In older versions of Word, you had to fight with it a little bit. You also had to decide which of five methods (if I’m counting right) you wanted to use to create one. In Word 2010, you can do it in two clicks.

First, understand that Word creates TOC entries from built-in headings (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.). It was that way in previous versions too, but now it’s more automatic. Headings you have tagged as Heading 1 style will become major entries in the table, headings you have tagged as the Heading 2 style will become second-level entries and so forth.

Then go to the References tab on the Ribbon bar, click the Table of Contents drop-down button and choose a TOC style that you want.

And that’s it! The table will be inserted where your text cursor is. So you might want to insert a page break (Ctrl + Enter) at the top of your document before inserting the table.

The mail merge feature in Word 2010 is much improved — this feature undergoes a big change in every version — and is easier to use than before. But it undoes an earlier fix: if your data source is an Excel file that contains formatted numbers and dates, these data will lose their formatting when they get placed into your document. For example, $10,000 will become 10000 and April 22, 2011 will become 4/22/11.

You can still edit the field codes in Word to manually insert formatting instructions (press Alt + F9 to toggle codes on and off and Ctrl + F9 to insert brackets), but it doesn’t always work properly and the codes can be inscrutable. I’ve found that the best solution is to use the Mail Merge Wizard (rather than simply choosing the data source manually) and connect to the Excel data using DDE.

Rather than go through all the steps here, download my PDF that has detailed instructions and screen shots. You can print it, if you want.

Probably the #1 most useful shortcut in Windows has always been Alt + Tab, Tab, Tab, which lets you switch quickly from one running program to another to another. But for some reason, Microsoft nearly ruined it in Windows 7. If you hesitate for a few seconds with your thumb on the Alt key after pressing Tab once or twice, the pop-up window that shows the list of running programs disappears, and you see one of the programs. And then you can’t prevent it from happening. Microsoft actually considers this a feature! They call it “Aero Peek”.

Here’s how to disable it and make Alt + Tab work like it did in previous versions:

1. Press + Pause/Break to display System Properties.
2. Click Advanced System Settings on the left.
3. In the Advanced tab, in the Performance section, click Settings (i.e. the first Settings button).
   
4. This displays the Performance Options dialog. In the Visual Effects tab, deselect Enable Aero Peek.
   
5. Click OK twice to close the two dialog boxes, then close the System Properties dialog.

An alternative is to completely ignore this and use the + Tab shortcut, instead. It presents you with a 3-D stack of windows that you can cycle through. It looks cooler than the Alt + Tab window, but I often find it hard to tell which window is which.

Microsoft is having a competition for the best PowerPoint slide shows. Submissions begin this week!

Even if you don’t have anything to submit, check out their list of DOs and DON’Ts and some tips and templates. It’s on Microsoft’s web site at www.microsoft.com/office/powerpoint-slidefest.