Crabby Office Lady

Every Office program has its little shortcuts and special features to help you work faster and get on with your life. Some are obvious and some are less well known. Here are Crabby's top five favorite tips for FrontPage 2002.

Gentle Readers,

I've devoted this column to clueing you in on some of the most clever and useful Microsoft FrontPage® 2002 tips, tricks, and shortcuts that we Microsofties do as a matter of second nature.

Open your last Web...or don't

By default, when you launch FrontPage, the last Web that you were working on opens automatically. If this drives you batty, you can stop the madness (and your whining) by following these simple steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click the General tab and clear the Open last Web site automatically when FrontPage starts check box.

Gee, that was tricky.

Web page publishing: When less is more

Maybe you need to publish a Web page but you don't want to publish the entire site. I mean, why bring the entire army when you just need one soldier? With a right-click and a couple of mouse moves, it's easier than ever. Here's how you can publish a single Web page:

1. Show the Folder List. (If the Folder List is not open, on the View menu, click Folder List).
2. Right-click the page you want to publish.
3. Select Publish Selected Files.
4. In the Publish Destination dialog box, enter or browse to a destination Web in the Publish selected files to box.
5. Click OK.

Drawing tools: Anything you can do, I can do better

You love those cool drawing tools in Microsoft PowerPoint® and Microsoft Word, but FrontPage is really your program of choice when it comes to Web publishing. Well guess what? Anything PowerPoint can do, FrontPage can do better (or at least as well).

1. On the View menu, click Page.
2. On the Insert menu, point to Picture, and then click New Drawing (or click the Drawing button on the Standard toolbar).
3. Add AutoShapes, text boxes, WordArt, or drop shadows just like you would from within Word or PowerPoint.

All will be revealed to you (in tags)

I know how it is when you're working on a Web page: Everything seems to be going along swimmingly, and then all of a sudden everything is bold, you've got nested lists within double-nested lists when all you wanted was a few bullet points, and everything below your

<H3> heading is also in <H3> and you can't figure out why and you may start crying at any moment.

And let's face it, you're just not the suck-it-up-and-dive-into-the-HTML kind of person. You could probably get a pretty good idea what's going wrong with your page if only the basic HTML tags could be revealed to you in Page view. Then you could see if you're just missing a closing </H3> tag or something just as simple.

• On the View menu, click Reveal Tags.

When you want to get rid of the tags, follow the same procedure and deselect Reveal Tags.

Hire a professional: The Format Painter

Do you smolder with jealousy when you realize that the Jones' house next door has lovelier landscaping, nicer wall colors, and better-smelling roses? Wouldn't it be fun if you could sneak over there in the middle of the night, wipe your magic paintbrush over all their stuff that you covet, and make it magically appear at your house too?

Snap out of it; that isn't possible. And besides, coveting isn't nice and it shows a real lack of imagination on your part.

That being said, you can apply this concept if you want to copy the formatting of one piece of text to another. For example, if you have a piece of text that is formatted in bold Arial font type at a size of 12 points, with a double underline, with each letter appearing in alternating pink and green tones, it takes many mouse clicks and keyboard strikes to duplicate that on another piece of text.

There is an easier way (and this little tip works in any Office program; I'm choosing to highlight it in FrontPage because you Web designers get a little crazy with funky formatting). It's time to make friends with the Format Painter.

1. Select the item with the format you want to copy.
2. On the Standard toolbar, double-click the Format Painter button . The button stays selected.
   
   

    Note    If the Standard toolbar isn't on your menu bar, on the View menu, point to Toolbars, and click Standard.

3. Select the text or graphic items to which you want to apply the new format.
4. When you're finished applying the format, click the Format Painter button again or press ESC.

By the way, if you DO have text like the example I mentioned above, I'm guessing your espresso order goes something like this:

"I'd like a single tall, split shot, rice milk, mocha hazelnut dry cappuccino, 170 degrees, in a double cup with a special lid. And oh yes, with a sprinkling of Madagascar vanilla and a hint of impertinence."

Now you're a FrontPage wiz kid. Get back to work and make a killer Web site.

"When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion." — Ethiopian proverb

About the author

Annik Stahl, the Crabby Office Lady columnist, takes all of your complaints, compliments, and knee-jerk reactions to heart. Therefore, she graciously asks that you let her know whether this column was useful to you — or not — by entering your feedback using the Was this information helpful? tool below. And remember: If you don't vote, you can't complain.