Intranet User's Guide
If you are reading this document, one of your co-workers has probably
already built an intranet for your team or department or is in the process of building
one. (In fact, you may be reading this over the intranet right now!) The purpose of this
document is to help you understand how to contribute to the intranet that is now in
place or shortly will be.
Click on a link below to find answers to the following questions:
Additional Resources
To find out more about the Internet and intranet features in Office 97,
check out the Office home page at http://www.microsoft.com/office/
To find out more about the benefits of intranets, check out the Office
Intranet home page at http://www.microsoft.com/office/intranet/
To get in-depth information about using Microsoft Office 97 to create or
contribute to a team or departmental intranet, look for Official Microsoft Intranet
Solutions by Micro Modeling Associates, Inc. with a local bookseller, or check out the
Micro Modeling Home Page at http://www.micromodeling.com/
To find answers to specific questions you have about any Microsoft
Office 97 application, open the application, go to the Help menu, and select one of the
following:
 | Microsoft [Application] Help. Type your question in the space provided
when the Office Assistant appears |
| Microsoft On the Web: Frequently Asked Questions |
| Microsoft On the Web: Online Support |
What is an intranet?
Simply put, an intranet is a corporate network designed around Internet
metaphors, protocols, and technology. Like a collection of shared folders on a server, an
intranet gives you and your co-workers the ability to save a file, content, or information
in a central location where others can find, view, and/or modify it. However, intranets
include many additional features and benefits beyond those of traditional shared network
folders. These benefits include:
| the ability to quickly search through many documents and find
information. |
| the ability to hyperlink from one resource to related resources. |
| the ability to navigate from one part of the "server" to
another part more easily, because of the navigation metaphors used on the Internet. |
Why should I post information to the intranet?
Think of all the things you do with the documents you create. You
develop a financial forecast in Microsoft Excel 97 and include it as an attachment in
email to the managers in your department. You write a business plan in Microsoft Word 97,
print it, and make copies to distribute to your team. You create a presentation in
Microsoft PowerPoint 97, give the presentation to your co-workers, and then save the
presentation to a shared folder on the network so that others can review the slides if
they missed the meeting.
Consider the benefits an intranet provides over each of the examples
noted above:
Benefits Over Email Attachments
| Assume you send a document as an email attachment to ten people in your
department. If the document is 500 KB, you have just taken up 5 MB of server space because
that 500 KB document has been saved to 10 different inboxes. Now, 5 MB, by itself,
isn’t that large. But consider how many people in your department are sending email
attachments on a daily or weekly basis. The amount of server space taken up by redundant
attachments escalates quickly. By posting your document to the intranet and sending around
a hyperlink in email, you virtually eliminate this redundancy. |
| Consider what happens if you send one document to five individuals for
review. If each individual makes changes, you need to consolidate feedback from each
individual and incorporate it into your original document—a time consuming and
unnecessary process. By directing your co-workers to your document on the intranet (and
using the shared workbook and tracking features in products like Microsoft Word 97 and
Microsoft Excel 97), all revisions are made to the same document, and you simply need to
review those changes and decide which to keep. |
Benefits Over Printed Documents
| When you print a document on paper and make copies, you increase costs in
your department. Your portion of that cost may not be significant, but if you add up the
costs of everyone in your department printing documents and making copies for others on a
daily basis, the cost is significant. Using the intranet as your primary
"printer" reduces this cost considerably. |
| It is less efficient for others to modify or revise printed documents
than it is to modify or revise electronic documents—both for the person making the
revisions, and for you when you try to incorporate those revisions. When you post your
documents to the intranet, all revisions are made online, and you can accept or reject
modifications online. |
| Look around your desk or your office. If your team or department relies
heavily on printed documents, you probably have numerous reports, memos, and plans lying
around. If you’re lucky, these are stored in a filing cabinet. But you may also have
a pile here and a pile there. Not only does this add to clutter, but consider the
difficulty in finding a specific document, let alone finding relevant information within
a document. When you post documents to an intranet instead of creating physical copies
for everyone on your team, you not only reduce the clutter in their offices, but you also
make it easier for them to find the document. In addition, because of the search
capabilities of an intranet, you make it possible for your co-workers to quickly find
specific information within the documents you have created. |
Benefits Over Shared Folders
As we mentioned in the introduction, at its basic level, an intranet is
like shared folders on a network server. To review the additional benefits an intranet
provides, consider the following:
| When looking through shared folders on a network, you generally have to
rely upon document titles to determine which document contains the information you need.
