Q: I was working in Excel and suddenly realized that I made a mistake when I entered a formula about 10 minutes earlier and that was screwing up a lot of what I did since then. So I turned to the old faithful Undo command (Ctrl+Z), and although it took me back quite a ways, it stopped before I got to the place where I committed the error. Is my Undo tool broken, or did I do something to disengage it?

A: Indeed, you may have inadvertently cleared out the Undo stack where that data are stored. Excel 2003 automatically saves the last 16 actions in RAM. In Excel 2007, that default has increased to 100. But be aware that if you save a file (Ctrl+S) in Excel 2003, all the actions taken before the save are wiped out. In addition, if you’ve selected the AutoSave option, all saves will be cleared each time it automatically triggers a save action—and that’s another reason I suggest you shouldn’t rely on the AutoSave option. (For more on the limitations of using AutoSave, see “Beware: The Save AutoRecover info option does not save permanently,” May 09, page 78). In Excel 2007, Microsoft wisely rewrote the software so it does not erase the Undo stack after a save. Be aware, too, that when you run a Visual Basic for Applications macro, Excel allocates no memory for undoing actions.

If you wish, you can increase or decrease the number of Undo saves by making a small change in the Registry, but Microsoft recommends a limit of 100. This Microsoft Knowledge Base article explains how to do it: support.microsoft.com/?kbid=211922.

Q: I find your Tech Q&A column very useful. Is there some way I can track down items you published earlier? It sure would be handy.

A: Several readers have asked about this, and yes, the magazine has a very comprehensive and easy-to-use Web site for locating articles. Go to www.journalofaccountancy.com/BrowseTopics, and then cursor down to the “Technology” area and then to “Tech Tips.” The Web site also has a very powerful search engine for tracking down articles by subject, author, headline and more.

Q: I’m at my wits’ end. I haven’t got the time or patience to figure out how to use—and let alone find—all the wonderful tools I’m told are in Office 2007. Isn’t there something to get me up to speed so I can concentrate on my work—at least until Microsoft introduces a replacement for this application?

A: I’ve got just what you’ve been craving. A Swiss company, UBit Schweiz, is offering at no cost a tiny program that adds a portion of the classic Office 2003 toolbar menu for Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It fits directly under the Office 2007 Ribbon. It’s free, loads in less than a minute, and doesn’t slow down the Office applications.

UBit adds a Menu tab to the Ribbon (see screenshot below). When you click on Menu, the conventional File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools, Data and Window menus appear plus any custom tools you may have added.

To download the program, go to www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/.

EXCEL:

  To add a widely dispersed group of numbers: While holding down the Ctrl key, click on each cell you wish to sum, and the answer will appear just above the Taskbar at the bottom of the screen. Excel 2007 gives you a bonus: It sums the numbers, and it counts the number of items being summed and calculates their average (see screenshot below).

WORD:

  Ctrl+Shift+D—Double underlines the selected text

  Ctrl+Shift+N—Applies Normal style to current paragraph

  If you want to change the formatting of a paragraph—say from align left to center—just click anywhere in the paragraph and then right-click, opening this menu:

Then click on Paragraph and make your format selection. Although the menu is slightly different in Word 2007, it works the same.

Caveat: This only works with paragraph formats; for character formats, such as italics, you must select all the characters you want to change.

Q: My Outlook has been running really slow, and I finally figured it’s probably because my Inbox and Deleted Items files are huge. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve accumulated several years of e-mails. So I recently spent an hour or so of quality time deleting messages. But now, after all that effort, I find my pst file, which holds all of Outlook’s data, is still about as large as it was before I did those deletes, and my e-mail is still sluggish. To make matters worse, when I delete a whole bunch at a time, my system keeps hanging up with an Out of memory error. Can you help me get out of this mess?

A: Let’s tackle one problem at a time. You’re discovering that it’s not enough to just delete old messages. You’ve got to take one more step: defrag the .pst data files, which in Outlook’s lingo is called Compacting.

To compact a .pst file in Outlook 2003, click on File, then on Data File Management and Settings and finally on Compact Now (see screenshot atop the next column). The defragging will probably take a few minutes—depending on the size and degree of fragmentation of the file. When it’s done, click on OK.

For Outlook 2007, click on File, Data File Management, which opens the Account Settings dialog box. Go to the Data Files tab and click on Settings and finally on Compact Now.

Now, let’s tackle why your system hangs up when you try to delete a large number of e-mails. I would bet you’re connected to Exchange Server, and Outlook is trying its best to communicate with the server for every deletion, but its getting overwhelmed. So, when you’re ready to do a major deletion, first disconnect from the server. Then, after the wholesale deletion is finished, reconnect and your computer will sync with the server in the background.

Finally, let’s get to the heart of the matter: You’re doing a poor job of e-mail housekeeping. Here is what you should be doing to keep Outlook running smoothly.

First, don’t let your Inbox balloon. Move messages to Deleted Items when you’re reasonably sure you don’t need them. Also, if you need a place to temporarily store certain messages, use the color flags to code their priorities. Better yet, consider creating subfolders under your Inbox by right-clicking on that icon and creating a new folder with a distinct name. Every month or so, scan what’s in Deleted Items and clean out those you really don’t need. Do the same with the Junk E-mail folder and delete those that got through the filter.

Tip: If you want to completely delete an e-mail, don’t just click on Delete or it will go into the Deleted Items folder. Instead, erase it with Shift+Delete.

Q: I understand that the more system memory I have, the better my computer will perform. However, I’ve already loaded as much system memory as my computer can hold. Is there any way to add more?

A: Yes, once you run out of slots in your computer, you can configure one of those ubiquitous USB flash memory sticks to function as extra random access memory (RAM). The technique works about the same in Windows XP and Vista. Microsoft created a function in Vista, called ReadyBoost, that not only makes the configuration easier, but adds a technique for using the extra memory more efficiently.

One caveat: Be sure that your computer has USB 2.0 slots, and that the memory stick is USB 2.0 compatible. Also, a computer can only use one designated USB device for additional RAM, and that drive can no longer be used to store or transfer data. But you can use other USB sticks in other USB slots in your computer for storing or transferring data.

How does extra RAM improve computer performance? Each time you trigger an application, a copy of the software  that runs that app is called up from the hard drive and stored in system memory. If you later close the app, the software will usually remain in RAM as long as there is sufficient room and until you shut down the computer. Windows also partitions a part of the hard drive as virtual memory, which enhances RAM. If you trigger another app and RAM space is limited, the previous app’s software is erased to make room for the new one. So, computers with lots of RAM can hold lots of apps—ready to load nearly instantly because using system memory is faster than accessing hard disk storage. The addition of flash memory effectively enlarges virtual memory.

To recruit a memory stick to expand RAM in XP, insert one into an available USB slot. Then open the Control Panel and click on System, Advanced, and under Performance click on Settings, the Advanced tab and then, under Virtual memory, click on Change (see screenshot below).