Use Handwriting Recognition to sign letters

When you compose letters in Word, there's an easy way to add a personal touch to your business correspondence.

Word 2002's Handwriting Recognition feature allows you to use a pen and electronic tablet or a mouse to add a signature to your documents.

Follow these steps to add your signature to your documents:

1. Position the cursor where you want your signature to appear.
2. Press the Handwriting button on the Language toolbar.
3. Press Writing Pad and hit the Ink button.
4. Move the pointer into the Writing Pad window. The pointer is now a pen.
5. Press the the pen on your electronic tablet or, if using the mouse, press the left mouse button and drag the mouse to write your name. After a slight pause, your signature will appear as a graphic object at the cursor position.
6. Close the Writing Pad window.

Now you can now select your signature and apply character formatting to change its color, its size (by selecting a larger font), or make it bold or italicized.

Note: If the Language bar is not visible in Word, open the Windows Control Panel and follow these steps:

1. Double-click Regional And Language Options.
2. Click the Languages tab and press the Details button.
3. Select Handwriting Recognition, and then click the Add button.
4. Press the Language Bar button.
5. Select the Show The Language Bar On The Desktop checkbox.
6. Click OK to close all dialog boxes.

Microsoft Excel

If you normally launch Excel 2002 by clicking a shortcut on your desktop, you may not want to see an empty workbook.

To prevent Excel from displaying an empty workbook when it is started, follow these steps:

1. In Windows Explorer, go to \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Shortcut bar\Office and delete the existing shortcut for Excel. (In Excel 2003, go to \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Shortcut bar\Office.)
2. In Windows Explorer, go to \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10. Then, right-click the EXCEL.exe icon and select Create Shortcut. (In Excel 2003, go to \Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11. Then, right-click the EXCEL.exe icon and select Create Shortcut.)
3. Right-click the shortcut icon and select Properties.
4. In the Shortcut tab, add a space, followed by the /e switch to the path in the Target box. For example, in Excel 2002, the entry in the Target box would be: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\EXCEL.exe" /e
5. Click OK.

When you double-click the Excel shortcut icon, the application will open without displaying a blank workbook.

Microsoft Access

When working with tables in Access, you often have to refer to data in various tables—even if the tables aren't related.

The good news is that it's simple to create a select query to find records in one table that don't have related records in another table.

For example, suppose your database contains a table named Computers 101-Registered Students, which lists the students who have registered for a Computer course. Your database also has a second table named Computers 101-Attendance, which lists the students who are currently attending the course. Let's say that you want to find out if any students attending the course have not yet registered.

Follow these steps to set up a query that will answer your question:

1. Select Queries under Objects in the Database Window.
2. Go to New | Find Unmatched Query Wizard and then click OK.
3. Select Computer 101-Attendance and then select Computer 101-Registered.
4. Select the matching field, for example, Student ID.
5. Select the student first_name and last_name fields and click Finish.

The results will list the names of the students who are listed as attending the course but have no record of being registered.