Software Africa Newsletter - January 2023

Main Rant ~ Online Business Tip ~ Excel Tip ~ Training Tip

Rick's Editorial

Welcome to the Software Africa Newsletter: Subscribed to by the Select, read by the Elite, acted on by the Exceptional.

Is AutoCAD LT slowing your users down?  Could full AutoCAD with specialized toolsets give them the productivity boost they need?  Find out at our February Webinar.

You constantly pay to renew your AutoCAD licence: Is there an alternative?

In Business tips, how can you remove those pesky blank lines in emails in one shot?

The Excel Macros and Excel for Engineers courses are available as self-paced versions online.

In this month's Excel Tip we look at the many ways to format dates.

We end with the questionable wisdom of Computius.

Is it Time to Upgrade Your AutoCAD?

What is the difference between AutoCAD LT (Laptop) and (full) AutoCAD?

AutoCAD LT is powerful 2D CAD software used for precision drafting and documentation.

AutoCAD is the "big brother". It includes all the abilities of AutoCAD LT, plus features like 3D modelling and automation of repetitive processes. You can customize the user interface with APIs and add-on apps. AutoCAD users can be more efficient, using seven industry-specific toolsets for better automation and productivity.

With AutoCAD LT 2023 you can:

Besides the above, with AutoCAD 2023 you can also:

Still deciding if your staff would be much more productive with full AutoCAD?  Join us for a short webinar to look at the advantages, on 16 February 2023, 10:00–11:00: Please Register here on Zoom.

On-Line Business Tip #69 – Remove blank lines in Outlook emails

I find that when I have a thread going in an email, Outlook adds blank lines with hard spaces in the copies of earlier emails, like this:

By the way, to show the paragraph marks (backwards "P") in Outlook, click on the Format Text Ribbon.  In the Paragraph group, highlight that symbol.

It would look better, and print on less paper, without those extra lines:

How do you do that?

Hit Ctrl+H (Find and Replace), and Replace All ^p^s^p (paragraph/hard-space/paragraph) with ^p (paragraph), thus:

The "^" (caret, "kappie", or circumflex) is on Shift 6.

Could progeCAD Replace Your AutoCAD?

In November we looked at the main differences between AutoCAD and progeCAD (not many, and mainly enhancements).  Now here is an amazing offer:

If you have an AutoCAD or AutoCAD LT subscription, you can upgrade to a progeCAD 2D/3D perpetual license with a 35% discount. The price for the upgrade is only R4900 + VAT, well under a single year's subscription renewal for even AutoCAD LT.

Reasons to buy progeCAD 2D/3D Professional:

  1. Perpetual Licensing!  No annual fee.  You decide when to upgrade
  2. AutoCAD look and feel
  3. Imports STEP, IGES, ESRI-SHAPE SHP, 3DS, DGN (Microstation), SolidWorks .sldprt part files and .sldasm assembly, LWO, OBJ, STL, IFC, RGT, DXF, DWF, DWFx, PointCloud import (ReCap .rcp, .rcs, .pcg, .isd, .xyz, .ply, .las, .laz)
  4. Works natively with DWG!  Fully compatible with AutoCAD without conversion.
  5. Import BIM projects and objects (Autodesk Revit and IFC).
  6. Exports STEP, IGES, PDF, DWF, 3DS, DAE (Collada), STL, LWO, POV, MA (Maya), OBJ (Wavefront), BMP, JPG, WMF, EMF, SVG.
  7. PDF to DWG conversion
  8. NLM network license.
  9. Corporate license for unlimited number of users.
  10. Create architectural layouts in a flash with the EasyArch parametric plug-in.
  11. 22,000 blocks ready to use + over 100,000.000 while computer is online.  Customizable blocks manager.

We only need some proof that you have a valid AutoCAD subscription, or had one until recently.

Could it be time to stop paying Autodesk every year?  Contact us now!

Excel for Engineers Online Self-Paced Course

The Excel for Engineers course is available on-line as a self-paced course.  The same manual and examples as the live version.  The same trainer. Done at your own pace at times that suit you.  Take half an hour a day and complete it in a month.  Spend an hour a day and finish it in two weeks.  Or dedicate two days –a weekend, perhaps?– and crack the whole course.

Sign up now and get these Bonuses:

  1. Report, "Are You Making These Microsoft Excel Mistakes?"
  2. A Free Support Group
  3. Our Excel file "Excel Shortcut keys & My Macro Shortcuts" (you'll want this once you start building macros).

Take our self-paced online course in your own time and venue.  All the value at a quarter of the price of the live course.  Backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Excel Tip #216 – Working with Dates, Part III: Formatting Dates with the Format Cells Dialog

There was a politician who said, “those are my principles; if you don’t like them, I have others”.

In the same way, if the “Short Date” and “Long Date” formats do not suit you, Excel has others.

Select the cells you want to format. Then, either hit Ctrl+1 on the keyboard, or click the quick-launch button at the bottom right of the Home ribbon’s “Number” group, like so:

The Format Cells Dialog will open on the "Number" tab:

On the “Number” tab, select the Category “Date”. In the “Type” list, you will see the top two formats marked with asterisks. They are the “Short Date” and “Long Date” formats. Below them are many others.

If none suit, select the Category “Custom”:

In the “Type” list, you can select an existing date format, or type your own in the arrowed block at the top of the list. Notice how the Sample changes as you choose or edit different formats.

What are those formatting characters?

d Single or double-digit day of the month (Example: 9 or 21).
dd Double-digit day of the month (Example: 09 or 21).
ddd Name of the day of the week, 3 letters (Example: Wed, Thu).
dddd Full Name of the day of the week (Example: Wednesday, Thursday).
 
m Single or double-digit month (Example: 4 or 11) (or minutes if preceded by h or hh, or followed by s or ss).
mm Double-digit month (Example: 04 or 11) (or minutes if preceded by h or hh, or followed by s or ss).
mmm Name of the month, 3 letters (Example: Apr, Nov).
mmmm Full Name of the month (Example: April, November).
 
y, yy Double-digit year (Example: 04, 22).
yyy, yyyy, e Full year number (Example: 1904, 2022).

You can add punctuation as needed: spaces, dash (-), slash (/), comma (,) and other text. Put literal text inside double quotes, thus: "My date is" dd mmm e. Without quotes, My date is dd mmm e gives a result of 123 26at2023 i0 26 Jan 2023 today!

More about Excel dates next time. Read more here on our Excel for Engineers blog.

Microsoft Excel Macros Online Self-Paced Course

Macros let you do repetitive work in a flash, instead of repeating the same boring stuff by hand.  Save hours not working late, and spend more time with your family ...or the cat.  Do you have a good knowledge of Excel, and now want to program your own time-saving applications?  Then this course is for you!

Do it in your own time, at your own venue and pace, cost-effectively.  The Software Africa Quick 'n Easy Turbo-Start Excel Macros course is waiting for you online.  Take it now!

Computius Say:

ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI.

Remember,  We can make your business run better by:

All the Best from

Communication in Action cc trading as Software Africa

"Empowering African Business with standard and custom PC programs, databases, and templates using Microsoft technologies"

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This entire newsletter is Copyright © 2023 Communication in Action cc t/a Software Africa.  All rights reserved.  Information may be reproduced in full context as long as credit is given.

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