Shape It Up
Do you like MS WordArt’s flash, but not always the shape of the text when it’s created?
Do you know that you don’t have to settle for the default shape of your WordArt text?
It’s definitely within your control and just a quick couple of clicks away. With that, you can easily change your favorite WordArt into different shapes, arcs, banners, etc. It will take you longer… Continue reading
Back to Where I Was
Work with long documents in MS Word?
Ever find yourself editing a large document, jumping from location to location, only to realize that you should have done just one more thing at the last editing spot?
How annoying is that? To have to go back through the document and find that exact position again.
Well, wait! What if we could return with nothing more than… Continue reading
Some Function Key Help
Do you like to use Word’s function keys (F1, F2, etc.), but find it difficult to remember what each one does? Find yourself “lost” as you hit one first and then another, hoping for a desired effect?
How would you like Word to display a little “cheat sheet” right in the program window, so you won’t have to worry about forgetting again?
And, to sweeten the… Continue reading
Ever feel overwhelmed by all the formatting you’ve applied to your MS Word document?
I bet you’ve often wished for a quick way to start over. That is, to strip the text of all the special formatting and start completely over. You know, start with a clean slate (without undoing each format change individually) so you can create consistent formatting throughout the document.
I’m sure many of you are thinking… Continue reading
New Default Tab Stops
We all know that Word has default tab stops set at every one-half inch. Usually this works just fine, but what if you have a need to change them?
What if you now need a tab stop at one inch intervals instead?
Do you simply hit the tab button twice?
Oh, let’s hope not.
Do you go through and set all the tab stops to one… Continue reading
A Blue Wave
We all know about MS Word’s ability to mark spelling and grammar errors with the infamous red and green lines, right? Well, have you ever found yourself wishing that Word could help out with formatting issues too?
You’re in luck! It can. Word does possess the ability to mark formatting inconsistencies when it notices that the formatting is very close to other formatting in the document.
Maybe… Continue reading
Ever find that you overuse a particular word in an MS Word document?
So, here you are trying to come up with another word (also known as a synonym), but you’re having no luck. What do you do?
You could pull out the old reference book and start looking or you could let Word do that for you!
Hmmm, what a… Continue reading
Better Background
Note: Although this is another MS Office tip, it can benefit you in more ways than one. It does involve MS Word, but it will help you more with your daily computer activities and that’s something we all can enjoy!
Do you go through a lot of documents when you’re working on your computer? Doesn’t that tend to strain your eyes a little? I know it even happens… Continue reading
Know Your Boundaries
Do you use Word’s Print or Web Layout? Ever find yourself trying to guess how close you are to the text boundaries you’ve set with your margins?
Let’s consider this situation: You’re trying to place a graphic within your document and you don’t want it in the margins. So, where exactly is the edge? We could “eyeball” it and guess based on the rulers. We could scroll… Continue reading
Speeding Through the Reds and Greens
We’re all aware of MS Word’s helpful little hints when it begins to underline our text with red and green.
When we see the green, we need to take a look at the grammar and the red is a subtle hint that we’ve either misspelled something or have a typo.
As I’m sure you also know, you can right click on one of these… Continue reading
Back Up or Move Your Word Custom Dictionary
Do you have an extensive custom dictionary in Word?
It would definitely be to your advantage to back that file up once in awhile don’t you think? After all, if you have a lot of entries, it’s faster to back it up than to recreate it if you should have system problems later.
Or, if it’s a dictionary you’re looking to transfer… Continue reading
Hyperlink No More
Have you ever been frustrated with MS Word while putting together a document that contains e-mail or Web site addresses?
Tired of the way Word continues to automatically create hyperlinks of your addresses?
You know, the change of color and underlining. If you’re creating a document to be printed, this probably isn’t exactly what you’re looking for.
In fact, for printed documents, it can be downright annoying!… Continue reading
Form Protection
Do you use forms in Microsoft Word?
It sure takes a lot of time to set up the drop down lists, text form fields and whatnot to make the form just what you need, doesn’t it?
Ever find that a piece of text on the form that wasn’t a field intended for information input was accidentally changed?
Maybe you did it while you were using the form or… Continue reading
Table Resizing
Do you use Word’s Insert Table button to insert your tables?
I mean, it’s not a bad idea. It allows for a quick insertion of tables of up to four rows by five columns with just a quick click and drag.
