1. First go to the webpage you want to use as your homepage.
2. Next copy that website address. To do this, move your mouse on top of the address and click one time. The address should now be highlighted in blue.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

3. Hold down the Ctrl keyon your keyboard and hit the C key. (This is the keyboard shortcut for copying. You can also use this shortcut in the Microsoft Office programs and most other software.)
4. Click on the Tools button in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. It looks like a cog wheel.
5. Click on Internet Options in the menu that comes up.

6. In the box that pops up, in the top Home Page section, delete the website address you currently see in the white box.
7. Hold down the Ctrl key again on your keyboard, and this time hit the V key. (This is the shortcut for pasting. You can use this shortcut in other programs too.) Your home page address should appear in the box.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

8. Click on Apply in the bottom right-hand corner of the box.

Keep the Internet Options box open so we can make our New Tab page the homepage as well:

1. Click on the Tabs button, located in the middle of the box on the right-hand side. A new box opens.
2. In the middle of the box look for the phrase, When a new tab is opened, open.
3. Click on the field below it and choose Your first home page.

4. Click OK twice to get out of both boxes.

Close out of Internet Explorer, and open it again to see if it goes to your new homepage. Then open a new tab to see if your homepage opens again!

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips! Also, if you’d like to learn more about using your computer, I tutor remotely all over the world and answer email questions for a small fee. Click here for more information and to see what I teach.

Used with permission from Microsoft.

]]> http://karathecomputertutor.com/2013/06/how-to-change-the-homepage-and-new-tab-page-in-internet-explorer-10/feed/ 0 http://karathecomputertutor.com/2013/06/how-to-type-text-on-top-of-pictures-in-word-2010/ http://karathecomputertutor.com/2013/06/how-to-type-text-on-top-of-pictures-in-word-2010/#comments Wed, 19 Jun 2013 22:21:04 +0000 Kara the Computer Tutor http://karathecomputertutor.com/?p=9906 This tip teaches the settings you need to use so you can type text on top of photos in Word. The tutorial’s first part shows the setting to use so you can type on a single image. The second part teaches the setting you can change so you’ll always be able to type on images.

1. Click once on the picture to make sure it selected.
2. Click on the Format tab under where it says Picture Tools above the ribbon. (This Format tab is called a “contextual tab” because it only shows up when an image is selected.)
3. Click on the Wrap Text button toward the right-hand side in the Arrange group. The button has a picture of a dog on it.
4. Click on Behind Text.
5. Click on the picture and start typing!

Ah ha! But what if you don’t want to go through that every time. Well then, you can change it permanently! Here’s how:

1. Click on the File tab in the top left-hand corner of your screen.
2. Click on Options near the bottom of the left-hand side in the box that pops up.
3. Click on Advanced on the left-hand side of the next box.
4. Scroll down to the Cut, copy, and paste section.
5. In that section, on the left-hand side, you’ll see some text that says Insert/paste picture as. Across from it, on the right-hand side, is some text with a drop-down arrow beside it. Click on that arrow.
6. Click on Behind text.
7. Click OK to get out of the box.

You should now be able to type on your pictures forevermore!

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips! Also, if you’d like to learn more about using your computer, I tutor remotely all over the world and answer email questions for a small fee. Click here for more information and to see what I teach.

Used with permission from Microsoft.

1. Click once on the picture to make sure it selected.
2. You’ll see the Layout Options button appear next to the picture. Click on that button.

3.  A box should pop up containing lots of buttons that have a semicircle and lots of horizontal lines. You need to choose the Behind Text button. This button is located in the middle of the second row below where it says With Text Wrapping. Go ahead and click on that button.

5. Click on the picture and start typing!

Ah ha! But what if you don’t want to go through that every time. You can change a setting so you’ll always be able to type on pictures as soon as you insert them. Here’s how:

1. Click on the File tab in the top left-hand corner of your screen.
2. Click on Options at the bottom of the left-hand side in the box that pops up.
3. Click on Advanced on the left-hand side of the next box.
4. Scroll down to the Cut, copy, and paste section.
5. In that section, on the left-hand side, you’ll see some text that says Insert/paste picture as. Across from it, on the right-hand side, is some text with a drop-down arrow beside it. Click on that arrow.
6. Click on Behind text.
7. Click OK to get out of the box.

