Bills favorite Excel-related April Fools day trick will freak out your manager. Take a look at how this old trick plays out in the old Excel, the new Excel, and in Vista. Episode 476 shows you how.
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!
This blog is the video podcast companion to the book, Learn Excel from MrExcel. Download a new two minute video every workday to learn one of the 277 tips from the book!
Transcript of the video:
Hey! Welcome back to the MrExcel netcast.
I'm Bill Jelen.
Wow! This is a real problem. Today is Friday, April fools day.
My favorite day of the year.
Actually falls on a Sunday this year.
So, my great trick...
You would normally be able to pull on your manager on April Fools.
You're not going to do it because you're not going to get work on Sunday.
Let me show you the trick today.
You can choose whether you want to do this today, Friday or Monday.
Neither one is going to be as good as a fell on April's fool day.
There's a great feature in Excel.
So, it's good if you keep a lot of data and you now need to proof read that data.
You go to tools, speech, show text-to-speech tool bar, get a little toolbar here.
That's good for reading cells.
So, for example, if you have a bunch of information, you can select those cells.
I'll just select a few here and say speak cells 1234. 1234. (computer speaking) And Excel reads the spreadsheet to you.
Okay! That's good enough.
I understand what that's useful for but the very last item on the text-to-speech tool bar is the great one for pulling a trick on.
Your manager if you turn on the last button is called speak on enter and then you close the toolbar.
When your manager comes back from lunch and sits down and starts to work on a spreadsheet and starts to type things Incomplete statement (computer speaking) The computer will repeat everything that he types just like the old computer used to do on, Star Trek.
Great trick good for a lot of laughs and you've hidden the text-to-speech tool bar.
So, no one will be able to figure out.
How you did it or who did it?
Now, in Excel 2007.
They've taken the text-to-speech tool bar and pretty much eliminated it.
What you have to do is right click the quick access toolbar, choose customize and then in the left drop-down, choose commands not in the Ribbon.
All of the speech items are further down in this list choose one and add it to your toolbar just long enough to turn on the feature and then remove it from the quick access toolbar.
So, your manager doesn't find it.
Okay! Now, something interesting is if you go into the control panel and choose speech.
On some computers, we have three different voices available every computer has Microsoft Sam.
You actually elected Microsoft Sam as the computer's default voice. (computer speaking) Some computers depending on which version the operating system has, Michael.
You have selected L.H. Michael as the computer's default voice. (computer speaking) Not as bad as Sam.
And then there's Michelle.
You have selected that kid learn L.H Michelle as the computer's default voice (computer speaking) And if you really want to be annoying you can take the speed and speed it way up.
(computer speaking) Or, slow it down.
Your choice...
Options are unbelievable.
I always show this trick in my power Excel.
It's great for a laugh and I show it on this laptop.
The same laptop that I used for doing the podcast.
The other day though I was doing a webinar, I was using my desktop machine, and that machine is running Excel 2003.
But it has windows Vista and I was startled, when I showed this trick because in Vista, the voice is so much better.
Let me roll over there and We'll take a listen to how the voice out.
(computer speaking) Alright! That's interesting.
A lot of people don't use text-to-speech but obviously Microsoft invested a lot of money to make that voice out, a lot better Microsoft saying we've been living with forever in windows XP.
Hey, there, you go Sunday's April fool day.
Figure out so you can use this trick.
Just to see if you can make anyone April's fool. (inaudible) Thanks for stopping by.
Now, Monday, opening day baseball season.
The United States stop by.
I'll have a great baseball themed podcast for you on, Monday.
I'm Bill Jelen.
Wow! This is a real problem. Today is Friday, April fools day.
My favorite day of the year.
Actually falls on a Sunday this year.
So, my great trick...
You would normally be able to pull on your manager on April Fools.
You're not going to do it because you're not going to get work on Sunday.
Let me show you the trick today.
You can choose whether you want to do this today, Friday or Monday.
Neither one is going to be as good as a fell on April's fool day.
There's a great feature in Excel.
So, it's good if you keep a lot of data and you now need to proof read that data.
You go to tools, speech, show text-to-speech tool bar, get a little toolbar here.
That's good for reading cells.
So, for example, if you have a bunch of information, you can select those cells.
I'll just select a few here and say speak cells 1234. 1234. (computer speaking) And Excel reads the spreadsheet to you.
Okay! That's good enough.
I understand what that's useful for but the very last item on the text-to-speech tool bar is the great one for pulling a trick on.
Your manager if you turn on the last button is called speak on enter and then you close the toolbar.
When your manager comes back from lunch and sits down and starts to work on a spreadsheet and starts to type things Incomplete statement (computer speaking) The computer will repeat everything that he types just like the old computer used to do on, Star Trek.
Great trick good for a lot of laughs and you've hidden the text-to-speech tool bar.
So, no one will be able to figure out.
How you did it or who did it?
Now, in Excel 2007.
They've taken the text-to-speech tool bar and pretty much eliminated it.
What you have to do is right click the quick access toolbar, choose customize and then in the left drop-down, choose commands not in the Ribbon.
All of the speech items are further down in this list choose one and add it to your toolbar just long enough to turn on the feature and then remove it from the quick access toolbar.
So, your manager doesn't find it.
Okay! Now, something interesting is if you go into the control panel and choose speech.
On some computers, we have three different voices available every computer has Microsoft Sam.
You actually elected Microsoft Sam as the computer's default voice. (computer speaking) Some computers depending on which version the operating system has, Michael.
You have selected L.H. Michael as the computer's default voice. (computer speaking) Not as bad as Sam.
And then there's Michelle.
You have selected that kid learn L.H Michelle as the computer's default voice (computer speaking) And if you really want to be annoying you can take the speed and speed it way up.
(computer speaking) Or, slow it down.
Your choice...
Options are unbelievable.
I always show this trick in my power Excel.
It's great for a laugh and I show it on this laptop.
The same laptop that I used for doing the podcast.
The other day though I was doing a webinar, I was using my desktop machine, and that machine is running Excel 2003.
But it has windows Vista and I was startled, when I showed this trick because in Vista, the voice is so much better.
Let me roll over there and We'll take a listen to how the voice out.
(computer speaking) Alright! That's interesting.
A lot of people don't use text-to-speech but obviously Microsoft invested a lot of money to make that voice out, a lot better Microsoft saying we've been living with forever in windows XP.
Hey, there, you go Sunday's April fool day.
Figure out so you can use this trick.
Just to see if you can make anyone April's fool. (inaudible) Thanks for stopping by.
Now, Monday, opening day baseball season.
The United States stop by.
I'll have a great baseball themed podcast for you on, Monday.
