Map Every Microsoft Office Function To A Stream Deck Button

in this video we combine one stream deck action with one office shortcut to access every office function from our stream deck hello everyone and welcome to tech fix flicks two years ago we published our introduction to using the elgato stream deck as a productivity tool with the aim of streamlining our daily workflow taking advantage of its system functions for anything but streaming in that video we demonstrated how our stream deck was set up to launch apps access our network and local folders open our most frequently used files control our smart home devices provide basic document formatting insert automated text and special characters jump to our favorite web pages access system settings and shut down our pc we won't be revisiting those topics again so if you're looking for a primer we'd suggest checking out that video before proceeding since we published our original video the stream deck family has grown with the original 15 button model and six button mini now joined by the 32 button xl and app for mobile devices and we've placed links for each model in the written description accompanying this video with absolutely no apologies to streamers because this video isn't aimed at you we now return to the stream deck with a new series of productivity hints and tips coming up in future videos we'll be using the stream deck for single button backup routines file handling and renaming and accessing system functions within windows to kick off this series we're beginning by using the stream deck with microsoft office as with many apps microsoft office is controllable via keyboard shortcuts and we've previously looked at simple keyboard mappings in conjunction with the stream deck hotkey function allowing us to quickly add bold formatting via the hotkey control b italic via control i and underline via control u single combination shortcuts within office and numerous and googling office cheat sheets produces a wealth of useful simple keyboard shortcuts covering word excel powerpoint and more however the list of shortcuts accessible via this method is finite and only represents a small portion of the overall functionality of the office suite we can take our first step to expanding upon these functions by using the multi-action function on the stream deck accessible by right-clicking on any blank tile and selecting create multi-action from the menu which appears double-clicking the newly created multi-action icon allows us to combine hotkeys so we could add three hotkeys applying ctrl b ctrl i and ctrl u in sequence to produce text which is bold italicized and underlined via a single button press we could build yet further by adding text blocks of pre-prepared text responses using hotkeys to turn formatting on or off allowing canned responses to be applied with formatting whilst these combination formatting options are useful in our introduction we promise to use the multi-action function to access every office function so we clearly need to move beyond simply combining hotkey combinations with context just to stack the cards even more firmly against us we're adding a further stipulation namely that we can only achieve our aim using native stream deck functions so we cannot for example invoke predefined styles or quick parts from word to give this project a firm footing here's what we're heading toward it's a stream deck folder containing buttons which can be pressed to change the color of text in microsoft word of course this is achieved very straightforwardly with a mouse and we've picked this as a purely representative example what's important here isn't the function or the selection of colours but rather the underlying technique used in the setup which can be applied globally to rapidly access every function we'll demonstrate further use examples later in the tutorial now we know where we're headed let's find out how to get there we begin by selecting two icons the first will be a folder icon representing the group whilst the second will be recolored and used repeatedly for the individual colours selecting an icon is a purely personal choice and as ever google is our friend here for the folder icon we thought a colour wheel or paint swatch would ideally represent a collection of colours so we use colour swatch icon as our search term and here are the matching images we also click on the matching colour scheme images before scrolling down through our choices we like the look of this swatch icon which conveys the concept of selecting from a range of colours so we'll explore that clicking it takes us through to the download site where we scroll down to the download link which we click with our group or folder icon secured we now need an icon to represent each color the plan here is to download a striking silhouette which can be easily recolored using paint 3d we therefore return to search although we could straightforwardly use coloured squares here we'd like something a bit more eye-catching so we search for paint splash which offers some great options we pick our favorite and click it taking us to flatikon.com a site which we mentioned in our tutorial from two years ago we click the download link and we select the free download option obviously this is purely for personal use so it falls within the free download category we've now secured both of the icons we need for the project so we return to the desktop accessing them via our downloads folder for absolute clarity we'll rename this