Below are a few images from our app. Go to iTunes – GCF Word 2010 Tutorial to download it for free.

Based on our popular tutorials available at GCFLearnFree.org, Word 2010 Tutorial App guides you through the new features of 2010. The app explores program basics and common tasks, and even delves deeper to help the user work with more complex features (Now you can finally get the hang of the dreaded mail merge!).

The app includes more than 25 tutorial videos. As these videos are screencasts, they do not show very well on older models, so unfortunately only users with iPhone 4 will be able to see these.  Even if you have an older model, we encourage you to still download the app as you will still receive the textual information and informative graphics.

We’re excited by the response we’ve had to the GCF Vocabulary Videos app and we think this app will be even more popular.  The next app we hope to launch will be a Microsoft Excel 2010 Tutorial, available by the beginning of April. We are continuing to work on versions of our apps for Android and iPad users.

Do you think you would use this application and/or do you think this application would be useful in your life?

All of these classes are FREE and can be taken online. You can take the class in about three days or you can work at a more leisurely pace, finishing in about four weeks.

Just Launched: Microsoft Office 2010 Online Classes

Whether you have taken our online classes before or are just discovering GCFLearnFree.org, we encourage everyone to take advantage of these new offerings.

Do you need CEU’s to renew a teaching license or to further your career? All of our online classes are accredited by the IACET and each class awards at least 1 CEU (Continuing Education Unit) upon successful completion of the assignments and survey.  The NC Department of Public Instruction will accept all of our CEU’s for teacher licensure renewal in ANY subject.

Job seekers can benefit from our classes too!  The classes are a great resource for resume building.  Become proficient in Excel or PowerPoint so that you can add these programs to the computer skills portion of your resume.

Join the over 40,000 people who have taken advantage of GCFLearnFree.org’s free, online classes and register today!

Visit our Online Class page to sign up.  Registration is simple and should only take a couple of minutes.  However, there are a limited number of slots and classes fill up very quickly.  Don’t be discouraged if you are not able to register for a class right away; registration reopens every four hours (7:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 3:00 PM, and 7:00 PM) as slots come available, so check back often.  Tip: The 2:00 PM EST typically has the most openings.

If you have any questions about this program, how to register, or how GCFLearnFree.org can help you, please let us know!

• Don’t read your presentation straight from the slides. If your audience can both read and hear, it’s a waste of time for you to simply read your slides aloud. Your audience will zone out and stop listening to what you’re saying, which means they won’t hear any extra information you include. Instead of typing out your entire presentation, include only main ideas, keywords, and talking points in your slide show text. Engage your audience by sharing the details out loud.

• Do Follow the 5/5/5 rule. To keep your audience from feeling overwhelmed, you should keep the text on each slide short and to the point. Some experts suggest using the 5/5/5 rule: no more than five words per line of text, five lines of text per slide, or five text-heavy slides in a row.



• Don’t forget your audience. Who is going to be watching your presentation? The same goofy effects and funny clip art that would entertain a classroom full of middle school students might make you look unprofessional in front of business colleagues and clients. Humor can lighten up a presentation, but if you use it inappropriately, your audience might think you don’t know what you’re doing. Know your audience, and tailor your presentation to their tastes and expectations.

• Do choose readable colors and fonts. Your text should be easy to read and pleasant to look at. Large, simple fonts and theme colors are always your best bet. The best fonts and colors can vary depending on your presentation setting. Presenting in a large room? Make your text bigger than usual so that the people in the back can read it. Presenting with the lights on? Dark text on a light background is your best bet for visibility.

• Don’t overload your presentation with animations. As anyone who’s sat through a presentation while every letter of every paragraph zoomed across the screen can tell you, being inundated with complicated animations and exciting slide transitions can be extremely irritating.  Before including effects like this in your presentation, ask yourself: Would this moment in the presentation be equally strong without an added effect? Does it unnecessarily delay information? If the answer to either question is yes, or even “maybe,” leave out the effect.

• Do use animations sparingly to enhance your presentation. Don’t take the last tip to mean that you should avoid animations and other effects altogether. When used sparingly, subtle effects and animations can really add to your presentation. For example, having bullet points appear as you address them rather than before can help you keep your audience’s attention.

Keep these tips in mind the next time you create a presentation— your audience will thank you. For more detailed information about creating a PowerPoint presentation, visit our PowerPoint 2010 Tutorial.

Should you go ahead and email them to the company now?

Not yet! You should let somebody else proofread them before sending them out. A friend or family member can catch errors that you (and the spell check) may have missed. They can also give you a fresh perspective on things like word choice, what types of information to include, and even the page layout. And the more professional your resume and cover letter look, the better you’ll look as a candidate!