You should now be able to type on your pictures forevermore!

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips! Also, if you’d like to learn more about using your computer, I tutor remotely all over the world and answer email questions for a small fee. Click here for more information and to see what I teach.

Used with permission from Microsoft.

1. Click once on the picture to make sure it selected.
2. You’ll see the Layout Options button appear next to the picture. Click on that button.

Layout Options Button

3.  A box should pop up containing lots of buttons that have a semicircle and lots of horizontal lines. You have many choices now to make the picture move around.  However, my favorite is Behind Text. This is in case you want to type on top of the image. 

     The Behind Text button is located in the middle of the second row below where it says With Text Wrapping. Go ahead and click on that button.

Behind Text button

4. Click on the X in the upper right-hand corner of the box to close it.

5. Move your mouse into the middle of the picture until it turns into a four-pointed arrow. Now you should be able to drag the image all over the page!

Ah ha! But what if you don’t want to go through that every time. You can change a setting so you’ll always be able to move pictures around as soon as you insert them. Here’s how:

1. Click on the File tab in the top left-hand corner of your screen.
2. Click on Options at the bottom of the left-hand side in the box that pops up.
3. Click on Advanced on the left-hand side of the next box.
4. Scroll down to the Cut, copy, and paste section.
5. In that section, on the left-hand side, you’ll see some text that says Insert/paste picture as. Across from it, on the right-hand side, is some text with a drop-down arrow beside it. Click on that arrow.
6. Click on Behind text.
7. Click OK to get out of the box.

You should now be able to move your pictures forevermore!

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips! Also, if you’d like to learn more about using your computer, I tutor remotely all over the world and answer email questions for a small fee. Click here for more information and to see what I teach.

Used with permission from Microsoft.

If you’ve decided you still want to try, here’s how:

1. Right-click in an empty part of your desktop.
2. Left-click on Personalize at the bottom of the menu that pops up.
3. Click on the blue Window Color button at the bottom of the box that pops up.
4. Click on the Advanced appearance settings link in the next window.
5. Click on the actual words Window Text in the white box of the picture.
6. In the Font section below, click on the Color box and choose black.
7. Click OK to get out of the box.
8. Click on Save Changes to get out of the next box.
9. Close out of the last box.

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips.

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips! Also, if you’d like to learn more about using your computer, I tutor remotely all over the world and answer email questions for a small fee. Click here for more information and to see what I teach.

Used with permission from Microsoft.

Beware that if you follow these steps the color will change uniformly across all your programs in Windows. So reader beware!

Anyway, enough of the warning. Here’s how to do it:

1. Right-click on an empty part of your desktop.
2. Left-click on Personalize at the bottom of the menu that pops up.
3. Click on the blue Window Color button at the bottom of the box that pops up.
4. Click on the Advanced appearance settings link in the next window.
5.  In the next box, click on the dropdown box under Item.
6. Click on Selected Items in the list.
7. Click on the Color 1 box and change the color to whatever you want as your default.
8. Click OK in the box.
9. Click on Save Changes to get out of the other box.
10. Close out of the original box.

I hope that helps you!

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips! Also, if you’d like to learn more about using your computer, I tutor remotely all over the world and answer email questions for a small fee. Click here for more information and to see what I teach.

Used with permission from Microsoft.

Setting the Page that Appears when you First Start Chrome.

1. Open a Chrome window and navigate to the page you want when you first open Google Chrome.

2. Click one time on the address bar at the top of the window. The website address should become highlighted in blue.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

3. Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard, and hit the C key. This will copy the address.

By the way, this keyboard shortcut will copy just about anything on your computer. You can use it in the Microsoft Office programs, to copy text from websites, etc.

4. Look in the upper right-hand corner of your screen. You’ll see a button made up of three horizontal lines. This is the button for controlling and customizing Google Chrome. Click on it.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

5. Click on Settings near the bottom of the menu that pops up.

6. Under the On startup section, in the middle of the page, click to put a dot next to Open a specific page or set of pages.

