Up to this point, you have essentially been playing on the Web, installing and using helper apps and add-ins to play movies, images, and sounds; explore virtual worlds; and view interactive, multimedia presentations.
This chapter presents a look at more work-related viewers—helper apps that enable you to view Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations, even if you don't have these Microsoft Office products installed on your computer.
Whether you're a telecommuter who needs to be able to read these documents from clients and colleagues, or whether you work on an Intranet where files are passed back and forth, you will find the Microsoft Office viewers a valuable tool.
In this chapter, you'll learn where to go to download the Office viewers you need, how to install the viewers, and how to use the viewers to display the Office documents you'll encounter on the Web (in-house or out).
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If you already have Word, Excel, or PowerPoint installed on your computer, you don't need a special viewer. These applications support ActiveX file sharing. If you click on a link to a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file, Internet Explorer 3.0 opens the file and displays the Word, Excel, or PowerPoint menu bar and toolbars, just as if you had opened the file in its native application. You can then edit the file and save it to your disk. Internet Explorer 3.0's support for ActiveX documents makes it a great Web browser for use on intranets.
You can find links to all the Microsoft Office viewers on Microsoft's Download page at
http://www.microsoft.com/msdownload/
Or, to go to the page for a specific viewer, enter one of the following URLs:
Word:
http://www.microsoft.com/msword/internet/viewer/
Excel:
http://www.microsoft.com/msexcel/internet/viewer/
PowerPoint:
http://www.microsoft.com/mspowerpoint/internet/viewer/
After you've connected to the page, scroll down to find License and download information link. Click on it, read the standard legal statement, and then click on the link at the bottom of the page to download the viewer. This takes you to another page, where you can click on the link for the desired version of the viewer: Windows 95 or Windows 3.x (see Figure 20.1).
Figure 20.1. Make sure you get the right version for your operating system.
Right-click on the desired link, and click on Save Target As. Use the Save As dialog box to specify the drive and folder in which you want the downloaded file saved. You should save each downloaded file to a separate folder.
Although the Office viewers are small compared to the full products, they're fairly large files (about two megabytes each). If you have a slow modem connection (14.4Kbps or slower), it might take Internet Explorer 3.0 about an hour to download the file. You can keep browsing during the download, but this will slow down the transfer.
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Microsoft Office viewers come in two versions: Windows 3.x and Windows 95. Make sure you get the right version for your operating system.
The Office viewers are self-extracting, self-installing, executable files. To install one of your viewers, copy the file to an empty directory, and then double-click on it. This starts the decompression/installation process.
Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation (see Figure 20.2). The Office viewer installation program automatically sets up the viewer to work with Internet Explorer 3.0, so you don't have to create a file association for it.
After the installation is complete, you can safely delete the viewer file you downloaded.
Figure 20.2. Follow the on-screen instructions to install your Office viewer.
If you decide later that you no longer wish to use one of your Office viewers, you can uninstall it. In Windows 95, simply open the Windows Control Panel, double-click the Add/Remove Programs icon. Click on the viewer you want to remove, and click Add/Remove. In Windows 3.1, run the Uninstall program in the directory where your viewer files are stored.
After you've installed the Microsoft Word viewer, it is associated to files that have the .DOC extension. If you click on a link to any file that has the .DOC extension—whether it's on the Internet, your company's internal intranet, or on your local hard drive—the Word viewer pops into action and loads the file (see Figure 20.3).
Because this viewer is a crippled version of Microsoft Word, you can't edit the document. However, you can copy and paste text and graphics from the document into whatever word processing application you use (as long as it can handle the data). Also, you can print the document from this window.
Figure 20.3. Word's viewer is set up to display DOC files.
The Word viewer has a remarkable number of options for zooming in and out and controlling the display. You can use the Zoom Control drop-down list in the toolbar to zoom in at 200 percent of the normal page size or shrink it down to 10 percent. You can also change the viewing options via the View menu:
Normal displays pages to make the most of the space in the viewing area.
Outline hides the main text below each heading, so you can see the overall organization of the document. When you change to Outline view, another toolbar appears at the top of the window, enabling you to display various levels of detail in the document (see Figure 20.4). For example, you could click on the 1 button to view only top-level headings, or 2 to view two levels of headings. If the Outline feature was not used to create the document, however, Outline view will be of little use.
Page Layout displays the document as it would appear on a printed page. You can see the edges of the "paper," and a nonfunctioning ruler appears on the left.
