There are various applications that make up the Microsoft Office suite, and a bonus is that they can integrate in order to work with each other. For example, data from an Excel worksheet can be exported to an Access database, and a diagram created in Visio can be embedded into a Word document.

This is a great feature of Office, and one that saves users time and effort on a huge scale. Imagine for a moment that Excel and Access were not compatible and you had to print off Excel data and then enter it manually into your database. Quite a thankless task, I think.

Yet while these Office applications work very well as a team, they also have some individual talents in their ranks. Here are a few examples of individual brilliance.

PowerPoint
You have created a superb presentation using carefully thought out images. The opening slide contains a photograph of a brilliant sunrise and you would like this as your wallpaper. How do you do it?

With the sunrise slide selected, right click and from the list select Save As. Make sure the Save as Type is set to JPEG. You will be asked if you wish to save the entire presentation or the current slide only. Select Current Slide. Make a note of the name PowerPoint assigns to the saved image.

Now you can set the image as your desktop background by right clicking on the desktop and clicking on the Background tab. Click the Browse button and search for your image in the usual way. When you find it click on it and then click OK.

Alternatively, you could use Windows Explorer to navigate to your chosen file. Right click on the file and select Set as Desktop Background.

Word
As a word-processor, the main activity that takes place In Word is, obviously typing. Sarah can clack away at the keys for hours on end, but even the slightest break in typing interrupts her flow and breaks her concentration. Coming off the keyboard has an effect similar to that of a jogger stopping to tie his shoelace: the momentum is lost and the rhythm is broken. This is bad news when she wants to insert bullet points, as she will have to leave the keyboard to click on the bullet point icon, right?

Wrong. If Sarah clicks Enter to get the cursor to where she want her bullet points to start and then types and asterisk followed by a space, she can create bullet points without resorting to the mouse. When she has typed her first point and she presses Enter to move on to the second, Word will magically convert that asterisk into a bullet point without her fingers having left the keyboard.

Excel
Excel allows the user to delete large quantities of cells in one action. Press Ctrl + A will select the entire contents if you wish to clear the entire worksheet, and you can select swathes of data by holding down and dragging the mouse. But what if you have a random selection of non-adjacent cells you wish to delete?

Rather than deleting cells individually, click on the first cell and hold down the Ctrl key. Select the rest of the cells you wish to delete. When you have all of your chosen cells highlighted, press delete and they will disappear into the mist.

Access
In some Office applications having a new document open up on start up can be a nuisance. Other times it can be a welcome time-saver. Access allows you to program your start up to display a new form each time. Here's how.

Open the database and click the Office Button, then click on Access Options. In the left side pane, click on Current Database and then under Applications Options click on the Display Form drop-down menu and select your preferred form you want to open up. Click OK.

Outlook
Tom is being a scamp at work. He has simultaneously opened an important work-related email and one from his mate containing details of where to meet for the football game they are going to watch that evening. The manager suddenly appears and Tom quickly sets about deleting the illicit mail. In his panic, however, he accidentally deletes the important mail not the one from his friend. He is aghast as the work-related mail contains figures he must pass on to his manager.

Luckily for Tom, Ctrl + Z is a universal keyboard shortcut that will undo the last operation. In this case it will recover that mistakenly deleted mail.

So there you have it- five sterling solo performances from member of the Office team. There are many, many more just waiting to be discovered, so why not go and find them?