Compound Interest

There is no function in either OpenOffice.org or Microsoft Excel for calculating interest on an investment (or loan).
There is a simple formula to work this out that needs three figures:
- the initial value
- the number of payments
- the percentage rate that each payment is worked out at.

Assuming A2 is value, B2 is the interest rate and C2 is the number of periods, the formula in OpenOffice.org would be =A2*(power(1+B2;B2)).
This also works in Excel, but change the ; to a comma.

Alternatively, if you are comfortable with Maths you may want to use the ^ symbol for the power calculation, in which case the formula wold be =A2*(1+B2)^C2 in both programs.

Microsoft has instructions for making this formula into a macro at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/141695
The advantage is that all you would need to enter into the cell would be =Yearly_Rate(A2,B2,C3).

Fast Foreign Accents

While you can enter accented characters in Word by holding down Alt and entering a four-character number with the numerical keypad, there is an easier way!

Click on the link to find out how: Fast Foreign Accents

Shrink to Fit

It is very frustrating when your Word document is just too large to fit on one page. One solution is to adjust the page margins, but this can cause problems if you open the document on another computer. Luckily, Word has the answer.

Click on the File Menu and then on Print Preview. Left click on the 3rd icon from the right. If you are not sure which icon is the right one, hold your cursor over them in turn until you see the "Shrinki to Fit" tooltip.

Word will now shrink all the fonts in the document, hopefully making it fit on one page. It is possible to undo the change but only before you close the document. If the Print Preview toolbar does not appear in the window, right click an empty area to the right of the menus and then left-click on the Print Preview Option.

Popular Excel Shortucts

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Watch how to create a drop down list in Excel

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Sample File

Using the "Spike Feature" in Word - Beyond Cut & Paste

One of the problems with the standard Cut and Paste functions in Microsoft Word is when there are multiple pieces of text to move. An answer to this problem can be found in the spike feature. This allows documents to be moved to a virtual ‘spike’, where they are stored in readiness to be pasted elsewhere. To move some text to the spike, first highlight the words and then hold down the Control (Ctrl) key before tapping F3. The text disappears to the spike. Now repeat for the other text passages that need to be moved. Next, position the text cursor at the point in the document where you want to put the spiked text, and hold down Shift and Control while once more tapping F3. All spiked items will be pasted en masse, in the order they were copied.

Mixed Cell Formatting in Excel

In Excel spreadsheets, it is possible to use more than one text size, colour or style in the same cell, to emphasise, show secondary information or just to save space. To achieve this, first click in the cell concerned and press the F2 function key to go into cell-editing mode. Now highlight only the text to be altered and from the Formatting Toolbar, select different style, size or colour. Press the Enter key to finish and check result. Repeat the process to change results. To force text onto a new line within a cell, hold down the Alt key and press the Return key.