Chapter 2

Applied Productivity Tools with Advanced Application

Techniques

PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS

Computer software plays a vital role in any activities of every individual

nowadays. This software is called productivity tools which can be a freeware or
shareware that can be copied or purchased from software vendors for constant use.
Productivity tools are applications that allow for the viewing, creating and
modifying of general office content (e.g. document, presentations, graphics, charts
worksheets, photos, music and videos.) And one of the most popular productivity
tools is the Microsoft Office Productivity tools such as Word processing software,
electronic spreadsheet, presentation, database and publisher.

Mail Merge and Label Generation using Microsoft Word

Important features of Microsoft Office Word software is Mail merge and label
generation. It is the advanced technique used for sending out information and
creating much faster postal mail.
The Mail Merge feature allows you to write to many different people with the
same information which can be modified for each individual.
Mail Merge involves creating two documents. A Main Document (Mail Merge
File) and a Data Source. Combining these files into a single document automates
time-consuming tasks such as (form) letters, labels, memos and reports.
The Mail Merge file will hold special symbols (Mail Merge Fields), which will
substitute the name and address and other relevant information stored in the data
file.
Creating Mail Merge

Do the following steps to create the Main Document:

1. On the Mailings tab, select Start

Mail Merge group and choose
Start Mail Merge and select
Letters as the document type.

2. Type the letter below to create the

Main document.

May 3, 2017

Dear

We would like to invite you to attend the Annual Lecture Series of Accountancy
Business and Management Department to be held on University of Batangas on August
20, 2017.

The lecture is intended to provide our Senior High School students with the
advancement in the concepts related to Business Processes in Accounting Information
Systems such as Sales, Purchasing and Production in a computerized system such as
SAP Business One. It will also deliver concepts coupled with examples and practical
applications to give our students the feel of how the system works in the real business
industry.

I do hope that you will be able to confirm your attendance to this invitation; we look
forward to your presence at this event.

Thank you very much.

Respectfully yours,

Ms. Elysha Adrienne B. Evangelista

3.Program Coordinator
Save your document to your folder and name it as “Letter of Invitation.
To create the Data Source, do the following steps:

1. On the Mailings tab, select

Start Mail Merge group
and choose Select
Recipients and click Type
a New List from the
options.

2. The New Address List

dialog box will appear and
click the Customize
Columns button as shown
in the figure.

3. The Customize Address

List dialog box will appear.

4. Delete the Address Line 2,

City, State, Zip Code,
Country or Region, Home
Phone, Work Phone and
Email Address by selecting
each field and click Delete
button. Do it one at a time
in each field.
5. Rename the fields Company
Name to School Name and
Address Line 1 to School
Address by clicking Rename
button and then click Ok
button.

6. The remaining fields to be

used are shown in the figure.

7. Type the following records

on the table in the New Address List. Click the New Entry button to add
another record as shown below and click OK button after typing the five
records.

8. Save the Data Source to your folder and name it as “School Contacts.”
Combining the Main Document and the Data Source:

1. On the Letter Invitation

document that you
created earlier, select
Insert Merge Field from
the Write & Insert group.

2. Insert or select the

needed fields by clicking the fields and put the fields in the right location inside
the letter as shown below.

3. To preview your letters, click Preview Results. Your merged document

should be look like document below.

4. You can also click the Forward and Back arrows to view other recipients in
the list.
 5. Choose Finish & Merge to edit, print or send your merged documents
through email.

6. Save and close your document.

Integrating Images and External material in word processors

You can integrate images and external material in Microsoft Word. Inserting
photos or any kind of materials such as Pictures, Shapes, Clip Art, Screenshots,
Chart and SmartArt in the document makes it’s more impressive and informative to
the readers. These are the following:

Pictures and Online Pictures

Both “Pictures” and “Online Pictures” accomplish the same goal. The
only difference is that “Pictures” means you can insert pictures locally, while
“Online Pictures” allows you to insert images from an internet-based source
such as clip art from Office.com, Bing, or OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive).

Shapes
Microsoft Word comes with an array of built-in shapes which you can
use to create callouts, boxes, stars, and other shapes. When you choose a
shape, you simply draw it on a blank space on the page. It doesn’t matter if
you get it perfect or just the way you want it because you can adjust it to your
heart’s content once it is placed in your document.

SmartArt and WordArt

SmartArt and WordArt tend to have some overlap, particularly if you
create something using WordArt and then customize any of the text within it.
Of course, you can use one or the other and never the twain shall meet. Think
of SmartArt as premade drawing canvases that you can insert into your
document and then customize as you like. Simply pick an arrangement, such
as a list, process, or cycle.

Chart
Charts are a great way to visually display data sets and Word comes
jam packed with a large assortment of Charts to choose from, including
columns, pie, bar charts and much, much more.

Screenshot
The “Screenshot” feature will allow you to take a screen clip, which is
automatically pasted in your document.

To insert, do the following steps:

1. Open your Letter of Invitation.

 2. Click the Insert tab and select the Illustration group. In the group, you will
find the materials you can add. Choose any of the following in Pictures,
Online Pictures, Shapes, Icons, SmartArt and Chart.

3. You can now insert any materials that can be associated in the document as
shown in the sample above.

4. Save the document.

Using Animations and Hyperlink in Microsoft PowerPoint

Customs Animations and timing are essential features of Microsoft
PowerPoint. It is the moving effect that can be added to the objects or the slide itself.

Inserting Customs Animation

1. Type the following text in the slide as shown in the box below.

2. Choose the text or object you want to add the animation effect. For our
example, select or highlight the text All About Me.
3. Select the Animations tab and choose any on the list of animations from the
group of Entrance, Emphasis and Exit.
4. You can also select other effects on the additional options such as More
Entrance Effects, More Emphasis Effects, More Exit Effects, and More
Motion Paths.

