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Microsoft has become a necessity in this new age of technological evolution; thus, learning how to navigate it gives an advantage, whether in the workplace professionally, in school as a teacher or student, or for those working in retail stores and management positions. It is proven that people with a basic knowledge of navigating the system often stand a better chance when it comes to employment opportunities than those without.In this article, we discuss six tips that are the secret to mastering Microsoft.
Master the Microsoft Office Suite
To master the Microsoft Office suite, there are a few things a person should learn to enhance the productivity and efficiency of their work, whether it is in data analysis or creating documents.
Learn some common keyboard shortcuts like Ctrl+C to copy, Ctrl+V for pasting, Ctrl+Z to undo an action, and Ctrl+S to save work done. There are a lot of shortcuts available online that can help speed up work significantly when it comes to office applications or sign up for courses like Microsoft project training that trains on the Microsoft Project application. Another great tip would be utilising templates offered freely on these applications. Starting from scratch can be tedious and intimidating. Making starter templates is an excellent way to get a general idea of what the graph or presentation is supposed to look like. Feel free to add and remove elements from the template until the desired look is achieved, which will take less time than starting on a blank page.
Seeing a complete presentation can help in brewing creative ideas to use in the project or presentation. Take advantage of online resources like YouTube tutorials and blogs to learn about more straightforward ways of doing functions on the applications; no matter how proficient a person is, knowing all the functions of the apps is nearly impossible.
Master Excel
Mastering Excel is one of the best skills a person can equip themselves with as it comes in handy in many jobs, especially those that revolve around data manipulation, analyzing, compounding, grouping, and countless other functions. Learn the basic formulas like how to SUM, COUNT, and AVERAGE data, as these are the fundamentals when dealing with data-related projects.
The best way to learn is to play around with actual data and self-assigned projects to get the hang of more functions like VLOOKUP, SUMIF, and INDEX-MATCH, which are really powerful when it comes to analytics and manipulation. Learn how to work with pivot tables, advanced features when it comes to data summarization and grouping, to apply filters and for in-depth insights. Excel has been the backbone of data collection and analysis for a while now. Ensure the use of data validation to avoid errors in work and set constraints on data entry.
Effortless Email Management With Outlook
In today’s digital work environments, sending emails has become one of the main methods of communication, but with the numerous emails received daily, it can become hectic. Outlook is a personal email manager with many features to help a person stay organized and on top of their emails. Quicksteps is one of its features that help automate some processes like forwarding messages, replying to common questions with a pre-written script, and sorting different messages to their respective folders.
This makes it easy to attend to the most important emails first and stay well organized as they reduce the manual effort required. It also provides an option for categorizing emails using different colours according to the content they carry. A person can assign a different colour for project emails, client emails, reminders and lead generation emails in order to prioritize those most important at the moment.
Crafting Compelling Presentations With PowerPoint
Powerpoint is one of the most used applications on Microsoft Suite due to its ability to create amazing presentations for work, school and other related fields. Presentations are a great way to tell a story and communicate an idea or feeling to other people, this might be because visual information is more understandable, unlike theoretically airing out the idea. Knowing how to navigate the PowerPoint platform will enable a person to come up with unique and compelling projects that can convey information as required. It is important to start with a clear structure that outlines the key points, the main idea and the general flow of the presentation.
It might seem like adding a lot of information on the slides would help the presentation, but it distracts the viewers from the key takeaways. Use texts that are short and straight to the point or consider bullet points and keywords that can be used to convey the information. Having clean slides improves the likelihood of having a short presentation that covers everything in the project.
Effective File Management With OneDrive
Microsoft OneDrive is great at ensuring all documents are well-managed, secure, and organized and can facilitate cooperation. It is a cloud-based storage system that allows the synchronization of documents and is mostly integrated with Microsoft applications. On OneDrive, a person can organise information in folders depending on different projects and teams, making work location and navigation easier.
It does frequent backups for all new documents and files to avoid losing them, and since it is cloud-based, this information can be reached using different devices. It offers both online and offline assistance, and in case any corrections are made offline, they are reflected immediately after the device is connected to the internet. OneDrive has various benefits, and as a person looking to master Microsoft, learning how to backup information, collaborate on the application, and access saved files will come in handy.
Use Enhanced Search With Windows Search
Learning how to use the enhanced search on Google is a great way to enhance efficiency and productivity at work. The Windows search is accessible by pressing the start button, and when words are typed, it automatically starts producing results related to the words. It is crucial to know how it works and how to operate it, for example, using search operators like AND, WITHOUT, OR, and NOT to tailor the search to find specific information.
File type filters are also a great way to define the documents that should be included in the search. Most devices are also equipped with Cortana, a digital assistant integrated with Windows Search, which allows a person to use voice search and perform other tasks with a voice prompt.
Mastering Microsoft is not only about learning the basics of every application that comes with it but continuously using and gaining experience to work more effectively and efficiently with the applications. That being said, mastering Microsoft Office Suite, learning how to use Windows enhanced search, creating compelling presentations with PowerPoint, managing files with OneDrive, operating Excel, and managing emails with Outlook are good starting points. Remember that all masters were once students, so take the initiative to learn and challenge the initial knowledge with new information and with time, mastering Microsoft will be a piece of cake.