(If you are fortunate, the document creator may have also included a document summary,
though this is the exception, not the rule.) Intranets give you the ability to search
quickly within documents to find the information you are looking for. |
| Intranets give you the ability to hyperlink from one resource to other
related resources. If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or later, you remain
within your browser, regardless of the file type you are linking to (whether it be HTML,
Word, Excel, or PowerPoint). |
| To go from one part of a traditional network server to another, you have
to navigate through levels of file hierarchies, sometimes a time consuming and confusing
process. And what if you forget the location of a subfolder? Intranets give you the
ability to navigate from one part of the "server" to another more easily because
of the navigation metaphors (for example, hyperlinks) used on the Internet. |
As you see, posting your documents to an intranet has many benefits over
the traditional ways of distributing information in a department. That isn’t to say
that you won’t occasionally include a document as an attachment in email, print a
document and distribute it, etc., but by posting your content to the intranet, you gain
many advantages.
When should I post information to the intranet?
Any time you want others to find, read, review, or modify a document you
have created, you should post it to the intranet. The intranet becomes your all-purpose
printer. As a result, in most instances, you should post information to the intranet
instead of
| including file attachments in email messages |
| printing documents, making copies, and distributing them to others |
| saving files to a shared network folder |
In essence, remember that "Any time you want others to find, read,
review, or modify a document you have created, you should post it to the intranet."
What programs should I use to create content for the
intranet?
Microsoft Office 97 is an excellent tool to use to create content for
your intranet. Office 97 enables you to save your files in HTML format (the standard
format of the Internet) or in native file formats (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.).
This means that rather than considering which tool would be best for an
intranet, you can create content using the application that is best suited for the
information you are working with. For example, Microsoft Word 97 works well for
text-based documents; Microsoft Excel 97 works well for financial, statistical, or
graphical information, and Microsoft PowerPoint 97 works well for presentations.
If the information you are planning to put on your intranet already
exists, there is no reason to re-create it. Simply open the document in Office 97 and save
it as HTML or in an Office 97 file format.
The main points to remember are:
| The best program to create content for the intranet is the program
that is best suited for the type of information you are working with. |
| Microsoft Office 97 applications (like Word 97, Excel 97, and PowerPoint
97) are ideal for creating content for your intranet because (1) each is integrated with
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 and (2) each application gives you the ability to save to
an intranet in native file format or as HTML. |
Where should I post my content on the intranet?
Your intranet administrator (or the person who created the intranet)
likely created a user folder for you on the intranet server. Ask this individual for the
location of this folder. Then, save all of the files you want to share to this folder.
When you save to this location, you enable the intranet’s search engine to access
your documents when a user executes a search. If one or more of your documents contains
data that others are searching for, they will be able to find it more easily.
You should also include a hyperlink from your personal home page (and
possibly from the intranet News and Projects pages) to documents that need to be highly
visible to your team or department. (For example, a business plan and forecast.)
In what format should I save my files on the intranet so my
co-workers can view them?
When developing content for your intranet, you can choose to post your
finished product as HTML, the traditional format of the Internet, or in the native Office
format you used to create it —Microsoft Excel 97, Word 97, or PowerPoint 97. The best
choice for posting —HTML or Office format— will depend on how the
information will be used once it’s up on your site.
If the content you are posting is static—in other words, if you are
posting it primarily for informational purposes and it will not change regularly, or if
you do not want others to revise your content—you should save your files in HTML
using the applicable Office 97 application.