Proofreading can be as simple as asking your roommate to look at your resume on your computer, but you may also want to consider using Word’s powerful Track Changes feature. Track Changes lets the reviewer make any changes they want, and then you can look over them and decide which changes you want to keep. All of the changes will be marked with a different text color, so it’s easy to tell exactly what was changed.

Sometimes, the reviewer may just want to make a suggestion or ask a question, rather than changing something. They can do this by adding comments to your document. The comments will show up in the margin, so you’ll be able to see them easily.

There’s just one final step: Make sure you accept or reject all tracked changes and delete all comments before sending out your document. Otherwise, anyone who reads your document can view them, and a stray comment could be just as damaging to your resume as a spelling or grammar error.

The Track Changes and Comments features in Word 2010 and 2007 are located in the Reviewing tab (in Word 2003, they’re in the Tools and Insert menus). For full instructions on using these features, check out our Reviewing Documents lesson, or watch the video below.

Use Microsoft Word’s Track Changes Feature to Polish Your Documents

Improvements in Word 2010 include the Backstage View which appears to be very convenient and vastly superior to the confusing Office button in 2007.  There are also some pretty cool photo editing features that should greatly improve the ability to create professional, creative documents.  In addition, the Review capabilities have finally been updated to include simultaneous editing by multiple users along with an interesting chat feature.

Watch the video to see an overview of What’s New in Word 2010.

New Microsoft Word 2010 Tutorial

Additionally, we are busy creating the accompanying videos to this topic. Please have patience, they should be available in September. For now, visit Word 2010 for the self-paced lessons.

Just like in previous versions of Office, there are several different suites that you can choose from, and they can be found here. All of the suites include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, but if you want Outlook, Publisher, or Access, you’ll need one of the more expensive suites.

Should you upgrade to Office 2010? It depends on which features you use. Check out the videos below for an overview of the new features. My favorites are:

• Backstage View: Gives you a full-page view of print options (including Print Preview), document templates, sharing features, and much more.
• Sparklines (Excel): Lets you place a mini-chart within a single cell. Simply put a Sparkline on each row to visualize your data more easily.
• Export to Video (PowerPoint): Turns your PowerPoint presentation into a video that you can share with anyone, upload to the web, or even burn onto a DVD.

Word 2010:
Office 2010 is Here

Excel 2010:
Office 2010 is Here

PowerPoint 2010:
Office 2010 is Here

Take a look at the video to see what’s new.

What’s New in Microsoft PowerPoint 2010

As previously mentioned in this series, the ribbon interface has been implemented throughout the suite with the new File Menu, Customizable Tabs and Backstage View. PowerPoint, specifically, has been improved with better photo and video editing options. There are features that make sharing presentations easier including an option to broadcast it on the internet. In addition, one of the best improvements is the ability to turn presentations into videos that you can post online or burn to a DVD. With these new features, you can now create more eye-catching and engaging presentations with PowerPoint.

Like Word 2010, Powerpoint 2010 has a new co-authoring feature, which means multiple people can simultaneously edit the same document from different computers or even different parts of the world. This feature is great for business users or anyone who likes to collaborate on projects.

Stay tuned as we continue to keep you updated and informed with our series on Office 2010.

Along with the standard suite changes like the new File Tab, Customizable Ribbon and Backstage View, Excel offers some new features for data visualization, formatting and analysis.

Watch the video to learn more.

What’s New in Microsoft Excel 2010

Sparklines and Slicers are probably the two coolest features in Excel 2010, since they make it a lot easier to quickly visualize your data. The ribbon improvements will also be appreciated by anyone who didn’t like the Excel 2007 interface. In addition, there are subtle improvements throughout the program to help increase your productivity.

There have been some major additions to Excel 2010 that are targeted toward businesses. One feature is called PowerPivot, and it is a separate, free download that can bring together data from many different sources and let you analyze it within Excel. You’ll also be able to easily share Excel spreadsheets (or any other type of Microsoft Office document) with your coworkers using SharePoint Server 2010, which is a web-based service provided by Microsoft.

Stay tuned as our series on the new suite continues with the launch of Office 2010 on May 12.

Watch the video to see What’s New in Word.

What’s New in Microsoft Word 2010

As you can see from the video a lot of the user interface in Word is the same with a few improvements made to the ribbon. The Backstage View appears to be very convenient and vastly superior to the confusing Office button in 2007.  There are also some pretty cool photo editing features that should greatly improve the ability to create professional, creative documents.  In addition, the Review capabilities have finally been updated to include simultaneous editing by multiple users along with an interesting chat feature.

Stay tuned for more videos on Office 2010 and additional advice that will help you decide whether the new version of Office is for you.