This month, several features have been added to Google Spreadsheets. As you can tell, the one I'm most excited about is the ability to share a Google Spreadsheet with anyone. When you enable a spreadsheet to be viewable by anyone, it creates a special URL that can be sent to anyone; you can invite others to view your spreadsheet from here, as well.

Though it requires the invitee to have a free Google account, this will be a powerful, easy way of sharing important, detailed information to anyone you want. As a matter of fact, it just so happens that I have some important information to share with you in my own Google Spreadsheet that I've created for my readers. OK, maybe it's not that important, but I share it all the same!

Other features that Google has added include the ability to convert to PDF or Open Document Format (ODF), and the ability to print your spreadsheet easily. Check out their What's New page for more information on all of their new features.

After running a boy scout event on the computer merit badge, there's one thing that I know for sure ... kids know way more software features than we do! One of the assignments I gave them was to create a PowerPoint presentation; and not only were they all extremely creative, but all of them used cool tricks that I've never used before. That being said, there's a reason that I've never used those "cool" tricks - it's because I never need them.

The scouts had a great time creating these PowerPoint presentations; but unless you want to show the equivalent of a Bugs Bunny cartoon to your boss or a client that you're trying to get business from, you probably won't want to hire any of them as a slide show consultant. The key to great PowerPoint slides is simplicity. Let me clarify, I didn't say plainness, dullness, uncreativeness, or colorless - because you actually need all of those things in order to create great PowerPoint slides; but each one of these aspects needs to be done simply.

Background
Don't just change the color; you should definitely take advantage of the slide design & templates to change the backgrounds of your slides. But when you select a background design, use the ones that give the allusion that it's just one color; in order words, don't pick one that too busy. In the end, the background needs to enhance the words on the screen and not distract from them.

Slide Transition & Custom Animation
There's a lot of fun ways to move from one slide to the next, or from one bullet to another. For the most part though, the basic "Fade" is all you need. Again, you don't want the transitions & animation to distract from your presentation; you also don't want the appearance that you have to add junk to your presentation to make up for a lack of substance. Making simple moves shows power!

Graphics
We've all seen PowerPoint presentations with graphics on every single slide. It's fun for about 2 or 3 slides, but then it gets redundant. Your text content is your centerpiece, but that doesn't mean not to use any graphics; just make sure that those graphics make your text content look good.

Keeping presentations simple has served me well for a long time, and I always get compliments afterwards. So for your next presentation, I hope these tips help to make your PowerPoint presentation great! But if you get stuck on how to use something, ask one of your kids ... you'll be surprised what they know (just don't let them do it for you)!

It's always proper to have headings and subheadings to be formatted the same throughout a document. Sure, you can use the AutoFormat button to accomplish this - even when you make a change to them down the road, it's easy to use over and over (especially on smaller documents.) But experienced Word users know and apply the popular Heading 1, Heading 2, and Heading 3 styles to their headings and subheadings, making life a lot easier (especially on larger documents.)

There are two reasons for this. First of all they are easy to apply to text; I use the dropdown on the Formatting toolbar. Secondly, when you need to make a change on any of them - modifying the format of the style changes all the headings in your document automatically. Basically, it's what they were originally created for. But is this all that these styles are good for? Of course not.

They're called built-in heading styles (by the way, there's actually 9 of these), and they are the foundation for setting up other documents and scenarios in Microsoft Word. Shauna Kelly, Microsoft Word MVP, post an article on her FAQ site called "Why use Microsoft Word's built-in Heading styles?", where she outlines 15 reasons (other than the one I explained above) to use them.

I've used them for creating Table of Contents pages (Reason #3) for several years; but even I learned a few other reasons for using them - like Reason #10, creating bookmarks in a PDF. The best reason, according Shauna, is Reason #15, the Outline View:

You can use other styles in Outline View, and you can choose the Level at which they'll appear. But it's easiest to use the built-in Heading styles, because they're already set up ready for you. Outline View is probably the most useful, and least used, resource in Word. See How to save yourself hours by using Outline View properly at the MS Word MVP FAQ site for a full (and enthusiastic) description of what Outline View can do, and how to use it.

This is more than a worth while read for any Microsoft Word user, and you will learn a great deal about its capabilities other than built-in styles. Thank you, Shauna.

Happy Labor Day!