Tuesday, June 17, 2014

How to comment and uncomment blocks of code in the Office VBA Editor

Good to know.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12933279/how-to-comment-and-uncomment-blocks-of-code-in-the-office-vba-editor

One way to quickly comment and uncomment blocks of code is to add the Comment Block and Uncomment Block buttons to your toolbar.

Go to: View -> Toolbars -> Customize




Next, go to the Commands tab and then the Edit category:


Select the Comment Block and drag to the toolbar:





Do the same for the Uncomment Block.


Friday, June 6, 2014

Change Default Font and Size for Text Boxes in Excel 2010

I had someone ask me if I knew how to change the default text font and size for inserting a text box.  Of course it wasn't too straightforward, but with a little Googling I was able to find this!

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2007-excel/textbox-bug-all-excel-versions-setting-new-default/8bfabf2d-eceb-4f8e-959d-b03e54d0e10a


Here is one way to change the default font. It does not allow to you to change the default size!
No it's by design rather than a bug. Unfortunately when you copy and paste within a text box, Excel by default formats the pasted text using 'body font' from the Fonts Theme set for the workbook, and the standard font size that is set in Excel options, rather than keeping the format of the source, which is annoying. Calibri is body font in the default built-in Fonts theme called 'Office'. The easist way to change this behaviour, assuming you only want all text boxes to use Arial, is to create a special theme with the font you want. Do this from the Page Layout ribbon, select Fonts under Themes, and 'Create New Theme Fonts'. Edit the Body font, then name and save the Theme. Now select any of text box and apply the customised Font theme. The font in all text boxes should adjust to the theme font. Copying and pasting within the text boxes will also use this font. In regard to the font size, this is based on the default font size set in Excel Options. If you want to use this customised theme for all new workbooks, then you can create a customised template with the your customised theme pre-selected: Open a blank workbook, apply your custom Fonts theme and then save is as a template called Book.xltx, in your XLStart folder: Save As, Select Save As Type - Excel Template (*.xltx) type, change the name to Book, and locate it in the XLStart folder. In my PC (Vista) this is:C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART\ All new workbooks created will then be based on this template.


This is the trick you must use to change both! You simply create an initial text box the with the font and size you wish. Then right-click on the text box and choose the "Set as Default Text Box." This should allow future text boxes to be set to this new default. Found it here from this nice instructional video on YouTube!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xx_Ql56XPFg

Monday, April 21, 2014

How to update date and time in header footer in PowerPoint 2010

Ok, so this may be stupid, but since Microsoft products are used heavily in my new work environment, I "have" to (well I don't have to, but I want to) learn shortcuts and things such as overlay modifiers, for example, what I am posting now, in how to update a date amongst slides.

So, I have been given a PowerPoint for internal weekly progress reports.  The PowerPoint had a master slide which I am familiar with since I did use PP for school presentations.  I tried to change the date on "the" master slide.  However, this did not update the date for all slides.  I tried to Google and look up a way to update a date/time insert.  All I found were how to simply insert the date or insert/change the date for headers/footers.  I was "unaware" that the date was inserted on the slides as a footer, and I was thinking I could insert a text box with some type of "code" for the date which would update automatically when changed.  At any rate, I was simply thinking about it too much and in a roundabout way.  I simply just needed to go to the Insert tab then Header and Footer.  There you can change the date and its format and then apply to all slides!  Stupid and small, but I have to become more efficient in other things other than just LaTeX.  I will be heavily involved with Microsoft products, such as Excel and PP.  Not that I was ever against using them, I'd just prefer other software.


Monday, April 14, 2014

Online LaTeX Equation Editor - create, integrate and download

Online LaTeX Equation Editor - create, integrate and download:



This is a pretty neat little app.  If you don't have MathType and or don't want to use equation editor for Microsoft products (or similar), such as PowerPoint, then this is a nice way to display equations through an image.

Friday, April 11, 2014

Free PDF cropper!

http://www.pdfscissors.com/

Pretty cool app!

Features:
No installation required. Just click the start button,
Take those extra margins aways with easy cropping tool!
Drop margins from all pages by drawing just one crop area!
Avoid accidentally cropping some texts
See all pages together in stacked view
Scanned book? Crop odd/even pages separately
Complex pdf? Crop individual pages separately with full freedom.
Create crop areas easily
Draw, resize, move crop areas
Copy / paste crop areas using usual Ctrl +C / Ctrl + V
Why:
I myself faced a lot of difficulties to read pdf in kindle (and mobile phones / internet tablets), specially the image based pdfs (scanned image pdfs). Got tired of zooming and scrolling while reading a nice book. So created this to help me 'dive into the reading'. I hope it helps you too.

Why free? Well, I like programming and I needed the tool, so I would have created it anyways :P
To run the app, just click those buttons on the left
Those will launch the app directly...
no hassle
It will use 'Java webstart' technology. You need to have latest Java in your computer.
The app does not modify the original pdf, it creates a new pdf with the new crop areas that you will draw.
If you run the offline version, it will create a shortcut on desktop (and also to programs menu on windows). You can use that to run the app without internet connection.
If you have internet connection, app will keep itself automatically updated, no need to worry about getting the latest version.
NOTE: The app does NOT upload any file / any data from user's computer, the pdfs are cropped on user's machine.
Another note: App may ask to connect to Google sites, don't worry, it does that only to check whether there is any updated version of the app. It's an open source app and I have no intent to collect any user data.