Master Document enables you to view the master document, which is used to manage several connected documents. If you are not viewing a master document, this option is unavailable.
Full Screen hides the title bar, menu bar, toolbar, and rulers, using the entire screen to display the document. When you turn Full Screen on, a button appears in the lower-right corner of the screen; click it to return to the previous view.
Toolbars enables you to turn off the toolbar or change the way buttons are displayed.
Ruler displays or hides the ruler at the top of the screen. Since you can't use the ruler to change margins or indents, you may as well turn it off.
Footnotes displays any footnotes that may have been placed on the page by its author. If the page does not contain footnotes, this option is grayed.
Endnotes displays any endnotes tacked onto the last page of the document (assuming the author included endnotes).
Annotations enables you to view any notes that may have been included in the document.
Zoom displays a dialog box where you can change the zoom settings. It includes an option that enables you to specify the number of pages you want to display on-screen.
Options enables you to enter additional display options. For example, you can turn table gridlines off, hide the scroll bars and any pictures in the document, and display nonprinting characters such as paragraph codes and spaces.
If you open several documents, you can juggle them by using the Windows menu.
Before you print a document, you may want to adjust the margin settings, the paper size, and orientation. You might also want to specify which paper tray you're going to use. To enter these settings, open the File menu and select Page Layout. The dialog box shown in Figure 20.5 appears, prompting you to enter the desired settings.
Figure 20.5. Enter the desired page layout settings before you start printing.
To quickly print a single copy of the document you're viewing, click on the Print button in the toolbar. If you want to print more than one copy, change the collation settings, or print only a few pages of the document, open the File menu and select Print. The Print dialog box where you can enter additional settings appears.
To prevent graphics from printing, or to enter other print settings, open the View menu, select Options, and click on the Print tab. These printing options enable you to reverse the order in which pages are printed, change the output quality, and include annotations and drawing objects in the printout.
If you have a word processing application or some other application that enables you to paste text from another document, you can copy text from the Word document. Simply drag over the text you want, right-click on it, and select Copy. The text is placed on the Windows Clipboard. You can then use the Paste command in your other application to insert the text into a document.
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To select all the text in the document, open the Edit menu and click Select All, or press Ctrl+A.
After you've installed the Excel viewer, it is associated to files that have the .XLS extension. When you click on a link to any file that has the .XLS extension, the Excel viewer leaps into action and loads the file (see Figure 20.6).
Note the left side of the window has controls for hiding data. If you click on the minus button for a bracketed section of the spreadsheet, the viewer hides that data. This is useful for taking a look at totals and subtotals without having to scroll down to the bottom of the spreadsheet.
When you click the minus button to hide data, it turns into a plus button. To redisplay the hidden data, click the plus button.
Figure 20.6. The Excel viewer displays XLS spreadsheets.
As with the Word viewer, the Excel viewer doesn't enable you to edit the spreadsheet. However, you can copy and paste text and graphics from the spreadsheet into another spreadsheet application or a word processing document that can handle the data.
If you get a spreadsheet that has data taller than the row it's in or wider than the cell it's in, the data may appear to be chopped off. You can quickly change the row height or column width to accommodate the entry. Look at the top of the spreadsheet, and you'll see a row of letters in gray boxes. On the left side of the spreadsheet is a column of numbers. If you move the mouse pointer over one of the lines that separate the column letters or row numbers, the pointer turns into a double-headed arrow. Hold down the mouse button and drag the line to change the width or height.
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To adjust the column width or row height to accommodate the tallest or widest entry, click on the column letter or row number of the column or row you want to adjust. This selects the entire column or row. Open the View menu, point to Column or Row, and click on AutoFit Selection.
Another useful feature of the viewer is that it enables you to lock column and row headings in place, so you can scroll the spreadsheet data without scrolling the headings off the page.
First, select the row below the row that contains the headings you want to lock in place, or select the column just to the right of the column you want to lock. (Click on a row letter or column number to select an entire row or column.) Then, open the Window menu and select Freeze Panes so that when you scroll, the headings will remain in place.
To unlock the headings, open the Window menu and click on Unfreeze Panes.
As with the Word viewer, you can turn off the toolbar, display the spreadsheet in full-screen mode, or zoom in on the page. To turn off the toolbar, open the View menu and select Toolbar. To turn the status bar off or on, open the View menu and select Status Bar.