7. Click on the blue Set pages link next to that choice.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

8. The Startup pages box should pop up. If a page is already listed there, hover your mouse arrow to the right of it. An X should appear. Click on it to delete the page. If no pages are listed there, go onto the next step.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

9. Click in the white field next to Add a new page.

10. Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard again, and this time hit the V key. This will paste the website address into the field. Like copying, this keyboard shortcut will paste many things while you’re using your computer.

11. After you paste the website address, other addresses might pop up in green below it. Just hit the Enter key on your keyboard to use the one you pasted.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

12. Click on the OK button to get out of the box.

Setting up your Homepage

1. Back in the Settings window, in the Appearance section, click to place a check mark next to Show Home button. This will place a little house in the top, left-hand side of each Google Chrome window. You can always click on this house button to go back to your homepage.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

2. Far to the right of where you put the check mark, click on the blue Change link.

3. In the homepage box, click to put a dot next to Open this page.

4. If there’s already a page in the field to the right, click on it three times highlighted it in blue. Then click on the Delete key on your keyboard to erase it. If the field is blank, go onto the next step.

5. Once again, hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard, and hit the letter V key to paste the website address into the field.

6. Hit the Enter key on your keyboard.

7. Click on the OK button to get out of the box.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

Setting up your New Tab Page

OK, here comes the tricky part. We need to add what’s called an Extension to customize our new tab page. Extensions can add cool functionality to Chrome. Here’s how to add the extension we need:

1. Over on the left-hand side of the Settings page, click on the word Extensions.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

2. Scroll down to the very bottom of the page, and click on the Get more extensions link. If you don’t have any extensions yet, the link might just say Get extensions. I’m not sure.

You should come to a website where you can search for all kinds of Chrome extensions. You might want to explore this site on your own some time.

3. Anyway, up near the left-hand side of the window, if a white field that says Search the store. Click in that field.

4. Type new tab redirect. We’re looking for that extension (created by a very smart person named Jim Schubert).

5. Hit the Enter key on your keyboard.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

6. Scroll down to the Extensions section until you see the New Tab Redirect extension.

7. Click on the blue Add to Chrome button on the right-hand side.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

8. Click on Add in the box that pops up.

9. Click on Set Options in the window that pops up.

10. Click three times the white field below where it says My new tab page should show this URL. The URL in there should become highlighted in blue.

11. Yep, you guessed it. Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and hit the letter V to paste your homepage URL in the field.

12. Click on the Save button to the right of the field.

Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.

That’s it! You can close out of Google Chrome now, and reopen it to see if your changes worked.

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips! Also, if you’d like to learn more about using your computer, I tutor remotely all over the world and answer email questions for a small fee. Click here for more information and to see what I teach.

Here’s the easiest way:

1. Right click on the first tab you want to color.
2. Hover your mouse over Tab Color in the menu that pops up. A box full of colorful squares pops up.

1. Click on any colored square you like. The tab will lightly turn that color. Click on another tab to see the color more brightly.

We’ll color the next tab a little differently:

1. Right click on the second tab. Move your mouse arrow up to Tab Color again.
2. This time, instead of clicking on a square, click on More Colors at the bottom of the box. A Colors box comes up.
3. Click on any small hexagon you like. The color should appear under where it says New in the lower right-hand corner of the box.

1. Click OK in the upper right-hand corner of the box. The second tab should turn that color.

We’ll now learn yet a third way to color a tab:

1. Right-click on the third tab.
2. Move your mouse up to where it says Tab Color once again.
3. Click again on More Colors at the bottom of the Theme Colors box.
4. Click on the Custom tab at the top of the Colors Box that pops up.
5. For the purpose of this exercise, we’re not going to get into what all the settings mean. However, click on any color you like inside the colored box. Various shades of the color should appear in the vertical bar to the right.
6. Press and drag the small black triangle at the bottom of the bar up and down. You should see the various shades appear under where it says New in the bottom right. Stop moving the triangle when you see a shade you like.

