Home Office Projects for your Home PC

While recently browsing for a calendar template on Microsoft Office Online, the Microsoft tools and assistance Web site, I stumbled upon a list of Featured Topics. Nothing remarkable about that you may think and at first, as I scrolled down past ‘Manage and Share E-mail notes’  and ‘Get to know macros,’ neither did I. That was until I happened upon the unlikely heading of 'Get ready for your new baby with Microsoft Office.’

Now as a mother of two, I still vividly remember that whole ‘getting ready for the new baby’ thing, but Microsoft Office certainly didn’t feature in any of my preparations. Intrigued I clicked  through to find an array of downloadable templates including an ‘Expectant mothers hospital checklist’, a ‘Birth Announcement’ (with space for photo) and even a ‘Baby on Board’ sign for the car! By its own admission Office Online can't get up in the middle of the night and change a nappy but it can definitely help to take care of some of the details. As we’re not planning on adding to our family, it was with some regret that I realized I would have little use for these particular templates. However, my discovery did spur me on to investigate what other ‘out of office’ projects Office could assist me with, and I was not disappointed.

Upon further investigation I found ‘Tips for Travelers: All you need to plan a great vacation' with handy downloads for Travel Checklists, Currency Rate Calculators and Travel Itineraries. It also has a great ‘How To’ section on 'how to send a digital postcard', either in e-mail or printed format using Office XP. I quickly prepared for a fictional trip to the Maldives before heading back to Office online for some more inspiration.

“Plan a Successful Wedding” was the next topic which caught my eye; a whole collection of Publisher templates with wedding stationery in different design themes as well as wedding planning and budgeting tools in Excel format. In short, everything to “assist the bride and groom-to-be with the organization of all the details that are involved in planning and executing a wedding.”

‘Getting organized in the kitchen with help from Office’ warranted closer inspection too. In addition to the selection of recipe card templates and an Excel spreadsheet to itemize your shopping list, there’s also an Access database template where you can organize and store all your recipes. You can then run queries to find the information you want—such as which recipes use lamb—or run reports to find out how many recipes in your database are dairy-free?. Brilliant! It suddenly occurred to me that my home PC could be put to much better use than just sending and receiving the odd e-mail and going on Facebook.

After checking out the How To sections ‘Create a PowerPoint Photo Album’ and ‘Create your own Publisher Greeting Cards’ my mind was racing with the endless possibilities of ‘home’ projects for my PC. There’s even a ‘Focus on Fitness: Tools for Getting in Shape’ topic if you’re so inclined although personally I’ll give that one a miss. Now that I’m working on planning my next holiday, setting up a recipe database, and making my own Birthday cards, I simply don’t have any spare time left for the gym….