5. When you select Animation Pane, it will open on the right side of your window
and it will display the details about the effect.
You may click the Play From button to show the effect inside the slide. Click
Stop button if you want to cancel.

6. To add timing to the animation, select the Timing group in the Animations
tab. You may change the Duration in seconds and also it’s Delay in seconds.
Example change the duration of the animation that is used earlier in the All
About Me object to 00.75 and 00.25 seconds to Delay as shown in the last
figure.

7. To view the animation and effects, you may click the Play From button to the
Animation Pane or Press F5 to view the slide.

8. Save the presentation to your folder and name it as “My First Presentation”.
Inserting Hyperlinks in the Presentations

Another important advanced feature of Microsoft Office tools is using

Hyperlink. In PowerPoint, you can use hyperlinks to link to resources that are not
online. To create a quick way to refer to another slide in your presentation, you can
create a hyperlink to that slide. If you need to access a file stored on your computer,
you can create a hyperlink to it. Additionally, PowerPoint allows you to format pictures
and shapes as hyperlinks.

Do the following steps to insert a hyperlink to another slide:

1. Open your preview presentation “My First Presentation”.

2. Insert New slide (this will be your slide no. 2) in the presentation and type your
own personal information as shown in the sample.

3. Insert Slide number 3 and enter your likes and dislikes. Look at the sample
below.

4. Add your slide number 4 and insert photos in the gallery slide as shown below.
5. To insert hyperlink, you
should be in slide
number one, where all
the topics are
displayed. Now select
or highlight the first
topic “My Personal
Information”. Then
select the Insert tab
and click Hyperlink.

6. The dialog box Insert Hyperlink will appear. Click Place in This Document
and select a place or slide where you want to link your page. This time select
My Personal Information slide and click OK.

7. You will notice that the text is highlighted and underlined which indicates that
the text is linked to the second slide.
 8. To view and see the result, press F5 and click the text “My Personal
Information”. The hand tool will appear in the text showing it is linked to the
next slide.

9. Do the hyperlink to the remaining topics - My likes and Dislikes and My

Gallery.

10. Save the presentation.

Advanced and complex formulas and computations using

Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet application that can help you calculate and
analyze numerical information for budgets, company finances, inventory, and more.
To make it possible, you need to understand the so called complex formulas.

A formula is a set of mathematical instructions that can be used in Excel to

perform calculations. It is always started with an equal sign (=). For example, = A1
+ A2 or = B1 – C3.

Complex formulas

Complex formulas have more than one mathematical operation. It may

contain addition and subtraction as well. When there is more than one operation in a
formula, the order of operations tells us which operation to calculate first.

Working with cell references

Excel will interpret cell references as either relative or absolute. By default,

cell references are relative references. When copied or filled, they change based
on the relative position of rows and columns. If you copy a formula (=A1+B1) into row
2, the formula will change to become (=A2+B2).

Absolute references, on the other hand, do not change when they are
copied or filled and are used when you want the values to stay the same.

Relative references

Relative references can save your time when you're repeating the same type
of calculation across multiple rows or columns.
For these, all you have to do is to copy the formula and Excel will calculate
the value using relative references.
To use the complex formula, do the following:

1. Open Microsoft Excel and type the following data:

 2. Click cell B11, type the
formula
=B6+B7+B8+B9+B10,
then press Enter key.
Or after typing the = sign
select the cell B6 then
type + sign select B7
and type + select B8
then + until B10 as
shown in the table and
press Enter key.

3. Select the cell and look at the Formula bar to view the formula.

4. Copy the formula of B11 from C11 to D11.

5. The result should be like this.

6. Save your workbook as “Quarterly Expenses 2017”.

Calculate with the use of Functions

A function is a ready-made formula in Microsoft Excel which performs a

series of operations.
 A function has its name and arguments and its mathematical function in
parenthesis.

Some common functions are:

 SUM: Adds all cells in the arguments

 AVERAGE: Calculates the average or mean in a range of cells
 MIN: Compute the minimum value in a range of cells
 MAX: Compute the maximum value in a range of cells
 COUNT: Counts the number of cells in a range of cells

To use function, do the following:

1. Open the Quarterly Expenses workbook you have finished.

2. Click the cell E6. Choose the Formulas tab and select fx Insert Function.

3. The Insert Function dialog box will appear. Then select SUM function and
click OK.

4. The Function Argument dialog box for Sum will appear as shown below.

5. As you can see the range of cells from B6 to D6 is automatically selected.

Then just press the OK button or Enter key. The result will be displayed. Copy
the formula in the remaining cells. Look in the next figure to see the results.
6. Insert the labels in column F to H for our additional functions to be used.

7. Complete the table by using the functions Average, Min and Max as shown
in the final result. (Note: use only the values from January to March)

8. Save your workbook.

Embedded files and data

When you embed an Excel file to Word or PowerPoint, any updates you will
make to the original Excel file will be automatically updated as long as the files
remain in the same location.

Do the following steps to embed file:

1. Type the following data to your new workbook and save it as “Weekly Sales”.

2. To embed, open Microsoft Word New document and choose the Insert tab.
Select the Text group and choose Object button.

3. In the Object button, select Object and the Object dialog box will appear as
shown in the next figure.
4. Choose the Create from file tab and select the Link to file. This will enable
your file to update itself when changes are to be made in the future.

5. Select Browse button and open your Weekly Sales file in your folder, Click
Open button and Click OK. Your embedded file is already copied in your
document.

6. To edit an embedded Excel file, just double click the Excel file. You will
automatically open the Excel file from it and you are now ready to edit. Save
your workbook.