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MS WORD 2000
LAST UPDATED:
Sunday, 08 March 2009 17:03:15 -0600
Changes to this page are IN PROGRESS
CHANGING TEXT CASE
Have you ever forgotten to capitalize the words in a title? It can be
a pain, particularly with longer titles, to go back and correct each
word one by one. And suppose you pasted text from an e-mail into your
document and it was all written in all lowercase? Going back through
and changing each sentence individually can take some time. Is there a
quick and easy way to correct these errors in case? With Word 2000's
Change Case feature, the answer is yes.
Select the word, sentence, or paragraph you want to modify. Choose
Format, Change Case and select between sentence case (the first letter
of each sentence is capitalized), lowercase, uppercase, title case
(for names and titles, where the first letter of each word is
capitalized), and toggle case (initial lowercase followed by all
caps--I have no idea what this is for). When you select the case that
works for you, click OK.
KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS FOR INSERTING BULLETS
To quickly begin a bulleted list, type an asterisk followed by a
space. When you finish typing the item and press Enter, Word 2000 will
assume that you are beginning a bulleted list and will indent and
bullet the text for you. When you have finished your list, press the
Backspace key twice or click the Bullets button on the Formatting
toolbar, and you will return to your previous text formatting. It
sounds simple because it is simple.
ALIGNING TEXT VERTICALLY ON THE PAGE
If you create a title page for a document that has only a few words of
text, you don't want to have to guess exactly where to place the text
so that it fits in the exact center of the page.
To align text vertically, first make sure that the page you wish to
align is its own section (do this by positioning the cursor after your
text and selecting Insert, Break and selecting the Next Page Section
Break option). Then, choose File, Page Setup and click the Layout tab.
The Vertical Alignment menu appears on the left. With it, you can
choose to align text vertically from the top (which is the default
mode for all pages), center (nice for title pages), bottom, or
justified (in which all paragraphs will be spaced equally on the
page).
INTERRUPTING AND RESUMING LISTS
Sometimes you're working on a numbered list and you find that you need
to insert parenthetical remarks. Unfortunately, each time you press
Enter, Word thinks you want to add another item to the list. You can
turn off the numbering, but when you wish to resume the list Word
starts again at number one. Fortunately, there is a simple way to
resume the numbered list from where you left off.
When you've reached the point where you wish to insert text without
numbers, click the Numbering button on the Formatting toolbar. Type
the new text as you would normally. When you wish to resume the list,
press Enter and then click the Numbering button on the Formatting
toolbar once again. The list will start at one. Right-click at the
start of the list and select Bullets And Numbering from the shortcut
menu. Click the Continue Previous List button, and your list will
begin numbering from where you left off.
DRAG AND DROP DOCUMENT SCRAPS
Have you ever been reading a document and suddenly come upon a line or
paragraph so compelling you want to save it for later? Sure, you could
save the whole document, but when all you're interested in is a line
or two, why bother? Instead, you can save the selected passage as a
document scrap, right on your desktop.
Document scraps are simple. Select the text you'd like to save and
drag it to your desktop. The document scrap becomes its own file,
complete with a very scrappy-looking icon. If you ever wish to insert
this scrap into another document, simply position the insertion point
in your document where you'd like the scrap to appear and drag the
scrap to the document. Word 2000 automatically inserts the text from
the scrap.
USE BLUE BACKGROUND, WHITE TEXT TO REDUCE EYESTRAIN
As computers become ubiquitous, computer-related injuries become more
common. Repetitive stress disorders get all the press, but many users
suffer eyestrain from keeping their vision fixed on a computer screen
all day. If you're constantly staring at Word 2000 documents, your
eyes are absorbing the harsh white background, which can be too much
light.
An interesting technique for avoiding eyestrain involves changing the
look of your Word 2000 documents so that your text appears as white on
a blue background. Go to Tools, Options and click the General tab.
Check the Blue Background, White Text box and see how it looks. Whoa,
that looks crazy. Anyway, if this view seems like something that might
be easier on your eyes, stick with it.
USING CTRL-CLICK TO SELECT A SENTENCE
Now and again you may find that you've written a sentence that looks
terrible. To delete it quickly, before some wise guy coworker looks
over your shoulder and sees your folly, hold down Ctrl while clicking
inside the sentence. This automatically selects the entire sentence,
after which you can quickly press the Delete key before anyone is the
wiser.
CREATING SUBSCRIPTED TEXT
If you flash back to high school chemistry (a painful memory for many
of us), you will recall that compounds are named with subscripted
numbers indicating the proportion of molecules. The example that leaps
immediately to mind is H2O, the chemical name for water. Because you
are viewing this text as an e-mail, we cannot properly display this
compound in its subscripted form, where the number 2 appears slightly
below the letters H and O. With Word 2000, however, creating
subscripted text is easy.
Using the water example above, you'd type the H normally and then
press Ctrl-Hyphen-Equal Sign. You then type the 2 and press
Ctrl-Hyphen-Equal Sign again to resume normal typing.
NONBREAKING HYPHENS
Hyphens can help you break words in a way that can make your lines
look better (especially when you're using justified text); however,
when Word breaks a hyphenated word that wasn't meant to be broken, it
looks awkward on the page. For example, take the word e-mail. When the
"e-" ends up at one end of a line and "mail" begins the next, your
document looks unprofessional.
To prevent this, you can specify hyphens that are not meant to be
broken. Press Ctrl-Shift-Hyphen to create a hyphen that will not break
at the end of a line.
ENSURING THAT TABLE ROWS DON'T BREAK ACROSS PAGES
When you're working in a table, it can be frustrating when some of the
information in a table cell appears on one page while the remaining
lines appear on the next. By default, Word 2000 breaks the information
in a table cell across pages so that the table fills a full page. With
a few exceptions, this is probably not the way you'll want to format
your tables.
To prevent table rows from breaking across pages, select Table, Table
Properties and click the Row tab. Then, simply deselect the Allow Row
To Break Across Pages box and click OK.
ADJUSTING CELL MARGINS IN TABLES
In Word 2000 tables, the cell margin is the space between the text you
enter and the edge of a cell. When you work with tables, there may
come a time when the default cell margin is either too large (because
you have to fit a table on a tight page) or too small (because having
the information packed so tightly makes your table confusing).
To adjust the cell margins in a table, make sure your insertion point
rests inside your table and select Table, Table Properties. Click the
Table tab and then the Options button. Increase or decrease the cell
margins and click OK. Repeat this process until your table looks the
way you like it. Good luck with those tables.
ADDING SHADING TO TABLE CELLS
Adding shading is a simple and effective way to make your table more
readable. You can highlight the header rows to make them stand out, or
you can alternate shaded and nonshaded rows to make viewing
information across columns clearer.
Your first step is to call up the proper toolbar by right-clicking the
Standard toolbar and selecting Tables And Borders. Then, select the
cells, rows, or columns in your table that require shading. On the
Tables And Borders toolbar, click the down arrow next to the icon that
looks like a paint can. From here, select the color (or shade of gray)
you like, and Word uses it to shade your table, keeping the text
within your table visible.
EXPANDING AND CONDENSING HEADINGS TO MAKE THEM FIT ACROSS THE PAGE
When you create a heading for a document, it may not look quite right
tucked against the left margin. Perhaps it would look better if the
heading stretched across the width of the page. Or you may find that
the heading runs just a bit too long, with the last word wrapping to
the next line. You can adjust font sizes, but this is ultimately a
clumsy way of tweaking text. Better to expand or condense the text
using the Format, Font feature.
First, select the text you'd like to work with and then select Format,
Font. Then, click the Character Spacing tab. Adjusting the scale
expands and contracts the individual letters in your text, while
adjusting the spacing puts slightly more or less space between each of
the individual letters. Experiment and find out which looks best for
your document.
KEEPING LISTS FROM BREAKING ACROSS PAGES
If you have a brief numbered list in your document, you probably don't
want items one and two on the first page and items three, four, and
five on the second. Your list would look much better if all the items
were kept together. The best way to do this is to tell Word 2000 to
keep the lines of your list together.
First, select the text in your list. Then select Format, Paragraph and
click the Line And Page Breaks tab. Check the Keep With Next box, and
your list will remain together on the same page.
SELECTING MIRROR MARGINS FOR DOCUMENTS THAT ARE TO BE BOUND
Look at any book or bound document and you will find that the margins
on even and odd pages differ. More margin space is required on the
inside edge, as some space is inevitably lost in the binding of the
page. If you are creating a document that will eventually appear in
bound form, you may want your document to have these kinds of margins,
called mirror margins.
To incorporate mirror margins into your document, select File, Page
Setup and click the Mirror Margins box. You will notice that the
designation of left and right margins changes to inside and outside.
Odd pages have the inside margin on the left; even pages have the
inside margin on the right. When you've adjusted the margins
accordingly, click OK.
REPLACING TEXT WITH THE CONTENTS OF THE CLIPBOARD
The Find And Replace feature is one of the most powerful Word 2000 has
to offer. With it, you can fix mistakes that repeat in a document in
one fell swoop, without having to go through page by page. Pretty
impressive, huh? An interesting variation on the Find And Replace
feature allows you to replace text with the contents of the Clipboard.
With this feature, you can insert pictures, sounds, video, or text
wherever a specific word appears in your document.
To replace text with a Clipboard item, first make sure you've
copied the replacement item to your Clipboard. Next, select Edit,
Replace and click the More button. Click the Replace tab and enter the
text you are looking for in the Find What field. Click in the Replace
With field, click Special, and select Clipboard Contents. Click
Replace All, and the text in the Find What box will be replaced with
what you have on your Clipboard throughout your entire document. Now
show off that fancy document and impress your friends, coworkers, and
admirers.
ALIGNING HEADER TEXT VERTICALLY
If you are creating a table that contains numbers or small bits of
text, the header cells may take up much more space than is warranted
for the table. A nice technique for decreasing the size of the table
is to align the text in your headers vertically.
First, right-click on the Standard toolbar and make sure that the
Tables And Borders toolbar is visible. Then, select the table cell or
cells you wish to adjust and click the Change Text Direction button on
the Tables And Borders toolbar. There are three possible directions
for text: standard horizontal, moving up, and moving down. Each time
you click the Change Text Direction button, the text moves to the next
position. Find which one works best for the text in your table. Did
you get all that?
ASSIGNING A TITLE FOR A WORD DOCUMENT SAVED AS A WEB PAGE
When you use Word 2000 to create a Web page, you'll want to make sure
that your page has a title that makes sense. Otherwise, when you
finally get around to finishing that amazing work in progress, you
won't be able to find it. The title of a Web page is the text that
appears along the top of a Web browser, and this text is important
because it helps search engines that may come across your site to
index your documents properly.
To designate a title when you create a Web page, first make sure you
save your document as a Web page by selecting File, Save As Web Page.
Then, before you save the document in the appropriate folder, click
the Change Title button, enter the appropriate text for your title,
and click OK. If you need to change the title of the page later, go to
File, Properties and click the Summary tab. You can then enter the new
title in the Title box.
If you are using tables to lay out a document that will later be used
as a Web page (and if you have a decent amount of information to
organize, you should be), make sure your table automatically fits to
the browser window. Doing this ensures that the columns of your table
will adjust to the width of the viewer's Web browser window so that a
surfer who comes across your page doesn't have to resize the window
manually.
First, make sure your insertion point is within the boundary of your
table. Then select Table, AutoFit, AutoFit To Window. Now your Web
page will automatically adjust to the width of the viewer's browser.
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SELECTING A BACKGROUND FOR YOUR WEB PAGE
While there is something elegant about a plain white background for a
Web page, you may find that you want something a little more creative.
You can select from a wide array of background colors and textures
right from Word 2000.
When creating a document you will use as a Web page, first select
Format, Background. From here, you can select one of the readily
available background colors, or you can select More Colors or Fill
Effects. Fill Effects contains a variety of textures, patterns, and
pictures that you can select by clicking the tabs along the top of the
window. See which background pattern works best with your page.
----------------------------------------------
ADDING A FRAME TO A WEB PAGE
Web page design took a quantum leap several years ago with the
invention of frames. Frames allow a Web page to be divided into
discrete sections, small pages-within-pages, allowing for much more
control in navigation and presentation.
To add frames to your Web pages in Word 2000, select View, Toolbars,
Frames. On the Frame toolbar, you can select the edge on which you
would like your frame to appear. Once you've inserted the frame, you
can easily adjust its size by moving the cursor over the edge until
the familiar insertion point appears, much like adjusting columns in
tables. Keep in mind that adding a frame creates a new Web page, so
you must now save your new document in the same folder as your
previous page, and with an appropriate title.
----------------------------------------------
SCROLL BAR SETTINGS FOR WEB PAGES WITH FRAMES
If you create a Web page with frames, you must decide whether you want
the frame to have scroll bars. Scroll bars allow viewers to navigate
within a frame, accessing information that may not be visible
depending on the size of the browser window and the content of the
frame. Unnecessary scroll bars, however, can clutter a Web page and
look unattractive. Now, we would hate to have an ugly Web page,
wouldn't we?
To adjust your scroll bar settings, click in the frame and then select
Format, Frames, Frame Properties. Click the Borders tab and select the
appropriate scroll bar setting from the Show Scrollbars In Browser
menu.
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FRAME BORDER SETTINGS FOR WEB PAGES WITH FRAMES
Sophisticated Web designers use frames in the most transparent way
possible, breaking up the content of a Web page into small, discrete
sections that are easy to control. By default, Word 2000 inserts a
small border between frames in a Web page, but there are times when
you want your frames to blend seamlessly. Fortunately, this adjustment
is a simple one.
To adjust the border settings for your frame, click in the frame and
choose Format, Frames, Frame Properties. Click the Borders tab and
then click the No Borders button to eliminate borders between adjacent
frames. Voila! Seamless as can be.
----------------------------------------------
PREVIEWING A WEB PAGE IN INTERNET EXPLORER
If you are working on your Web page using Word 2000 and want to get a
quick look at what it will look like in a browser window, choose File,
Web Page Preview. Word 2000 will automatically launch Internet
Explorer and display your document, laid out in HTML format.
----------------------------------------------
ADDING A WEB DIVIDER TO A WEB PAGE
If you create a Web page in Word 2000 that has content divided into
sections, you might try adding a Web divider to separate the content
visually.
First, click on the portion of your Web page where you want the Web
divider to appear. Then, select Insert, Picture, Clip Art. Scroll to
the bottom and you will see a category of clip art labeled Web
Dividers. A page displaying samples of the various Web dividers will
appear. Find the one that looks right, click on it, and click the
Insert Clip icon. You may need to insert your Word 2000 CD to retrieve
the clip art.
----------------------------------------------
ADDING CLIP ART TO THE FAVORITES CATEGORY
You may find that there are specific pieces of clip art that you
insert into documents frequently. Rather than going through the
standard procedure for retrieving and inserting these pieces, you can
save time by adding them to your list of Clip Art Favorites. Here, you
can always locate them quickly and easily.
To add a piece of clip art to your favorites, first select Insert,
Picture, Clip Art. Browse the categories until you find the piece of
clip art you are looking for. Click on it and click the Add Clip To
Favorites Or Other Category icon. Select Favorites and click Add. The
Favorites category (which is always the first icon you see when you
insert clip art) now contains your frequently used clip art.
----------------------------------------------
SEARCHING FOR CLIP ART WITH A KEYWORD
Word 2000 automatically associates a few descriptive keywords with
each piece of clip art in the Clip Art Gallery. These keywords help
you to search for clip art without having to browse through all those
broad categories. For example, you can search for clip art that has
the word "ball" associated with it, without having to look for
ball-related clips in the various categories manually.
To search for clip art using keywords, select Insert, Picture, Clip
Art. Click in the Search For Clips box and enter the text relating to
the clip art you are looking for. Word 2000 will generate a list of
clips that match the keyword you entered. Neat, huh?
----------------------------------------------
ASSIGNING A KEYWORD TO CLIP ART
Although Word 2000 automatically assigns a handful of keywords to each
piece of clip art, you may want to add a few words of your own to help
you organize the vast library of images. Assigning your own keywords
to clip art is simple.
First, select Insert, Picture, Clip Art. When you find the image
you're looking for, right-click it and select Clip Properties. Click
the Keywords tab and then the New Keywords button. Enter the
appropriate keywords and click OK. You can now search for this piece
of clip art by using the new keyword. Now if you can just remember
those keywords...
----------------------------------------------
SEARCHING ONLINE FOR CLIP ART
Although Word 2000 comes with a sizable library of clip art, you will
eventually need a picture that isn't available on your CD.
Fortunately, there is another vast reservoir of images available
online, and it's simple to insert these images directly into your
document.
First, select Insert, Picture, Clip Art and click the Clips Online
button. Click OK, and Word 2000 will launch your Web browser,
connecting you to Microsoft Clip Gallery Live. Here, you will have
access to literally hundreds of thousands of clips, and when you
download a clip, it is automatically inserted directly into your own
Clip Gallery, into the Downloaded Clips category. Have fun with this
clip art gold mine.
----------------------------------------------
A QUICK METHOD FOR DRAWING LINES
If you ever want to draw a line across the entire width of a document,
there is a neat little trick that makes this operation almost
instantaneous. All it involves is pressing a key three times and
pressing Enter. Different keys will give you different kinds of lines.
For example, for a solid line across the page, simple press the Hyphen
key three times and press Enter. For a thicker line, use the Underline
key. For a broken line, use the Asterisk key. Pressing the Equal Sign
key three times and then pressing Enter will give you a double line
across the page, and performing the operation with the Tilde key gives
you a squiggly line across the page. Enjoy!