But, have you ever noticed that Word always inserts a long, narrow table?
What if you wanted something with cells a little larger. Maybe something a… Continue reading
Lopsided No More
Do you work with columns of text in MS Word?
Ever have a page that looks like this?
Did it feel “lopsided” to you?
Ever wish you had a way to fix that feeling? I mean, would you like a quick and easy way to have Word even out the column lengths to give the page a more balanced appearance? Maybe something like this?
So… Continue reading
What Line Was That?
Ever try to communicate with someone about an MS Word document and wish you had line numbers to refer back to?
What a great thought! Line numbers. Now, if we could only get Word to automatically number the document lines.
Good news, numbering lines is exactly what we’re going to get Word to do for us today!
Line numbers is a part of the Page Setup… Continue reading
Another View
Do you have MS Word 2003?
Ever notice that Word documents attached to an e-mail are automatically opened in a new view? (The Reading Layout view to be exact).
I’m betting that a few questions regarding this view come to mind when it’s initially encountered. My first thought was, “Now, what is this”? and the second thing I began to wonder is what to do if I didn’t… Continue reading
Tab It Up In MS Word Tables
So, you’ve created an absolutely beautiful table in MS Word and you’re trying to enter the table data.
Along the way, you needed to set a few tab stops within the cells.
The problem is that you keep hitting the Tab key with absolutely no success. Crazy thing keeps jumping to the next cell!
So, what’s the use of the tab stops if… Continue reading
Looking for Work
Well, that is, looking for Word’s Work menu.
What’s a Work menu, you ask?
That’s a good question and it deserves a good answer, so let’s give it a try.
The Work menu is a menu that stores links to documents that you choose. No, not like the links in the File menu, but those recently used files. The Work menu can actually be used to store… Continue reading
Two For One
The other day, a reader sent in a question pertaining to the printing of a Word document at half the size.
It seems he had a document containing a picture that was frequently printed. Since it didn’t have to be full size, he was hoping to easily have Word print two of the same thing on a single page, rotating the duplicate pages to sit side by… Continue reading
Drawing Canvas Be Gone!
Have a newer version of MS Word?
What happens when you go to insert a drawing object?
Wait! Let me guess, you get something called a drawing canvas?
Looks like this?
Now, I’m sure there’s a reason for this thing, but for the life of me, I haven’t found it yet.
I end up drawing something and dragging it out of the canvas, so I… Continue reading
Excel Cells Into MS Word
Have you ever tried to copy and paste cells from Excel to Word?
What happened?
I bet you went to Excel, highlighted the cells, copied the cells, went to Word, pasted the cells and poof! There they were.
Sounds great, doesn’t’ it?
Yeah, and it can be, but if you’re using Word and Excel 97, there are some slight problems.
You might notice that you… Continue reading
A Tiny Bit More Space
Are you one of those MS Word users who is always looking to maximize the space available to display documents on your monitor?
Do you carefully consider which toolbars to display so as to not waste the space?
Maybe you tend to keep the zoom rather high so it’s easier to read the text. That certainly reduces the amount of the document you’re viewing, doesn’t… Continue reading
New Word AutoText Without Retyping
So, you’re working on your Word document and you realize that you frequently use a certain word or phrase and you think that maybe it’s time to create an AutoText entry. That entry combined with Word’s ability to show AutoComplete suggestions of the AutoText could really save you some time.
What do you do?
Well, one way would be to go to the Insert menu… Continue reading
An Alternate Picture Caption
Yesterday we looked at Word’s Captioning feature. It’s wasn’t too bad and it was easy to use, but I found it annoying that I had to group them with their object in order to keep them together when relocated.
So, I began to think about that caption box. I mean, what really is it besides a text box?
With the text box idea in mind, I… Continue reading
Captions
Ever find yourself looking to add captions to your pictures in MS Word?
If you did a quick scan of the menus, you probably didn’t run across anything that looked helpful, but if you take a deeper look into the submenus, you’ll find that Word does have a caption feature. You just have to know where to look.
To begin, you need to select the picture, table, equation, etc… Continue reading
Pictures in Line With Text?
Have you ever noticed that when you insert a picture in MS Word, the program automatically puts it in the line with the text? Like this…
I don’t know about you, but most of the time, I much prefer that the text wrap around the picture and really integrate it into the document. Like this…
To make that happen, I usually have to… Continue reading
