or combination of keys.  Now my computer is striking over currently typed letters instead of interjecting additional letters to the sentence.

What’s happened is you’ve accidently clicked on the Overtype icon at the bottom of the Microsoft Word screen.

Have a look at the bottom of the screen, you should find the status bar and you will see the OVR box has black writing. Click it and it will turn to gray and the problem will be gone.

I am running vista Home Premium and MS Office 2003 and for the last couple of months, I have been unable to open any pps attachments. The logo has changed to that of internet explorer and when I click on it, a internet exlporer page appears with option to open/save/cancel the particular pps file. When I click on open, it flashes back to the original email and then back to the internet explorer page and I could continue doing this all day if i desired.
I have found that I can save the file to desktop and opne the file this way, but there must be a reason that this problem has occurred.

What has happened is your computer is associating powerpoint files with the wrong program, in this case Internet Explorer.

To fix it,  go to the Control Panel and choose Default Programs. In this screen, select “Associate a file type or protocol with a program”.

In there, you will get a list of file extensions. Go down the list and choose the PPT extension and click “Change Program”.

You’ll get the Open With dialog, Powerpoint will be one of the listed programs, choose it and click “Okay”.

Exit out of this screen and it should be working.

Hello there i am currently in the process of compiling some new order documents for our Company but i am having trouble finding out how to lock the document but still make certain amendments to it for example:  on this order i want the company details and despatch address locked so they cant be amended but then i want people to be able to fill out the order form too

You don’t mention the program you’re using so I’ll assume it’s Microsoft Word.

To create a form in Word, open a new document, click the View menu and select Toolbars. The form toolbar is one of the options available.

Once you have the forms toolbar up you can then start building your form. To get text and layouts from your existing documents, just copy and paste from the old to the new.

When you are finished, protect the document by clicking the padlock icon on the forms toolbar and then save the document as a template.

You may want to save the template onto a shared drive on your network so it can be used by the right staff. See our post on how to setup a shared templates folder.

How do I share Microsoft Office templates on my network?

It’s a good idea to share standard documents and layouts across the entire business network. It avoids having too many versions being sent out to customers and suppliers.

To do this, first create the standard documents and make sure they are correct. Then save them as templates (.dot or .xlt in Word and Excel).

Then create a folder on one of your shared network folders. Make sure this folder or drive is marked read only for most people as you only want authorised staff to change the documents.

Once you’ve set this up, copy the templates to that folder.

Then on each machine, you will have to open Word click on the Tools menu, choose Options and File Locations.

Highlight the Workgroup Templates item, click modify and enter the network address of the template folder (eg \\server\data\templates).

Save and restart Word. You’ll have to repeat the process on Excel.

The result of this is when staff go to create a new document or spreadsheet from a template, all the standard templates will now appear under the general tab.

I am using Windows Vista home premium and always have difficulty opening any email attachments in Microsoft Word. They automatically default to Microsoft Works Word Processor. How do I change it so I can view them in Microsoft Word?

The problem is Works has been set as the default program for .doc files. You need to change the file association settings for the .doc files.

Probably the simplest way to do this is to remove MS Works, we’d recommend this unless you have a very good reason for running it. Works is not a very good program.

To do this click the Start button, click Control Panel and Programs, you can uninstall it from there.

If you don’t want to uninstall the programs, then you can change the association. To do this, go to the Control Panel and choose Default Programs. In this screen, select “Associate a file type or protocol with a program”.

In there, you will get a list of file extensions. Go down the list and choose the DOC extension and click “Change Program”.

You’ll get the Open With dialog, Word will be one of the listed programs, choose it and click “Okay”.

This will set Word to open all DOC attachment. You may have to do the same thing for Excel spreadsheets, just look for the XLS extension.

Every time I’m opening a wordsheet a question is stated on the screen to enable micros.

One of the older ways to spread viruses was to use malicious macros in Word and Excel. A person could be tricked into opening a word document, a macro would run in the background and infect their computer. The infected computer would then pass on the infected document.

To overcome this, Microsoft introduced a macro security system where only certain macros can be allowed to run.

In the first instance, we’d recommend uninstalling any unused programs and removing an macros from the Word start up routine. We describe how to do this in another post.

You can change the system settings to stop this message. This can be done by opening Word, clicking Tools, Macros and security.

In the Security options click “Low”. You’ll notice this is not recommended and you must have a reliable, up to date virus checker when you do this.

Click okay and the macro message will go away. But remember that your level of security is now not so high.

Macros are mini programs that are designed to run basic tasks. Microsoft Office has a fairly powerful macro writing system that enables users and programs to automate simple function.

Because this tool is so useful many programs like to add macros to Microsoft Word to improve their functions.

Macros though are fairly clumsy tools. They can go wrong, interfere with other functions or even carry viruses.

In our view, it’s best to minimise the number of macros that start with Word and Excel.

Most macros are built into the standard Word document, called Normal.dot. You can disable them by searching your computer for all files called normal.dot and renaming them to normal.old. This method may change other settings like custom fonts and may not disable macros in existing documents.

Other places macros can lurk is in the various Office startup folders. Word macros lurk in the Startup folder and Excel macros in the XLstart. These hide in the C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11 folder. Note the Office11 folder changes on the version of MS Office in use.

While macros are useful, we’d tend to discourage programs that rely heavily upon them. This is another reason why it’s a good idea to uninstall any programs that you aren’t using.

I have Outlook Express 2003. In Outlook email, in the tasks section, I want to use strikeout on my tasks but I cannot work out how I did this previously. The help section suggests to go into format then fonts, but when you get to font this is not highlighted

I assume you mean Outlook 2003. Outlook Express is a different product that doesn’t support task or calendar functions.

The strikeout function is hidden away in the customize view function. To access this, open Outlook, go to Task then click the View menu, select Arrange by, Current View, make sure Simple or Detailed List is the selected view then click Customize Current View.

Once in the customize view, choose Automatic Fonts, Automatic Formatting, highlight Completed and Read Tasks and click the Font button.

All the font options, including strikeout and changing colours are available there. You can change whichever settings you like and click okay to return to Outlook.

I have a problem using the Drop Down Form Field in Microsoft Word. After I input the required data and lock it in, the whole form is locked. No further input is allowed anywhere on the form.

I go to “VIEW”, “TOOLBARS”, “FORMS”, a small toolbar is displayed; I then select the third option from the left “DROPDOWN FORM FIELD”. After the required data is input I then click on the lock symbol. It all looked great until I tried to do further input outside the area of the drop down form field.

The problem is your document is locking, this is to protect the form from being altered by users filling it in.

To unprotect the document, you need to click the Tools menu and Protect Document. Under editing restrictions you can turn off the protection.

The protection is a good idea if you are going to use forms for people to fill in. You can get around the problem of not being able to enter any more information by breaking the documents into sections.

To do this, click Insert, Break and insert a section. You can insert as many sections as necessary and apply document protection only to those sections.

I’m having difficulty with Office2007. C= vista D= XP Pro both C&D both have the Office 2007. Can I safely delete O7 from “D” then re-install Office XP in that partition? I have the original CD.

You certainly can although we’d be reluctant to advise you to wipe the Office 2007 folder given the potential problems it can create.

We’d recommend you uninstall Office 2007 from both versions of Windows through the Control Panel as we’ve discussed previously. Note that uninstalling from one will affect the other.

It’s probably best to uninstall all versions of MS Office, then run a registry cleaner and finally reinstall Office XP.

Keep in mind that deleting folders and changing registry settings can cause problems for your computer. If you have any problems you should contact a technician for proper advice and service.