----------------------------------------------
INSERTING A DROP CAP INTO A WORD DOCUMENT
Drop caps are a fancy technique for sprucing up documents. By
inserting a large letter at the beginning of a document or paragraph,
you can approximate the age-old appearance of a printing press, with
all the digital functionality of Word 2000 intact.
To insert a drop cap into your document, click anywhere in the first
sentence of the paragraph and select Format, Drop Cap. Choose whether
you want the drop cap to appear in the margin or the body of the
paragraph, with the text wrapping around it. You can also select the
font for the drop cap and specify how many lines you would like the
drop cap to descend (which determines the size of the letter). When
you have finished, click OK.
----------------------------------------------
ADDING OR REMOVING TOOLBAR BUTTONS
There sure are a lot of buttons on your average Word 2000 toolbar, and
you may find that there are certain features you never use. Having
useless buttons cluttering your toolbar only serves to make an already
complex program more confusing. It could be time to narrow down to
only the buttons you need.
To customize a toolbar, click on the small More arrow at the far-right
edge of the toolbar. Select Add Or Remove Buttons. You will see a
window that has all the items that appear on the toolbar checked, and
a few possibilities for the toolbar unchecked. Simply uncheck the
extraneous commands, and the buttons will disappear, leaving you with
only the essentials.
----------------------------------------------
RESTORING A TOOLBAR TO ITS ORIGINAL SETTINGS
In our last tip, we showed you a quick way to customize toolbars in
Word 2000, so by now you may have your toolbars displayed with only
the essential buttons visible. Things can change, however, and you may
find that you want to restore your toolbar to the default settings. If
you have trouble remembering which buttons this included, do not
despair. Restoring these settings is a snap. Click on the More arrow
and select Add Or Remove Buttons. At the bottom of the window is the
Reset Toolbar command. Click this, and your toolbar returns to its
original, factory-fresh state.
----------------------------------------------
CHANGING THE IMAGE FOR A TOOLBAR BUTTON
In the past two tips, we've explored some ways to customize your
toolbars. This is, after all, your Word 2000, and there is no reason
why you should have to look at a display more complicated than
necessary. Today, we'll show you how to change the images associated
with toolbar buttons.
First, select Tools, Customize and click the Toolbars tab. With the
Customize window showing, right-click the button on the toolbar whose
image you would like to modify. Click Change Button Image and you will
see a host of new and exotic buttons for the choosing. Select one that
works and marvel at the colorful nature of your toolbars.
----------------------------------------------
INSERTING A BORDER ABOVE A FOOTER
A nice way to get your documents looking more professional is to
insert a border between the footer and the body of your document. To
do so, first select View, Header And Footer and click Switch Between
Header And Footer. On the Main menu, select Format, Borders And
Shading. Select a style of line and click on the top edge of the box
on the right. Click OK, and your footers will be separated from the
main portion of your document by a border.
----------------------------------------------
REPEATING A TABLE HEADER
If you have a table that stretches over several pages, you don't want
the person reading your document to have to look back to page one to
figure out what all the columns mean. Naturally, you'll want the
headers of each column to appear on every page.
First, select the rows you want to appear as headers. Then, choose
Table, Table Properties and click the Row tab. Make sure Repeat As
Header Row At Top Of Each Page is checked and click OK. Your selected
headers will appear at the top of each page of your table. Good luck!
----------------------------------------------
WRAPPING TEXT AROUND A TABLE
Depending on the kind of document you're working on, you may find it
useful to have the body text wrap around a small table, rather than
having the table appear on its own line.
To set up a table so that text wraps around it, first make sure you
are in either Print Layout View or Web Layout View. Then, select the
table; choose Table, Table Properties; and click the Table tab. Under
Text Wrapping, select Around and click OK. Now, position your table by
moving the cursor just above the upper-left corner of the table and
grabbing the move handle. Insert the table inside a paragraph, and the
text will wrap around it. Happy wrapping.
----------------------------------------------
ADDING A MISSPELLED WORD TO AUTOCORRECT
If you're like us, you find the same words appearing every time you
spell-check a document. If you know that you often misspell the same
words in the same way, you can either learn how to spell these words
correctly or, better yet, you can tell Word 2000's AutoCorrect feature
to change them for you automatically. Believe us, the latter involves
a lot less work.
First, choose Tools, Spelling And Grammar to check your spelling. If
you come across a word that you repeatedly misspell, click on the
correct word in Suggestion and click the AutoCorrect button. From that
point forward, this word will be automatically corrected every time
you misspell it. How convenient.
----------------------------------------------
USING THE NUDGE COMMAND TO MOVE AN OBJECT
The mouse is great for moving an object or picture from place to place
in your document, but sometimes you need a little more precision. In
this case, using the Nudge command can help you to get your object
right where you want it.
Select the object, and from the Drawing toolbar choose Draw, Nudge.
Select the direction you want to move your object. Repeat the process
until you get your object exactly where you want it. It's that simple.
----------------------------------------------
CREATING A CHAPBOOK WITH HALF-SIZE PAGES
To create a small, professional-looking publication without a lot of
effort, try making a chapbook. A chapbook is a small book that
consists of pages half the size of standard paper. You can easily
create chapbooks in Word 2000 without having to play around with
various page sizes and margins because the option is preset.
To lay out your document on half-size chapbook pages, go to File, Page
Setup and click the Margins tab. Select the 2 Pages Per Sheet option
and click OK. Word 2000 will automatically create two half-sized pages
per full-size sheet, with the normal margins for each page intact. Now
you just have to write the darn thing.
----------------------------------------------
INSERTING ROWS AND COLUMNS INTO A TABLE
Inserting rows and columns into an existing table is a snap in Word
2000. The first thing to remember is that Word 2000 inserts rows just
above the row you select, while columns are inserted on the right.
To insert a row into a table, select the row below the point where you
want your new row by clicking in the space just to the left of that
table row. Right-click on the selected row and choose Insert Rows.
Inserting a new column into a table is just as easy. Position your
cursor just above the row that lies to the left of the point where you
want your new row to appear. When you see the small down arrow, click
to select the column. Right-click on the selected column and choose
Insert Row.
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DISABLING BROWSER-SPECIFIC FEATURES WHEN CREATING A WEB PAGE
As you create Web pages using Word 2000, keep in mind that certain
kinds of formatting and features are only available in Internet
Explorer 5.0, and these won't work in other versions of IE or in
Netscape. Fortunately, there is a quick setting to make sure that your
Web page only includes features available in IE 4.0 and Netscape 4.0.
Go to Tools, Options and click the General tab. Click the Web Options
button and select the Disable Features Not Supported By option. Select
Internet Explorer 4.0 And Netscape 4.0 from the pull-down menu and
click OK. When you try to perform an operation not permitted by IE 4.0
or Netscape, Word 2000 will let you know.
----------------------------------------------
MERGING CELLS TO CREATE A SUBHEADING IN A TABLE
If you are building a table and find that several columns can have the
same general heading, why not merge the first-row cells of these
columns to make a single heading? Select the cells in the first row
and right-click; then select the Merge Cells option, and the two (or
more) cells you selected will become one.
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MERGING TWO TABLES
If you've constructed two separate tables but later realize they
should be one, it's easy to join the two tables in Word 2000. Simply
delete any empty space between the two tables by positioning the
pointer at the first open space after the first table and pressing the
Delete key. When you've deleted the last of the empty space, Word
automatically joins the two tables. It just doesn't get any easier
than that.
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CHOOSING TO PRINT IN REVERSE PAGE ORDER
Have you ever printed a long document and then had to manually reverse
the pages so they are in the correct order? In this digital age,
having to arrange pages like this is simply unacceptable. And you
don't have to. There's a little feature in Word 2000 that reverses the
print order automatically.
Go to Tools, Options and click the Print tab. Select Reverse Print
Order under Printing Options, and Word will begin with your last page
and work its way toward the front. When your print job is finished,
your first page will be on top, right where it should be.
----------------------------------------------
TURNING OFF AUTOMATIC HYPERLINK GENERATION
You may have noticed that when you type a Web address in Word 2000 the
application automatically creates in your document a hyperlink to that
page on the Internet. This works because Word 2000 thinks that
whenever you type
http://
you want to link to a page on the Web. You may find, though, that you
have reason to type Web addresses for informational purposes only, and
that identifying them as links in your document is annoying. To tell
Word to lay off the automatic hyperlinks, go to Tools, AutoCorrect and
click the AutoFormat As You Type tab. Deselect the Internet And
Network Paths With Hyperlinks option and click OK.
----------------------------------------------
A QUICK WAY TO EDIT HYPERLINKS
If you create a Word document with hyperlinks to Web pages and later
find that you want to edit one of the hyperlinks, simply right-click
on it. From the resulting shortcut menu, you can select Hyperlink,
Edit Hyperlink to open the Edit Hyperlink box.
----------------------------------------------
ADDING SOUND TO A WEB PAGE
If you are using Word 2000 to build your home page, you may find that
you want to liven things up with a little music. After all, they say
it tames the beast. Inserting some background sounds into your Web
page is pretty simple, but keep in mind that sound means bandwidth,
and a long stretch of music might have visitors to your site waiting
impatiently for the download to finish--and that could definitely
enrage the beast you're trying to tame.
----------------------------------------------
INSERTING A BACKGROUND SOUND INTO A WEB PAGE
To insert a background sound into your Web page, you will need access
to the Web Tools toolbar (right-click the Formatting toolbar and
select Web Tools). Click the Sound icon (it looks like a tiny speaker)
and browse for the sound you want to insert. The C:\\Windows\Media
folder has a selection of pre-installed sound and music files. Select
a file from here, or navigate to a sound file you created previously.
After selecting your sound file, you need to specify how many times
you want this file to play when someone visits your Web page by
entering a number under Loop. When you finish, click OK.
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QUICKLY INSERTING A FOOTNOTE
If you're composing a document and you don't want to pick up the mouse
to insert a footnote, a quick keyboard shortcut will do the trick. To
quickly insert a footnote, press Alt-Ctrl-F. This bypasses the Insert
Footnote dialog box and takes you directly to a new footnote.
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A QUICK WAY TO EDIT FOOTNOTES
If you want to edit one of your footnotes, you can choose View, Header
And Footer and scroll to the note you need. A quicker approach is to
simply double-click on the footnote citation itself. This causes you
to jump directly to the footnote, where it is ready to be edited.
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TURNING FOOTNOTES INTO ENDNOTES
Footnotes and endnotes are fantastic little inventions that help you
to insert parenthetical or explanatory information without cluttering
the body of your text. The notation method you choose depends on the
conventions associated with your specific document and personal
preference; some people want to see the notes at the bottom of every
page where they are easily accessible, and others want them in the
back, where they are out of the way. You may find, upon drafting a
document, that you chose the wrong citation method--say you want
endnotes when you've already inserted footnotes. Do not despair;
converting them is simple in Word 2000.
Go to Insert, Footnote and click the Options button. Click the Convert
button and choose either Convert All Footnotes To Endnotes or Convert
All Endnotes To Footnotes, depending on what kind notes you have in
your document. Click OK twice, and then click Close to close the Notes
dialog box.
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HIGHLIGHTING WORDS IN A DOCUMENT
Remember those yellow felt-tip pens that you used to highlight the
important stuff in a large body of text? Well, in Word 2000 there is a
digital equivalent. The highlighting feature is particularly useful
for indicating key lines in a document that will be edited or reviewed
by someone else prior to completion.
The quick way to highlight a chunk of text is to select the desired
text and click the Highlight icon on the Formatting toolbar (it's the
one that looks like a marker with the florescent yellow line
underneath). If you are going to be doing a lot of highlighting, you
can click the small arrow next to the Highlight icon to select a color
and turn your cursor into a Highlighting tool. With the tool, simply
click and hold to move the highlighter over text, just the way you
used to with those smelly markers. Oh, by the way, we don't recommend
using black to highlight important passages in your document.
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REMOVING HIGHLIGHTED TEXT PRIOR TO PRINTING A DOCUMENT
In our last tip, we showed you how to use the Highlighting tool to
point out important text in a document. If you try to print a document
with highlights, you'll notice that the highlights don't look so hot
on the page. So before you print, you can remove the highlights from
your document by selecting the document, clicking the small arrow next
to the Highlighting icon, and selecting None. If you want to keep the
highlights but don't want them to show up when you print, you can hide
them temporarily. Go to Tools, Options, View and deselect the
Highlights option.
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INSERTING WRITTEN COMMENTS INTO DOCUMENTS
If two or more people are working on a single document, there's a
great feature in Word 2000 that allows people to make written comments
without altering the text of the document itself. With these comments,
you can simply move your mouse over a highlighted section of text and
read another person's notes in a pop-up box.
To insert a comment into a document, select the text you want to
comment on and go to Insert, Comment. A window opens to type your
comments. When you finish typing, click Close. The text that is linked
to the comments is highlighted, and when the cursor moves over the
highlighted section a small box with the comment notes appears.
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INSERTING RECORDED COMMENTS INTO DOCUMENTS
Last time we showed you how to insert written comments into a
document. With this feature, reviewing a document can be like having
another editor looking over your shoulder and offering suggestions. If
you REALLY want to experience the sensation of having an editor in the
room offering verbal suggestions, you can insert verbal comments into
a Word 2000 document, provided your computer allows you to record
sound.
Inserting a sound comment into a document is similar to inserting a
written comment. First, highlight the text in the document you want to
comment on and go to Insert, Comment. In addition to typing the
written comments as before, you can click the icon that looks like a
cassette tape to open a recording window. Press the record button,
speak into your microphone, and press Stop when finished. Close the
recording window. In your Comments window, you will see a speaker
icon. When someone reviewing your document comes across your comment
and double-clicks this icon, he or she will hear your verbal
commentary. No yelling, please!
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ALLOWING OTHERS TO COMMENT ON BUT NOT REVISE YOUR DOCUMENTS
In the past few tips, we've reviewed methods for inserting and reading
comments in Word 2000 documents. Comments allow you and others to
insert your thoughts about specific passages of a document without
making any changes to the document itself. If you create a document
and you know that you want to pass it around and solicit commentary
but you're afraid somebody will make unwanted changes, it's simple to
ensure that your document will only allow comments to be inserted.
Go to Tools, Protect Document and click the Comments button. Word will
now allow only comments to be inserted; all other attempts at entering
text will be blocked.
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ADDING A WATERMARK TO A DOCUMENT
A watermark is the faint picture or text image that you see when you
hold a piece of printing paper to the light. Usually, watermarks are
used to identify where the paper came from--for example, a company
log. They are so named, we would guess, because years ago they were
created with water. But no need for messy liquids in this digital age;
adding a watermark to your document in Word 2000 is as easy as adding
a picture.
For watermarks to appear on every page of your document, they need to
be inserted in either the header or footer. Go to View, Header And
Footer. Click in the header and select Insert, Picture, Clip Art (if
you're going to use Microsoft Clip Art for your watermark) or Insert,
Picture, From File (if you have your own image on your hard drive).
Insert the image you want to use for your watermark into the header or
footer. Right-click on the image and select Format Picture. Click the
Layout Tab, choose Behind Text, and click OK.
Your image is now freed from the header and footer, and you can drag
it wherever you need to on the page. When you position your watermark
where you want it, click Close on the Header And Footer toolbar.
You'll notice that Word 2000 has taken the liberty of fading your
picture just a bit to make it watermark-ready; this is because
low-contrast pictures make text easier to read.
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INSERTING A TEXT BOX INTO A DOCUMENT
Text boxes are like small pages within your larger document. With a
text box, you can move a discrete chunk of text around your document
and position it wherever you like. They're great for charts and pull
quotes and for formatting small bits of text on a page.
To insert a text box into a document, first make sure the Drawing
toolbar is visible (right-click on the Formatting toolbar and select
Drawing). In the center of the Drawing toolbar is a small white
rectangle with a capital A in the corner. Click this, and you'll see
small crosshairs you can use to draw your text box. Move to your
document, then click and move the mouse to draw the box. Don't worry
if you don't get it just right--you can always adjust the size later.
When you've finished drawing, click inside the text box and begin
typing.
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CHANGING THE MARGINS OF A TEXT BOX
Last time we introduced text boxes, those neat little shapes that are
great for formatting text in all kinds of interesting ways. As you
play around with text boxes a bit, you may find that you want a
slightly different margin between the edges of the box and your text.
Picky, picky, picky. Well, fortunately adjusting the margins in a text
box is easy.
First, right-click on the edge of the text box and select Format Text
Box from the pop-up menu. Click the Text Box tab, and adjust the Top
and Side margins. When you finish, click OK.
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MOVING TEXT BOXES
We've been exploring the wonderful world of text boxes. With these
handy little concoctions, you can have a lot of fun laying out text.
Half the pleasure of text boxes is derived from the fact that you can
grab and move them around like pictures and all the formatting you've
already established in the box remains the same. You can move a text
box by clicking on it once to select it and moving the insertion point
over the edge until the direction cursor appears. At this point, grab
the text box and move it wherever you wish. Throw caution to the wind
and experiment with placement; note how the text in the body document
moves to accommodate the text box.
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LINKING TEXT BOXES
Lately we've been playing around with text boxes, seeing how they can
enrich the look of our documents with their unique text placement
attributes. Today we're going to examine how to link a series of text
boxes so that text flows from one into the next without cutting or
pasting. Think of this operation as similar to the idea of columns.
Once text reaches the bottom of a linked text box, it automatically
wraps to the next one in the series.
