Issue #48 December 23, 2003

1. Negative Cropping of Graphics

I ran into a situation earlier this year where I was working with graphic files (diagrams of equipment) supplied by someone else. Whenever I inserted them into a document, the tops of the titles were cut off just a bit. It looked odd and it appeared that the entire word was there, but somehow the top edge of the inserted graphic cut off the top of the words. As an experiment, I tried setting the cropping of the graphic file to a negative value (-0.2 inches). And lo and behold, the rest of the titles appeared! If you are working with graphic files where one or more sides appear to be cut off slightly, right click on the graphic in Word or PowerPoint. Then select Format Picture. In the Picture tab, enter a small negative value for the cropping of the affected sides, or use the down arrow in the Crop From boxes for top, bottom, left and right. When you click on OK, see if this has solved the problem. It is also a reminder that when we create graphics for our own use or for others, make sure you leave a little border around the graphic so that when it is inserted it looks right.

2. Reformatting pasted text

I bet you have had the same problem I have had when pasting text from an e-mail (or other text source) into Word. The pasted text has line breaks all over the place and it looks awful. One way to solve the problem is to manually delete each hard line break at the end of each of the pasted lines and replace it with a space. Boy that takes a long time. Let me share an alternative that automatically replaces all of the manual line breaks with a space character. To do this in Word, click on the Edit menu, then click on Replace. In the Replace dialog box, click on the More button at the bottom of the dialog box and click on the Special button. Select Manual Line Break from the list. This asks Word to search for manual line breaks. Then enter a space in the Replace field. This asks Word to replace all manual line breaks with a space character. When you click on the Replace All button, it will get rid of all the line breaks from the e-mail and use Word’s line breaking only. Now you may have to still do minor formatting changes after this procedure, but it is a heck of a lot easier than the all manual way. This is a great demonstration of the power of the replace command to search on special characters.

3. Useful Resource – www.gitomer.com

Jeffrey Gitomer’s web site at http://www.gitomer.com is a great resource for sales ideas. Now before you say “But I’m not a salesperson” – you are so. Every one of us has to sell something quite regularly – selling your boss on a new idea, selling executives on proceeding with a new project, selling friends on a great outing or selling your kids on a new vacation spot. And if you are not a professional salesperson, you need to read Gitomer’s ideas. They are so refreshingly honest and truthful. I recommend that you sign up for his weekly e-newsletter called Sales Caffeine. Not an issue goes by without me picking up a few great ideas. Highly recommended.