The other day I had to teach a Word course and I normally take a text with me so that people can replicate what is being taught. This time, however, I decided to use an old trick from Word whereby you can use the =rand() function to get the following:

On the Insert tab, the galleries include items that are designed to coordinate with the overall look of your document. You can use these galleries to insert tables, headers, footers, lists, cover pages, and other document building blocks. When you create pictures, charts, or diagrams, they also coordinate with your current document look.

You can easily change the formatting of selected text in the document text by choosing a look for the selected text from the Quick Styles gallery on the Home tab. You can also format text directly by using the other controls on the Home tab. Most controls offer a choice of using the look from the current theme or using a format that you specify directly.

To change the overall look of your document, choose new Theme elements on the Page Layout tab. To change the looks available in the Quick Style gallery, use the Change Current Quick Style Set command. Both the Themes gallery and the Quick Styles gallery provide reset commands so that you can always restore the look of your document to the original contained in your current template.

Besides the traditional =rand() function, we can also use the =lorem() function to return the ubiquitous "Lorem ipsum..." text:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna.

Nunc viverra imperdiet enim. Fusce est. Vivamus a tellus.

Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Proin pharetra nonummy pede. Mauris et orci.

In both cases we get a set of three paragraphs, but you can change that by adding arguments to the functions. If you type =lorem(6) you will get six paragraphs whereas if you type =lorem(3,6) you will get three paragraphs with six sentences each.

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PS: You can also use this in other Office applications such as PowerPoint. Enjoy!

In Office 2007, Microsoft introduced what is widely known as the "Office Button". This is a button that functions in the same way as the old "File" menu, which gives you tools to work with the file such as Save As, Print, etc.

Have you ever wondered why the Microsoft Office Button flashes? Or how to make it flash again?

The first thing to know is that the Button flashes for discoverability reasons, that is, it flashes with the implicit and silent message: "Hey, I am here! Click me!". Once you have "discovered" the Office Button, it will stop flashing in all of the Office applications.

Here's a cool trick to get the Office Button to flash again by tweaking the Windows Registry. Have fun!