To link two text boxes together, first insert all the text boxes
you'll need into your document by using the Text Box icon on the
Drawing toolbar. Then, select a text box and right-click on the
Formatting toolbar to bring up the Text Box toolbar. Next, type or
paste all the text into the first text box. You will probably notice
that all the text isn't visible; to allow the text to flow into
another text box, click the Create Text Box Link icon, and you'll see
your cursor turn into what looks like a small pitcher. Click the next
text box in the series, and the words will flow into the box; repeat
the process for as many boxes as you need.
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REMOVING BORDERS FROM TEXT BOXES
To wind down our discussion of text boxes, we should touch on borders.
Adding borders to text boxes is similar to adding other kinds of
borders in Word 2000. If you're laying out a document and you use a
text box to highlight a quote from the larger text, you'll probably
find that the text box looks better on the page without the border,
surrounded only by the body text. To remove the border, select the
text box, right-click on it, and select Format Text Box. On the Colors
And Lines tab, click Color and select No Line.
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ADDING SHADE TO A PARAGRAPH
If you're quoting an extended passage in a document, you might want to
set the quoted material apart by adding some shading. Select the
paragraph you'd like to shade and choose Format, Borders And Shading.
Choose the type of shading you like and click OK. Be sure and choose a
color or shade that allows you to read the original text, or the
person reading your document might not appreciate your efforts.
Those who learned how to type on typewriters remember all too well the
unpleasant task of pressing the Tab key each time one started a new
paragraph. If you're still performing this action in Word 2000
manually, you're not taking advantage of the program's features.
Setting up your document so that paragraphs indent automatically is
simple.
Choose Format, Paragraph, and click Indents And Spacing. Choose First
Line from the Special menu and enter the measurement you'd like
paragraphs to indent (half-inch is pretty standard.) Click OK, and all
your paragraphs will indent automatically each time you press the
Enter key.
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WORD BUG
The Is operator doesn't always work as expected in Word--specifically,
it has trouble with the Range object. The Is operator compares two
object variables. You use this operator in the form:
object1 IS object2
If the objects are the same, the statement is True. If they aren't the
same, the statement is False. For instance, the following code
compares the same worksheet to itself:
Dim wks1 As Worksheet, wks2 As Worksheet
Set wks1 = ActiveSheet
Set wks2 = ActiveSheet
MsgBox wks1 Is wks2
The message box will display the value True, since the two sheets are
the same. However, when used with the Range object, the Is operator
runs into trouble. The following code will incorrectly return the
False value:
Dim rng1 As Range, rng2 As Range
Set rng1 = ActiveSheet.Rows(2)
Set rng2 = ActiveSheet.Rows(2)
MsgBox rng1 Is rng2
There is an easy workaround. When working with the Range object, use
the equal operator in the form:
MsgBox rng1 = rng2
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WRAPPING TEXT AROUND OBJECTS
Wrapping text around graphics, pictures, or other objects (by
right-clicking on the object, choosing Format, clicking the Layout
tab, and choosing a wrapping style) is a sure way to make your
document look professional. However, keep a couple of things in mind
when you use this kind of formatting. One, you'll need to make sure
that you have at least .6 inch of space between your object and the
margins (to give enough room for your text). And two, you should
probably hyphenate the paragraph with the wrapping text to make sure
that the text comes as close to the object as possible (just because
it looks a lot better).
Many people like to see some formatting marks on their page when
they're working. They feel that revision marks help them to see where
they are in the document and what kind of formatting is going on in
the background. But too many formatting marks can make your document
cluttered and hard on the eyes. It's important to remember that
formatting marks are not all-or-nothing propositions; you can, in
fact, select the kinds of formatting marks you wish to display. Choose
Tools, Options and click the View tab. On this tab, you can select the
kinds of formatting marks (paragraphs, spaces, tabs, etc.) you want to
see individually, as opposed to having them all appear when you click
the Show/Hide Formatting Marks button on the Standard toolbar. After
you select the marks you want to see, click OK.
It's possible to look at and edit several pages simultaneously in Word
2000 by using the Zoom tool. Although you would need a good-sized
monitor to really take advantage of this feature, it's a nice way to
see how your documents are laying out without having to fiddle with
Print Preview mode. To view several pages at once, first make sure you
are in Print Layout mode (by choosing View, Print Layout) and then
select View, Zoom. Click the Many Pages button and then choose how
many pages you want to view by clicking on the icon just below it.
(Click and drag to increase the pages, much as you would when creating
a table.)
As long as the application you use for contacts allows you to export
data in what is called a Comma Separated Value format (CSV for short),
you can convert your contact data into a Word file. This procedure
might be useful for obtaining a printed version of, say, your contact
names and telephone numbers. Your first step would be to use your
contacts program to export your data. In Outlook 2000, for example,
select File, Import And Export, then choose Export To A File and click
Next. Select Comma Separated Values (Windows) and click Next again.
Then, select your Contacts from the list of files, click Next, and
choose a name for the exported file and the location for your exported
information. Then, click Finish.
Now, in Word 2000, open a document and select Insert, File. Navigate
to your exported CSV file and click the Insert button. Choose Plain
Text in the File Conversion dialog box. Your document will look like a
hopelessly jumbled mess of letters and a whole lot of commas, but the
next step will take care of that. Press Ctrl-A to select all text in
your document and then select Table, Convert, Text To Table. Select
Commas from the Separate Text At options (remember, we're dealing with
Comma Separated Values here) and then click OK. Your contact
information now appears in a table.
Normally, if you need to adjust your Save options, you just choose
Tools, Options and click the Save tab. If you're already in the
process of saving your document, you can also access these options
directly from the Save window. Under Tools in the upper-right corner
of both the Save and Save As windows, just select General Options to
open the same Save Options dialog box.
Who doesn't dread looking for a new job? Getting your resume together,
filling out applications, driving around to interviews . . . it's
enough to make standing in the unemployment line look appealing.
Fortunately, Word 2000 can provide a little relief in the job-hunting
department with its fine Resume Wizard. This wizard guides you step by
step through the resume process and leads to a simple, attractive
document. Access the Resume Wizard by choosing File, New and clicking
the Other Documents tab. Double-click Resume Wizards and follow the
instructions. Along the way, you'll be able to choose from three
resume styles and determine what kinds of information you want to
include. Once you've formatted your resume, enter your information in
simple prompted text boxes, and Word 2000 fills in the resume
automatically. It's easy and it works.
If you work in an office and write professional letters all the time,
you no doubt have a favorite style for letters. For those who write
only an occasional professional letter, you may have forgotten which
address goes where. Word 2000 has a wizard that can automatically
generate a nice-looking letter in any number of different formats.
To use the Letter Wizard, first open a blank document and then select
Tools, Letter Wizard. Your first step will be to select from among the
different types of preformatted letters under Choose A Page Design.
(There's even a specific design for appealing an IRS audit! If you're
in that kind of jam, it's worth a try, I guess.) Then, you'll want to
choose a style from the Letter Style pull-down menu. Of the letter
styles, Full Block aligns all text with the left margin, Modified
Block centers both the date and Signature Block, and Semi Block
indents paragraphs. From there, move through the three remaining tabs
to insert your additional information. To enable any of the various
components, first select the box to the left of the drop-down menu,
then choose the text from the drop-down. When you have the letter the
way you want it, click OK, and Word generates the formatted letter for
you.
Resizing drawing objects in Word 2000 is a pretty simple procedure.
You just grab one of the corners of the object and drag to make it
larger. Grab one of the side selection handles and you stretch the
object, skewing its proportional shape. Grab a corner and you can
increase and decrease the object's size while maintaining proportions.
You may not have known that using the keyboard gives you even more
resizing options. Hold down the Ctrl key when resizing, and you'll
find that you can adjust both the side and corner you're grabbing and
its opposite simultaneously, maintaining the object's position on the
page. This technique is very useful when you have a drawing object
that's centered on a page and you want to resize it without having to
re-center it.
If you're the type of person who routinely makes the mistake of
repeating words like "to" and "the" in your documents, remember that
you can eliminate all of these mistakes with a single button when
spell-checking. Just as you can click the Change All button when
spell-checking to change all instances of a misspelled word, you can
also click the Delete All button to delete the extra word in a
repeated word pair throughout a document. When running a spell-check,
just look for the Delete All key when instances of a repeated word
arise.
Our previous tip gave an overview of Word 2000's Letter Wizard, a
nifty little tool for creating formatted letters. To use the Letter
Wizard, start by choosing Tools, Letter Wizard and then insert the
necessary information from the various menus.
You may have noticed that when you get to the Recipient Info and
Sender Info tabs you have the option of pulling names from your
Outlook Address Book. By using this feature, you can insert contact
addresses without having to look them up or type them. Just click the
Address Book button on either the Recipient Info or Sender Info tab,
and select a name from a list of contacts. If you've used the Address
Book feature in Word before, you might be able to access your contact
by simply clicking the down arrow next to the Address Book and
selecting the name.
How to insert a table into a document that uses a different printing
orientation than the rest of the document. If you needed to construct
a table in the Portrait format in order to fit all of your
information. The key to changing the orientation of a specific page is
to insert section breaks before and after the page you want to change.
Then, you can simply go to Page Layout to change the orientation of
that page and apply it to the section only.
Word 2000 typically preserves all formatting when you cut information
from a Web page and paste it into a Word document. While this is
helpful a good portion of the time, sometimes it can get in the
way--such as when you cut text that happens to be a hyperlink and Word
2000 inserts the link into your document. There is a simple way to
avoid pasting text with all that formatting. When you're ready to
paste, simply choose Edit, Paste Special and select Unformatted Text.
You'll insert the words themselves, without all that extraneous
formatting.
People are split about indenting the first lines of paragraphs. Some
see this formatting as an antiquated leftover from the typewriter era,
preferring to just add an extra paragraph return between paragraphs.
Others find first-line indents useful for readability. Each side of
this debate has some legitimate points, and we think we can all agree
that this difference of opinion is just not worth the bloodshed.
Oh yes, about those first-line indents. If you prefer to indent
paragraphs, adding first-line indents to your documents is a snap.
When you start a document, select Format, Paragraph. In the
Indentation area, choose First Line from the Special drop-down list.
Then, click OK.
To change the Normal template so that all your paragraphs are indented
without you having to set them manually, choose Format, Style. Select
Normal and click Modify. Click Format, Paragraph, and then perform the
above procedure. Click OK twice, then click Apply, and your paragraphs
will indent automatically.
If you're cruising along, rapidly correcting your spelling mistakes in
your Word document, don't be alarmed if you accidentally click Change
when the original word was just fine. You can easily undo your most
recent spelling changes when running the spell checker by clicking the
Undo button. Click it as many times as you wish to get back to your
error. Whew!
Have you ever noticed that when you cut and paste text in Word 2000,
it almost always winds up with the correct spacing? This is because
Word enables a feature called Smart Cut And Paste by default. With
Smart Cut And Paste turned on, Word guesses how you would like your
text spacing and inserts it automatically. So, for example, if the
text you're pasting has a space at the end of it and you're inserting
it in a place with an additional space, Word will eliminate one of the
spaces to avoid the double space. Some people, however, don't like it
when Word tries to outsmart them and would prefer to have the spacing
remain as they've selected it. These folks will want to disable Smart
Cut And Paste. To do so, choose Tools, Options and click the Edit tab.
Deselect the Use Smart Cut And Paste option, and click OK. You're all
set, tiger.
Last month, we described how to turn off AutoCorrect when you don't
want the first letter of a sentence capitalized automatically. (The
tip was written in response to a reader who wrote poetry and didn't
want capitalization after line breaks.) As we explained, you select
Tools, AutoCorrect, then deselect the Capitalize First Letter Of
Sentences option. A more elegant solution: Whenever AutoCorrect
performs an undesired action, you can simply press Ctrl-Z (or click
the Undo button) and the action is undone. More important, the next
time the action would be performed (such as after the next line break
in our poetry example), AutoCorrect will leave it alone. So, our
reader with the poetry problem would need to press Ctrl-Z only once to
disable AutoCorrect for his entire poem.
When you insert information into a Word document using field codes
(such as when you choose Insert, Date & Time), the ensuing text
appears on the screen inside a gray box. This box lets you know that
the text is a field code instead of just plain text. If you find these
boxes unsightly and just want to see your document as is, you can turn
off the boxes. Choose Tools, Options and click the View tab. Change
the Field Shading drop-down menu from Always to Never and click OK.
To disable this automatic formatting, select Tools, AutoCorrect, then
click the AutoFormat As You Type tab. Deselect the Define Styles Based
On Your Formatting option and click OK.
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TURNING OFF AUTOMATIC NUMBERING
How to turn off Word 2000's automatic numbering feature. Like us, they
had Word begin a numbered list every time they typed a number,
followed it with some text, and pressed Enter. Unless you're in a line
of work where you're making numbered lists constantly, you too may
find this feature to be an annoyance. Fear not--it's simple to turn
off. Select Tools, AutoCorrect, and click the AutoFormat As You Type
tab. Deselect the Automatic Bulleted Lists option and then click OK.
If you have a color clip-art image and you want to print it as a
grayscale image, you're much better off changing the image itself
instead of printing the color image as black in the Print dialog box.
By changing the image to grayscale, Word renders the proper gradients
of gray, and the image will print better. To change an image from
color to grayscale, right-click it and choose Format Picture. Click
the Picture tab, and under Image Control, select Grayscale from the
drop-down box. Click OK, and Word renders your picture in shades of
gray.
If you have a long passage in a document that consists of
intentionally misspelled words (a phonetic transcription of speech,
for example, or a passage of computer code), it can get annoying
having all those red squiggly lines marring the page. And then when
you run the spell-checker, having to click Ignore repeatedly through
that section is a time-waster. To avoid these headaches, tell the Word
2000 spell-checker to ignore that passage of text. First, select the
text you don't want spell-checked. Next, choose Tools, Language, Set
Language. Then, select the Do Not Check Spelling Or Grammar option and
click OK.
If you're aligning objects of any type--be they Clip Art, drawings, or
text boxes--you can keep all your objects perfectly aligned by
designating them to "snap to grid." When you tell Word to snap objects
to a grid, the program creates invisible gridlines throughout your
document, and all objects are forced to line up on this grid. This is
a simple way to make sure objects line up, because you never need to
look hard to make sure an alignment is perfect (the grid removes doubt
by moving objects that almost line up into place).
To tell Word to snap your objects to a grid, have the Drawing toolbar
open (by right-clicking on the Standard toolbar and selecting it).
Choose Draw, Grid on the Drawing toolbar; select the Snap Objects To
Grid option; and click OK.
Our previous tip showed you how to snap objects in your documents to
grid in order to line them up properly. Of course, the downside to the
snap grid feature is that you don't get much play with where you
position your objects exactly. If the invisible gridlines are too far
apart, you may find yourself having to choose between two equally
undesirable positions for your object. Fortunately, you can decrease
the size of the gridlines for more precise alignment. On the Drawing
toolbar, choose Draw, Grid. You can adjust the horizontal and vertical
spacing of your grid; the smaller the spacing, the more precisely
you'll be able to position your documents using snap to grid. Click OK
when you've finished.
On some kinds of formal documents, you may want to have both the
current page number and total number of pages listed on every page, as
in "Page 3 of 26." This kind of notation lets the reader know both
where she is and how far she has to go. Rather than inserting this
kind of notation manually, there's a simple method to have Word 2000
do it automatically, complete with updates. Select View, Header And
Footer and switch to the footer (if that's where you want to put this
notation). Type
Page
and then click the Insert Page Number button. Then, type
Of
and click the Insert Number Of Pages button. Finally, click Close.
Both these fields will update automatically, changing as your document
changes.
Selecting cells, rows, and columns in Word can be a little tricky
until you get the hang of it. Fortunately, some easy keyboard
shortcuts allow you to select what you need without having to be
precise with your mouse. To select a column, just hold down the Alt
key while clicking in a column. To select a row, position your cursor
in the first cell of the row and press Alt-Shift-End. To select a
single cell or several cells in a row, position your cursor in a cell
and hold down the Shift key while moving the arrows.
If someone gives you a document containing fonts not available on your
computer, Word 2000 will substitute a local font by default.
Unfortunately, sometimes the font Word tries to use isn't even close
to the original typeface. At this point, you need to step in and tell
Word how you want missing fonts substituted. Select Tools, Options,
then select the Compatibility tab. Click the Font Substitution button
(remember that this option is available only when you're dealing with
a document originally created with fonts you don't have). On the left
you'll see the missing font listed; select the font you want to
replace it with from the drop-down menu on the right. When you finish,
click OK.
Microsoft's Office applications are tightly integrated these days, and
what's generally true of the suite is true of Word 2000 and
PowerPoint. In fact, you can move the text from any document into a
PowerPoint file (as long as you have PowerPoint 2000 installed) by
choosing File, Send To, PowerPoint. If you've configured your original
document correctly, each page of your Word document should correspond
to a PowerPoint slide, and some of your original formatting is even
preserved. You'll have to do plenty of tweaking, of course, but it's
nice to know you can get your text over to PowerPoint so quickly and
painlessly.
How to send a document as an attachment. As you know, one of the new
features of Word 2000 is that it allows you to send email directly
from Word, without you having to open your email program. While you
can send the text in a Word document as part of the body of an email,
you can also send a document as an attachment. Choose File, Send To,
Mail Recipient (As Attachment). As long as you have some version of
Microsoft Outlook on your computer, a small email window opens, ready
to be addressed to a recipient, and the document you're working on
will be attached to the new email. Just fill out the To and Subject
information as you would normally and click Send.
