How copy excerpts from Entourage/Excel/Word "Help" pages toNotes?

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

In the OS X Finder's Help pages, you can select excerpts, and copy and paste
them into Entourage Notes or Word documents .

When one spends a lot of time moving within the Help indexes/trees in
finding something that you may need again, it's helpful to copy that into a
Note with several keywords in the subject line and use the power of
Entourage/Find to quickly recall it later.

But in "Help" for Entourage, Excel or Word, when you bring up a page
Command-A to select all or mousing over the panel does not select anything.
Command-C without selecting/highlighting does not work. And there are no
such options in the pull-down Office Help menus.

How then is it possible to copy excerpts or even a whole Help page from an
Office application?

If this is not possible now, how realistic would it be to suggest it for
Office 2007?

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Barry Wainwright [MVP]]

If this is not possible now, how realistic would it be to suggest it for
Office 2007?

You can send feedback to the developers on this issue. Use the last menu
item under the 'Help' menu - "Send Feedback on Entourage". This message will
go directly to the developers. The more people that request this feature the
more likely it is to be implemented.

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

When I asked about suggesting this in another thread, Barry Wainright [MVP]
said: "You can send feedback to the developers on this issue. Use the last
menu item under the 'Help' menu - "Send Feedback on Entourage". This message
will go directly to the developers."

I followed through by sending such a suggestion. But, Barry pointed out:

"The more people that request this feature, the more likely it is to be
implemented."

Please join in suggesting such a new feature to the Microsoft Mac Business
Unit developers.

Here's what I sent when I went into Entourage/Help/Send Feedback:

=====================

For Office 2007, please build into the Help components for Entourage, Word
and Excel the capacity for the consumer to select all or part of a Help page
and copy it to the clipboard.

This capacity is provided in the "Help" components of the OS 10.4.x Finder
and a number of software applications, such as Adobe's.

When one spends a lot of time moving within the Help indexes/trees in
finding something that you may need again, it would be helpful to copy
excerpts into an Entourage Note with several keywords in the subject line
and use the power of Entourage/Find to quickly recall it later.

But in "Help" for Entourage, Excel or Word, Command-A to select all or
mousing over the panel does not select anything. Command-C without
selecting/highlighting does not work. And there are no such options in the
pull-down Office Help menus.

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Wait a minute.

Norm, what are you talking about? I copy and paste from Word Help all the
time.

I think you need to rephrase the suggestion to make it clear that you know
you can select text with the mouse and copy, but that you would like a more
convenient way to save and access entire help topics.

Daiya

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Thanks to the eagle eye and alert mind of Daiya Mitchell [MVP], I amend
what I recommended in another thread after missing a night of sleep. Here
is the corrected suggestion for which I request support.

(When I asked about suggesting such a feature, Barry Wainright [MVP] said:
"You can send feedback to the developers on this issue. Use the last menu
item under the 'Help' menu - "Send Feedback on Entourage". This message will
go directly to the developers. The more people that request this feature,
the more likely it is to be implemented.")

Please join in suggesting such a new feature to the Microsoft Mac Business
Unit developers:

Suggestion: Allow Edit/Copy from Help pages for Office "2007"/12.0

The Edit/Copy option in Office 2004 v. 11.3.0 remains grayed out and
unavailable in such applications as Entourage, Word and Excel after
selecting all or part of a Help page.

Please build into the Help components for Entourage, Word and Excel the
capacity for the consumer to use the Edit drop-down menu to copy highlighted
excerpts from a Help page to the clipboard. Now, the only way to do so is
to mouse-over excerpts you wish to copy and do a Command-C on faith that
what's grayed out in the drop-down menu will work with a keyboard shortcut.

If the option continues to be grayed out, it may confuse Office users who
are accustomed to Edit/Copy working in the Help pages of OS 10.4.x Finder
and most software applications.

When one spends a lot of time moving within the Help indexes/trees in
finding something that you may need again, it would be helpful to copy
excerpts into an Entourage Note with several keywords in the subject line
and use the power of Entourage/Find to quickly recall it later. Right now,
this would not be possible for those who do not use keyboard shortcuts.

Respectfully, Norm

 

[Norman R. Nager, Ph.D.]

Thanks, Daiya! Please see the new thread.

 

[Diane Ross]

Thanks to the eagle eye and alert mind of Daiya Mitchell [MVP], I amend
what I recommended in another thread after missing a night of sleep. Here
is the corrected suggestion for which I request support.

(When I asked about suggesting such a feature, Barry Wainright [MVP] said:
"You can send feedback to the developers on this issue. Use the last menu
item under the 'Help' menu - "Send Feedback on Entourage". This message will
go directly to the developers. The more people that request this feature,
the more likely it is to be implemented.")

I can copy/paste from Entourage 2004 Help. See this example.

Welcome to Microsoft Entourage Help
You can use these resources to find out what's new in Entourage 2004, get
technical support, and learn how to take advantage of the full power of
Entourage.

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page
<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
The Entourage Blog lists the EHP as one of the top five Microsoft Entourage
resources.
<http://blogs.msdn.com/entourage/>

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Just FYI:

There are many places in Word in which Edit | Copy is grayed out but cmd-c
works. For instance, Find and Replace and other dialogs.

But I totally think you are right that there should be an easy way to
re-refer to Help. WinOffice (I believe) is working on allowing permanent
links to Help topics, and I assume that would also allow bookmarking them.
No idea whether that is coming to the Mac as well--I'd rather go for
something like that. But I never use notes in Entourage at all, so the
whole "save as note and search" workflow is not mine.

Personally, I want to be able to pin sticky notes onto help topics--but that
wish is driven by Adobe/Apple (and maybe Macromedia), where I've felt the
need to edit the misleading Help. So really, I want Apple to implement that
as a system feature.

Daiya

PS.

Thanks to the eagle eye and alert mind of Daiya Mitchell

Actually, I was halfway to submitting to my own feedback to support this
when I remembered I do copy and paste from Help frequently. Not so alert.