Windows Folders Can Be Set Up to Look, Feel Like Web Pages

There are a number of ways to squeeze more out of your Microsoft software.

Folders in Windows 98 and Me can look and feel like Web pages, meaning you can surf in much the same way you cruise the Internet. It’s easy to set up, and you can change back to another Windows view at any time.

In Windows 98, double-click My Computer to open the My Computer view of Windows Explorer. Click View and then click “as Web page,” which makes this your default viewing mode. Now, when you click on an item, useful information appears on the left side of the screen.

For example, when you highlight a drive letter in My Computer, information about that drive appears on the left of the screen, including the storage capacity and remaining space available. You can use the List or Details views to get extra information on your files whether the option to view “as Web page” is on or off. You can go back and click “as Web page” again to return to a full-screen view without the extra information on the left panel.

If your computer runs Windows Me, double-click My Computer and then Folder Options. Locate the Web View section on the General tab. Click in the circle that appears to the left of “Enable Web content in folders.” You can go back and click “Use Windows classic folders” to turn off the Web page view.

It’s often easier and faster to use keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft products--especially Word. When you look at a drop-down list from a Menu command, if there is an underlined letter, you can just hit that letter to carry out the command. From within a Word document, click Tools and then Macro. Click Macros, and in the “Macros in” drop-down list, scroll down and select Word commands. In the Macro name list, scroll down and click ListCommands.

Click the Run button. You can now select “Current menu and keyboard settings” or “All Word commands.” The first option creates a shorter list, but both will produce a new document that you can format, print or save to a document.

Microsoft has a more concise summary of keyboard commands available on its Web page. Turn your browser to https://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q211/9/82.asp.

Finally, when you click File in Word, a list of your most recently used documents appears at the bottom of the drop-down menu. You can adjust the number of recent files listed by clicking Tools, then Options and then the General tab. You can adjust the “Recently used file list” from 1 to 9.

There might be times when you don’t want a document to appear on that list. To remove a document, press and hold the Ctrl and Alt keys and then tap the hyphen key. Your cursor will change to a horizontal line. Click File. You can now remove a document from the list by just clicking on the document name. Your cursor will return to normal.

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Jeff Levy hosts the “On Computers” radio talk show from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on KFI-AM (640).