Having to reach for the mouse when you're typing always slows down
your work. Here are a couple of useful keyboard shortcuts for
selecting a single line of text in Word 2000: To select everything on
a line to the right of the insertion point, press Shift-End; to select
everything on a line to the left of the insertion point, press
Shift-Home.
Avery labels are very popular in offices today--so much so that
Microsoft has made Avery labels the default manufacturer in Word 2000.
But if you purchase labels made by another company, finding your brand
in Word's database is easy enough. Choose Tools, Envelopes And Labels,
and click the Labels tab. Click the Options button, and under Label
Products you have a choice of nearly a dozen of the leading
manufacturers. Select your product manufacturer from this list, and
you'll then be able to choose your Product Number from the list in the
lower-left corner.
Our previous tips showed you how to have Word 2000 automatically
prompt you for summary information in the Document Properties dialog
box. Now suppose you are looking for one of those documents from long
ago, but you can't find it anywhere. You can always use Windows' own
search features, but if you've been entering information in Document
Properties all along, you might find it easier to search your computer
using Word.
To search for documents using Word's search features, select File,
Open, then click the Tools button and select Find. The Find Files That
Match These Criteria box at the top of the window contains a list of
what Word will be looking for. You actually enter the search criteria
at the bottom, where it says Define More Criteria. Here, you can
initiate your search depending on what you remember entering in the
Document Properties box. For example, if you've been giving your Word
documents keywords in the Keywords box, you can search for these by
selecting Keywords in the Property drop-down menu and entering the
keyword itself in the Value box. When you've selected a set of search
criteria, click Add To List. To perform the search, click Find Now.
Our previous few tips have discussed Word's built-in document
searching features. As long as you enter detailed information in the
Document Properties dialog box, you can search for your documents
within Word itself, which gives you more flexibility than Windows'
Find feature. With all the different criteria you can search for,
you've probably noticed by now that Word's Find feature is a useful
tool for helping you organize documents. This is even more apparent
when you realize that you can save your Word searches for later use.
By saving searches, you are using the Find feature as a document
organization tool similar to folders. For example, if you classify
your document according to keywords that you assign in the Document
Properties dialog box, you can save searches for each of these
keywords and automatically call up a list of the documents with those
keywords with just a couple clicks.
To save searches in Word, select File, Open; click the Tools button;
and select Find. Enter your search criteria as you would normally,
then click Save Search. You'll be prompted to give your search a name.
Once you do, Word saves the search criteria in a file. The next time
you want to run a search with the same criteria, simply click the Open
Search button and select the search from the resulting list.
If you're creating a file that you're going to be handing off to some
unfortunate soul without Word 2000, remember that you can always save
the document in another file format. Choose File, Save, and explore
all the options under the Type drop-down menu. In addition to using
standard text formats like RTF, you can save documents as WordPerfect
files, Word for Macintosh, Word 6.0, and more than a dozen others.
There is almost always some formatting lost in the translation, but
saving documents in another file format can be the best way to go if
you're sharing with someone without Word 2000.
We've all had to deal with lost work because of missing, corrupted, or
deleted files. To guard against these kinds of mishaps, you can set
Word 2000 to automatically save backup copies of all your new
documents. First, choose Tools, Options and click the Save tab. Select
the Always Create Backup Copies check box and click OK. Then, whenever
you open and save a document, a backup copy is automatically created
in the same folder where you saved your original document. The
document is identified with a filename of "Backup of X," where "X" is
the name of your original document. These backup copies will have a
file extension of .wbk and will automatically update whenever you
modify your original document.
Our previous tip discussed how to remove an unused command from a
menu. If you later discover that you need the command you removed,
you're up the creek without a paddle! No, no, not really. Actually,
it's quite easy to restore a command. Once again, select Tools,
Customize. With the Customize dialog box open, go up to the menu you
wish to restore and click on it. Then, right-click it and choose
Reset. The menu will now feature all the original commands.
You can look at any of your Word 2000 dictionaries at any time by
choosing Tools, Options; clicking the Spelling And Grammar tab;
clicking the Options button; clicking the Dictionaries button;
selecting a dictionary; and clicking the Edit button. Keep in mind
that every time you look at or edit a dictionary, Word automatically
disables spell-checking for your document. To turn the spell-checker
back on, choose Tools, Options and click the Spelling And Grammar tab.
Select the Check Spelling As You Type option, and then click OK.
In previous tips, we showed you how to insert a perfect shape by using
the AutoShape menu on the Drawing toolbar. You should know that you
don't have to get your shape absolutely perfect on your first try; you
can go back later and resize your shape any time you like. Just click
on the image to select it and drag one of the corner squares to resize
your image. You may also notice a series of yellow diamonds around
your AutoShape after you select it; these diamonds can be dragged back
and forth to change the proportions of your shape. Experiment and see
how you can manipulate shapes. You can always press Ctrl-Z to undo if
you make a mistake.
Our previous tip showed you how to have em dashes inserted
automatically whenever you type a double hyphen. If you already
created an entire document using those clumsy double hyphens, you can
still convert them to em dashes after the fact. All that's required is
a simple Find And Replace operation, using a special character in the
Replace field. Select Edit, Replace. Type
--
in the Find box, and
^+
in the Replace box. Click Replace All, and your double hyphens will be
converted to em dashes.
If your copy of Word 2000 seems to have a few unexplainable bugs, a
last-resort solution to your problems might be to check for
installation errors. Word 2000 comes with a module for checking its
own integrity. (Ah, what a feature--wouldn't it be nice if our
politicians came with such capabilities?) First, shut down any other
running programs, then choose Help, Detect And Repair. Click the Start
button, and Word will give your installation a look to see whether it
finds any problem. Be warned that this process takes at least 20
minutes to complete, so don't run the Detect And Repair option if
you're in the middle of something important.
Some commands on Word 2000's menus are more trouble than they're
worth. For example, we frequently use the Word Count feature under
Tools, Word Count, but we often find that we accidentally select
AutoSummarize instead. It takes a couple of clicks to undo our
mistake, and it's frustrating. In this case, we'd be better off
removing AutoSummarize from the Tools menu.
To remove a command from a menu, select Tools, Customize. With the
Customize dialog box open, go up to the menu you wish to modify, click
on it, and then select the command you wish to delete. Right-click on
this command and then select Delete. When you've finished, click Close
on the Customize menu. Don't worry--you can always go back and restore
this command later if you wish. We'll go over how to do that in our
next tip.
Our previous tip showed you how to search for documents on your
computer using Word's Find feature. If you're searching a big hard
drive or across a network, performing a Find operation can take a
while unless you get more specific. The best way to speed your Word
searches is to narrow down where you want Word to look. In the Look In
box, try to limit the search to a specific folder, if you can remember
approximately where the document you're looking for might be.
One of the most beautiful and elegant features of Word 2000's
footnotes functionality is the ability to read the notation attached
to a footnote or endnote without scrolling through the document. Any
time you come across a footnote or endnote number, you can simply roll
your cursor over the number, and the text of the footnote pops up for
the viewing. Go on--give it a try.
Our previous tip showed you how to make a hard copy of all your
AutoText entries. In a similar vein, it's also possible to make a
printout of all your shortcut key assignments you've created. Again,
it might be useful for you to have a hard copy of these to refer to,
so you know how best to take advantage of this feature. Once again,
choose File, Print. Under Print What, select Key Assignments from the
drop-down menu and then click OK.
Word 2000's AutoText feature allows you to enter frequent text strings
with just a mouse click, thereby saving yourself keystrokes. If you
like, you can print a hard copy of all your current AutoText entries
in Word 2000. For some people, being able to see a long list on paper
helps them to remember the information. Having all your AutoText
entries tacked up on a sheet of paper next to your computer could be
just the thing to help you take better advantage of the feature.
To print your AutoText information, choose File, Print. In the
lower-left corner you'll see the Print What drop-down menu. From this
list, choose AutoText entries and then click OK.
If you're working in Outline view and assigning headings to the
different sections of your document (a good idea if you're creating a
document of any length), you should know that you can print from your
outline showing only as much depth as you wish. That is, whatever
portions of your document are visible during Outline view will be the
portions printed. This way, you can just print your headings (by
minimizing lower level information in Outline view) to see how your
outline lays out. You also save paper by leaving the body paragraphs
off the screen.
If you're working with a large document and you don't want to print
the entire thing, you can always instruct Word 2000 to print only
selected pages. Sometimes, though, you don't even need to waste that
much ink (that stuff is expensive!) and you just need to print a line
or two from a document. You can choose to print only selected text
from any document in Word 2000. Simply select the text you want to
print and choose File, Print. Then click the Selection button and
click OK.
If you're the kind of user who constantly uses keyboard shortcuts,
you'll be thrilled to know that there is a method for printing a
complete list of all available keyboard shortcuts in Word 2000. There
are quite a few steps, but the procedure is simple. Begin by choosing
Tools, Macro, Macros to open the Macro dialog box. Choose Word
Commands from the Macros In menu and type
ListCommands
in the Macro Name box. Click the Run button and click OK for Current
Menu And Keyboard Settings in the resulting dialog box. You should see
a Word document that contains all keyboard shortcuts, which you can
then print normally by selecting File, Print.
If you are copying text from one document to the next, the trick to
preserving the original document's formatting is to select the
original document's ending paragraph symbol in addition to the text.
Text formatting is tied to that paragraph symbol, and without it, Word
2000 will automatically revert the text to the current document's
formatting. If you are unsure of how much text to select to include
the paragraph symbol, simply click the Show/Hide Paragraph Symbol
button on the Standard toolbar to see where the paragraph symbol lies.
There are many ways to open a new document in Word 2000. You can
select File, New and double-click the blank document icon; you can
press Ctrl-N; or you can click the New icon on the Standard toolbar.
The method that we use most frequently, though, has to do with how we
set up our taskbar in Windows 98.
As you probably know, you can drag any shortcut icon from your
computer's desktop to the taskbar to create an icon that you can click
once to open the application. You can also click this icon to open a
new document in Word 2000, which makes sense, as the computer
responds, "Hmm, Word 2000 is already open--I think my owner wants me
to open a new document." Remember, if Word is already open, any
attempt to launch the application will give you a new document.
Have you ever been afraid of opening a document because you didn't
want to mess with it? If you have something just perfect--with all the
right formatting--and you fear that a misplaced keystroke will foul it
up, you might want to open the document as a read-only file. This
means that you can't alter the document even if you try. To open a
document as read only, choose File, Open; navigate to the document
you're looking for; right-click on it; and select Open Read-Only.
Rather than opening a document and then choosing Save As, you can
create a copy of a document from the get-go by choosing to open the
document as a copy. With Word 2000 open, choose File, Open as you
would normally; select the document you want to copy; and click the
down arrow beside the Open button. Choose Open As Copy, and the
document you open will have the same filename as the original but with
the words "Copy Of" inserted just before the name.
Tables are a great way to organize information in Word 2000. Using a
table to make lists has many advantages, too. You can sort your
information, divide it into columns, and lay it out with plenty of
space to make it readable. Adding numbering to table cells is not more
difficult than making a list. Simply select the rows you want to
number, and then click the Numbers button on the Formatting toolbar.
Your table rows will maintain their numbers even as you move and sort
information.
If you've ever seen an official contract, you probably noticed that
the paragraphs are all numbered. This is to make things easier for
lawsuit-happy attorneys. Instead of quoting large portions of text,
they can simply say, "Please refer to paragraph 12 of your contract."
To make things a little easier for the next attorney representing you,
always number the paragraphs in all your official-type documents.
Doing so automatically in Word 2000 is simple. Just select the
paragraphs you want to number and choose Format, Bullets And
Numbering. Click the Numbered tab, select an appropriate numbering
format, and click OK. Word numbers your paragraphs for you. Now,
should you ever need to sub-number the paragraphs in your document
with letters, select a paragraph and click the Increase Indent button
on the Formatting toolbar. Word assigns the paragraph a subheading
letter automatically.
When you prepare a lengthy document that consists of sections--such as
a table of contents, an index, or a glossary--it's customary to number
the different sections of the document differently. Tradition dictates
that your table of contents be numbered with Roman numerals, both to
set it off from the actual text and to avoid confusion when referring
to numbers in the early part of the main section. To number a section
with Roman numerals, select View, Header And Footer, and click Format
Page Number. Under Number Format, choose Roman numerals (the fourth
selection from the top). Also, be sure to select Start At instead of
Continue From Previous Section under Page Numbering so that the
numbering of your section begins with i. When you finish, click OK and
close the Header And Footer toolbar.
A reader named Ken wrote in asking how to number pages in the right
and left margins, instead of in the header or footer. To begin, you
insert pages numbers by choosing Insert, Page Numbers. Then, you
select View, Headers And Footers. Position the cursor over the small
box containing the page number, and then grab and drag it to one of
the margins. The numbering will repeat in this location throughout the
current section.
NOTES ON STYLES--PART 1 OF 5: BASING ONE STYLE ON ANOTHER
Styles in Word 2000 are a collection of formatting specifications that
are collected and saved together under a single name--the name of the
style. Remember that any time you base one style on another (by
modifying a paragraph, clicking in the Style Menu box on the
Formatting toolbar, naming your style and pressing Enter), the new
style will always be subject to the changes made to the style on which
it was based. So, for example, if you modify a paragraph created using
the Normal style and then save the style as something like "Letter
Paragraph," your Letter Paragraph style will change whenever your
Normal style changes. To avoid this hassle, try creating styles from
scratch by using the Style dialog box, which you access by choosing
Format, Style.
If your Style menu becomes cluttered with more styles than you think
you can use, you can get rid of the deadwood by deleting any
unnecessary styles. First, select Format, Style and choose
User-Defined Styles from the List pull-down menu (these are the only
ones you can delete; you can't get rid of the styles that came with
Word 2000). Select any style you don't need from the list and click
the Delete button. Click Yes when asked to confirm and then click
Close. Before you delete any style, however, be sure that you have no
other styles based on the style you wish to delete. If you do, these
styles will be rendered unusable.
NOTES ON STYLES--PART 3 OF 5: UPDATING STYLES AUTOMATICALLY
Any time you modify a style by clicking in a paragraph and choosing
Format, Style, you can have the style update automatically whenever
you make any changes to it. This means that if you change a paragraph
created in this style from, say, single to double spaced, all other
paragraphs in your document created using this style will change
accordingly, and all your paragraphs will remain identical no matter
what changes you make to an individual one. Keep in mind that all
future paragraphs composed in this style will automatically be
formatted using the most recent changes you made to the automatically
updated style. If you're sure this is what you want to do, select the
Automatically Update option the next time you modify a style.
NOTES ON STYLES--PART 4 OF 5: COPYING STYLES BETWEEN DOCUMENTS
When you copy paragraphs between documents, keep in mind that if the
paragraph you are copying from was created using a style with the same
name as in the document you are copying to, the paragraph will revert
to the style of the copied-to document. So, for example, if your
Normal style is different from the Normal style of a document you're
copying into, you can expect your text to be formatted using the
latter's formatting. Be sure to have your paragraphs formatted using a
unique style name if you wish to preserve all the formatting when
copying to other documents.
NOTES ON STYLES--PART 5 OF 5: TURNING OFF AUTOMATICALLY ASSIGNED
STYLES
When you're creating a document, sometimes Word 2000 will look at the
kind of work you're doing and assign style names to some of your
paragraphs. The program will automatically make some of your
paragraphs headings, for example, if it looks like you're giving
headings to different areas of your document. This is an example of
Word trying to be helpful but potentially doing more harm than good.
You can tell Word not to assign styles automatically by choosing
Tools, AutoCorrect. Click the AutoFormat As You Type tab and deselect
the Define Styles Based On Your Formatting option. Finally, under
Apply As You Type, deselect the Headings option, then click OK.
Our previous tip introduced the four layers available in Word 2000.
Recall that the text layer is reserved for text only, and the
header/footer layer is reserved for watermarks. The foreground and
background layers are the two standard layers for positioning your
graphics, shapes, and text boxes. To move an object backward or
forward between these layers, first make sure the Drawing toolbar is
visible (by right-clicking the Standard toolbar and selecting
Drawing), then select the object you wish to move, and, finally,
select Draw, Order. The ensuing commands allow you to move your object
backward, forward, in front of, and behind text.
Our last few tips have been covering some of the finer points of
footnotes and endnotes. Typically, you'll want your endnotes to appear
at the end of your document. That's why they call them endnotes,
right? But sometimes it makes sense to position them at the end of a
section, such as when you want them to appear at the end of a chapter.
To have endnotes appear at the end of a section, choose Insert,
Footnote, and then click the Options tab. Click All Endnotes and
choose End Of Document from the Place At pull-down menu. When you've
finished, click OK.
In previous tips, we've shown you how to insert new commands on a
toolbar and how to add a hyperlink to a toolbar. There is another easy
customization feature available any time you have the Customize dialog
box open (select Tools, Customize). You can grab any button on any of
the visible toolbars and drag it to another location on any other
visible toolbars. Try this if you feel that you have a better idea for
the arrangement of the toolbar icons. When you finish, click OK in the
Customize dialog box.
Using columns in Word 2000 is an easy way to give your documents a
more professional look; having your text snake from one column to the
next instead of simply running across an entire page is the first step
to learning page layout. To insert a column, you need to select the
text, and then select the number of columns you need from the Columns
button on the Standard toolbar.