1. Click on OK in the box.

As with many Microsoft Office tools, there’s another way to reach the Tab Color feature:

1. Near the right-hand side of the Home tab on the ribbon, click on the Format button in the Cells group.
2. Click on Tab Color in the menu that pops up. Here you can color the tabs the same way we just learned.

By the way, these techniques can be used similarly in other coloring features throughout the Microsoft office programs. You can use them to color text, highlight cells, color shapes, and more!

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips! Also, if you’d like to learn more about using your computer, I tutor remotely all over the world and answer email questions for a small fee. Click here for more information and to see what I teach.

Used with permission from Microsoft.

First let’s enter the numbers we’re going to use:

1. We want to give ourselves some room to work, so click in cell C5.
2. Type the number 65.
3. Hit the down arrow key on your keyboard to go to cell C6.
4. Type the number 4.
5. Hit the down arrow key again to go to cell C7. This cell is where we’ll put our answer.

Now we’re ready to create our formula:

1. The first thing to know about formulas is that every single one begins with an equals sign. That’s how Excel knows you’re going to use a formula. So go ahead and type = in cell C7.
2. The second thing we’re going to do is let Excel know what number we’re going to use first. So click on cell C5. You should see a dotted line around the cell, as well as see C5 appear to the right of the =.
3. In Excel the symbol for subtraction is the hyphen. So go ahead and type -.
4. Click in cell C6 to let Excel know that’s the next number were going to use. Your complete formula should now appear in cell C7.

A Subtraction Formula

1.  Hit the Enter key on your keyboard. You should get your answer.

I’m also going to introduce you to the Formula Bar. Click once again in cell C7. Then look up near the top of your screen. You should see your subtraction formula in the long white field located above the spreadsheet and below the Ribbon.

The Formula Bar

This Formula Bar comes in very handy when you want to write long formulas. Just click in the bar instead of the cell and type away!

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips! Also, if you’d like to learn more about using your computer, I tutor remotely all over the world and answer email questions for a small fee. Click here for more information and to see what I teach.

Used with permission from Microsoft.

1. Click in cell A1 to make it the active cell. A black border will appear around it. Look down at the lower left-hand side of your screen. On the taskbar you should see the word READY. This means the cell is in Ready mode, or ready to be typed in.
2. Type the words Office Supply Expenses.

The word READY on the taskbar should change to ENTER. That’s because you’re now in Enter mode, or entering text. Next:

1. Drag across the text you just typed to select it. The text should become highlighted.
2. On the Home tab on the ribbon, in the Font group, click on the bold and underline icons. Your title should now be in bold and underlined text.
3. Hit the Enter key on your keyboard. This will make another cell active instead of cell A1.

Not let’s adjust the title it so it’s centered above the data you might enter. Here’s how:

1. Click on cell A1 again. It once again becomes the active cell.
2. Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard. While holding down this key, hit the right arrow key several times until cells A1 through E1 are selected. (The right arrow key is probably located on the lower right-hand side of your keyboard. It looks like this: 
3. Let go of the Shift key.

Don’t worry that cell A1 isn’t shaded. Because it’s the first cell you highlighted, it’s called the active cell. The active cell is never shaded. Also, a group of highlighted cells, such as this one, is called a range.

Using the Shift and arrow keys to select cells is useful when you want to highlight several contiguous cells at a time.

Another way to select a range of cells is to hold the mouse click down and drag across them. You can try this if you want:

1. Click somewhere else in your worksheet to deselect the cells.
2. Move your mouse arrow up to cell A1. Press down and drag across the worksheet to cell E1. Be sure not to highlight any other cells in the process.
3. Let go of the mouse. The cells should now be selected again.

OK, now that we’ve selected the cells, let’s center the title in them. To do this, click on the Merge & Center button. This button is located in the center of the Home tab in the Alignment group.

The Merge & Center Button

Hopefully the words Office Supply Expenses are now centered across cells A1 to E1.

I love little donations if this post helped you. They help me keep writing these tips! Also, if you’d like to learn more about using your computer, I tutor remotely all over the world and answer email questions for a small fee. Click here for more information and to see what I teach.

Used with permission from Microsoft.