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FEATURE STORY
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Windows Tips and Tricks:
Become a more efficient Windows user.
Here are some things the computer folks never told you
By Donald H. Kelley
Are you spending a lot of time trying to decipher the idiosyncrasies
of a Windows-based desktop or laptop computer? Here are some tricks that
will enable you to use your time and energy more efficiently.
Autohide: Getting rid of the pesky taskbar
I am always surprised by the number of computer users who are unaware of
autohide. This feature hides the taskbar (the bar at the bottom of the
screen that displays program icons) so that it doesn't keep displaying
on top of the programs you are using. With autohide, you can set the
taskbar to appear only when you are viewing the desktop or when you move
the cursor to the bottom of your screen.
To set your taskbar to autohide in Windows XP or Vista:
(1) Right click on any blank space on the taskbar and left click on
"Properties."
(2) Then click on "Autohide the taskbar."
This will keep the taskbar from crowding your computer screen, freeing
the screen area for work and presentations.
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Decluttering Your
Desktop: What to do with those extra icons
As you add programs to your computer, your desktop may become so
cluttered with icons that you can't enjoy the nice Windows graphic or a
picture of your family. (By the way, to change the desktop graphic,
right click with the cursor anywhere on your desktop, select
"Properties" and then click on the "Desktop" tab.)
Decluttering your desktop is easy. Just do this:
(1) Create a folder on in Windows XP or Vista by placing your cursor
anywhere on the Windows desktop and clicking on the right mouse button.
(2) On the menu that pops up, click on "New," then "Folder." Name the
folder (perhaps something like "Estate Practice.")
(3) Next, place your mouse cursor on any desktop icon, hold down the
left mouse button and drag the icon to the new folder. The icon will
disappear from the screen and move into the new folder. Repeat this
process for all the icons you want in the folder.
(4) Then drag the new folder to the top, or right side, of your screen.
This will change the folder into a toolbar. Be sure that you have this
toolbar set to autohide. (Right click on any blank space on it and check
"autohide.") This will enable the new toolbar to appear and disappear as
you move the cursor to the location of it.
You also can use this process to create a desktop folder with a list of
your important documents by creating shortcuts for them and placing
those shortcuts in a desktop folder.
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Screen Capture: Put
a picture in a program
As you prepare client reports or other presentations, you may find that
a graphic taken from a calculating program, a website or other program
would be just the thing to enhance the appearance of your work. There
are a number of commercial "screen capture" utilities, but the cheapest
and slickest way to copy what appears on your screen already comes with
Windows XP or Vista.
Pressing the Print Screen (usually "PrtScn") key on your keyboard
causes the whole screen to be copied to the Windows Clipboard. You then
can paste the contents of the Clipboard into Word, PowerPoint and many
other programs -- by using the Edit menu or by right clicking your mouse
and selecting "Paste."
If you want to capture only the active window that you are viewing,
press Alt-PrtScn. Presto! You have just copied that window to the
Windows Clipboard and may insert a picture of the active window into
other programs.
Commercial screen capture programs (such as Hypersnap or Fullshot) also allow you
to capture a defined area of the computer screen and to manipulate the
captured images in various ways. You may easily select particular areas
from the screen images you captured with PrtScn by using the Paint
program that comes with Windows:
(1) Simply open "Paint" and, with the Edit dropdown menu, "Paste" the
captured image from the Clipboard into Paint.
(2) On the left-hand Toolbox, you will see a rectangular "Select" tool.
(3) Left click on this tool and drag your mouse to draw a box around the
area of the screen you want to capture.
(4) Copy the captured screen image either with "Copy" from the Edit menu
or by right clicking your mouse and selecting "Copy."
The image you just copied is now on the Windows Clipboard, ready to
paste into other programs. (Vista also comes with a little program
called "Snipping Tool" that also will copy screen areas to the
Clipboard.)
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Navigational
Secret: Move quickly among programs
Do you know what pressing the Alt and Tab keys simultaneously does? If
you don't, you are missing out on an efficient way to move among open
programs. It's done with "hotkeys" -- keystrokes instead of mouse
clicks.
Say that you 're are working with several Word files, using your browser
program to find website resources, have your email program open, and
have another program or two open. Instead of clicking on the file icons
that appear on your taskbar to go from one program or file to another,
you may use Alt-Tab:
(1) Simply hold down the Alt key and -- on the box that appears -- move
forward among the files and programs with the Tab key and backward with
Shift-Tab.
(2) You can move quickly back and forth between two programs or files by
pressing and releasing Alt-Tab. (Vista includes a desktop icon in the
box, as well as the icons for open programs and files.) It's easy, and
you will be pleasantly surprised at how this simple process facilitates
your work.
Shortcuts and Desktop Folders: Go direct
Do you have a folder that you often go to in Windows Explorer for
documents, spreadsheets or other files? You can create a shortcut on
your Windows XP or Vista desktop to speed up this process:
(1) Just find the folder in Windows Explorer.
(2) Right click on the folder.
(3) Move the cursor to "Send to."