One downside of laying out text in columns is that sometimes your text
goes only partway down the last columns, which looks a bit
asymmetrical. To tell Word 2000 to make all your columns identical
length, simply add a section break to the end of the last column by
choosing Insert, Break and selecting the Continuous section break.
Your columns automatically resize in a symmetrical manner.
Our previous tip discussed adding shadows to objects in your Word
documents. For an even greater illusion of depth, you can make your
drawing objects three-dimensional. Just select the object and click
the 3-D button on the Drawing toolbar--all the way on the right. (If
you don't see your Drawing toolbar, select View, Toolbars, Drawing.)
With this tool, you can add sides to your drawing objects, choosing
from 20 different perspectives. But once again, you're not limited to
these 20. Choose 3-D Settings and you get another toolbar that allows
you to control the lighting on the object, in addition to fine-tuning
its depth, direction, surface, and color. Try moving the light source
to directly above your object, and see how it changes things. Nice,
eh?
It is possible to link documents in Word 2000 so that when changes are
made to a part of one document, they are automatically updated in
another. Let's say you have a Word 2000 document that contains a list
of names and telephone numbers. Any time a Word document references
one of those names, you can link the text to that master document so
that if a telephone number changes on the master document, all
documents linked to the master list updates automatically. Microsoft
has a kind of linking called Object Linking and Embedding, or OLE for
short. One thing to remember when linking documents, however, is that
you need to be extremely careful to keep your files in their original
places so Word knows where to find the information. Once you start
moving files around, Word will get confused and not know where to
look.
For the purposes of document linking, the original document is called
the server and the document you want to copy information to is called
the client. To link documents, go to the server document and copy the
text you'd like to link (by pressing Ctrl-C). Then, go to the client
document, position the insertion point where you want the text to
appear, and choose Edit, Paste Special. Click Paste Link, select
Microsoft Word Document Object, and click OK. Word positions the text
as an OLE link, to be updated whenever the text on your server
document changes.
LINKING DOCUMENTS--PART 2 OF 5: ACCESSING THE SERVER DOCUMENT
In our previous tip, we introduced you to the concept of linking
documents using Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding (OLE)
technology. Now let's say you're working in a client document that
contains an automatically updated telephone number, linked from a
server document somewhere else on your system. All of a sudden, you
remember that this telephone number has changed, and you need to
access the server document to change it (remember, you don't want to
break the link by editing the number on the client document). You can
open the server document immediately by right-clicking on the linked
text and selecting Linked Document Object, Open Link. The server
document opens and positions the insertion point at the place where
the linked text occurs.
LINKING DOCUMENTS--PART 3 OF 5: BREAKING A LINKED DOCUMENT
In this series of tips, we've covered various aspects of linking
documents via Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding (OLE)
technology. Today, we'll tell you what to do if you decide, "Hey, this
whole link thing just isn't working out; let's break those links." To
break a link and edit the text of a document normally, first choose
Edit, Links. In the resulting dialog box, select the correct link and
click Break Link. Your document treats the linked passage as standard
text from this point forward.
LINKING DOCUMENTS--PART 4 OF 5: LOCKING A LINKED DOCUMENT
In this series of tips, we've covered various aspects of linking
documents via Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding (OLE)
technology. Today, we'll discuss how to lock a link so the text
doesn't change. Locking differs from simply breaking a link because
your client Word document still maintains a connection with the server
document--it just doesn't update the information when the server
document updates. At a later point, you can simply unlock the link to
update the text, without having to go through the link process all
over again. To lock a link, in your client document choose Edit,
Links; select the desired link; and select the Locked option. Later,
you can go back and deselect this option to renew link updating.
LINKING DOCUMENTS--PART 5 OF 5: REESTABLISHING LINKS BETWEEN DOCUMENTS
In this series of tips, we've covered various aspects of linking
documents via Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding (OLE)
technology. Today, we'll discuss how to reestablish a link when you've
moved your server document. Moving the server document throws off all
your links, and Word 2000 gets horribly confused very quickly. To help
the program find its way, choose Edit, Links and click on the document
link that needs help. Click the Change Source button and find your
server document. When you finish, click OK, and the link will be
restored.
For the most part, Word 2000 does a good job of formatting the text on
an envelope if you simply use the Tools, Envelopes And Labels box. But
sometimes you may need to create an envelope that requires more
precise formatting. Remember that you can always format envelopes
precisely by adding your envelope to your document and creating text
on it as you would any other document. Begin by selecting Tools,
Envelopes And Labels and clicking the Add To Document button. Then,
choose View, Print Layout, and you'll see a white page that's a
WYSIWYG version of the envelope. Here, you can format text any way you
wish, with the same precision as in any other Word document. Neat,
huh?
As long as you have Word 2000 set up to generate bulleted lists
automatically (you do this by choosing Tools, AutoCorrect, clicking
the AutoFormat As You Type tab, and selecting the Automatic Bulleted
Lists option), you can insert several different kinds of lists with
just a few common keystrokes. For example, to begin a standard
bulleted list, simply type
*
and the list item, then press Enter. The asterisk will change to a
bullet, effectively beginning your bulleted list. Other bullet symbols
are available:
Type - to get a dash
Type -- to get a square block
Type > to get an arrow
Type -> to get a longer arrow
Type => to get a thicker arrow
When you're working with tables in Word 2000, nothing can be more
confusing than having the data in a single row split across two pages.
You don't want the person reading your document to have to flip back
and forth between pages just to figure out what a single row means.
You're better off making sure that your table rows don't split across
pages. To do this, first select your table by choosing Table, Select,
Table. Then, choose Table, Table Properties and click the Row tab.
Deselect the Allow Row To Break Across Pages option, and then click OK
to exit.
When working in a table, you hate to see part of a table cell's text
on one page and part on the next. Forcing the reader to flip back and
forth between pages to absorb information that is meant to be taken
together might be considered poor page design. To prevent table rows
from breaking across pages, choose Table, Table Properties and click
the Row tab. Deselect the Allow Row To Break Across Pages option and
click OK.
INSTALLING A PRINTER TWICE FOR SPECIAL PRINT SETTINGS
If you routinely print two different kinds of documents, each
requiring its own printer settings, you've probably found it
cumbersome to have to reenter all the printer properties every time
you change documents. You might find it easier to actually install the
same printer twice, but with different names and settings. This way,
you can simply select the "printer" (actually the group of print
settings) that you like the next time you execute your print job.
To install the printer with new print settings, select Start,
Settings, Printers, then click the Add Printer icon. Install the
printer as you would normally, inserting the driver disk if you have
it. When you come to the screen where you give your printer a name,
name it something that differentiates it from your default printer and
lets you know what the printer settings are. When you finish,
right-click on your new printer and select Properties. Enter the print
settings for your new printer icon and click OK. Now, when you want to
print using the new printer settings, you can just select the name
from your program's Print dialog box.
INSERTING THE TOTAL NUMBER OF PAGES IN A DOCUMENT FOOTER
Our explanation in a tip a while back was rather lengthy, and while it
worked, it wasn't nearly as easy as this solution. To insert the total
number of pages and the page number in the footer, simply position the
cursor in the footer and select Insert, AutoText, Header/Footer, Page
X Of Y. Wow, how much easier was that?
When you're working on a document, remember that you always have a
multitude of special characters just a few mouse clicks away. All the
most common foreign language characters, as well as accented vowels,
Greek letters, and so on, are available in the Special Characters
dialog box. To access the characters, choose Insert, Special
Characters and select a character from the grid. Note that as you roll
your mouse over the individual characters, a large version of the
character appears in a box so you can get a closer look at it.
If you know that you need to insert an entire document into another,
you can do so without opening the document you want to insert. With
the document you want to insert into open, you can simply go to the
desktop, find the document you want to insert, select it, and press
Ctrl-C to copy its contents to the Clipboard (the entire document is
copied automatically). Then, go back to your original document and
press Ctrl-V to paste.
INSERTING LINE BREAKS WITHOUT CREATING A NEW PARAGRAPH
By default, any time you press the Enter key you are in effect telling
Word that you wish to begin a new paragraph. Sometimes, though, you
want a series of short lines to retain the formatting of a single
paragraph, such as with an address or lines of poetry. To insert a
line break without inserting a new paragraph, simply press
Shift-Enter.
As any Word processing expert can tell you, there is a big difference,
stylistically speaking, between a hyphen and an em dash. An em dash is
the long dash (the width of the capital letter M, hence the name) used
to illustrate a break in a thought or idea. A hyphen is the familiar
-, used to join related words or parts of words. Back in the days of
the typewriter, a double hyphen was used to stand in for the em dash.
Word 2000 can be set up to insert em dashes for you, whenever you type
a double hyphen. Select Tools, AutoCorrect and click the AutoFormat As
You Type tab. Select the Symbol Characters (--) With Symbols (--)
check box, then click OK, and all your future double hyphens will
become em dashes automatically.
You probably already know how to insert clip art into a document in
Word 2000 (select Insert, Picture, Clip Art), but you may not have
experimented with inserting other kinds of image files. But you can,
you can. From GIFs to JPEGs to most image formats you can name, Word
2000 can accommodate them all. To insert an image, select Insert,
Picture, From File. Browse through your files until you find the image
you're looking for, and click OK. You will notice that your image is
inserted along the left edge of your document, anchored to the
previous paragraph. You'll probably want to move this image somewhere
else. To do so, you have to change the image from being an inline
graphic. Right-click on it and select Format Picture. Click the Layout
tab, select either In Front Of Text or Behind Text (depending on
whether you want to be able to read text through the image or not),
and click OK. You can now grab the image and drag it where you wish.
One of the ways word processors changed the world was to introduce all
kinds of fancy formatting features formerly reserved only for the
professionals. One example of this once out-of-reach formatting is the
drop cap, a large letter inserted at the beginning of a paragraph.
Inserting drop caps in Word 2000 is a cinch. Click inside the
paragraph you want to work with and select Format, Drop Cap. Choose
Dropped from the Position section and then specify Font and Lines To
Drop under Options. Lines To Drop tells Word how large to make your
letter--the number you choose will equal the number of lines the
letter reaches down. When you have the parameters the way you like,
click OK.
Our previous tip explained how to ensure that your columns are all the
same size by inserting a section break at the end of your last column.
It's also possible to end a column before the text reaches the bottom
of the column. Simply go to the point where you'd like to break and
choose Insert, Break, Column Break. The text splits off and begins in
the next column. This trick can be handy if you need the space in an
earlier column for another purpose.
Every professional writer knows the importance of a large word count.
If you're working on a document that has extensive footnotes or
endnotes, you'll certainly want to include those when it comes time to
take a word count. You wrote the words, did you not? Then you should
be paid for them. To include notes in your word count, choose Tools,
Word Count, and be sure to select the Include Footnotes And Endnotes
option.
One thing some people don't like, however, is Word 2000's overriding
desire to capitalize the first letter of each new line, and ask how to
change this. It's a function of AutoCorrect, and changing this setting
is pretty simple. Select Tools, AutoCorrect and deselect the
Capitalize First Letter Of Sentences option. Click OK, and you should
be able to start each line with a lowercase letter without a problem.
Art thou impressed?
Gridlines help you organize information visually while constructing a
table. While grayed-out gridlines don't show up when you print your
document, sometimes you want to see how the document looks without
them. You can get a quick look at how your table looks without
gridlines at any time by selecting Table, Hide Gridlines.
GETTING DOCUMENT PROPERTIES WITHOUT OPENING THE DOCUMENT
When you query the properties on most of your computer's files (by
right-clicking on a file and selecting Properties), you usually get
little more than a dialog window showing the document type and when it
was created. When you perform this action with a document created in
Word 2000, however, you gain access to so much more. All of a
document's properties--including statistics such as word count, number
of pages, and number of revisions--are available without opening Word
itself. Just right-click on any Word file on your computer and choose
Properties.
How to ensure that she gets a certain number of lines per page. Her
job required that each page of her documents have exactly 25 lines,
and she was tired of having to try all sorts of formatting tricks to
make it come out precisely. Our solution is to create a document
template that includes paragraph formatting appropriate for exactly 25
lines.
Although this takes just a minute, you'll have to format this document
only once. In Diane's case, open a new document and type 1 through 25
along the left edge, pressing Enter after each number. Next, issue the
Select All command (by pressing Ctrl-A) and choose Format, Paragraph.
Under Line Spacing, choose Exactly, and experiment with different
point sizes to see which fills a page with exactly 25 lines. (We found
that 25 pt. type, ironically, actually works for 12 pt. Times New
Roman.) When you've found it, delete all the excess text, then select
File, Save and choose Document Template. Choose a name that seems
appropriate and then open this template the next time you need exactly
25 lines per page.
All decent word processors have long supported the printing of labels,
and Word 2000 is no different. To format and print labels using Word
2000, select Tools, Envelopes And Labels and click the Labels tab.
From here, you can choose the kind of label you have by clicking
Options, selecting the correct label product, and choosing the type of
label from the list in the lower-left corner of the dialog box. Once
you've found the label you want to use, click OK. To enter text and
print on the appropriate label, the simplest way is to select Full
Text Of Same Label from the bottom and click New Document. You'll have
a visual representation of the label page, and you can click in the
appropriate box to enter the text.
How to insert the date into a document automatically and keep it from
updating once the document was finished. In other words, he wanted to
ensure that when he opened a letter some time after he created it, it
would display the date the letter was drafted rather than the current
date.
The key is, when inserting the date (by choosing Insert, Date And Time
and selecting a format) make sure the Update Automatically option is
not selected. When the option is enabled (and by default it is
whenever you select Insert, Date And Time), a field is inserted
instead of a string of text, and the field is updated continuously.
Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of Microsoft programmers? Just
kidding there--we're sure they're all very nice people. That joke was
just a clumsy way of introducing the concept of shadows. You see,
there was this radio program called "The Shadow," and... never mind.
But speaking of shadows, adding a shadow to a graphic, shape, or text
box gives the illusion of depth, which can make your document look
more dynamic. Word 2000 offers a rather incredible array of options
for shadowing objects. If you don't see your Drawing toolbar, select
View, Toolbars, Drawing. When you select your object and click the
Shadow button on the Drawing toolbar, you are given 20 shadow effects
from which to choose. But you're not limited to these settings--not by
a long shot. Click the Shadow Settings button in the Shadow tool, and
you can nudge the location of the shadow until you get it just so. In
addition, you can change the color of the shadow in the Shadow
Settings box by clicking on the small arrow on the right. More shadow
settings than you will ever use? Possibly. But it's nice to know
they're there, anyway.
It's easy to save and post Word documents as Web pages, but keep in
mind that not all formatting is preserved. If your document uses field
codes, for example, these codes will not make the transition to HTML.
So if you placed the date into your document by choosing Insert, Date
And Time, when you translate your document to HTML the date will
remain fixed on whatever it was when you converted the file. It will
not be updated.
When you're adding headlines or titles to sections of a document,
sometimes you need to be able to play with the text to make it fit
just so. To make adjustments to letter spacing, select Format, Font,
then click the Character Spacing tab. Under Spacing, choose either
Expanded or Condensed, then choose a value in the By box. The Preview
box at the bottom shows you what your text might look like when
expanded or condensed at the current value. When you think you have it
how you want it, click OK.
If you typically deal with a large amount of documents, you might find
it a good idea to enter summary information in the Document Properties
dialog box. Entering descriptive information about documents could be
useful later when you need to find the proverbial needle in the
haystack. If you like, you can configure Word 2000 to prompt you to
enter Document Properties automatically. Select Tools, Options, then
click the Save tab. Select the Prompt For Documents Properties option
and click OK. Every time you save a document, you'll be prompted to
enter description information in the Document Properties dialog box.
Everyone knows how frustrating it can be when you are typing furiously
while looking away from the screen and you accidentally push the Caps
Lock key. Having to back up and retype that sentence or two can be a
real time waster. There is a setting in Microsoft's Accessibility
Options that lets you know Caps Lock has been engaged by sounding a
tone. It's called Toggle Keys.
To enable Toggle Keys, select Start, Settings, Control Panel, and open
Accessibility Options. Select the Use Toggle Keys check box, and
Windows will let you know with little beeps whenever you engage or
disengage Caps Lock, Num Lock, or Scroll Lock. Once you get used to
the sounds, you'll always know your lock settings without looking at
your computer screen.
Those unlucky enough to have been involved in litigation may have
noticed that documents filed with courts are usually numbered along
the left side of the page. The purpose of this numbering is so that
attorneys and other people who refer to these documents can cite a
specific line or phrase with pinpoint accuracy, eliminating any
possible ambiguity. If you're ever working on a document that requires
line numbering, Word 2000 is equipped to handle it.
When you create a document that requires line numbers, first choose
File, Page Setup. Click the Layout tab and click the Line Numbers box.
Select the Add Line Numbering option and configure the other boxes to
correspond to the scheme you have in mind. Click OK twice to save your
settings.
When you're spell checking a document in Word 2000, it's a good idea
to add words like your name that you use frequently but that aren't
recognized by Word's dictionary. You do this by selecting Add from the
choices in the Spelling dialog box. The word is placed in your custom
dictionary and won't be flagged the next time you check spelling. If
you ever wonder what words you have in your custom dictionary, you can
view and edit it any time you like.
Select Tools, Options and click the Spelling And Grammar tab. Click
the Dictionaries button, then select your custom dictionary (most
likely called CUSTOM.DIC) and click Edit. Word will issue a warning
letting you know that it turns off automatic spell checking whenever
you edit the custom dictionary, which is fine--we can turn it on
later. Just click OK, and you'll see a text file containing the words
in your custom dictionary, which you can edit and delete at will. When
you've made the changes you want, close the document and tell Word you
want to save the changes. Be sure to turn Check Spelling When You Type
back on by choosing Tools, Options, clicking the Spelling And Grammar
tab, and checking the appropriate box.