You can zoom in by selecting a zoom percent from the drop-down list in the toolbar, or by selecting Zoom from the View menu and entering your preference. To use the entire screen for displaying the spreadsheet, open the View menu and select Full Screen. In full-screen mode, a button appears in the lower-right corner of the screen, enabling you to return to the normal display.
Before you print a spreadsheet, it's a good idea to preview it to determine whether all the data will fit on a page and how it will look. Open the File menu and select Print Preview. To change the margins, click on the Margins button and drag the little black squares that surround the page to change the margins. When you're satisfied with the appearance of the spreadsheet, click on the Print button to start printing. Click on the Close button to exit Preview.
To quickly print the entire spreadsheet, click on the Print button in the toolbar. If you want more control over printing (to specify the number of pages or copies to print), open the File menu and select Print. This displays a dialog box you can use to enter specific settings. Enter the desired settings, and then click OK.
To print a portion of a spreadsheet, drag over the data you want to print. Open the File menu, point to Print Area, and select Set Print Area. When you enter the Print command, only the selected area is printed. You can cancel the print area by opening the File menu, pointing to Print Area, and selecting Clear Print Area.
If you need to make other changes to fit the spreadsheet on the page, open the File menu and select Page Setup. The Page Setup dialog box presents options for changing the page margins, selecting landscape or portrait orientation, fitting the spreadsheet on a single page, specifying the order in which you want the pages printed, and repeating column or row headings on each page. Enter your preferences, and then click OK. (See Figure 20.7.)
Although you cannot edit a spreadsheet in the viewer, if you have a spreadsheet application, you can copy and paste data from the Excel spreadsheet into a spreadsheet created with your other application.
Drag over the data you want to copy, right-click on any of the selected data, and select Copy. Change to the spreadsheet into which you want to paste the data, and use the Paste command.
The PowerPoint viewer is the most imaginative of all the Office viewers. Instead of giving you a scaled-down version of PowerPoint, this viewer provides you with the tools you need to view a presentation in full-screen mode, point out items on a slide, and even draw lines on slides to highlight important points.
When you click on a link for a PowerPoint file (whose name ends in PPT), the PowerPoint viewer starts and displays the first slide in the presentation. You can flip through the slides by pressing the arrow keys.
At the lower-left corner of the screen is a small icon that represents a pop-up menu. Click on this icon, and you'll see the menu shown in Figure 20.8. This menu contains all the commands you need to control the slide show. You can choose the Next or Previous command to move ahead or back in the presentation.
To end the presentation, open the menu and click on End Show.
Figure 20.8. The PowerPoint pop-up menu contains all the controls you need.
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You can display the pop-up menu by right-clicking anywhere on a slide.
By default, the mouse pointer appears as a standard arrow on the screen. As the audience gathers around your computer to watch the presentation, you can use the arrow to point out interesting facts and figures on the slide.
To dazzle the crowd, you might want to turn the pointer into a pen. You can then draw temporary lines, circles, and curlicues on the slides. To do this, click on the menu icon (or right-click on the slide), and select Pen. Drag the mouse pointer to circle items, draw arrows, or underline important points.
You can change the color of the "ink" in the pen. Display the pop-up menu, point to Pointer Options, point to Pen Color, and click on the desired color.
If you have a slide show that you want to convert to a paper document, you can print it. (This is useful for creating audience handouts.) Simply open the pop-up menu and select Print.
Note
Microsoft also has a PowerPoint Animation player for playing PowerPoint presentations. The player is an ActiveX control, enabling you to play presentations directly inside the Internet Explorer window. For more information and a link that points to the ActiveX control, visit Internet Explorer 3.0's home page at
http://www.microsoft.com/ie
In addition to Office viewers, Microsoft has Internet Assistants for its Office applications. These Assistants enable you to transform your existing Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access documents (and Schedule+ files) into HTML documents (complete with links) that you can place on the Web or share locally on your intranet.
You can acquire the Assistants at Microsoft's Download site. For details on how to install the Assistants and use them with your Office applications, turn to Chapter 25, "Publishing with MS Internet Assistants."
Throughout the first four parts of this book, you have focused on using Internet Explorer 3.0 to visit other people's Web pages, and using helper apps and add-ins to download and play other people's multimedia files and explore other people's virtual worlds.
In the next part, "Web Publishing for Internet Explorer 3.0," you will move from being a passive watcher to being an active player. You will learn how to create your own Web pages, transform existing documents into Web pages with Internet Assistants, place multimedia files on the Web, and make your Web world more dynamic.
