I started a monthly newsletter in January. In it, I focus on the things I think you want to read and learn about – Microsoft Office, Office 365, the Cloud and other related software and gadget reviews.
If this is of interest to you, please go to the top of this page and enter in your email address to start receiving it. It goes out the third Tuesday every month. Thanks!
If you’re using Microsoft Office 2013, have you noticed when you start up an application (Word or Excel, etc.), that your start screen and experience are a lot different? Since Office 2013 is based on your Microsoft account, you’ll have a personalized experience. We’re going to look at how to save your documents either to your local hard drive or OneDrive. You’ll see how to add other locations for saving and accessing your documents, how to pin frequently used documents and how to switch among your Microsoft accounts (if you have more than one).
One of the improvements to Microsoft Office 2013 is the ability to see your recent documents when you start an application (like Excel). All of what I’m talking about will work as long as you are signed in to your Microsoft Account. Here’s a look at what I see when I start Excel – I’m logged in as ‘Blogger Girl’, an account I share with my daughter. You’ll also notice the drop-down next to my name. This handy drop down allows you to switch among your Microsoft accounts. I have several Microsoft Accounts along with an Office 365 account. If I need to open a document in one of those accounts, I use the dropdown to switch over and I’ll have a completely different look.
If you’ve never set up or personalized your Office 2013, your start screen will look like this one:
When I switch to an account I use most of the time, my start screen looks like this:
Sites is my OneDrive for business SharePoint site, the OneDrive-Extreme Virtual Support is my business personal storage site. Then I have two of my OneDrive (consumer/personal) sites set up too. Computer is also an option if I want to save to my computer hard drive. When I start, I also see a list of Recent Workbooks on the right. This helps me quickly pick up where I left off. I can also choose to ‘pin’ a document that I use regularly so it’s always available.
To pin a document, put your mouse over to the right of the document and you’ll see a little push pin symbol. Click it to pin – that’s it! This will be remembered and will be there anytime you sign into excel with your Microsoft account– from any other computer, tablet or the web. Very handy.
Let’s go back to the Bloggergirl account where nothing has been set up and let’s add some locations.
How To Save To Cloud (OneDrive)
1. Click on ‘File’, then click on ‘Account’. Look for the ‘Connected Services’ at the bottom of the page. Click the dropdown – The ‘Storage’ option is where you can add another OneDrive account or a SharePoint (Office 365 business) account.
The Images and Videos section connects you to YouTube, Flickr and Facebook for Business. The Sharing section will connect you to LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter to make it easy to share your masterpiece right from Microsoft Office.
2. We are going to add a OneDrive account, so click on ‘Storage’ and select ‘OneDrive’. Then a window will pop up to ask you to sign into the Microsoft Account you want to link to. Do that and you’ll see another OneDrive icon that has been added. Each OneDrive account is labeled. I also added YouTube, since I have a YouTube account. It did not authenticate me when I added it, that would come later.
3. That’s it. Now let’s look at how to save a document to our bloggergirl OneDrive. Simply click ‘File’, then ‘Save As’. The dialog box will come up where you choose where to want to save your document. Click on ‘OneDrive’. The two OneDrive accounts are not labeled here, unfortunately. So you’ll just need to remember which is which. The first one is the default, bloggergirl account and the second is the one we just added, the lynndye account. Of course, you can always click and explore each icon to verify where you are and where you want to save.
So click to open the OneDrive. Now you can create a new folder if you wish, or just save it. Now you’re finished.
If you want to verify where it is, go back to ‘File’, look at the lower right side and you’ll see the ‘open file location’. When you click on this, you’ll be taken to the web to sign in and then you’ll see your document.
Setting up these locations takes just a few minutes and then you have the freedom to save your documents to any of your OneDrive accounts. I have a lot of folders and I use Office 365, so taking a few minutes to set these locations up saves me a lot of time.