Our previous tip showed you how to make a document template that
includes special paragraph formatting. Now, suppose you look at this
template later and decide you want to modify it. You can't just open
it, change things, and save it, because templates open a new blank
document with a name like "Document 1." The way to modify a template
is to either open it from within Word (without double-clicking on the
icon, by selecting File, Open) or to right-click on the icon and
select Open. It's the double-click on the icon that triggers the
template to open a copy of a new document using the template, instead
of the template itself.
Our previous tip pointed out that you can view the contents of any
footnote or endnote in Word 2000 simply by rolling your cursor over
the note's citation. If you need to make a correction after viewing
your notes, the ability to edit the note is just two clicks away.
Rather than making the footnotes or endnotes visible, or scrolling to
the end of your document, every footnote or endnote is accessible
simply by double-clicking the note's citation.
If you're a whiz with the mouse, you might want to try moving text in
a Word document simply by dragging and dropping it. To drag and drop
text, just select the word, sentence, or paragraph you want to move,
click and hold it, and drag the selected text to another place in your
document. When you release the mouse button, the text moves to the new
location.
Ask any attorney who regularly deals with contracts, and they'll tell
you that the ability to track changes is one of the most important
features of a word processor. Word 2000 offers great flexibility for
tracking document revisions. To get you started tracking document
changes, choose Tools, Track Changes, Highlight Changes. Select both
the Track Changes While Editing and Highlight Changes On Screen
options and click OK. Word 2000 will now keep track of any revisions
you make to the document, marking revisions in red and using
strikethrough to indicate deletions and underlining to indicate
additions. Using this feature, you can see exactly what you've changed
and when (by rolling the cursor over the revised text), and you can
refer to all your deleted text later. In our next tip, we'll discuss
how to accept or reject individual changes.
DOCUMENT REVISIONS--PART 2 OF 6: ACCEPTING OR REJECTING CHANGES
INDIVIDUALLY
In our previous tip, we introduced you to Word 2000's
revision-tracking capabilities. By tracking document revisions, you
can monitor who made changes and when without losing the deleted text.
Eventually, the time will come to review all the proposed changes and
make a decision about whether they'll go into the final document. To
review changes and accept or reject them individually, right-click on
the highlighted revision and select either Accept Change or Reject
Change. The revised passage will no longer be highlighted, and the
change will become regular text.
DOCUMENT REVISIONS--PART 3 OF 6: ACCEPTING OR REJECTING CHANGES ALL AT
ONCE
In this series of tips, we've discussed Word 2000's revision-tracking
capabilities. Today, we'll cover what to do if you want to accept all
revision changes at once. It takes a certain amount of confidence to
use this technique, as you have to be sure all revisions are exactly
where you want them without looking at each individually. But if
you're someone who tracks changes purely as a precautionary measure,
and not to go over in detail later, you'd probably feel comfortable
with accepting your revisions in one fell swoop. To accept or reject
all revision changes at once, right-click on any highlighted revision
and select Accept Or Reject Changes. Click either the Accept All or
Reject All button, and Word will ask you to verify your choice. Click
Yes, and the changes will be implemented all at once.
DOCUMENT REVISIONS--PART 4 OF 6: TRACKING CHANGES WITHOUT HIGHLIGHTING
REVISIONS
In this series of tips, we've discussed Word 2000's revision-tracking
capabilities. While highlighted revisions are great for seeing how a
document progresses, they can also make for difficult reading. You can
turn off the revision highlights at any time to see the document how
it stands in its most recent form. The revisions are still tracked,
but Word 2000 does so invisibly. To turn off the revision highlights,
choose Tools, Track Changes; deselect the Highlight Changes Onscreen
option; and click OK.
DOCUMENT REVISIONS--PART 5 OF 6: MERGING VERSIONS OF AN EDITED
DOCUMENT
In this series of tips, we've discussed Word 2000's revision-tracking
capabilities. Suppose you give a document for editing to several
people at the same time. Word 2000 allows you to merge each of the
edited copies back into the original so you can have all the changes
in one place. To merge the originals with the edited versions, have
the original open and choose Tools, Merge Documents. Browse through
your files, select one of the edited copies, and click OK. Repeat the
process until you've merged all copies. Each set of edits will appear
in the original document in a different color, so you can tell who
made each change. You can then accept or reject the changes as you
would normally, or abnormally, whichever you prefer...
DOCUMENT REVISIONS--PART 6 OF 6: ADJUSTING FORMATTING OF REVISIONS
In this series of tips, we've discussed Word 2000's revision-tracking
capabilities. By default, Word 2000 marks insertions with an underline
and deletions with a strikethrough. If these revision marks don't suit
your taste, you can change them. Choose Tools, Options and click the
Track Changes tab. Here you can set how word tracks the aforementioned
changes as well as changes to formatting and lines. When you have the
settings the way you want them, click OK.
Word 2000 allows you to adjust the widths of table columns easily--all
you have to do is position the cursor over the edge of a column until
it turns into a slider tool, then move the edge left or right to your
heart's content. You may find, however, that after all of your column
adjustments, your table looks a little screwy. You may regret those
column adjustments and want your table to look like it did in the
beginning. You can have that old table back--you just have to tell
Word to distribute the columns evenly. Select your columns, then
choose Table, AutoFit, Distribute Columns Evenly.
Most kinds of large-scale formatting you do to a Word document apply
to the section in which they were applied. If you're working in simple
documents with a single section, you need never worry about how
section breaks work. But if you're working in a document with any
complexity, you'll probably want to break your document into sections
by table of contents, chapters and indexes, and so on.
By breaking your document into sections, you can be sure that each
section can be formatted exactly how you like without worrying how it
will affect the rest of your document. To add a section break to a
document, simply choose Insert, Break. The resulting dialog box allows
you to choose from several kinds of section breaks. Next Page inserts
a page break and begins the section on the next page. Continuous
begins a new section but doesn't break the page. Even Page and Odd
Page insert a section break on the next even or odd page,
respectively. Use these breaks for printed material or reports where
you want your new section to begin on a certain page (think of books,
where chapters usually begin on odd pages).
Last month one of our readers asked how to delete a table in Word
2000. When deleting a table, the first thing you should ask yourself
is exactly what you want to delete. If you want to cleanse your table
of all information but keep the structure intact, you should first
click and drag with your mouse to select the cells you want to delete,
and then press the Delete key. If you want to do away with your entire
table, the best and cleanest method is to click on any cell inside the
table and choose Table, Delete, Table.
When you select a style from the drop-down menu on the left of the
Formatting toolbar, those symbols on the right edge of the style's
title box give you some clues as to what the style actually does. For
example, let's look at the symbols that accompany the default Heading
1 style in the Style drop-down menu (you can look at these by clicking
the Style menu once and not selecting anything). We see the horizontal
lines lined up along the left, which tells us that the style is left
justified. We see the number 16, which tells us that the style uses a
16-point font. We see the paragraph symbol, which tells us that this
style is a paragraph style and not a character style. And in the
typeface for the Heading 1 style itself, we can see that the font for
this style is Arial. (You have to know what Arial looks like to know
this--styles are always listed using their own fonts.)
Word 2000's menus offer dozens of common commands at the click of a
mouse, but sometimes they forget something. If one of your most
frequently accessed commands remain inaccessible via the menu, then
you should just go right ahead and make your own menu. It's easy.
First, you'll need to open the Customize dialog box by choosing Tools,
Customize. On the Commands tab, scroll to the bottom of the categories
list until you see an entry for New Menu. Select New Menu from the
list, grab the New Menu entry from the right column, and drag it to
the menu bar. You'll see black lines that indicate where the menu will
appear. When you have the menu in place, release the mouse.
Now you need to name your menu. With the Customize window still open,
right-click on the menu and you'll see a box that contains the menu
name. Click in the box and enter a name for your new menu. In our next
tip, we'll cover how to add functions to your custom menu.
In this series of tips, we're discussing custom menus in Word 2000.
Now that you have your menu named and in place, it's time to add some
functions to it. Once again, choose Tools, Customize and click the
Commands tab. In the left column, you'll see a long list of the
various categories of commands, and on the right, you'll see the
commands that fall into the selected category. You can search through
this extensive list, choose any category, grab a command from the
right column, and drag it to your new menu. When you finish adding
commands to your custom menu, just close the Customize window and
you're ready to go.
In this series of tips, we're discussing custom menus in Word 2000. If
you like the idea of creating menus but don't want to add another item
to the menu bar, you should know that you can just as easily add
custom menus to any of the toolbars in Word 2000. The process is very
similar. Begin by selecting Tools, Customize. On the Commands tab,
scroll to the bottom until you see New Menu, then select it in the
left column. On the right, drag the New Menu command, and instead of
putting it on the menu bar, place it where you like on any of Word's
toolbars.
In this series of tips, we've discussed custom menus in Word 2000. If
you find that the custom menu you added to a toolbar or the menu bar
just isn't working out and you want to get rid of it, there's an easy
way. Once again, choose Tools, Customize. With the Customize window
open, simply right-click on the menu in question and select Delete.
Your menu bar or toolbar is back to its original state--right where
you want it.
A reader named Dick wrote in to ask how to print multiple copies of an
envelope. Dick was frustrated with the fact that after he chose Tools,
Envelopes And Labels and entered the addresses, he could print only a
single envelope before the dialog box was reset, forcing him to repeat
the process to get multiple copies. The easiest and most surefire way
to print multiple copies of the same envelope is to add the envelope
to your document and then print multiple copies from the standard
print window.
To do this, first select Tools, Envelopes And Labels and enter the
address as you would normally. Then click the Add To Document button,
and you'll see that your envelope is inserted as the first page of
your document. Click on the page with the envelope and choose File,
Print. In the resulting dialog box, select Current Page under Print
Range, select the correct number of copies, and click OK.
If you're the paranoid type who worries about your Word documents
becoming corrupted (who was it who said the paranoid man is the one
who knows the truth?), you can set Word 2000 to create backup copies
of your documents automatically, without you having to do a thing.
Select Tools, Options and click the Save tab. Select the Always Create
Backup Copy option and click OK. A backup copy of your file, with the
extension .wbk, is automatically created in the same folder as the
original, and it is updated every time you save your original.
CREATING A NEW WORD DOCUMENT FROM THE WINDOWS DESKTOP
In Windows 98, normally you use the File, New command to create
folders, shortcuts, and the like. If you prefer, you can also use this
command to create a new Word document. This is a handy option if you
want to start a document as a sort of placeholder, such as when you're
browsing through your work folder and suddenly remember that you need
to write a memo. To create a new Word document from the Windows 98
desktop, just navigate to the folder where you want the document to
appear and select File, New, Microsoft Word Document. You can also
right-click on the Windows 98 desktop and select New, Microsoft Word
Document to create a Word document on the desktop.
Long ago, we spilled some coffee on a keyboard, and the Caps Lock key
has never been the same. We have to be sure to punch the Caps Lock key
extra hard to both engage and disengage it, a nuisance that leads to
the occasional sentence tHAT LOOKS sOMETHING lIKE tHIS.
FORTUNATELY--excuse me, fortunately--Word 2000 has a handy little
feature that automatically corrects a few words of this kind of error,
meaning I don't have to delete and retype the whole thing. To engage
this AutoCorrect feature, select Tools, AutoCorrect, and click the
AutoCorrect tab. Select the Correct Accidental Usage Of Caps Lock Key
option, and then click OK.
Text boxes are useful whenever you position text on the page in an
unorthodox way. If you find that you need a series of identical text
boxes, there's a handy little trick for duplicating them. Click on the
edge of the original text box to select it, and then press the Ctrl
key. You'll see that the cursor turns into a small plus sign. All you
have to do then is grab the edge of the text box, and the original is
duplicated. Place the copy wherever you want.
Our previous tip pointed out that you need to add section breaks to
your document to change headers. The more you use Word 2000, the more
you realize that it makes sense to divide your documents into
individual sections whenever you change formatting. Section breaks
allow you to accomplish such tasks as change page orientation, insert
columns, and add new headers and footers to pages. If you want to
re-create the formatting of a specific section elsewhere in your
document, remember that you can copy section formatting from one place
and paste it somewhere else. The key is to remember that an individual
section's formatting is anchored to the section break that follows it.
To copy a section break, go to the end of the section you want to
replicate, select the lines that represent the break, and press
Ctrl-C. You may then paste this section break where you like. Keep in
mind that you want to paste it after the text you wish to reformat.
Also remember that this action will reformat all previous text back
through the prior section break.
If you're cutting and pasting repeatedly in a document, you may grow
tired of seeing the newfangled Word 2000 Clipboard (which features
your last 12 cuts) popping up with every paste. To clear the contents
of the Clipboard, right-click on the Standard toolbar, select
Clipboard, and click the Clear Clipboard button at the right of the
toolbar. All your previous cuts and pastes are wiped clean. Close the
toolbar and return to your work.
As with Excel and PowerPoint, Word 2000 allows you to insert and
manipulate charts in your documents. For the next few days, we'll take
a peek at some of the ways you can use charts. Charts add zip to your
document, illustrating graphically numerical data that would just
slide by in common prose. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a
chart's gotta be worth a couple thou, easy.
The first thing you'll need to know is how to insert a chart into a
document (you'll need to have some data handy, of course, but we'll
deal with that later). Select Insert, Picture, Chart, and a small
applet called Microsoft Graph opens. A sample datasheet and chart also
appear. The datasheet contains the information that the chart
represents graphically, but it remains invisible when you print your
document.
Next time, we'll discuss entering data in the chart.
CHARTS--PART 2 OF 5: ENTERING DATA IN THE DATASHEET
In this series of tips, we're examining the built-in chart features of
Word 2000. To insert a simple chart into your document, select Insert,
Picture, Chart. This opens both a datasheet, which looks like a small
spreadsheet, and a sample graph. Now, to enter data in your chart
using the datasheet, first determine what kind of data you want the
chart to display. The default headings for your chart pertain to what
seems to be some kind of vague financial data, with the vertical axis
listing three different companies and the horizontal axis listing
quarterly projections or earnings. However, you aren't stuck with
these vague headings. Depending on what kind of chart you're creating,
you can give the headings any label you wish. Simply click in any of
the heading boxes and start typing. You can also add or delete rows
and columns much in the same way you would for a Word table.
Next time, we'll show you how to select different types of charts.
CHARTS--PART 3 OF 5: SELECTING DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHARTS
In this series of tips, we're examining the built-in chart features of
Word 2000. By default, Word 2000 opens a simple chart that lists three
kinds of data over four periods, but this is only one of an infinite
number of possibilities for charts. The kind of data you're dealing
with--and the way you want to present it--will dictate the formatting
for your chart.
First, you need to insert a chart by selecting Insert, Picture, Chart.
You can then choose the kind of chart you want to use by
right-clicking on the chart and selecting Chart Type. You'll see
upwards of a dozen different kinds of charts in the left column, more
than we ever knew existed, including Doughnut charts (which
unfortunately have nothing to do with measuring how delicious
doughnuts are), Radar charts, and Column charts. Click on any of the
charts in the left column, and on the right you'll see a handy
one-line description and several examples of what the chart looks
like. The best thing to do when you're just starting is to experiment
with different chart types to see which best expresses the kind of
data you're dealing with.
CHARTS--PART 4 OF 5: CHANGING THE LAYOUT OF A CHART
In this series of tips, we're examining the built-in chart features of
Word 2000. Our previous tip gave a brief overview of how to select
from among the different kinds of charts. First, you need to insert a
chart by choosing Insert, Picture, Chart. In addition to selecting the
type of chart (by right-clicking on the chart and selecting Chart
Type), you can tweak many of the display details of an individual
chart by right-clicking the chart and selecting Chart Options. You can
choose how gridlines are displayed, which axes will correspond to
which pieces of data, and so on.
In this series of tips, we've examined the built-in chart features of
Word 2000. What if you already have a bunch of data entered in a table
in Word 2000? Do you need to enter it all over again to turn it into a
chart? No, not at all. Translating your table into a chart is simple,
and you don't have to repeat any data entry. First, select the table
by choosing Table, Select, Table. Then, select Insert, Picture, Chart,
and Word will automatically launch the Chart applet using your table's
data as its foundation. You'll notice that Chart creates a datasheet
that mimics the layout of your table. This means you can delete your
now-redundant table, and both the datasheet (which is typically
invisible when you look at the document) and the Chart itself remains.
Word 2000 comes with a default envelope size of 4 1/8" x 9 1/2". If
you typically work with a different size envelope, adjusting the size
is easy. Go to Tools, Envelopes And Labels, and click the Envelopes
tab. Click Options, and choose a different envelope size from the
pull-down menu. When you find the six you need, click OK.
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CHANGING THE NUMBER OF RECENTLY USED FILES
If you commonly switch between a few different projects when using
Word 2000, you probably open documents frequently using the Recently
Used Files list at the bottom of the File menu. To obtain maximum
functionality with this feature, try increasing the number of recently
used documents visible. Select Tools, Options and click the General
tab. Under Recently Used Files List, increase the number from its
current value using the Up arrow. If you make it too large, your File
menu could become unwieldy, but bump it up a couple notches to have
quick access to more files.