If the content you are posting is dynamic—in other words, if the
content you are posting will change often or if you want others to modify and revise what
you have written—you should save your files to the intranet in their native file
formats. In this way, when co-workers open your documents, they will be able to revise
them and save them back to the intranet with Office 97.
The points to remember are:
| If the information you are posting is static, meaning it will not change
regularly or you do not want others to revise what you have posted, save as HTML. |
| If the information you are posting is dynamic, meaning it will change
regularly or you want others to revise your content, save it to the intranet in its native
file format. |
How do I save new or existing Office 97 documents on the intranet
in their native file formats?
Saving Office 97 documents to an intranet in their native file formats
is as easy as saving a file to your hard disk. The only difference is where you
save your file. After you have created your document, or after you have opened an existing
document that you want to post, follow the next three steps:
Step 1: Go to the File menu and select "Save As."
Step 2: Give your document a unique name.
Step 3: Save your file to the appropriate location or folder on
your intranet. Office 97 allows you to save directly to a traditional file location:
Office 97 also allows you to save files directly to ftp:
Check with your intranet creator or administrator to find out where you
should save your files and whether to save your files to a folder on the intranet server
or as ftp.
How do I convert new or existing Word 97 documents into HTML?
With Word 97, you do not need to re-create your documents to save them
as HTML. After you have created your document, or after you have opened an existing
document that you want to convert, follow the next four steps:
Step 1: Go to the File menu and select "Save as HTML."
Step 2: Give your document a unique name. (Note that the
"Save as Type" is listed as "HTML Document.")
Step 3: Locate the folder where you want to save your document.
(If you don’t know where to save your HTML file, contact the person who created your
intranet.)
Step 4: Click on Save.
How can I easily create a personal home page in Word 97?
Microsoft Word 97 includes a Web Page Wizard that makes it easy for you
to create a Web Calendar, Table of Contents, Personal Home Page, and more. To create a
Personal Home Page using the Web Page Wizard, do the following:
Step 1: Go to the File menu and select "New."
Step 2: In the New dialog box, select the "Web Pages"
tab.
Step 3: Single-click on the "Web Page Wizard" icon and
click on OK.
Step 4: Select "Personal Home Page" from the list of
Web documents. Click on NEXT.
Step 5: Single click on a style name to preview the style. After
you find a style you like, click on FINISH.
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After you complete the Web Page Wizard, you can customize your personal
home page just as you would customize a Word document. Though the following is not a
comprehensive list of all the things you can do to customize your personal home page in
Microsoft Word 97, it does provide a few ideas to help you get started:
Change the Background
To change the background color or texture, go to the Format menu and
select "Background." This will open the color palette. Select a color for your
background from the palette, or select "Fill Effects" to select a texture. You
can use one of the 24 textures that comes with Word 97, or you can click on the
"Other Texture" button to browse for an image file that you want to use.
Add or Edit Hyperlinks
The basic personal home page created by the Web Page Wizard includes
hyperlinks to bookmarks in the file. To edit one of these hyperlinks, right-click on the
hyperlink. This will open a context-sensitive menu. From this menu, select Hyperlink: Edit
Hyperlink. This will open the Edit Hyperlink dialog box. From this dialog, you can either
link to another file, an Internet or intranet location, or a different bookmark within the
current document.
Add Additional Elements to Your Page
Because you are using Word 97 as your Web-page authoring tool, you can
add many additional elements to your personal home page. Just a few examples include
Tables, Scrolling Marquees, background sounds, WordArt, lines, bullets and more. Access
Word 97 help, or the Office Assistant, to find out how to add these features to your home
page.
How can I create an HTML presentation in PowerPoint 97?
Microsoft PowerPoint 97 makes it easy for you to create online
presentations for your intranet. After you have created your presentation, or after you
have opened an existing presentation that you want to turn into an online presentation, do
the following:
Step 1: Go to the File menu and select "Save as HTML."