(4) Left click on "Desktop (create shortcut)."
An image of the folder will appear on your desktop with the folder name.
Next time you want to view and select any of the files inside this
folder, just go to your desktop and click on it to open a Windows
Explorer window.
You also can add a little button on your taskbar (the bar with the Start
button on it at the bottom of the screen) that will bring up any other
folder on your desktop. To do this:
(1) Create a folder of program or document shortcuts on your desktop and
give it a name.
(2) Right click on any empty place on your taskbar.
(3) Select "Toolbars."
(4) Click "New Toolbar."
(5) Use the screen that comes up to select a folder from the displayed
list.
(6) Click "OK."
You have now added a new menu item to your taskbar that has the same
name as the folder you selected. Click on the new item to bring up a
list of the folder's contents.
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Browsing Tricks:
Enhance your web experience
Windows
Internet Explorer V. 7.0 includes tabbed access to websites you are
viewing. That is, you may have a number of websites open at once and
move among them just by clicking tabs at the top of the screen.
You open a new tab by clicking on the blank tab at the right or by
pressing Alt-Enter. If you hold the Ctrl key down while clicking on a
web page hyperlink the new page will open as an additional tab. (Tabbed
browsing is also available in the Mozilla
Firefox browser.)
Internet Explorer V. 7.0 also allows you to select a default
search engine and several alternates, all of which can be simultaneously
searched with the "Instant Search Box." You may improve your search
efficiency with this convenient way of comparing search results.
There are tricks to viewing web pages in a browser. The Home and the End
keys on your keyboard can speed up your view of a web page. Say, you are
looking at a web page that looks useful, but some of its contents are
below the bottom of your screen. You could scroll to the bottom of the
page using the slide bar at the right of the screen or the scroll wheel
on your mouse. But it is easier to hit the End key, which will instantly
take you to the bottom of the page. The Home key will carry you back to
the top of the page. Try the Page Down and Page Up keys to move
incrementally down and up a web page.
Did you know you can create desktop shortcuts to websites? When you are
viewing a website using Internet Explorer, the prompt at the top of the
screen shows the uniform resource locator (URL) of the page you are
looking at. It has a little "e" to the left of the URL. Just minimize
the website window, click on the "e," hold the left mouse button down
and drag the web address. The next time you want to visit this site,
just click on the shortcut icon on your desktop. You can do this using
other browsers by saving the page to your desktop (usually by clicking
on "File" and "Save As" or the equivalent.) It's like creating a
bookmark on your desktop.
When you are looking at a web page in your browser, you may hide all the
toolbars at the top of the screen and see the whole page by pressing the
F11 key. In Internet Explorer, you also can go to the dropdown menu view
and click on "Full Screen." To go back to the way your screen was, click
F11 again.
Sometimes, you may want to go directly to a website from Windows
Explorer. Just enter the URL you want at the address prompt, and the web
page will open without having to open your
browser.
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(continuation of article)
Web Shortcuts:
Things you should know about links
Hyperlinks, which enable you to travel between web pages, are typically
represented by blue underlined text. You can change how hyperlinking
works by holding down the Shift key when you left click on a link. A new
browser window opens with the new web page so you do not lose sight of
the web page you linked from. If you right click on a link, a menu
appears giving you a choice of "Open" (replacing the page you are
viewing), "Open in new tab" (if you are using Internet
Explorer V. 7 with tabs) or "Open in New Window" (when opening a new
instance of Internet Explorer.)
When you right click on a hyperlink, the menu that appears also includes
"Save Target As," which enables you to save the web page as a portable
document file (PDF) file or in another available format. Internet
Explorer also offers a "Save As" function, which you can access through
the "File" menu. And that's not all. In Internet Explorer, right click
on any blank area in the web page you are viewing and a menu will appear
giving you a variety of choices, including "Create Shortcut," "Convert
to Adobe PDF" or "Export to Microsoft Excel."
Bottom Line
There are lots of tricks you can use when using Windows and Internet
Explorer. Use these suggestions to make your work more efficient and to
ease some of your computer frustrations. Little tips can make a
difference, and in the Windows world, little things mean a lot.
Trusts & Estates magazine is pleased to present the monthly
Technology Review by Donald H. Kelley -- a respected connoisseur of
software and Internet resources wealth management advisors use to
further their practices.
Kelley is a lawyer living in Highlands Ranch, Colo. and is of counsel
to the law firm of Kelley, Scritsmier & Byrne, P.C. of North Platte,
Neb. He is the co-author of Intuitive Estate Planner Software
(Thomson - West 2007). He has served on the governing boards of the
American Bar Association Real Property, Probate and Trust Section and
the American College of Tax Counsel. He is a past regent and past chair
of the Committee on Technology in the Practice of the American College
of Trust and Estate Counsel.
Trusts & Estates has asked Kelley to provide his unvarnished opinions
on the tech resources available in the practice today. His columns are
edited for readability only. Send feedback and suggestions for articles
directly to him at dhkelley@qwest.net.
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