Is it possible to change the folders in the Look In area of the Open
dialog box. He has little use for the History, Web Folders, and
Favorites folders and wants to substitute some of the folders he
actually uses. Unfortunately, we don't know of a way to change these
preset folders. It is possible that you could accomplish this with
registry changes (we will look into it), but nothing in Word 2000
itself seems to allow for it. It is possible, however, to change the
default folder for saving and opening documents. While this isn't
quite as useful, if you arrange your files properly, it's better than
having to work from the My Documents folder by default.
To change the default folder for saving documents, choose Tools,
Options, then click the File Locations tab. Select Documents, and then
click the Modify button. From there, browse to the folder you would
like to make your default, select it, and click OK twice to exit.
How to change the default font size for documents in Word 2000. To
change the default font size for documents created using the normal
template (which is the default template every time you create a new
document in Word), choose Format, Font to open the Font dialog box.
Select from any font, font style, and size, and then click the Default
button. Click OK, and the font you selected becomes the default for
your new documents.
By default, Word 2000 first offers to save documents in your My
Documents folder. While this makes sense, let's face it: EVERY
application wants a piece of your My Documents folder, and unless you
make some changes, the folder will soon be overflowing with stray
files. Fortunately, you can tell Word 2000 to save your documents in
another folder by default. Choose Tools, Options and click the File
Locations tab. Select Documents, and then click the Modify button.
From here, you can browse and find an appropriate folder for your Word
documents. When you find the folder you want, click OK.
CHANGING THE DEFAULT DIRECTORY FOR SAVED DOCUMENTS
Hhow to change the default directory for saved documents. He had two
hard disks and wanted his documents saved in a folder on his D drive,
not in the generic My Documents folder. To change the default folder
for storing documents, select Tools, Options, and click the File
Locations tab. In the File Types section, click Documents and then
click Modify. In the Modify Location dialog box, browse your computer
and find the folder you want to be your default. Select it, click OK,
and then click Close.
How to change the formatting of dates in Word 2000. There are many
situations in Word 2000 where the date is entered and updated
automatically, yet the format used by Word may not be in accordance
with your preferred method. Specifically, Henry wanted to know how to
change the dates from
July 1, 2000
to
1 July 2000
It's a simple thing to change. Choose Insert, Date And Time and select
the desired date format from the list on the left. Then, click the
Default button and click OK. Voila! The date you chose becomes the
default date format for all your new Word documents.
Many times, you will want different page headers for different parts
of your document. You might, for example, want the header to be the
title of the specific chapter. The key to having different headings in
different parts of your document is to divide the various parts of
your document into sections. Inserting a section break resets all of
your header and footer settings, allowing you to create new headers
and footers. To insert a section break, simply choose Insert, Break
and select from among the various kinds of section breaks.
If you have a lengthy document that uses fonts of several different
sizes, there's a little trick you can use to increase or decrease all
the various font sizes by the same amount while maintaining the fonts'
point-size difference. First, press Ctrl-A to select all the text in
your document. Then, press either Ctrl-] (the close bracket key) to
bump all font sizes up a point or Ctrl-[ (the open bracket key) to
decrease them all by a point. This saves you from having to redo each
separate font size individually.
Word 2000 comes with hundreds of pre-installed Clip Art images. Around
half of these are full-color, which is great if you have a color
printer. Some of us, though, aren't so lucky, and we could use a
simple technique for converting color Clip Art images to grayscale for
easy printing. First, you'll need to make sure you have the correct
toolbar; right-click on the Standard toolbar and select Picture. Next,
select your image, click the Image Control button (it looks like four
small boxes in one and appears on the left side of the toolbar), and
select Grayscale. Your Clip Art colors are converted to their
corresponding shades of gray.
AUTOMATICALLY EXECUTING A WORD MACRO WHEN WORD LAUNCHES
Is it possible to have a Word macro run whenever Word 2000 was
launched. It is indeed. Naming your macro Autoexec when you create it
(by selecting Tools, Macro, then entering the name in the Macro Name
text box) is your way of telling Word 2000 to run the macro whenever
Word launches.
ARRANGING HEADINGS FOR YOUR DOCUMENTS IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
If for any reason you find that you need to arrange the headings in
your document in alphabetical order (you're preparing a glossary, for
example), you can do so. First, choose View, Outline View and click
the Show Heading 1 button. Next, choose Table, Sort. Select Paragraphs
under Sort By and Text under Type. Click OK, and your headings, along
with the associated text beneath them, will be alphabetized.
Is it possible to animate text in Word 2000. It is indeed, but if you
have any appreciation for subtlety (or a predisposition for
light-triggered seizures), text animation should be used sparingly. To
animate text in a Word document, select it and choose Format, Font.
Then, click the Text Effects tab, where you can choose from a half
dozen different text effects--from "Las Vegas Lights" to "Marching Red
Ants." Go ahead; knock yourself out.
If you work on a document that contains a series of text boxes,
graphics, and shapes in addition to text, you're going to need to tell
Word how you want the various objects to overlap with one another.
Each object in your document will need to be assigned a layer, which
will tell Word whether the object goes in front of or behind other
objects.
The four different layers in Word 2000 are, from top to bottom:
Foreground layer
Text layer
Background layer
Header/Footer layer
The foreground layer is the topmost, and graphics in this layer will
cover any underlying objects and text. The text layer resides between
the foreground layer and the background layer, and it is reserved for
text only. The background layer is beneath the text, and finally, the
header/footer layer is the bottommost layer, reserved for objects you
wish to use as watermarks. Our next tip will cover how to move objects
between layers.
If you want to make your list items stand out with larger bullets, you
can adjust the size of your bullets by changing their font size.
Select Format, Bullets And Numbering; click the kind of bullet you
want to use; and then click the Customize button. Click the Font
button, and then select a size from the Font Size menu on the right.
In the Preview window at the bottom of the dialog box, you can see
what size bullet you're dealing with before you click OK.
Our previous tip showed you how to change Word's Envelopes And Labels
settings to accommodate different kinds of store-bought labels.
Occasionally, you might find that the settings Word 2000 has in its
database are incorrect and your labels don't print properly. If you
have an idea of your labels' proper dimensions, you might be able to
adjust Word's existing settings to make Word work for your labels.
First, choose Tools, Envelopes And Labels and click the Labels tab.
Click the Options button and select your label from the Label Products
and Product Number drop-down menus. Then, click the Details button,
and you'll see a dialog box that shows you Word's settings for the
label. If you see something that looks amiss--such as a measurement
that is incorrect or a mistaken number of columns--you can adjust it
here and give your label another try. Once you've changed the
settings, you'll need to give a new name to your custom label (Word
leaves the original settings intact) and then click OK.
If you're working on a long paper that needs to hit a certain word
count, it might be worthwhile to have the word count print on each of
your drafts so you can get an idea of length when you review the
document. First, move to the very end of your document, which is
probably the best place to insert the word count field. Then choose
Insert, Field; select Document Information from the category on the
left; and choose NumPages from the fields on the right. Word
automatically inserts a field containing the number of words in your
document. Note that you'll need to right-click on the field and select
Update Field in order to get a proper word count each time you print a
draft of your document.
ADDING THE ENGLISH POUND SYMBOL AS A KEYBOARD COMMAND
First, select Insert, Symbol and click the Symbols tab. Select the
pound symbol and click the Shortcut Key button. The resulting dialog
box allows you to choose a key sequence for the pound symbol. Try a
few different key sequences, keeping in mind that it should be both an
available combination (Ctrl-S is already used for saving documents,
for example) and something you can remember. We found that
Alt-Ctrl-Shift-L was available and selected that. When you finish,
click OK, and your new keyboard shortcut will allow you to insert the
symbol with the press of a few buttons.
Adding some shading to a paragraph is a great way to make it stand
out, particularly if you're working on something like a newsletter. To
add shading to a paragraph, click inside it and select Format, Borders
And Shading. Click the Shading tab and choose a color from the graphic
on the left. Be sure to choose something light enough so that your
text is still legible. When you have a color you want, click OK. It's
just that simple.
We've been experimenting with columns to expand page layout options.
One last little nicety before we move on is inserting lines between
columns; in addition to looking sharp and professional, lines can make
your document easier to read. To insert lines between columns, choose
Format, Columns and select the Line Between option on the right. Click
OK, and an elegant line now separates one column from the next.
Clip Art is great, but sometimes something simpler will do. Instead of
a detailed drawing of a golf ball, sometimes you just want to draw a
circle. Word 2000 lets you draw perfect circles, squares, ellipses,
octagons, and just about any geometric shape you can imagine. All
these shapes are at your fingertips when you use what Word calls
AutoShapes. To insert an AutoShape into a document, first display the
Drawing toolbar by right-clicking the Standard toolbar and choosing
Drawing. Then, click the AutoShapes button on the Drawing toolbar and
find the shape you're looking for. Once you've made your selection,
click and hold on the screen and use your mouse to draw the shape. If
you hold down the Shift key while drawing, the shape will retain its
symmetry. Release the mouse when you've finished, and the AutoShape is
in your document.
Word 2000's AutoCorrect feature is a timesaving way to customize your
word processing program. You probably find that you make similar
spelling mistakes repeatedly, and by having Word correct them
automatically, you can just keep typing. While using AutoCorrect will
do nothing to correct your overall spelling skills, it will help you
get your word documents completed faster. The next time you check your
spelling, ask yourself if the particular spelling mistake is one you
often make. If it is, instead of selecting the correct word from the
list, choose AutoCorrect instead of Change, and Word 2000 will start
making the corrections without asking. Neat, huh?
In our previous tip, we showed you how to add a button to a toolbar.
Today we'll show you how to add a button that is hyperlinked to a Web
document. Let's say you want to put a link on your Word 2000 toolbar
to the Dictionary.com Web site. Choose Tools, Customize to display the
Customize dialog box, then click Commands. Insert a random button from
the list on the right (it doesn't matter what the button is because
we're going to change it) using the trick we showed you in our
previous tip--by clicking the button and dragging it to a spot on the
toolbar. Once your button is on the toolbar, select a new image for it
by right-clicking on it and clicking Change Button Image. With your
new icon in place, right-click on the button and select Assign
Hyperlink, Open. In the resulting dialog box, enter the name of the
Web site you want to link to, in our case:
http://www.dictionary.com
and then click OK. This Web page will be launched in your default
Internet browser when you click the button.
Word 2000 toolbars are generally laid out logically, and they cover
most commands you need in the course of a standard word processing
situation. However, sometimes the preset buttons are not enough.
Sometimes you need more. If you've ever wished you could add your
favorite menu command to the Word 2000 toolbar, today is your lucky
day.
Begin by choosing Tools, Customize and clicking the Commands tab. From
here, you can browse the classes of commands on the left and insert
the specific commands on the right. To insert a command on the
toolbar, simply grab it in the window in the Customize dialog box and
place it on the toolbar above your Word document. It's a little
confusing at first, because you're probably not accustomed to grabbing
something from a dialog box in this manner, but once you get used to
it, this trick is a snap.
If you find yourself working on a truly huge document, you owe it to
yourself to use bookmarks to get around. Bookmarks allow you to mark
sections of your document that you can then jump to with a couple of
clicks. To add a bookmark to a document, put the insertion point where
you want the bookmark to be and select Insert, Bookmark. Choose a name
for your bookmark (the name can't include spaces) and click OK. You
can access this place in the document by choosing Insert, Bookmark to
open the Bookmark dialog box and double-clicking on the bookmark name
to jump to it.
When you're working on a document in Print Layout view, any headers
and footers you've inserted are visible but "grayed out" (to show that
the text lies outside the page margin). You probably already know that
you can access these headers and footers at any time to make changes
by selecting View, Header And Footer. You may not know that there's a
quicker way to access this portion of your document. While in Print
Layout view, you can access any header or footer simply by
double-clicking in the grayed-out area. This both allows you to edit
the header or footer and opens the Header And Footer toolbar.
Can we agree that not every Word 2000 tip has to help you navigate a
life-or-death word processing situation? Can't some tips be just about
fun? Yes? Good. Here's a fun little tip using Word 2000's AutoText
feature. Any time you type
:)
with AutoText on, Word 2000 will automatically replace the clumsy,
antiquated "emoticon" with a genuine, upright, circle-and-two eyes
smiley face. Now wasn't that fun?
----------------------------------------------
A RULE OF THUMB FOR NUMBERING PAGES
Page numbering in Word 2000 can be confusing. You can insert page
numbers from the body of your document or in the header or footer, and
in each case, you can format the page numbers in many ways. The most
important thing to remember when you're deciding how you want to
number the pages of your document is that if you have any information
in your header or footer, it's best to insert the page number from
there. When you choose Insert, Page Numbers while in the body of your
document, Word assumes that your footer will be blank and it numbers
accordingly. If you add text to your footer after inserting page
numbers from the body of your document, your footer gets jumbled, and
the layout looks awkward. So remember, if you have text in your
footers, insert your page numbers using the Header And Footer toolbar.
Any time you need to format a paragraph--whether it involves changing
the line spacing or adjusting the indentation--remember that you only
need to have your insertion point inside a paragraph to format it; you
don't need to select the entire paragraph. Any time your insertion
point is inside a paragraph, you can simply choose Format, Paragraph
to make the necessary adjustments. Similarly, you can format two
adjacent paragraphs by selecting just a line or two in each. With the
mouse, click and drag from the last line of the first paragraph into
the second line of the next--don't worry about selecting whole
paragraphs.
When you add a tab stop to the ruler in Word 2000 by clicking on the
ruler, sometimes you find that the tab isn't quite where you want it.
Rather than selecting tab stops and deleting them manually, the fast
and easy way to get rid of them is to drag them off the ruler with the
mouse by hand. Once a tab stop has left the ruler, it loses its reason
for existence and vanishes.
Whenever you want to turn one table cell into two or more, you select
it; choose Table, Split Cells; and then specify how you want to split
the cells by adjusting the rows and columns settings. When performing
this operation, you may have wondered what that Merge Cells Before
Split option does. When this option is enabled (which it is by
default), Word takes however many cells you've selected and applies
the new number of rows and columns to the total per your
specifications. When this option is deselected, Word takes your
figures for rows and columns, and applies them to each individual
cell, not the sum of all the cells. Experiment with this feature and
you'll quickly see how it works.
Whenever you want to adjust the margin settings of a document, you
have two options. You can either grab and drag the margin controls on
the ruler, or you can select File, Page Setup and click the Margins
tab. If you're working in a multipage document, your best bet is to
use the File, Page Setup method. As long as you have Apply To Whole
Document selected, your can count on your margin settings to be
applied to your entire document. Adjusting the sliding rulers, on the
other hand, applies the margin settings only to the current section by
default. And if you adjust the margin settings in the middle of a
multipage document, Word 2000 will automatically create a new section
for the page with the new margin settings and apply them to that
section only.
We typically work in Normal View because we find that it makes text
easy to read. (It also seems to speed system performance a bit,
because Word doesn't have to work to render the pages.) However,
working in Normal View does have some disadvantages. For example,
Normal does not allow you to see any graphics, clip art, or drawing
objects. If you think you have these in your document and you can't
see them, you're probably in the wrong view mode. Just select View,
Page Layout to get a look at your graphics and how your document looks
on the page.
If you've ever written a sentence and wished you could take it back,
there is a keyboard shortcut for you. If you hold down the Ctrl key
while clicking in a sentence, the entire sentence is selected
automatically. All you have to do then is press Delete, and that
terrible sentence just disappears.
Any time you need to perform the same action in Word repeatedly,
remember that there's a keyboard shortcut for repeating commands, and
there's no reason why you have to keep picking up the mouse. Let's say
you remember that all quoted paragraphs in your document need to be
indented. You don't have to select each paragraph, choose Format,
Paragraph, and adjust the proper settings. Instead, simply perform the
action the first time and after that just select the paragraph and
press Ctrl-Y. Ctrl-Y repeats the previous action on the current
selection and can save you a lot of time.
If you create documents that frequently include footnotes or endnotes,
you don't want to have to reach for that mouse to choose Insert,
Footnote every time. Better to use a keyboard shortcut for speed.
Press Alt-Ctrl-F at any time to insert a footnote, and press
Alt-Ctrl-E to insert an endnote. This action also opens either the
footnote or endnote box directly, with the insertion point positioned
and ready to go, without having to make a selection from the Footnote
And Endnote dialog box.
A little while back we ran some tips on columns in Word 2000,
including one on how to insert column breaks to format text more
precisely. We gave you the menu commands for inserting column breaks,
which involved choosing Insert, Break, Column Breaks. A reader named
Rod wrote in to give us a keyboard shortcut that does the same thing,
and we are grateful. To insert a column break, simply press
Ctrl-Shift-Enter. Thanks, Rob.
A FASTER WAY TO PRINT MULTIPLE COPIES OF ENVELOPES
A while back, we wrote a tip that detailed how to print multiple
copies of a single envelope by attaching the envelope to a Word
document. A reader named Raoul wrote in to offer a simpler solution
for those who just want to print an extra copy or two. Any time you
print an envelope, you can immediately select Edit, Repeat Envelopes
And Labels to print another copy (and you can repeat this process as
many times as you wish). While this may not be the best solution if
you have 15 copies to print, it is much easier if you're going to be
printing only a few. Keep in mind that if you do any work after
printing your initial envelope, this option disappears from the Edit
menu, so be sure to print that extra copy right away.
A DESCRIPTION OF HEADER AND FOOTER COMMANDS--PART 1 OF 2
The Header And Footer toolbar is not one of the better examples of
design in Word 2000. It's difficult to figure out what all the buttons
mean intuitively, and you may find yourself relying on trial and error
to see what they do. We'll give you a quick rundown on some of the
Header And Footer toolbar buttons.
