DigiTip 12 – Getting Microsoft Word to Read Aloud to you 🔊

21 November 20237 January 2025 WordPress User [sil12] Digital proficiency and productivity, DigiTips, Microsoft Support, Microsoft Word Leave a comment

Do you find it easier to proofread a document or an email when you can hear what you’ve written? Luckily, there’s a useful function called Read Aloud that will play back written text as spoken words, and this is available in several Microsoft 365 apps, including Word and Outlook. It can read both Welsh and English text, in addition to several other languages. Watch the video below or follow these instructions:

The first step is to ensure that your text is in the correct proofing language. Highlight the text and select Review
Select Language, and then Set Proofing Language
Select your chosen language and then click OK
Navigate your cursor to the start of the passage you want to read aloud
Select Review and then Read Aloud
You can change the language and the voice of the playback

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DigiTip 10 – Brainstorm new ideas using the whiteboard in MS Teams 💡

7 November 20237 January 2025 WordPress User [sil12] Digital communication, collaboration and participation, DigiTips, Microsoft Support, Microsoft Teams Leave a comment

Do you need to brainstorm new ideas with your peers for a group assignment? Or perhaps you have a work project that you want to discuss new ideas for with colleagues? The whiteboard in Microsoft Teams is a fantastic tool for this and provides you with a range of templates to choose from.

Watch the video below to learn how to get started, or please click on this link if you wish to view the below video with closed captions.

We’ll also be showing how to use the whiteboard during our Mastering group work with online tools and strategies session this afternoon (7 November, 15:00-16:00) as part of the Digital Skills Festival! You can join this session directly from the festival programme.

To follow our DigiTips, subscribe to our Digital Skills Blog. Or alternatively, you can bookmark this webpage, where a new DigiTip will be added each week!

DigiTip 9 – Record your screen directly in PowerPoint 🎥

31 October 20237 January 2025 WordPress User [sil12] Digital creation, problem-solving and innovation, Digital proficiency and productivity, DigiTips, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Support Leave a comment

If you need to include a screen-recording in your PowerPoint presentation, you can do this directly in PowerPoint without having to use any other software! Open PowerPoint and then watch the video below or follow these instructions:

Select Record
Select Screen Recording
Open the page that you want to record
Click on Select Area and choose the exact part of the screen that you want to record
Select Audio if you want to record audio with your video
Select Record (you should see a countdown before your recording starts) and complete your recording
Once you’ve finished your recording, hover your mouse over the top of the screen and select Stop
Your screen-recording will be automatically pasted into your PowerPoint presentation
You can edit your recording by clicking on your recording and selecting Playback

To follow our DigiTips, subscribe to our Digital Skills Blog. Or alternatively, you can bookmark this webpage, where a new DigiTip will be added each week!

DigiTip 6: Set your status for a set time in MS Teams to show that you’re busy 🔕

10 October 20237 January 2025 WordPress User [sil12] Digital proficiency and productivity, DigiTips, Microsoft Support, Microsoft Teams Leave a comment

Sometimes, you may need to set some time aside to concentrate on a particular piece of work, but how can you show other people who are also online that you’re busy? Microsoft Teams allows you to set your status to Do not disturb, meaning that you won’t be interrupted by Teams notifications or calls (unless you choose to receive these from specific people), but it can be too easy to forget to turn this status off once you’re finished.

Luckily, Teams allows you to set your status for a set duration. Take a look at the video below or follow these instructions:

Open MS Teams and click on your profile picture
Click on your current status
Select Duration
Choose Do not Disturb (or whichever status you want to appear)
Choose for how long you want this status to appear
Click Done

To follow our DigiTips, subscribe to our Digital Skills Blog. Or alternatively, you can bookmark this webpage, where a new DigiTip will be added each week!

DigiTip 3 – Organising your Outlook 📧

19 September 20237 January 2025 Shân Saunders DigiTips, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Support Leave a comment

Do you have too many emails coming into your inbox? Are you struggling to find a specific email you need, or are you lost in all your emails?

Time to organise!

Did you know you can create subfolders in Outlook to help organise your emails.

You can use these folders to clear your inbox so only unread or important emails remain. You can also use this to group emails together that will make them easier to find in the future. You can name folders whatever you like and can even create sub-folders within these folders.

Either watch the below video or follow the instructions below:

Simply:

Go to your inbox
Right click and select new folder

To follow our DigiTips, subscribe to our Digital Skills Blog. Or alternatively, you can bookmark this webpage, where a new DigiTip will be added each week!

Microsoft PowerPoint Tips and Tricks 💡

19 June 20237 January 2025 WordPress User [sil12] Digital communication, collaboration and participation, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Support, Student Digital Champions, Students Leave a comment

Blogpost by Jeffrey Clark (Student Digital Champion)

Like Microsoft Word, PowerPoint is another Microsoft application you’ve probably used before. Planning for delivering a presentation can be daunting and even a frightening task for some, as not only do you have to speak in front of your fellow students, but your PowerPoint presentation will also be on full display. But, have no fear as this blogpost will give you some valuable tips and tricks to help turn a good presentation into a GREAT presentation!

