Office and Browsers

Office applications and Web browsers – Tips and macros that make life easier

WordPress: Image Editor is not loading in IE under tight security

2017/08/09
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Modified: 2017/06/25
WordPress - Image Editor is not Loading

Let’s say you have a very thigh zone security setup in IE.   All Internet sites are set to High security level, and  Trusted sites are set a Medium-High. In that case you might experience a painful WordPress problem – Image Editor is not loading in IE.  It is getting stuck on a dark loading image. Symptoms: when you click on Add an Image or Edit Image buttons, all you see is your screen is darkening and running image in the middle imitating loading is staying on, forever. To solve this problem without killing your security settings add site about:blank to you trusted site list and here we go – problem is solved!

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Apply Color Scales Conditional Formatting to Multiple Rows in Excel

2017/07/24
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Modified: 2017/06/25
Excel - Color Scale Conditional Formatting

When you might need to apply color sales Conditional Formatting to multiple rows in Excel using a Macro?  We found that is most useful, when you have a perfectly arrange row-by-row conditional formatting, and you are trying to insert a new row.  You can try to fix the resulting formatting rules mess manually, or use this macro to set all formats in the range. First you n first row need to select the range were your conditional formatting will apply and clear all formatting rules. Next, you need to setup proper color scale conditional formatting in the first row of the range. Now, you should create a name range to reference…

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Read Registry value into a batch variable

2017/07/06
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Modified: 2017/06/25
Rue-Sainte-Catherine--2015-

Before I forget, let me share with you a fantastic way to read values from Registry into a batch file variable. Say you need to determine, what is the date format of this machine.  Normally you would read a value from HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International like this: REG QUERY "HKCU\Control Panel\International" /v sShortDate   That command will produce an output similar to this: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\International sShortDate    REG_SZ    M/d/yyyy But you do not need all that.  All you need is the string  “M/d/yyyy” (or “yyyy-MM-dd”).  To get just that string you need to skip to a second line and read third field on the last line.  How you can do that in a batch…

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Properly Validate TextArea Length (IE vs. Firefox)

2017/06/26
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Modified: 2017/11/12
TextArea Length - Firefox

Let’s consider this example, where HTML page has a TEXTAREA and an INBOX.  When user types inside TextArea, Inbox should show the length of TextArea string. <script type="text/javascript"> function TTLength(objTT){ var tt= document.getElementById('TXT1'); tt.value = objTT.value.length; } </script> <textarea onKeyDown="TTLength(this);" onKeyUp="TTLength(this);" rows="10"> This Text Area Contains a string With Newline Characters </textarea>  <input type="text" id="TXT1" value="TT Length"/> Let’s see how this page behaves in IE8 and in Firefox 3.6.11. IE8 Firefox As you can see that IE and FF return two different values for the length of an identical  string in TextArea and that could be a serious problem, if you are trying to validate the string length before updating the…

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Count Number of Cell with Errors in Excel

2017/06/17
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Modified: 2017/06/15

This problem occurs, when you have a column with a formula that sometimes returns an error.  That is very typical for all kind of look-up situations .  Let’s say, you have a column E with formula that returns good values and errors.  You need to count how many errors are in that column. Enter formula =SUM(IF(ISERROR(E2:E10),1)) and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter while still in editing mode. You should see two things.  First, your formula turns into {=SUM(IF(ISERROR(E2:E10),1))} with square brackets around it, and second, you got you a correct cells with errors count.  This is it. If you need to count cell without errors, you can use this formula: =SUM(IF( NOT( ISERROR(E2:E10)),1 ))…

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How to Remove Search Box in IE8

2013/10/05
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Modified: 2013/09/21
IE - Remove Search Box

Do you hate an extraneous search box that is cluttering your valuable real estate space in an IE address bar? This article was tested with IE8 on Windows XP and Windows 7.   Remove Search box using gpedit.msc If you are using IE8, there is a simple way to remove a search box using Group Policy Editor. Run Group Policy Editor ( gpedit.msc ), navigate to User Configuration Administrative Templates Windows Components Internet Explorer Prevent Internet Explorer Search box from displaying (entries can be sorted alphabetically) and enable the policy. Next time you are in Internet Explorer, the search box is gone.  All instances of IE must be closed before you…

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Excel Macro to Toggle Wrap Text

2012/01/14
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Modified: 2012/01/02

This Excel macro allows changing cells in selection based on the first cell in a selection: If Selection.Cells(1, 1).WrapText = True Then Selection.WrapText = False Else Selection.WrapText = True End If   This is useful in Excel 2003 and bellow.  Starting from Excel 2007, there is a button to perform this task on a Task Ribbon.

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Photoshop 6.0 Still Shines Even After 12th Anniversary

2010/11/17
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Modified: 2012/04/10

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Design Premium Adobe Photoshop® CS5 Extended Adobe Illustrator® CS5 Adobe InDesign® CS5 Adobe Flash® Catalyst™ CS5 Adobe Flash Professional CS5 Adobe Dreamweaver® CS5 Adobe Fireworks® CS5 Adobe Acrobat® 9 Pro * Adobe Bridge CS5 Adobe Device Central CS5 12 years in Software is longer than life.  If you remember, 12 years ago we had Windows 98 and Windows NT.  We had modems and AOL. To edit and combine images for WordPress articles I needed some professional imaging software.  Plus, I  needed a software to edit and save my ICO files,  and for the first time old MS Paint couldn’t do it. I picked Adobe Photoshop 6.0 of…

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Very First Experience with Firefox (up to 3.6.12)

2010/11/01
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Modified: 2010/11/08
Very First Experience with Firefox (up to 3.6.12)

Time to Try New Things I just learned that 45% of all my visitors (over the last week) are using Firefox (FF).  And only 5% stayed with Internet Explorer (IE). So, after all these years I am finally ready to try this one.  I downloaded and installed Firefox 3.6.11.  By the time I am finishing this article (2010-11-01 MO) a new Firefox 3.6.12 is out and available. Download Blues for IE Super Freaks http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ie.html If you have a super-protected environment, where only Trusted sites can have script access, it is really a challenge to catch, what site you need to add to your trusted list, to be able to download.  The…

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