Boldface type is used to identify the names of icons, agendas and URLs.

Sans serif type indicates commands and instructions that users should type into the computer and the names of files.

—The editors

A. While you’re in the Inbox screen hold down the Ctrl key at the same time you click on each e-mail item. Then, once the group is selected, press Ctrl+O (that’s the letter O, not a zero) and the items will open minimized, ready to read. Icons representing the minimized e-mails will appear in the toolbar at the bottom of your screen. If you use Office XP, the minimized e-mails will be stacked in one toolbar icon (see the screenshot below).

If you use Outlook 2000 and earlier versions, the icons will appear, one next to the other, in the toolbar.

Let’s say you have a situation in which you want to place lots of text in one cell and you don’t want it to appear on just one long line like this:

Instead, you want the words to wrap around like this:

Here’s how to do it: With your cursor in the cell containing the words you want to wrap, right-click and select Format Cells. Then click on the Alignment tab, which brings up this screen:

Next, just under Text control, click on the Wrap text box and the words in the cell will wrap.

Now for the shortcut: Enter the first line of text you want to appear in the cell and then press Alt+Enter. Notice how the cursor automatically drops down to the next line. Type the text for the second line. You can keep pressing Alt+Enter for each new line and Excel will adjust the cell height to accommodate all the text. After you enter all the text, you may want to adjust the width or length of the cell to improve the appearance of its contents.

A. Yes, but don’t be too quick to get rid of them all. Many of these small files, which are put on your computer by Web sites you visit, are often very helpful. Because they are stored in your computer, they speed the reloading of revisited sites. In addition, if you wish, they will remember passwords to those sites if one is required. However, it’s true that other cookies are simply an invasion of privacy, used by the site to collect data on visitors.

So I’ll not only show you how to get rid of those you don’t want but also how to recognize those beneficial ones you wish to keep. Assuming you’re using Internet Explorer and a Windows operating system earlier than XP, begin by right-clicking on the Explorer icon and on Properties . Then click on View files , which opens a folder that contains all the cookies on your system. If you see file names from sites you know and trust, leave them alone. The others you can selectively delete the same way you delete other files.

If you use XP, right-click on Explorer and then click on Internet Properties, which opens the screen at right.

You have the option to delete all your cookies in one step, or, if you click on Settings , you can set cookie defaults or view all of them for selective deletions.

A. You’re not alone. It’s one of the leading complaints by Word 2002 users and Microsoft has done an exceptional job of hiding the default-changing process under many unintuitive layers. By the way, if you command Word to keep track of changes to a document (Tools, Track Changes), any text you delete also appears in a similar kind of balloon. It looks like this:

Fortunately, I just read about a way to change the default. I found it in Woody’sWatch online newsletter ( http://woodyswatch.com ).

Before I describe how to alter the default, some readers might find it useful to know how to use the add-comment feature: Click on Insert, Comment. Here’s what an added comment looks like:

I use the add-comment feature so often as I edit articles that I’ve placed a Comment icon in my toolbar for convenience.

To add the icon, click on Tools, Customize, Commands, and then, under Categories , move your cursor down to Insert and, in the Commands column, drag the Comment icon up to your toolbar.

Now, patient reader, here’s how to change the default balloon type: Click on View, Task Pane and bring up the Styles and Formatting pane. Then, at the bottom of the screen, next to Show: , click on Custom .

In the Category list, pick All Styles. Check the box marked Balloon Text and click on OK .

Although the process takes lots of steps, it’s sure worth the effort.

In the October 2001 “Technology Q&A,” we described how to use the dollar symbol ($) in Excel formulas to make formulas constant—so if you copy them to a different cell they won’t automatically change to reflect their new location.

An easier way is to double-click on the cell to be moved or duplicated and type an apostrophe (’) in front of the formula. This transforms the cell into a text—not a formula—cell. Then, after you copy or move it, you simply delete the apostrophe and the cell reference will remain unchanged.

From Lanny D. Levin of the Lanny D. Levin Agency in Highland Park, Illinois.

Word: When you’ve finished your work and you have a bunch of open files, you don’t have to close or save them one at a time if you use Word 2000 or later. If you press the Shift key as you click on the File menu in the toolbar, you’ll see that the Save and Close command now gives you the option of saving or closing all of them in one fell swoop ( Save All, Close All ).

—The editors