Tip 1: Inserting Excel data into PowerPoint

If your presentation requires you to show data from an existing Microsoft Excel document, there is an easy way to display it within PowerPoint.

On the slide you want your data to appear on, go to Insert > Object
From the Insert Object window, select Create from file > Browse > then select the Microsoft Excel file where the chart you want to include is located > OK
This will automatically insert both the data and chart from your Microsoft Excel document
You can edit this data directly within your PowerPoint document by double-clicking on the chart on your slide
Click outside of the chart when you are finished, and PowerPoint will produce a chart with your Excel data!

Tip 2: Inserting a YouTube video in PowerPoint

Microsoft Excel Tips and Tricks (Part 2)💡

24 May 20237 January 2025 Laurie Stevenson [las60] Digital proficiency and productivity, Information, data and media literacies, LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Support, Student Digital Champions, Students Leave a comment

Blogpost by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)

I published Part 1 of this blogpost earlier this week, where I introduced you to 5 tips and tricks to help you make the most of Excel, and this blogpost contains 5 further tips! If you want to learn more about Excel, please visit my new Excel LinkedIn Learning collection.

Tip 6: Adding in multiple rows or columns at once

If you want to add more than one row or column in one go, this tip will save you the time of having to do this one row at a time.

Highlight the number of rows or columns you want
Right-click on the highlighted rows or columns
Choose Insert from the drop-down menu that appears

Tip 7: Adding bullet points

Finding the button to add these is not as easy as on Microsoft Word but luckily there are a couple of different ways to do this.

Microsoft Excel Tips and Tricks (Part 1)💡

22 May 20237 January 2025 Laurie Stevenson [las60] Digital proficiency and productivity, Information, data and media literacies, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Support, Student Digital Champions, Students Leave a comment

Blogpost by Laurie Stevenson (Student Digital Champion)

Feel a sense of dread whenever you have to use Excel for your degree? Well, we’re here to help! Many degrees will require the use of Excel at some point for data analysis, maths calculations, graph or chart creation, project management and much more.

Excel can seem complicated and daunting to some, particularly if you are relatively new to it, so I’ve put together a list of tips and tricks as well as a new Excel LinkedIn Learning collection to help you out.

Keep an eye out on our blog later on this week as I’ll be publishing the second part of this blogpost, which will include 5 more tips and tricks on using Excel!

Tip 1: Useful keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts involve pressing more than one key simultaneously and if memorised can save you a great deal of time. For example, use CTRL+A to select all the cells in a spreadsheet. Take a look at the following list of good ones to learn:

Ctrl + N	Create a new workbook
Ctrl + O	Open an existing workbook
Ctrl + S	Save the active workbook
F12	Save the active workbook under a new name, displays the save as dialog box
Ctrl + W	Close the active workbook
Ctrl + C	Copy the contents of the selected cells to the Clipboard
Ctrl + X	Cut the contents of the selected cells to the Clipboard
Ctrl + V	Paste/insert the content of the Clipboard into the selected cells(s)
Ctrl + Z	Undo your last action
Ctrl + P	Open the Print dialog
Alt + H	Open the home tab
Alt + N	Open the Insert tab
Alt + P	Open the page layout tab
Ctrl + S	Save a workbook
Ctrl + 9	Hide the selected row(s)
Ctrl + 0	Hide the selected column(s)

Microsoft Word Tips and Tricks 💡

13 February 20237 January 2025 WordPress User [jec68] Digital proficiency and productivity, LinkedIn Learning, Microsoft Support, Microsoft Word, Student Digital Champions, Students Leave a comment

Blogpost by Jeffrey Clark (Student Digital Champion)

Making things easier

Microsoft Word is perhaps the most used and widely recognized computer program in all of academia. Virtually every course you can take at Aberystwyth University uses Microsoft Word to some degree, with some courses requiring you to do more with it than just type out an essay. In this blog post, I’ll tell you about some shortcuts in Microsoft Word that have helped me during my studies.

Tip 1: Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are a combination of keys that you press to perform a function. For example, press control (ctrl) and C at the same time while highlighting text copies that text onto your clipboard. Instead of right-clicking and scrolling down the drop-down menu to ‘Paste’, you can press ctrl + V to paste the text instead.

The ALT key can also be used for shortcuts. Specifically, the ALT key is used for shortcuts as they relate to the top task bar. By holding down the ALT key for a few seconds, the keys for each shortcut will pop up. For instance, on my keyboard, pressing ALT and 2 will save my document.

But if we press ALT + S to go to the References tab…

We get an entirely new set of ALT keyboard commands to use!

By holding down the ALT with a different tab open we can see what shortcuts are available for each tab on the taskbar. If you forget what ALT key shortcuts do, holding the ALT key down will give you a helpful reminder of your keyboard shortcuts!