Choosing the best program for the job
The Microsoft Office System offers so many choices for accomplishing most tasks that sometimes it can be hard to even know where to begin. So, like most people, you get comfortable with one program and use it to do everything it possibly can.
But, here's the thing. Each program in the Microsoft Office System is a specialist—an expert with its own unique purpose. When you use the right specialist for any job, you are certain to spend less time and get better results.
With that in mind, this article helps you get started by looking at four key types of business tasks and offering recommendations for which program is best for your particular needs.
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Organizing notes
If you're a meticulous note-taker, you probably create a lot of bulleted lists in Microsoft Office Word 2007. And, for their part, lists in Word are surely a big improvement over that sky-high stack of legal pads next to your desk or the bulletin board covered in sticky notes. But, while nothing beats Word for creating most any kind of document, there is a Microsoft Office program that can take your notes, reminders, and to-do lists to a level that just might astonish you—that's Microsoft Office OneNote 2007.
So, when do you turn to OneNote or Word? Take a look:
Create an easily organized, unlimited, multi-subject notebook that can travel with you. | OneNote | OneNote is the perfect notebook. It never runs out of pages, lets you categorize and arrange your pages in a couple of clicks, and enables you to e-mail notes to colleagues for easier collaboration. |
Capture almost every kind of note—from typed lists to hand-written meeting notes, audio and video recordings, and even your favorite doodles—all in one place. | OneNote | OneNote lets you keep different types of notes together for easy reference. Markup your typed list with handwritten notes, or record a presentation to review later—and access them all from the very same page. |
Collaborate and brainstorm with colleagues during a meeting. | OneNote | You can share your live OneNote session with colleagues working on their own computers. Enable others to view your notes as you take them or even take and edit notes as a group. |
Help protect your sensitive information. | Word or OneNote | Within Word, you can enable editing or commenting on just part of your document and/or by certain people only. With OneNote, you can password protect notebook sections to keep them confidential. |
Create detailed outlines to deliver to others as a document. | Word | Word's outline numbering and list style features provide flexible, dynamic outlining and formatting options that help turn a basic list into a polished document. |
Of course, Word and OneNote also work great together. OneNote lets you send your notes to Word so that you can go straight from the conference room to writing your report, without unnecessary stops and extra typing. OneNote also works well with Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. You can create tasks, appointments, and contacts directly from OneNote, or add Outlook calendar details to a OneNote page.
For more information, see:
Creating documents and presentations
You can create and format text, tables, charts, and graphics in Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007, or Word (or Microsoft Office Visio 2007, for that matter). Can that be right?
Well, yes and no. Though each program has abilities in each of these categories, remember that they all have their specialties. When you use the best program for the job, you'll be amazed at how great your documents can look—and how much less time you'll spend getting them done.
Create any kind of document—from a basic memo to a complex report with text, tables, and graphics. | Word | From professional branding for letters and memos to complex presentations and reports, Word is the most effective home for your documents. |
Create multimedia presentations to deliver to a group, over the Web, or to send electronically. | PowerPoint | You can save a slide show to the Web for easy access by clients, or use the Package for CD feature to send a multi-media presentation and know that it will run like clockwork. |
Create diagrams and flowcharts for your documents. | PowerPoint or Visio | For simple flow charts or diagrams, PowerPoint gives you a host of timesaving tools to create graphics for your slide show or add to your Word document. For intricate diagrams or those that need to change over time—try Visio. |
Analyze and chart data for your documents. | Excel | For financial tables that are easy to calculate and look great in your finished report, you can crunch numbers in Excel and then paste them into Word as a Word table. You can format the table using your document's styles. And, get the most powerful, flexible charting tools when you chart your data in Excel. |
For more information:
Collecting information
Every program in Microsoft Office can help you collect and store information in one way or another—but the best program to use for your particular needs depends on the type of information, where it's coming from, and where it needs to go. A good rule of thumb when using Microsoft Office to manage information is this—if you have to type the same thing twice, you can bet there's an easier way.
