The work area is divided into a grid of cells. Click any cell to make it active, and type to place text into it, as in Figure 1-9. Chapter 7 shows how to work with text in Excel cells.
✔ PowerPoint: The work area is divided into three panes. The largest one, in the center, is where you insert content on a slide.
• If a slide has a text placeholder on it, you can click in the placeholder and type, as in Figure 1-10.
• If there isn’t a placeholder on the slide, or if the placeholder doesn’t meet your needs, you can place a text box on the slide manually. (That’s covered in Chapter 11.)
All Office applications accept various types of pictures. Here’s how to insert a photo (or other graphic file) into Word, Excel, or PowerPoint:
1. Click the Insert tab.
2. Click the Pictures button. The Insert Picture dialog box opens. See Figure 1-11. The default location that opens is the Pictures folder for the user currently signed into Windows.
3. Select the picture you want to insert. (You might need to change to a different location. That’s covered in Chapter 3.)
4. Click the Insert button.
The preceding steps apply to picture files, such as images from a digital camera or that you downloaded from the Internet. There are lots of other graphic types, such as online images, WordArt (stylized text), and drawn lines and shapes. Each of these has its own procedure for insertion. Later chapters discuss these in more detail.
As you add content in one of the applications, there might be so much content that you can’t see it all onscreen at once. You might need to scroll through the document to view different parts of it.
The simplest way to move around is by using the scroll bars with your mouse:
✔ In Excel, a vertical (up and down) and a horizontal (left to right) scroll bar are always available.
✔ In Word and PowerPoint, the vertical scroll bar is always available. The horizontal scroll bar disappears if there is no undisplayed text from side-to-side.
Figure 1-12 shows several ways to use a scroll bar:
✔ Click the arrow at the end of a scroll bar to scroll the display slowly in the direction of the arrow (a small amount each time you click).
✔ Drag the box in the scroll bar to scroll quickly.
✔ Click in the empty space on the bar to one side or the other of the scroll box to move one screenful at a time in that direction.
Selecting content is an essential skill for any Office application. Many commands in Office applications apply to whatever text or graphics you select. For example, to make some text bold, select it first, and then click the Bold button. Figure 1-13 shows some selected text.
To select text in Word or PowerPoint, you can either
✔ Drag the mouse pointer across it (holding down the left mouse button)
or
✔ Click where you want to start and then hold down Shift as you press the arrow keys to extend the selection.
When text is selected, its background changes color. The color depends on the color scheme in use; with the default color scheme, selected text is blue.
In Excel, you usually want to select entire cells rather than individual bits of text; when the cell is selected, any formatting or other commands that you issue applies to everything in that cell. To select a cell, click it. You can extend the selection to multiple cells by dragging across them or by holding down Shift and pressing the arrow keys.
To select a graphic, click it with the mouse. Selection handles (white squares) appear around the outside of it. Figure 1-14 shows a selected graphic in Word.
When a graphic is selected, you can do any of the following to it:
✔ Move it. Position the mouse pointer on the graphic (not on the border) and drag.
✔ Copy it. Hold down the Ctrl key while you move it.
✔ Resize it. Position the mouse pointer on one of the selection handles and drag.
✔ Delete it. Press the Delete key.
✔ Rotate it. Drag the rotation handle, which is the circular arrow above the graphic.
While you’re working in an Office application, you might want to zoom in to see a close-up view of