You can do IT in later life

You can do IT is a regular feature of laterlife.com aimed at trying to help laterlife visitors make the most of Information Technology on or off the web.     

Jackie Sherman who runs the You can do IT Question & Answer section is an IT trainer and author. Jackie has spent her career in education and specialises in teaching IT to adults. Her courses for adults include such topics as MS Office, the Internet, e-mail and basic web page authoring.

Jackie has also written the four books shown here - you can find more details about these by clicking on the cover images above. Jackie has also been running a course specifically for over 50s.  

Via laterlife.com Jackie aims to particularly help those new to IT and the web to build up knowledge and confidence, so no question is too basic. At the same time she will cover Q&As for the more experienced user.  

So if you would like to ask a question of Jackie, why not email her jackie@laterlife.com  

Or if you have discovered something which may be of interest to others in making the most of the web, then she would love to hear about that too jackie@laterlife.com

View previous editions of YoucandoIT for more useful Questions and Answers

January 2011

Q: I have just been sent a word processed document by email but cannot open it. Nothing else seems to have changed since I last worked with these documents sent via email, so can you suggest what might be wrong?

A: Many people are now using Word 7, which is the next version up from Word 2003. The files are saved as .docx files (Open XML file formats) and not the older .doc files, so you cannot view them if you only have earlier versions of Microsoft Office on your computer.

To be able to read these documents, you need to download the viewer and Compatibility Pack from Microsoft. Find these by going to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=3657ce88-7cfa-457a-9aec-f4f827f20cac&displaylang=en .

Q: How can I make sure an Excel spreadsheet only prints out onto 1 page? When I check in Page Setup it seems to be set at 1 page but still spreads over onto the second and third pages.

A: Although it may appear to have this setting, you need to fix it by clicking in the radio button next to the Fit to: section. Next time you want to print, go to Page Setup and click to leave a black dot in the radio button. You will now find it prints out correctly onto 1 page.

Q: I get a bit confused by all the different options offered when I check a wrongly spelled word. Can you explain what they all mean?

A: When a red wavy line appears under a word, the quick way to deal with it is by right clicking. You will get a long menu and can carry out the following actions:

a. Select the correct spelling from the words in bold at the top of the list using the left mouse button. The word you select will replace the word you typed originally.

b. Click Ignore All if you want the word to stay as you typed it throughout your document (a common action needed for proper nouns or other words the dictionary will not recognise) so that it is not picked up again.

c. Click Add to Dictionary to add the word to those that will be recognised whenever they are typed, and so will not be identified as wrong.

d. AutoCorrect means that, if for example you commonly mis-type words e.g. foom instead of from, you can link the two so that the wrong word is automatically substituted in your documents.

e. The Language option allows you to set a different language from which words are selected e.g. English (US).

f. Spelling will open the main spell checker so that you can go through the entire document word by word.

View previous editions of YoucandoIT for more useful Questions and Answers
 

For a wealth of books on the web and IT generally, visit Amazon and under the books section select Computers and Internet.

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