Work Smarter With Smart Tags

icture this: You type a name into a document and a tiny icon instantly appears next to it. When you pass your cursor over the icon, a menu unfolds that offers you options such as: Insert the person’s address and phone number, send him or her an e-mail or schedule a meeting. The icon even gives you the opportunity to tell the software never to interrupt you with these suggestions again.

If you’ve upgraded to Microsoft’s latest office suite, XP, chances are you’ve seen the icons, called Smart Tags, popping up uninvited in your documents and spreadsheets. The goal of this article is to introduce you to the new technology and show you how, if you wish to use them, they can improve your productivity. Or, if you object to such high-tech intrusion, we’ll show you how to get rid of them.

PERSONAL ROBOT
Smart Tags are all about providing quick access to information. They recognize text, numbers, actions and objects that frequently could be enhanced with more facts. When triggered, they act like personal robots that will cruise far and wide to seek data in your computer or, if you’re connected, on your network or the Internet.

Say you’re in Word and you type Jennifer M. Mueller. XP instantly recognizes the words as someone’s name and triggers a Smart Tag—the letter “i” inside a small square—into action. It looks like exhibit 1, at right, on the screen.

Exhibit 1

If you decide the targeted words don’t need further attention—such as adding an address or sending that person an e-mail—you simply ignore the tag, type on and it will disappear. But if you hover over the icon, a down arrow will appear and if you click on it, the menu in exhibit 2, below, will unfold.

You don’t have to do anything to launch the Smart Tag function. It’s automatically turned on when you install Office XP. Smart Tags are not limited to Word; they operate in Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and FrontPage. Paste. This function is evoked in Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook and FrontPage. In those applications a Smart Tag will appear when you paste text or other objects. It will offer various formatting choices, depending on the application, such as keeping the style of the source from which the information was copied or matching it to that of the destination.

Exhibit 2

AutoCorrect. It’s been available in earlier versions of Office applications—Word, PowerPoint and Outlook. A Smart Tag appears when AutoCorrect makes an automatic fix, offering to undo it and even change the AutoCorrect settings on the fly, so to speak. Before Smart Tags, a user who was unhappy about an AutoCorrect change had to go into the setup menu to alter the default.

AutoFit in PowerPoint. Smart Tags appear when a user enters text into a placeholder on a slide and offers formatting options such as fitting the text to the size of the placeholder or splitting the text between two slides.

AutoFill in Excel. It’s triggered when you click and drag data from one cell to others. The Smart Tags menu offers to copy the contents, fill in the series, fill in the format only, or fill in the series without formatting.

Error Checking in Excel. It appears when a cell contains a formula error or invalid reference and offers help on the type of error in the cell and error-checking and debugging options.

Office XP contains quite a few more Smart Tag functions, but they’re “asleep” and need to be awakened in order to work. Smart Tags for recognizing names, addresses, dates, times and stock symbols can be awakened by checking the boxes for the particular tags in the AutoCorrect dialog box (more on this later). For example, if Jennifer M. Mueller’s e-mail and postal addresses were in your Outlook Contacts file and you clicked on Insert Address in her Smart Tag menu, the text in exhibit 3, at right, would appear.

Exhibit 3

Clicking on Send Mail produces the fully addressed e-mail form in Outlook shown in exhibit 4, below.

Exhibit 4

If you want to mark a calendar date, click on Schedule a Meeting and you produce Outlook’s partially filled-in appointment-creation screen as shown in exhibit 5, below.

Exhibit 5

Within Excel, the Smart Tag technology recognizes stock ticker symbols and, at your command, retrieves a stock quote, a company report, recent company news via the Internet from MSN Money Central or even a refreshable stock price (see exhibit 6, below). Thus, CPAs doing financial planning can prepare spreadsheets that track both trading and news activity. Likewise, auditors could develop spreadsheets that list their public audit clients and easily retrieve daily company news.

Exhibit 6

A caveat to using the stock symbol Smart Tag: It’s limited in the information it can retrieve, and the various functions are rather clumsy and take several steps. For a more efficient way to perform these functions, see “ The Limits of Smart Tags ,” below.

EVEN SMARTER TAGS
So far we’ve illustrated how to work with the built-in, default versions of Smart Tags. More specialized and powerful ones are available but may require a subscription fee. Various companies have partnered with Microsoft to create Smart Tags for a variety of information needs. Although some Smart Tags are very specific to certain industries, several can help CPAs in public and industry accounting. All are available for download from the Internet. Here are some of the more popular ones:

BridgeInSight. When you type an InSight vehicle symbol (for example, us; IBM) into Word or Excel, Smart Tags provide continually refreshed stock price data on the company that vehicle symbol represents: stock history, analytical charts and Bridge Financial News headlines. BridgeInSight provides information from more than 200 exchanges in over 100 countries ( http://insight.bridge.com ).

WestCiteLink. By typing a law citation in a Word document, the Smart Tag can retrieve the full text, the history for a case or statute, and other cases and statutes. It can also provide a table of authorities and convert the citation to a Westlaw hyperlink ( www.westlaw.com/citelink ).

LexisNexis. Three types of Word Smart Tags work with LexisNexis. The Legal Case Name tag can search for a case name, news articles, law reviews and verdict information. The Person Name tag adds to Outlook Contacts results of searches for a legal biography, property records, judgments and liens, bankruptcy records or addresses. And the Address tag adds to Outlook Contacts results of searches for addresses of people, property records, judgments, liens and bankruptcy records ( http://support.lexisnexis.com/lndownload ).

Euro Currency Converter. This Microsoft product tracks 12 European currencies and the euro. Its conversion function works in Word, Excel and Outlook. The Smart Tag menu then provides various conversion options ( http://office.microsoft.com/downloads/2002/Eurost.aspx ).