file paint splash and we'll label this one swatch for each file we'll need to perform a small amount of preparation using paint 3d so we select the swatch file before right-clicking for a menu then selecting the option to edit with paint 3d with the image now opened in paint 3d we move to our canvas options we want to change to a square canvas as our stream deck uses square icons from basic maths we know that a square needs equal length and width before we alter those values we first need to untick two options namely lock aspect ratio and resize image with canvas whilst we make extensive use of both of these options in other projects in this instance they'll stretch the image in a way which won't benefit it now we simply click inside the height box changing the value to 720 creating a perfectly square graphic we click menu and drop down to save clicking saves our resized graphic returning us to the editing window closing down and returning to file explorer we select our paint splash file for the second time we right click and up to edit with paint 3d this time when we head to the canvas details no further amendments are required because the canvas is already square however we make a cosmetic alteration to the image where we'll change the six highlights from masked to white to make them stand out further on the physical stream deck we therefore move to our brushes selecting the flood fill tool from the colour palette we select white filling each of the six highlights in turn before again heading to the menu and saving the image we'll be using this image as a master template and we'll return to change its color later in the video with both images now edited and saved we turn to our stream deck where we right-click a blank tile selecting the option to create folder we need to assign an icon to the folder so we again click for a menu selecting the option to set from file before navigating to our saved images and choosing our swatch icon of course we might want to add the label font to the icon as we might also want to set up colour selectors for object fills highlighters shaders and so on with the icon now in place on the stream deck we click to open the folder now we create our multi-action by right-clicking on a blank tile and selecting create multi-action from the menu which appears our multi-action is created this is one half of the combination which will form the structure of any stream deck command for office the other half of the combination is supplied by office obviously there are multiple versions of office in common use and our screenshots are taken from office 2013 the magic here happens when we press the alt key you'll notice that each of the major functions has been assigned a letter pressing the corresponding letter on our keyboard takes us further into the menu there will be some degree of variation as to the letters shown between versions of words and between configurations of specific installations but they'll be broadly similar let's navigate to the option to set our text colour to red we therefore press h to access the home tab then in sequence we press f for font followed by c for colour we then press tab to move to theme colours we can see our position as indicated by the box around the selected colour and we now need to press the arrow down key six times to move to the standard colours row having moved down six rows we now need to move one space to the right using the right arrow key we then simply press the enter key to complete the action we've now established a full sequence of keystrokes which directly translate into stream deck hotkeys we therefore return to the stream deck and our blank multi-action where we drag in a hotkey function before clicking to assign a hotkey the first hotkey is the all-important alt key and we now need to repeat the process for each of the hotkeys in sequence we again drag in a hotkey function then assign h as the relevant key after dragging in the next hotkey we map f and our next is c then we drag in a further hotkey function assign to tab for our next hotkey something different we begin in the same way by dragging in the function then pressing the down arrow as we need to create a total of six downward movements we need to repeat our existing commander further five times and for that we can take advantage of copy and paste we can therefore use either the copy option from the menu or the keyboard shortcut ctrl c before pasting five further copies toward our total of six instances all that remains is to drag in the penultimate hotkey which will be assigned to the right arrow before we add the final hotkey which is mapped to enter or return our fully completed sequence is now ready to test so we return to word we see that our text colour is currently set to black but when we press our newly created macro button the colour changes to red which can be seen when we type you'll note that we see each step as it's being processed as if we're personally pressing the keys and we don't jump immediately to the output as you might expect this is true of all stream deck multi actions now that we know that it works it's time to assign an icon a nice touch would be to have the colour of the icon exactly match the color we're setting and it's easily achieved returning to our font color dialog in microsoft word we select the more colors option at the colours menu we move to the custom tab we see that the dialog is pre-populated with the red green and blue values of our chosen color we can use that data to