First, make the toolbar visible by selecting View, Header And Footer.
Insert AutoText inserts items like the document name into the header
or footer. Insert Page Number puts the page number into the header or
footer. The Format Page Number button allows you to control where and
how the page number is displayed. Insert Number Of Pages allows you
insert the total number of pages into the footer (more on this later).
Insert Date inserts either the date the document was opened or, if you
print the document, the date it was printed. Same goes for Insert
Time. The Page Setup button opens the Layout tab of the Page Setup
dialog box. Show/Hide Document Text allows you to look at your header
or footer with or without the document text to check on formatting.
Stay tuned--more exciting header and footer talk is on the way...
A DESCRIPTION OF HEADER AND FOOTER COMMANDS--PART 2 OF 2
Today's tip will give a quick rundown of the rest of the functions on
the oft-confusing Header And Footer toolbar.
First, make the toolbar visible by selecting View, Header And Footer.
The buttons we'll cover today have to do with headers, footers, and
sections. As you know, headers and footers vary from section to
section in Word 2000, unless you tell the program otherwise. Most of
the following buttons have to do with making comparisons between the
headers and footers in different sections to see how you want the
current section formatted. So, the Same As Previous button is used to
make a header or footer the same in the current section as it was in
the previous section. Switch Between Header And Footer allows you to
jump between the two on a single page. Show Previous takes you to the
header or footer in the previous section to see how it was formatted.
Show Next shows the header or footer in the next section. And
Close--why, we all know what that does. It closes the Header And
Footer view.
Ever wonder just how long you've been working on that dang document?
You can get a look at how long the document has been open at any time
by choosing File, Properties and clicking the Statistics tab. Total
Editing Time tells you how long the document has been open to date.
You can also take a gander at the Revision Number, which tells you how
many times a document has been saved.
AutoText is a great feature--it lets you insert common words and
phrases with a click or two--but it can lose utility if it gets too
big. Being prompted for AutoComplete entries constantly when you don't
want to be can be distracting. (For example, Word automatically made
my name an AutoText entry, so I'm prompted to insert it every time I
type the word "mark.") In these cases, it's worth your time to go
through your AutoText list and remove some of the unnecessary entries.
Choose Tools, AutoCorrect and click the AutoText tab. Select an entry
from the list and click the Delete button to get rid of it.
If you're working on a lengthy document and you need to get to a
specific page, the scroll bar on the right isn't always the best way
to navigate. To jump directly to a specific page in Word 2000, select
Edit, Go To and click the Go To tab. Select Page in the Go To What
list box on the left, and then enter a page number in the box on the
right. Click the Go To button to jump to that page.
As long as you have fax software installed on your computer, you can
fax documents from Word 2000 directly. Choose File, Send To, Fax
Recipient, and Word launches its own Fax Wizard. The wizard prompts
you to supply information about which document you're faxing, which
fax software you want to use, who you'll be sending it to, whether you
want to use a cover page, and the type of cover page you want to use.
The Fax Wizard is a good tool that walks you through these steps
clearly. When you've finished, Word renders the cover page, and you
can view it and make any changes. A small Fax Now button appears, and
when you have the document the way you like it, you just click this
button to launch your fax software and start the process.
You can add a background to any of your Word 2000 documents by
selecting Format, Background and choosing a color. You may not have
noticed that you can add gradient effects from the same location. The
term gradient here is used to describe how two different colors
interact when they border each other. As one color bleeds into the
next, the gradient determines how they will interact. To see how this
works, select Format, Background and choose Fill Effects. Click the
Gradient tab. In the top portion of the dialog box, you can choose
which two colors you want on your background. Click the Two Color
button and select colors in the Color 1 and Color 2 drop-down menus.
In the Shading Styles section, you can choose where those colors
appear and how they interact with each other. Play around with it
until you find something interesting (you can see a sample in the
lower right), and then click OK.
Sometimes, it's a good idea to open a copy of a document instead of
the document itself. This way, you can avoid making any accidental
changes to the original. You can open a copy of a document right from
the Windows 98 Desktop, without having to use the Save As command.
Just right-click the file and choose New. A copy of the document (with
a generic name) opens, and when you press Ctrl-S to save it, you're
prompted to give it a new name.
Remember that you're not limited by Word's defaults for toolbar
locations. The Standard and Formatting toolbars appear at the top of
your document and the Drawing toolbar at the bottom--but they don't
have to stay there. You can grab a toolbar by its left edge and drag
it anywhere you want, including to the right and left edges of your
document. Or you could just let your toolbar float, keeping it out of
the way when you're not using it. If you're working with several
toolbars at once, spreading them around like this could make sense.
Play around with your toolbars and find out which location works best
for you.
Your work may require that you use the same kinds of table over and
over. If this is the case, you should set your specific table settings
to be your default. Choose Table, Insert Table. Set the Table Size and
AutoFit Behavior to coincide with your typical table, and then select
the Set As Default For New Tables option. The next time you select
Insert, Table, the information you entered previously will be
inserted.
If you want to experiment with something that could increase your
efficiency with Word, you might try arranging your menus so that they
show the most recently used commands first. Some people--particularly
those just starting out with Word--might find this useful for
navigating the menus so that they're not overwhelmed with menu
choices. To show only the most recently used menu commands first,
select Tools, Customize and click the Options command. Select the
Menus Show Recently Used Commands First option, in addition to the
Show Menus After Short Delay option (this ensures that you'll be able
to see all choices if you can't find what you're looking for). Then,
click OK.
If you're ever curious about specific formatting settings in your
document, you can always check them by using the Context-Sensitive
Help tool. Select Help, What's This? A question mark appears next to
your pointer, and you can move it anywhere you like and click to see
the specifics of a particular paragraph or font's formatting. To get
rid of the What's This? tool, just press the Esc key.
If you want to copy a certain kind of formatting from one paragraph to
another, one way to accomplish this task is by using the Format
Painter. This tool is on the Standard toolbar--it's the button that
looks like a yellow paintbrush. To use the Format Painter, first click
inside a paragraph whose style you want to copy, then double-click the
Format Painter button. From there, click inside another paragraph to
copy the formatting to it. (You can drag the Format Painter into
several paragraphs if you like.) Press the Esc button or click the
Format Painter button again to exit.
If you're going to be changing several styles or AutoText entries for
a certain template at one time, your best bet is to use Word 2000's
Organizer box. This interface allows you to add or subtract as many
styles or AutoText entries as you like before applying the changes,
saving you from having to perform them one at a time. To access the
Organizer dialog box, choose Format, Style and click the Organizer
button. From there, you can add or remove all kinds of formatting from
the document at hand and your various templates.
If you're curious what all the keyboard shortcuts are for those
toolbar buttons, you don't have to track down some master list. Just
set your toolbars to display shortcuts when you roll over them with
the cursor. Choose Tools, Customize and click the Options tab. Select
the Show Shortcut Keys In ScreenTips option (you may have to select
the Show ScreenTips option first), and then click OK.
You can add a fill color to a text box to really make it jump out of
the page. Just select the text box, right-click it, and choose Format
Text Box. Click the Colors And Lines tab, and choose a color from the
Fill drop-down list. If you click the Semitransparent box, some of the
background will show through the Text Box fill color. When you have
your fill color the way you want it, click OK.
How to put accents above letters in Word 2000. Accents are not
individual characters in Word 2000--they're used in conjunction with
other letters as part of the Symbol function. To insert an accented
character, choose Insert, Symbol and click the Symbols tab. Look
through the grid to find the accented character you want (this is
something Microsoft should change with the next version of Word--the
grid is too hard to read). If you use these characters all the time,
you should memorize or customize the corresponding keyboard shortcut,
visible at the bottom of the box whenever you select a letter.
Our previous tip showed you how to access symbols in Word. The Symbols
feature stores the letters that vary from standard English notation,
such as vowels with accent marks. You may have noticed that many of
these symbols have shortcut keys assigned to them. If you don't like
the default shortcut key, you can create your own. Just choose Insert,
Symbol; click the character of your choice; and click the Shortcut Key
button. In the Press New Shortcut Key box, enter a key combination
(choose one that is not already taken) and click the Assign button.
Now that's what we call control.
Is it possible to change the display of the Open dialog box in Word.
We reported that it was not, but there is a utility that does exactly
what was requested. It's called the WOPR Placebar Customizer, and it's
available for free download from the Woody's Office Power Pack Web
site. You can check it out and download it from
http://www.wopr.com/office2000/placebar.htm
We downloaded the product, and it works as advertised. You can
designate your own folders for the placebar on the Open dialog box and
even change the icon size to fit more than five if you like. Just
download and install it, and then access the WOPR program in the Tools
menu.
Normally, you access Page Setup in Word by choosing File, Page Setup.
But there's a shortcut for those of you who make page adjustments
frequently. Just double-click on the ruler to launch the Page Setup
dialog box without having to go to a menu. If you don't see your
ruler, just select View, Ruler. Voila!
The Paragraph mark on the Standard toolbar turns the formatting marks
on and off so you can get a look at your spacing, paragraphs, tab
marks, and so on. But you're not limited to all on or all off; you can
choose to view only the formatting marks you need. Select Tools,
Options and click the View tab. Under Formatting Marks, select the
kinds of marks you want to see, then click OK.
You probably already know that you can move text by selecting it,
grabbing and holding it with your mouse, and dragging it to another
location. While some like this feature, other people only wind up
using drag-and-drop text by accident when they're trying to select
text. If you find that drag-and-drop text usually just gets in the
way, you can disable the feature. Just choose Tools, Options and click
the Edit tab. Then, deselect the Drag And Drop Editing option and
click OK.
How to print pages in reverse order. If you have a large print job,
printing it in reverse order means you don't have to sift through the
pages manually to get them into the proper sequence. To print in
reverse order, choose Tools, Options and click the Print tab. Select
the Reverse Print Order option and click OK.
One of the most useful Word functions we know of is the ability to
paste unformatted text into your document. With all the
cut-and-pasting from emails and the Web that all of us do, it's nice
to insert text in a way that will blend into the current document's
formatting. Using this approach maintains the same font and removes
the hyperlinks and tables from any text culled from the Web. To paste
unformatted text, copy it as you would normally; choose Edit, Paste
Special; and double-click on Unformatted Text.
PowerPoint users will relish the fact that you can transfer documents
from Word 2000 to PowerPoint 2000 directly, without any cutting and
pasting. The programs even work together to try and maintain as much
of the formatting as possible, though with mixed results. Microsoft
tries to match Word's pages with PowerPoint's slides. Depending on how
you set up your original document, it could be the way to go. To move
Word data to PowerPoint, choose File, Send To, Microsoft PowerPoint.
This will launch PowerPoint with the date from the current document
inserted.
LOOKING AT DOCUMENT PROPERTIES FROM THE OPEN WINDOW
If you choose File, Open in Word and start browsing for a particular
document and find that you can't remember which document is which, you
can view document properties directly from the Open window, which
might give you some clues about the document you're searching for.
Just click once on any file in the Open window, and then choose Tools,
Properties to view the document properties.
Have you ever run into this in Word: You use Word's numbering feature
to add numbers to a list, and then you find that you want the list to
contain not numbers fields but the text itself? That is, you want
actual text numbers with your list instead of the pre-generated
numbers available by clicking the Numbering button on the Formatting
toolbar. Well, you should know that if you cut and paste a numbered
list into a program that doesn't understand Word formatting (such as
Microsoft's Notepad, available by selecting Start, Programs,
Accessories, Notepad), actual numbers replace the numbers fields. You
can then cut and paste these back into your Word document.
Sometimes when you're looking at an unwieldy document, it helps to be
able to jump from place to place inside it, looking only for the
information that means something to you. Word 2000 has a special
feature for browsing documents in this manner. In the lower-right
corner of your document, you'll see a small button with a gray circle
in it, located between opposing vertical arrow keys. If you click this
button, you can select how you want to browse the document. You can
then use the corresponding arrows to jump from place to place,
stopping for the kind of object you selected. Examples of objects you
can browse for are pages, sections, comments, tables, and headings,
among several others. When you select one of these objects, simply
click the up and down arrows (now highlighted blue) to jump to the
next object.
Is it possible to add clip art to an envelope. It is indeed, but you
must first attach the envelope to a document. This allows you to work
with the envelope as you would a page of text, instead of relying on
Word's Envelopes And Labels tool to generate the formatting. To attach
an envelope to a document, choose Tools, Envelopes And Labels and fill
out the envelope information as you would normally. Click the Add To
Document button, and the envelope becomes a page in the document. From
there, you can click on the envelope and add clip art the way you
would normally (by choosing Insert, Picture, Clip Art).
Sure, Microsoft Outlook has a spell-checker for its email program, but
don't you ever miss the word processing abilities of Word when you're
composing email? If you like, you can make Word 2000 your default
email editor every time you write an email message. To make this
designation in Outlook, choose Tools, Options in Outlook, and then
click the Mail Format tab. Select the option Use Microsoft Word To
Edit Email Messages and click OK. From now on, whenever you click New
in Outlook, Word will launch itself as your email editor.
Is it possible to rotate clip art in a Word document. Unfortunately,
this is not as easy as it should be. Rotating drawing objects is a
cinch (just enable the Drawing toolbar, select the object, click the
rotation tool, and rotate away), but rotating clip art involves
editing the clip art picture. If you're working with a complicated
piece of clip art, it can be difficult to manipulate all the pieces
equally. Still, if you want to give it a try, right-click on the clip
art and choose Edit Picture. Then, click the insertion point on the
Drawing toolbar and move over the clip art (be sure to select the
entire graphic). You can then click the rotate button on the toolbar
and try to rotate the graphic. If it works out, click Close Picture
and you've finished.
Word 2000's tight integration with Outlook software can come in handy.
You can, for example, make the review of a specific document into an
Outlook task. You'll receive a reminder about the task that contains a
link to the document itself, saving you from having to look for it
manually. To make a document review into an Outlook task, first open
the Reviewing toolbar by right-clicking on the Standard toolbar and
selecting Reviewing. Then, click the Task button (it looks like a
clipboard with a checkmark on it), and the Task window will launch,
allowing you to fill in pertinent information, such as due dates,
comments, and so on. Note that the task contains a link back to your
original document. When you've filled out the information, click Save
And Close to save the task.
As long as your scanner is compatible with the TWAIN standard and your
scanning software is installed properly, you can scan and insert
pictures directly into Word 2000. Just choose Insert, Picture, From
Scanner Or Camera and follow the instructions in the resulting dialog
box.
If you compose a document that contains all sorts of odd spellings,
such as lists of names, having all the squiggly red lines all over the
page can make working with the document difficult. In cases like this,
you're better off disabling the spell-checker for the document. Doing
this on a document-specific basis helps ensure that the spell-checker
is still on by default whenever you open a new document. To hide
spelling errors for a specific document, choose Tools, Options and
click the Spelling And Grammar tab. Then, select the Hide Spelling
Errors For This Document option and click OK.
When creating a table in Word 2000, you can designate the height of
rows if you like. Normally, row height is determined by the text in
the cell, but you can assign a row height by choosing Table, Table
Properties; clicking the Row tab; and selecting the Specify Height
box. From there, you can enter a measurement for your row height. If
you take these steps and decide later that you want to resize your row
height, you can move the insertion point to the row edge and click and
drag--the way you do when resizing columns. There's a little trick
that can help you recalibrate your rows more precisely. Hold down the
Alt key when resizing rows, and a ruler appears along the left window
edge to help you get a more precise measurement.
Our previous tip pointed out the benefits of using the Paste Special
command to paste unformatted text into Word documents. If you use this
program frequently, like we do, you'll miss the keyboard functionality
that comes with a standard paste command (where you can just press
Ctrl-V instead of reaching for the mouse). Fortunately, it's possible
to construct a keyboard shortcut that brings up Paste Special.
Right-click on the Standard toolbar and select Customize. Click the
Commands tab, then click on Edit in the list on the left. Click on
Paste Special on the right, and then click the Keyboard button. From
here, you can assign a keyboard shortcut to the Paste Special command
(we chose Alt-V). Click Close twice, and you can access Paste Special
at any time with a keystroke. Once you have the Paste Special window
visible, you can just press the Up arrow on your keyboard twice, then
press Enter to paste unformatted text--all without touching the mouse.
If you access a certain folder or Word 2000 document frequently, try
adding a shortcut to it in your Favorites folder. Not only will this
allow you to open it from any Favorites menu, you can also get to it
quickly in Word by selecting File, Open and clicking the Favorites
button. To add a folder to the Favorites menu, select the appropriate
folder, then click Tools, Add To Favorites. To add a document to
Favorites, select File, Open. Navigate to the file, click on it once,
and then select Tools, Add To Favorites.
When you search for words in documents or use the Find And Replace
command, the normal technique is to choose Edit, Find or Edit,
Replace. There's an even quicker way to launch the Find And Replace
dialog box with the mouse. Just double-click on the page box in the
lower-left corner of the document window (the one that indicates page
number).
A while back, we ran a tip explaining how to use accent marks in
Word 2000. Several readers wrote in pointing out even more useful
keyboard shortcuts for accent marks, and we thought we'd pass them
along. Type Ctrl-' (that's the Control key-apostrophe) followed by a
vowel for an accent mark that slants to the left. Type Ctrl-` (you'll
find the latter key next to the key for the number one) and then a
vowel for an accent that slants to the right. And Ctrl-Shift-~ (that's
the tilde key, also located at the upper left of the keyboard) n, a,
or o to add the accent commonly used in Spanish.
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