In addition, there also are downloadable City Name Smart Tags for general news and weather about a city provided by MSNBC ( www.msnbc.com ) and flight, hotel and other travel information from Expedia ( www.expedia.com ).

Microsoft’s eServices Web site ( http://office.microsoft.com/Services ) offers links to more than 20 downloadable Smart Tags, some of which are free.

CLOSE TO HOME
Smart Tags also can link to your own company or client information. Microsoft provides a free Smart Tag software development kit complete with code samples in Visual Basic or Visual C++. However, if you aren’t proficient in those programs or would prefer not to write code, Keylogix ( www.activedocs.com ) has developed software (ActiveDocs) that lets you customize Smart Tags through a wizard format. The process is analogous to developing a Web site using FrontPage rather than manually coding the HTML. The wizard takes you through a series of steps to define the location of the data, the data fields and the Smart Tag menus.

Distracted by Smart Tags popping up in documents? With a few exceptions, most Smart Tags can be disabled in the AutoCorrect dialog box. To get there, go to Tools and AutoCorrect Options . Select the Smart Tags tab to see a listing that includes those you have downloaded or developed. Clear the check boxes of any Smart Tags you wish to disable (see exhibit 7, below).

Exhibit 7

If you decide to keep Smart Tags, several other settings may help suit your preferences. One formats how the recognized information is visually tagged. In Excel, you may choose either to have the action icon appear whenever you point to the recognized cell, or in addition to the icon, you may want to flag the cell with color to identify it easily. In Word, recognized text will be marked with a faint dotted underline that remains visible at all times. You may decide to have the action icon appear when you point to recognized text. For details on how to evoke those defaults, see “ Smart Tags Available in Office XP ,”at the end of this article.

In both Word and Excel, you can choose whether to save or embed the Smart Tags in the document or workbook. If you choose not to embed them, Smart Tags will not tag previously recognized information when the file is reopened. You may adjust this setting by clicking on the Save Options button beneath the Smart Tags tab within the AutoCorrect dialog box.

Finally, at any time, you may remove all Smart Tags from the document or workbook or choose to recheck the document or workbook for any recognized information. That may be useful before sending the document to someone else or when checking one you did not create.

If you have not already upgraded to Office XP, the new Smart Tag technology may persuade you to take the step. If, however, you’re already on the XP track, check out Smart Tags; they are well worth a test-drive. You may find the tags put valuable information right where you need it—in a specific document or spreadsheet.

JENNIFER M. MUELLER, PhD, is an assistant professor at Auburn University’s School of Accountancy in Alabama. Her e-mail address is jmueller@business.auburn.edu .

Smart Tag	Recognizes	Actions	To disable
Address	In Word: Any address	Add to contacts Display a map Display driving directions Remove Smart Tag Evoke Smart Tag Options	In Word: Select Tools menu Select AutoCorrect Options Click on Smart Tags tab Clear Addresses check box
AutoCorrect options	In Word and PowerPoint: Any fix made by AutoCorrect	Undo the change Create an exception Change AutoCorrect Options	In Word and PowerPoint: Select Tools menu Select AutoCorrect Options Click on AutoCorrect tab Clear Show AutoCorrect Options buttons check box
AutoFill options	In Excel: Click and drag from one cell to another	Copy cells Fill in cells Fill in formatting only Fill in without formatting	In Excel: Select Tools menu Select Options Click on Edit tab Clear Show Paste Options buttons check box
AutoFit options	In PowerPoint: Text typed into a placeholder Text pasted into a placeholder	AutoFit text to placeholder Stop fitting text to placeholder Split text between two slides Continue on a new slide Change to two-column layout Control AutoCorrect options	In PowerPoint: Select Tools menu Select AutoCorrect Options Click on AutoCorrect As You Type tab Clear AutoFit check boxes
Date	In Word: Any date	Schedule a meeting Show my calendar Remove Smart Tag Evoke Smart Tag Options	In Word: Select Tools menu Select AutoCorrect Options Click on Smart Tags tab Clear Dates check box
Error checking	In Excel: Invalid cell formula	Help on this error Show calculation steps Ignore error Edit in formula bar Error checking Options Show formula auditing toolbar	In Excel: Select Tools menu Click on Error Checking tab Clear Enable background error checking check box
Paste options	In Word, FrontPage, PowerPoint and Excel: Pasted text Pasted objects	Available actions depend on what is pasted, application pasting from, and application pasting to When pasting text into Word, Keep source formatting Match destination formatting Keep text only Apply style or formatting	In Word, FrontPage, PowerPoint and Excel: Select Tools menu Select Options Click on Edit tab Clear Show Paste Options buttons check box
Person	In Word: Any person's name	Send mail Schedule a meeting Open a contact Add a new contact Insert an address Remove Smart Tag Evoke Smart Tag Options	In Word: Select Tools menu Select AutoCorrect Options Click on Smart Tags tab Clear Person Names check box
Stock ticker symbol	In Excel: Stock ticker symbol	Insert refreshable stock price Stock quote on MSN Money Company report on MSN Money Recent news on MSN Money Remove Smart Tag Evoke Smart Tags Options	In Word: Select Tools menu Select AutoCorrect Options Click on Smart Tags tab Clear Smart Tag Lists check box
Telephone numbers	In Word: Any telephone number	Add to contacts Remove Smart Tag Evoke Smart Tag Options	In Word: Select Tools menu Select AutoCorrect Options Click on Smart Tags tab Clear Telephone Numbers check box

Note: Smart Tags that are available in Word work in Outlook if Word is the e-mail editor.