apply this exact color to our icon we therefore navigate to our paint splash icon which was black when we originally downloaded it we click for a menu selecting the option to edit with paint 3d our graphic appears and we click on custom the edit color window appears and is populated with red green and blue values using the values we obtained from word we set red to 255 tabbing through green which we set to zero and further tabbing to blue which we likewise set to zero tapping away from the blue value we click ok we've now successfully replicated the color from word and now select the flood fill tool clicking anywhere on the black part of the shape replaces black with red all that remains is to save the graphic by heading to the menu and this time we'll use the save as option we select image at the image dialog we change the name from paint splash to paint splash red clicking save to create a new and entirely separate image returning to our multi-action we summon a menu selecting the option to set from file from our selection of icons we pick the newly created paint splash red the icon is now applied with our first fully formulated multi-action in place and selected we can now scale this up to include as many distinct colours as we wish we therefore copy our first tile then select the neighboring tile we can now either use the menu or the keyboard shortcut ctrl v to create a second identical action we ultimately decide that we'll have separate buttons for red orange yellow light green dark green light blue dark blue purple white and black meaning that we create a total of 10 multi-event buttons with our first tile remaining red we move to the second which will be used for orange returning to word we see that the difference between accessing red and orange is nothing more than one additional move to the right we therefore return to our multi-action and open it we insert a new hotkey positioning it below the right hotkey in the template we click to assign again pressing the right arrow key with that our multi-action is set up we return to word to test it and pressing our stream deck button changes the color of text entered to orange which we can see when we type we're now into repetition and selecting more colours enables us to obtain the rgb values which we then enter into paint 3d providing us with the exact colour to create our second icon returning to our stream deck we can apply our latest icon by setting from file and selecting our new orange icon we now have two fully completed buttons and what follows is simply a case of repetition fast forwarding through the next six colors each multi-action simply includes one further rightward movement than its predecessor indeed it may have been more straightforward to create the rightmost icon first then simply delete one rightward movement for each successive icon to the left adding white is very straightforward and is achieved by deleting many of the steps to leave only those shown on screen black required additional graphics work to outline the shape but requires significantly fewer steps to select via multi-action we now have a complete framework for creating similar multi-action events in office each beginning with alt and subsequently navigating to the relevant function at the start of the tutorial we promised some further suggestions for application of this technique and here we can see a font selector how to insert a square or rectangle how to insert word art change the page color change from portrait to landscape or zoom to page width given that we can navigate to every function using a sequence of key presses following alt and given that multi-action accepts sequential hotkeys we can map any function in word to our stream deck furthermore this method works equally well across the office suite including marquee apps excel powerpoint and outlook as a bonus feature look out also for the menu option on the stream deck which can be deployed in conjunction with a selected object to access functions via the right-click menu still to come in this series we'll be using our stream deck to perform single button backups file renaming and moving operations accessing windows settings and more be sure to subscribe for all of our future content and don't forget to check out our back catalogue as you've watched our stream deck video all the way through you might also be interested in our video on repurposing a multi-button gaming mouse to improve workflow you'll find it linked in the written description thank you very much for watching this video if you found it useful please consider subscribing by clicking the logo on screen now if you'd like to see more there are two suggestions currently on screen if you have a better faster or more economical solution let us know in the comments we'd love to hear from you you're also welcome to follow us on twitter until your next tech fix goodbye

Channel: TechFixFlix

Views: 35,866

Keywords: Elgato Stream Deck Microsoft Office, Elgato Stream Deck Office, Elgato Stream Deck Microsoft Word, Elgato Stream Deck Word, Elgato Stream Deck Microsoft Excel, Elgato Stream Deck Excel, Elgato Stream Deck Microsoft PowerPoint, Elgato Stream Deck PowerPoint, Elgato Stream Deck Microsoft Outlook, Elgato Stream Deck Outlook, Elgato Stream Deck, Elgato Stream Deck Mini, Elgato Stream Deck XL, Elgato Stream Deck App, Elgato Stream Deck Macros, Stream Deck Scripts, Stream Deck icons

Id: 94ydTtuRmrw

Length: 15min 42sec (942 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 06 2020