Step 2: Go through the Save As HTML Wizard. As you do so, note
the following:
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 | The Save As HTML Wizard in PowerPoint 97 gives you the option of saving
your presentation with browser frames or navigation buttons. When you use browser frames,
you make it easy for your co-workers to jump to specific slides in the presentation. When
you use navigation buttons, you have greater control in directing your co-workers through
your presentation slide by slide.
You are able to choose both the graphic type and graphic size. Supported
graphic types include GIF, JPEG, or PowerPoint Animation. (Note: for more information on
saving a presentation as PowerPoint animation, see the next question). Supported graphic
sizes include 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and 1280x1024.
Each slide in your presentation will be saved as a separate HTML page.
These pages, as well as all images for the presentation, will be saved in a folder that
will be named after your presentation. For example, if you had opened an existing
presentation entitled "Business Plan," a folder entitled "Business
Plan" would be created in the location you selected, and all HTML pages and images
for the presentation would be stored in that folder. To determine where you should save
your online presentation folder, check with your intranet administrator.
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How can I create PowerPoint animation in PowerPoint 97?
PowerPoint animations are animated images that you can create for your
intranet. Any animation that you include on a PowerPoint slide can be turned into
PowerPoint animation. In addition, PowerPoint 97 includes two examples of PowerPoint
animation banners that you can customize to create your own animated banners.
How to Animate Objects in PowerPoint 97 Presentations
Assume you had created a slide and added an AutoShape to it. You could
animate your AutoShape (or any object on a PowerPoint slide) by clicking on the image with
the right mouse button and selecting "Custom Animation" in the context-sensitive
menu that appears:
Then you could select the custom animation effects for your object. (For
example, you could have the object "fly from the left.") After selecting the
animation effects you desire, click on OK.
How to Save an Animated Object as a PowerPoint Animation for Your
Intranet
After you create one or more animations in a standard PowerPoint 97
presentation, you can go to the File menu and select "Save as HTML":
You would then progress through the PowerPoint Save as HTML Wizard until
you got to the "Graphic type" screen. On this screen, you would choose,
"PowerPoint Animation."
Then you would continue through the rest of the Save as HTML Wizard and
click on FINISH. PowerPoint 97 would then create a new folder in a location you selected.
The name of the folder would be your presentation’s current name. Within this folder,
you would find a file entitled "PRES0.PPZ." This would be your PowerPoint
animation file.
How to View and Modify the Sample PowerPoint Animation Banners
To view or modify the sample PowerPoint animation banners included with
Microsoft PowerPoint 97 go to the File menu and select "New." Then select the
"Web Pages" tab and choose one of the two PowerPoint 97 sample banners. Then
click on OK.
Once a sample banner is open, modify the banner just as you would modify
a normal PowerPoint presentation. You can change the background colors, the text, the
objects on the screen, etc. To change the object animations, click on an object with the
right mouse button, select "Custom Animation," and change the animation
settings, just as you would do in the example above. When you are finished modifying the
banner, go to the File menu and select "Save as HTML." Then progress through the
Save as HTML Wizard (just as you did above), selecting PowerPoint Animation as the Graphic
type and saving the presentation to a folder on the intranet.
How can I save a range of data or a chart in Microsoft Excel 97?
Excel 97 makes it easy to save workbook charts and data as HTML. After
you have created your workbook, or after you have opened an existing workbook that you
want to save as HTML, follow the next four steps:
Step 1: Go to the File menu and select "Save as HTML."
Step 2: Go through the Internet Assistant Wizard. As you progress
through the wizard, please note the following:
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| You can select one or more ranges of data, and/or one or more charts to
convert into HTML. 
You can save your data or charts (that you selected in Step 1) as a new
HTML file, or as a table in an existing HTML file. (From Step 2 of the Internet Assistant
Wizard.)
Depending on whether you choose to save your data or charts as a new
HTML file or as a table in an existing file, the wizard will prompt you for the location
or file to save the data/charts in. (From Step 3 of the Internet Assistant Wizard. Check
with the individual who created the intranet to find out where to save your content.)
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