It sure has happened to you. You read the word office automation and, automatically, you think of the typical software package that you have installed on your PC. The one that allows you to make excellent presentations or dynamic tables. Did you know that the term office automation is an acronym made up of two terms?
This Word speaks of Office and Computer Science. In this way, the definition of office automation corresponds to the ‘ hardware and software equipment used to create, collect, store, manipulate and digitally transmit the information necessary to perform tasks and achieve primary objectives.
But then it has nothing to do with the Office suite? Yes. And so that you speak correctly and thoroughly, below, I will explain in detail how you can get the most out of the most used office tools in the world.
The goal of office automation is to simplify tasks.
Thus, you can optimize your time and dedicate it to doing other tasks. I’ll give you a simple example: before in companies, letters were made by hand or with a typewriter, and a lot of time was spent on this task (imagine having to write one by one for each client or supplier and, in the case when writing there would be an error, start writing it again). Now, thanks to these computer tools, you can write a ‘standard letter’ that you modify at the request of new data and correct errors on the spot.
The significant change came for companies since some of these tasks are carried out daily and involve a considerable loss of time. Thanks to incorporating this type of software, it is possible to reduce costs by investing less time.
Taking into account what you have just read, your curriculum vitae includes a section in which the office suite is almost mandatory. Headhunters take it for granted that candidates know and use these kinds of tools, so let’s get to the heart of the matter.
What are the most used office automation tools in a company?
Perhaps the most commonly known Office package is the Microsoft brand, and many computers have it installed by default. However, you also have others that are freely accessible, such as OpenOffice. Both include the following tools that automate and optimize daily office work:
Word processor :
We are talking about the well-known Word, one of the most popular Microsoft Office computer programs. Word is a word processor; it allows you to create, edit, and modify formatted text documents. Unlike a simple text editor, Word includes working with various fonts (fonts), including images, a spell checker, and even a thesaurus. The package brings templates to create specific documents in its latest updates, such as flyers, resumes, covers for jobs, and even indexes. If you spend time working with him, you will realize that he has endless possibilities to edit a text.
Spreadsheets :
The dreaded and useful Excel. Fearful because if you have never worked with him, he will give you the occasional headache since he is not intuitive. But, on the other hand, valuable because, like Word, it allows you to organize data quickly and, thanks to the pivot tables, you will be able to cross data and have everything in the same spreadsheet. Excel is made up of templates or, as you just read, spreadsheets, which give you the possibility to perform arithmetic operations automatically, a beneficial task for those who work in finance departments or in operational tasks where they are necessary reporting and handling of a lot of data.
Databases :
It is one of the least used tools in Microsoft’s Office suite, but you can get a lot out of it if you track orders, suppliers, or collect data: I present to you Access, the program used to perform database management. In addition, if you want to store in a database but also want to make inquiries about that information and make reports, it is the ideal program for you.
Presentation programs :
Does the acronym PPT sound familiar to you? We use it a lot to refer to the visual presentations we make for clients. And the program used to make them is none other than PowerPoint, which allows you to combine multimedia slides with images, sound, text, and even videos.
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Email programs :
You can manage emails, meeting calendars, and a contact directory through Outlook. It is a perfect email manager for a company since it allows you to create accounts with the company name, create mailing lists, and schedule meetings with your work team.
This is a summary of the most used, but if you download the complete Microsoft Office package, you will see that it has tools for each work process, for example, OneNote (create notes as if they were post-it) or Publisher (you can make more complex creations such as brochures).
Today, with the advancement of technologies, office automation has also been launched into the virtual world. Thanks to this, we can create, edit and share files online with the advantage of doing it between several people or viewing them in real-time. However, many people are still used to having their office tools installed on their computer or their local area network and are reluctant to leap to using these tools online. Suppose you are a person permanently connected to the Internet. In that case, you may prefer to use Google Docs, and it is the version of the giant Google to bring you Office automation and be able to use it from any location, saving all your documents in your cloud: Google Drive.