Microsoft Excel

• Frequently Used Formulas
  • =Proper(Trim(Cell#))
    • This is two formulas combined into one.
      • Proper – Capitalizes the first letter in each word and makes everything else lower case.
      • Trim – Removes extra spaces from text.
    • Example: If name and/or address is in all caps you would use proper/trim to make it right.
  • Concatenate(text1,text2,text3,etc)
    • Allows you to combine information from multiple cells into one.
    • Example: if the area code and the phone number are in two separate columns and you want them combined into one you would use concatenate.
• Text To Columns

Text to Columns allows you to separate data from one column (first name and last name for example) into different columns.

It’s important to understand what a delimiter is.  A delimiter separates data fields.  One of the most common delimiters is a comma.  In the example ‘Smith, John’ the comma delimiter separates last name and first name.

1. Select the range of data that you want to convert. 
2. On the Data tab, in the Data Tools group, click Text to Columns. 
3. Click Delimited, and then click Next. 
4. Select the appropriate delimiter (typically either space or comma) check box, and then clear the other check boxes. 
5. Verify in the preview area that the data split the way you want it to.
6. Click Next.
7. In Destination input the cell that you would like this information entered into.
   IMPORTANT If you do not specify a new destination for the new columns, the split data will replace the original data.
8. Click Finish. 

• Filter Using AutoFilter to filter data is a quick and easy way to find and work with only specific data in a range of cells
  • To turn on AutoFilter select the column(s) you would like to filter and go to:
    1. Excel 2013 and newer: Go to the Data tab and click the Filter button.
  • To set a filter on a column click on the down arrow and then you can select the filter criteria.  When you have selected the criteria, choose OK.
• Find and Replace
  • Find and Replace allows you to find a specific character and replace it with anything.
  • Here are a couple common uses for this function when preparing a list for import.
    1. Extra Spaces:
       1. Find what: input two spaces.
       2. Replace with: input one space.
       3. Select Replace All. Repeat this process until you get the message that Microsoft can’t find anything to replace.
    2. Removing (, ), and – from phone numbers:
       1. Find what: (
       2. Replace with: Don’t input anything
       3. Select Replace All.  Repeat the process, inputting “)” into Find what.  Repeat the process, inputting   “-“ into Find what.

Microsoft Word

• Test Print Letters

Gorilla letters will generally look different when you are viewing them through the document manager then when printed.  The best way to see what your letter will look like when printed is to send the message to a test contact group.  If you would like to see what it looks like without actually printing it, we recommend using a PDF printer, such as CutePDF.  http://cutepdf.com/ 

• “The letter does not look the same when I print it!”

There are times that when you print a letter it looks different than when you pull it up to edit.  Most of the time this is caused by having tables in the letter or some other type of formatting that is not the ‘norm’.  When this happens the best way to resolve it is to make a change in the letter and test print again.

• Using Styles

Styles are a collection of formatting attributes that are applied to text, images, merge fields, and other word objects.  

Gorilla uses styles to determine what it should do with a particular item.  For example, the gray box at the top of gorilla letters is the digitized letterhead merge field.  The style for this merge field is “ltrhead”.  When the digitized letterhead is told to merge with the letter, that style is used to determine where the letterhead will merge.

Styles are often changed from what they are supposed to be set as to the default word style, Normal.  If you have ever gotten gray boxes instead of digitized signatures, this is why.  Simply changing the style back to the correct style would fix that problem.  Below is a copy of a letter with a key of what style each gray box should be.

• Page Breaks

Page breaks allow the formatting of your letter to break.  When printing on preprinted stationary sometimes the last paragraph on the first page will change fonts.  Inserting a page break at the end of the page corrects this.

• Formatting Gorilla Letters to be emailed

It is important to remember that emails do not look the same as a printed letter.  You still want to do a test email before sending out emails to Contact Groups.

Another thing to remember is that with email, often images will not come across.  If the recipients email client only allows them to view emails as plain text, then could come as attachments or not at all.

When you would like to send a letter out via email we suggest creating a new letter based on the one you would like to send.  Then edit that letter to remove merge fields such as the address block, digitized signature boxes (we suggest using your default email signature).

• Testing a Gorilla email

To test your email addresses, you should use an email address that is not your company email.  Set up a test contact group in Gorilla with your own personal email address, and send messages to that.  If you use several different email clients (i.e. gmail, yahoo, hotmail), you can get a better idea of how the email will look for different people.