Create forms that can deliver information to Microsoft Office Access 2007, Excel, Word, or other programs. | InfoPath | It doesn't take much more than dragging and dropping to create professional-looking, electronic forms. And, because InfoPath is Extensible Markup Language (XML)-driven, it's a snap to deliver form data wherever you need it to go. In fact, the data from a single InfoPath form can be split apart to go to multiple databases or even automatically reformatted into multiple reports. |
Create a form based on an existing data source. | InfoPath | InfoPath can build forms from your existing Access or Microsoft SQL Server databases, Web services, or an XML document or schema. |
Collect and store large amounts of data that can be used to generate a variety of reports. | Access | Access is a powerful, relational database that makes it easy to store and access large amounts of data. When you need to continually add to your data or reorganize results without having to reorganize the main data source—that's the time to call upon Access. |
Create a simple database, with limited amounts of cross-referencing. | Excel | Excel can be a fast and easy solution when you just need to sort, filter, or calculate a relatively limited amount of data (an Excel worksheet has 65,536 rows—so it doesn't have to be that limited). Note If you start with Excel and find later that you need a relational database, you can import Excel data into Access with just a few clicks. |
Customize and organize your e-mail, contact, and scheduling information. | Outlook | You can categorize your contacts, tasks, and appointments; set rules to automatically sort your e-mail as it arrives; do a mail merge in Word directly from your Outlook contacts. Note You can also create a mail merge in Word from data saved in Excel or Access. |
When you take advantage of what each program has to offer, you can spend less time inputting information and more time making the information work for you.
For more information, see:
Working with data
Excel and Access have a lot in common when it comes to managing data. But there are key differences to know about that can save you tons of time.
Access is the source when you need to store and manage large quantities and different types of information that can work together. On the other hand, nothing beats Excel for crunching numbers. And, numbers or not, Excel can make your basic information lists much more dynamic (with much less work) than you might expect.
Enable many people to enter and access the same information, at the same time. | Access | With Access many people can enter or retrieve data from the same database at the same time, without interrupting anyone else. |
Use your data for financial analysis or any kind of calculation. | Excel | When it comes to working with numbers, Excel is the incredible simplifier. In fact, if you avoid Excel because you don't like math, keep this in mind—Excel is there to do the math for you. |
Update charts and tables with live data from Web sources. | Excel | The Web query feature enables you to import individual tables from a Web page into an Excel worksheet. Tables remain linked to their original source, so that you can update the data with just a click. |
Allow access to private content by selected people only. | Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Word | The robust Information Rights Management (IRM) feature enables you to limit access and/or editing rights to certain individuals only. |
For more information, see:
Put it all together
Keep in mind that you can also use many Office programs together. In fact, as you've seen in the tables throughout this article, they make quite a team. For example:
| • | Import data from Access into Excel to evaluate it or add Excel data to an Access database. |
| • | Send InfoPath form data to Access or Excel, or send it as a report by Outlook e-mail. |
| • | Add Excel tables and charts, and PowerPoint or Visio diagrams to your Word documents. |
| • | Turn notes from OneNote into Outlook action items or add Outlook details to OneNote pages. |
Whether your main reason for using Office is creating documents, analyzing data, or managing the flood of information you gather from e-mail messages, meetings, and presentations—take a moment to consider what other tasks you might be able to delegate to your Office programs. When you use the best tool for the particular job, you not only get the best results with the least amount of work—you're also likely to discover new ways to save time, get connected, and get it done.
 | Stephanie Krieger
Stephanie Krieger is a Microsoft Office System MVP as well as author of the books Advanced Microsoft Office Documents 2007 Edition Inside Out (February 2007) and Microsoft Office Document Designer. As a professional document consultant, she has helped many global companies develop enterprise solutions for Microsoft Office and taught numerous professionals to build great documents by understanding how the Office programs “think.” Stephanie writes regularly for several Microsoft Web pages and frequently delivers Microsoft webcasts. Visit her blog, Arouet Dot Net, for Microsoft Office tips as well as information about new and upcoming publications and webcasts.
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