Archive for the ‘MS Word’ Category

Have you invested a lot of time tweaking the AutoCorrect lists in your MS Office programs?

Are you looking for a way to back up those lists?

Well, the trick is to know what type of file it is you’re looking for.

The “secret” is to

As I write this, Halloween is right around the corner, and I’ve got two scary words to put you in the mood:

“Word Macro”

Are you scrambling for you virus scanners? You’ve watched the news and know what big havoc these small programs can wreak with your computer. But here’s the kicker: macros were intended to be–and are–big energy and time savers. Prove this… Continue reading

Okay, so when working in MS Word, we all know about the usual toolbar / ribbon buttons and lists that allow us quick access to things like font type, size, bold, italics, underline, color, etc.

But, did you know that there are even more aspects of your fonts that can be manipulated?

There are things like character spacing and text effects to be explored… Continue reading

This article describes a sequence of steps which can be performed to quickly create a report that is well formatted, neat and presentable. While this tutorial is in significant detail, it should not take more than 10 minutes to perform these actions on a report (i.e. 10 minutes would be the time required to completely format a report.) At the end of it all, a few generally accepted formatting schemes… Continue reading

When you use tables in MS Word do you ever find yourself frustrated as you try to get column widths or row heights to exact measurements?

I know you probably have the ruler displayed (View menu -or- View tab of the Ribbon, Ruler choice) and you’re sliding the cell boundary lines around trying to get it all set, but it sure would be nice if you could… Continue reading

So, I’m sure you all know about Word’s ability to create numbered and lettered lists.

I’m also equally certain that you’ve had Word take over a list or two and do the numbering for you, once the program noticed the pattern.

So, here’s my question for today: Did you know that there are a variety of formats that Word will mimic as it continues… Continue reading

Have a lot of people reviewing a particular Word document?

Maybe too many?

Hard to tell what’s going on with all that “chatter”… too many changes, too many people.

Wish you could sort them out?

Maybe see just one or two persons’ at a time? Or maybe you’ve decided that you should ignore someone. Whatever, there’s simply no… Continue reading

Do you find yourself trying to use the right-click trick from yesterday to add an entry to the AutoCorrect list only to find that the word you need isn’t even in the list?

That’s happened to me from time to time… somehow a word will consistently come off my fingertips wrong and nowhere near the spelling it should be. So, I end up doing more work to… Continue reading

I don’t know about you, but there are a couple of words that I just can’t seem to type correctly… whether it’s my inability to hit the keys correctly or a simple brain-block of the correct spelling… there are just certain words that always end up underlined with that little ugly red squiggle line.

It’s definitely frustrating!

And

Have an MS Word document that is just a bit too long? A few lines stuck on that last page? Wish you could “shrink” the document a bit and lose that last page?

Well, I suppose you could try a different font size. Or, you know, adjusting it up and down just to find the exact change that will remove the need for the unwanted last page… Continue reading

If you’re using Word 2007 then you’ve undoubtedly noticed the changes to, among other things, default line spacing at 1.15, and extra line after paragraphs and the change in the default font.

Some of you may like all this and some of you may not.

For those of you who long for the defaults of days gone by but don’t want all the hassle… Continue reading

Have an envelope attached to a Word document? You know, when you’ve added to the document and it appears above the first page?

Ever find that you have trouble getting just the envelope to print?

You keep returning to the Print dialog box and telling it to print only page 1 (since the envelope is first you’ve assumed that it’s counted as “page 1″)… Continue reading

When you’re trying to move, copy or otherwise manipulate text in MS Word do you find yourself frustrated with all the steps involved?

Many people I know will choose to highlight the text then cut or copy the text move the cursor to the new location and paste.

That’s a lot of work for something that can be done with one smooth move of… Continue reading

I was taught to never turn down the corner of a page… always use a bookmark.

That theory has worked well for many years and has kept the librarians happy with me.

Well, the same theory can be applied to Microsoft Word documents.

OK… it’s not exactly the same, after all you’re not actually able to turn down a page corner… Continue reading

Ever find yourself looking to rotate text in MS Word?

Maybe you’re trying to make a flyer with phone number tabs across the bottom? Or, maybe you need to run some text down the side of a document and you don’t want to use WordArt, just simple text. Whatever your reason, you need to rotate the text and you find yourself in search of the process.… Continue reading

Have you noticed that in Word 2007 your ability to format tab stops seems to be missing?

Are you suffering withdrawl symptoms because you can’t seem to find this little gem?

Ok, so we all know that it’s not really gone but where in the world did they put it?

Well, I can think of a couple… Continue reading

Do you hate it when you have a document with an entire section of technical terms or part numbers or some other text that is never going to pass the Spellchecker inspection?

Do you hate that it’s going to stop again and again and again waiting for you to tell it to ignore the text that you already knew it wouldn’t like.

To avoid… Continue reading

Do you have trouble ending your MS Word bulleted or numbered lists?

You know what I mean. You have this great list going, the last item is done and you hit the Enter key to continue on with your document. Of course, we all know what happens next. Word has other plans and continues on with the numbers or bullet points.

So, now what?… Continue reading

Ever find yourself looking at a Word document only to realize that you need two different printed versions?

Maybe you need one version that contains all of it… but when you give information to someone else you need to remove bits of text here and there that are not for their eyes.

Or maybe you need to display the document to an audience… but… Continue reading

Did you have a lot of custom shortcut key combinations in your old version of Word and then feel frustrated because they were missing when you upgraded to Word 2007?

Or, for that matter, maybe you never had any custom shortcut keys but would like a few now?

Many people who I’ve worked with are a bit overwhelmed with the changes in Word 2007… Continue reading

Do you find that you’re constantly in MS Word’s Symbol dialog box trying to insert one thing or another?

Ever use more than one symbol in your document? Did you know in advance that you’d need them all?

If you did, then I’ve got to ask: How many times did you open that Symbols dialog box?

More than you wanted to… Continue reading

Does MS Word have a template that you really like? Well, except for a couple of small things here and there, of course. You know, maybe you always remove the word “confidential” from a footer or there’s a graphic you never keep when you use this template.

What’s your solution?

Most people I know simply use the template and repeatedly make the same changes each… Continue reading

Do you use MS Word for labels?

Ever need to print different labels on the same sheet? (I know I do it all the time at work. I never seem to need 30 of the same thing and I rarely use them for addresses).

Have you figured out how to get Word to give you a blank sheet of labels to work with or… Continue reading

When you use MS Word do you find yourself updating the exact same information in many different files?

For example, maybe you have a weekly sales figure that is put into several different Word files each week.

Do you open all the files and change the information in each and every one? Even with a copy and paste process it still can take quite a bit of time.

Or, is… Continue reading