Susan Harkins

Take snapshots of Excel data so you can keep an eye on it while working in other areas of your workbook.

When you need to bring your Access data into a Word form, a little VBA can expedite the task. Susan Harkins walks through an example to demonstrate the process.

Duplicate entries may be valid — but when they aren’t, they can derail your summaries and totals. Use Excel’s Validation feature to reject duplicate entries.

Putting a presentation on your Web site isn’t terribly complicated — but browser differences can pose a big gotcha. Here’s a look at the publication process and the hurdles you may encounter.

You can work more efficiently with data when you know how to take advantage of the ActiveX data objects (ADO) library. Susan Harkins offers some pointers that will help you use ADO objects effectively and avoid potential code snafus.

You can save paper by printing multiple PowerPoint slides to a single sheet of paper. The trick is to rely on a printer option rather than on PowerPoint itself.

Replacing multiple spaces with a tab can be a nightmare, unless you know this simple Find and Replace trick.

Don’t recreate spreadsheets, copy them as new sheets or even into new workbooks.

A sluggish database can cost your money and waste users’ time. Here are some maintenance tasks and general best practices to ensure your database is healthy and operating at peak efficiency.

Plenty of solid products are available to help you protect your system — and some of them don’t cost a dime. Here’s a list of some of the most popular and effective free tools for defending yourself against a variety of threats.

The right add-in can provide helpful features and make existing Office capabilities easier to use. Susan Harkins has rounded up a selection of handy add-ins for various Office applications.

A few best practices can go a long way toward protecting your Access data from careless or overly curious users. Here are some simple ways to add a few layers of security to a database.