Tip o’ the Week #165 – Take the tour

When was the last time you actually read the manual? Or actually skimmed over the Terms & Conditions you’re agreeing to when clicking on a button somewhere? Sometimes, attempts to make things easy aren’t exactly riveting.

Now and again, though, it’s worth assuming the role of true n00b: you might learn something. That’s right, gents. R.T.F.M.

In this case, try taking the tour in the New Office applications – select New from the File menu on Word, Excel and PowerPoint, and you’ll see a selection of tips to get the most out of the new apps.

The Excel tour is particularly snazzy. The first tip is pretty cool – it’s all about the awesome Flash Fill function, which can spot common patterns in the data you’re dealing with… like the first names or surnames in a list of email addresses.

The tours finish up with Getting Started sites for Excel, Word and PowerPoint… try out the in-app tours, and have a look through these sites and you might even figure out some new tricks.