Shorthand Made Easy: AutoText

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“no reply necessary.” I often conclude my communications this way, not only as a selfless way to let recipients off the call-to-action hook, but also as a selfish  means to reduce incoming email.

Any text you often use should be AutoText. Here’s a quick way to create an AutoText entry in Outlook and Word.

Creating AutoText

  1. Type and format the text you wish to save.
  2. Select the text.
  3. On the Insert tab, click Quick Parts, then Save Selection to Gallery. The New Building Block dialog appears.
  4. Enter name (recommend 4 or more characters), and select AutoText from the Gallery drop-down.
  5. OK.

To use the AutoText entry, just type the name you created and press space, Enter or (for entries shorter than 4 characters) F3.

Cheers!
 ʎɔuınb

Additional Reading:

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These ARE the droids I’m looking for

R2D2 Sphero1

In time for the holidays, Sphero, makers of smartphone controlled toys like Ollie and BB-8, will have R2D2, zooming around your table top, complete with lights, chirps, and retractable third leg.

In case you were wondering what to get me.

 

Arianna Huffington deletes her employees emails when on vacation (and you can too)

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Enjoying your vacation? How can you, when you have that nagging urge to check your email, and the added anxiety of returning to a mountain of email upon your return?

Arianna Huffington’s wellness company, Thrive Global, adopted a simple solution: During the time an employee is on vacation, new emails are deleted and the sender is urged to callback later.  

“Thank you for your email. I am out of the office … please email me again when I return as this email will be deleted“

Their tool, Thrive Away, takes the pressure off employees to respond to the emails received during vacation. But you don’t need to work at Thrive to employ this strategy. Here are instructions on how to set up your own Delete-and-Reply Vacation AutoResponder using Outlook.

Thrive Delete AutoReply1

Creating a Delete-and-Reply Rule in Outlook

  1. Click File and select Automatic Replies.
  2. Check Send automatic replies.
  3. Check Only send during this time range and set vacation time.
  4. Leave Inside my organization field blank.
  5. Click Outside my organizatIon tab and enter a ‘.’
    (This field is required, but will be superseded by the rule template).
  6. Click Rules.
  7. Click Add Rules.
  8. Check Delete and Reply with, then click Template.
  9. Enter reply text (for example, “Sorry I’m not home right now, I’m walking on a spiderweb..in Ibizia. Your message has been shredded into less than nothingness. Please contact dmsnyder@moo.cow or re-email me when and if I return”).
  10. Close.
  11. Click OK, and click Yes to confirm ‘all senders’.
  12. OK. OK.

Cheers!

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Taking a (not so sneaky) Peek at iOS 11

IPadOS11
Multi-tasking made easy with Dock

iOS 11, released in BETA in June, promises many cool features for Mac fans to crow about. Including:

  • Improved multi-tasking with Dock
  • Better Apple Pen support
  • Document Scan

and more.

Click below to see quick video playlist highlighting 6 new enhancements.

DeLorean’s Comeback: Flying Cars

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“Roads? We don’t need roads!”

Paul DeLorean, nephew of the original DeLorean founder, is looking to make good on old Doc’ Brown’s words with DeLorean Aerospace’s DR-7 VTOL.

On the drawing board, this two-seater Vertical Take-off & Landing craft boasts an all‑electric twin engine propulsion system, a 19 foot wingspan, and a range of 120 miles on a single charge.

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what, no gull-wing doors?

Cheers!

Also check out:

Midyear Roundup: My Best Dates

Some of my fave Excel Date Functions. Some old, some new; all designed to help track the passage of time.

Date Functions:

EOMONTH
returns the last day of the month		 EOMONTH ( start_date , month )
EDATE
returns the date x number of months before/after a given date		  EDATE ( start_date , months )
NETWORKDAYS
calculates the number of working days
(see also NETWORKDAYS.INTL)		  NETWORKDAYS ( start_date , end_date , [holidays] )
TODAY
returns the current date		  TODAY( )
WEEKNUM
returns serial number for a given week		  WEEKNUM ( date , [week_start] )
WORKDAY
calculates the next valid work day
(see also WORKDAY.INTL)		 WORKDAY( start_date, days, [holidays] )

 
YEARFRAC
returns the date as a fraction of the year		  YEARFRAC ( start_date , end_date , [basis])

Cheers!

hɔuᴉnb

Additional reading:

Comments and questions are always welcome!

Networkdays.INTL

As my international followers have reminded me, not every place sets aside two whole days for the weekend, nor does everyone use the same days of the week.
  • For Afghanistan, Egypt, and Pakistan their weekend starts Thursday at sunset, running from Friday through Saturday.
  • In Malaysia, based upon which part of the country your in, it’s either Saturday thru Sunday, or Friday thru Saturday.
  • Brunei Darussalam‘s non-contiguous weekend is on Friday and Sunday.
  • Costa Rica, North Korea and Uganda get only one day, Sunday, as a weekend.

As a follow-up to last week’s post here’s the international solution to calculating workdays.

NETWORKDAYS.INTL

Returns the number of whole workdays between two dates using parameters to indicate which and how many days are weekend days. Weekend days and any days that are specified as holidays are not considered as workdays.

Syntax

NETWORKDAYS.INTL(start_date, end_date, [weekend], [holidays])

  • Start_date and End_date (required). The dates for which the difference is to be computed.
  • Weekend (optional). A number value indicates the days of the week that are weekend days and are not included in the number of working. Below are the values and their corresponding weekdays.
Number Value Weekend days
1 or omitted Saturday, Sunday
2 Sunday, Monday
3 Monday, Tuesday
4 Tuesday, Wednesday
5 Wednesday, Thursday
6 Thursday, Friday
7 Friday, Saturday
11 Sunday only
12 Monday only
13 Tuesday only
14 Wednesday only
15 Thursday only
16 Friday only
17

Saturday only

Holidays (optional). Indicates the dates that are considered non working days and not counted in the number of working days.

Cheers!

hɔuᴉnb

Additional reading:

 

 

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