|
BOOT CAMP
219 (02/04/02)
MORE WORD HINTS AND TIPS
Microsoft Word
is the world’s most popular word processor, and justifiably so. Even complete
novices can pick up the basics in just a few minutes but behind the apparently
simple-looking desktop lays a powerful and sophisticated program that’s really
worth getting to know.
However, what
frustrates many users is the way that so many really useful features are hidden
away on obscure sub menus or lost in the awful Word Help utility. This week, in
this short series of hints and tips for popular Windows applications, we’ve
rounded up some little-known wrinkles that should make Word a little easier to
use, and hopefully encourage you experiment with some of the program’s less
well publicised features. The following tips are mainly for Word 2000 but many
of them work on earlier versions.
We’ll begin with a
really useful hidden feature called the Work menu. This puts a button on the Toolbar, called Work, which gives single-click
access to documents that you are working on or need to access frequently. Begin
by right-clicking in any empty area of the toolbar (or go to Toolbar on the
View menu) and select Customize. Choose the Commands tab, scroll down the
Categories list and select Built In Menus, now move to the Command list in the
right hand pane and move down the list to Work. Click and hold and drag it to
one of the toolbars, release the mouse button and it will be inserted into any
position you choose. To include a document to the Work menu simply open it and
click ‘Add to Work Menu’ on the work menu.
In case you don’t
get on with the Work menu and want to get rid of it, or change any aspect of
your Toolbars layout here’s how. Just open the Customise dialogue box as before,
and whilst it is on display now you can move buttons and icons around, simply
by clicking and dragging. To delete a button or icon just drag it onto the
desktop.
It’s not unusual to
have two or more documents open at a time but when you take a break or go out
to lunch you have to go through the rigmarole of saving them one a time. Not
any more, just hold down the Shift key and go to the File menu and there you
will see two new commands, ‘Save All’ and ‘Close All’, one click and all of
your open documents will be saved or closed.
Word has a very
powerful spell-checker but there’s an abbreviated version that makes it easier
to run a quick check on a document or letter. You can do this by
double-clicking on the little open book icon at the bottom of the page. It
steps through the document, highlighting spelling and grammar errors like the
normal spell checker but with a much simpler (and smaller) menu type display.
Word also has quite
a decent Thesaurus but it’s buried away on the Tools menu and not easily
accessible, unless you know this simple keyboard shortcut. Highlight the word
with your mouse and press Shift + F7 and a list of alternatives will appear.
Incidentally, did you know that you can highlight a word either side of the
cursor by pressing Ctrl + Shift + right/left arrow key. Ctrl + Shift + up/down
arrow highlights text, above or below the cursor a paragraph at a time.
If you spend a lot
of time working on long documents or manuscripts it can be very useful to
return to the point at which you left off after your last editing session. Word
automatically remember the last three changes you made to a document and these
can be recalled by repeatedly pressing Shift + F5.
Automatic
‘Numbering’ and ‘Bullets’ drives a lot of users to distraction, with Word
inserting numbers or bullet points in lists, without asking, and making it
difficult to undo the changes. It’s a potentially useful feature but the
trouble is, someone at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to enable it
by default, so switch it off. The option can be found on the Tools menu, select
AutoCorrect then the ‘Autoformat as you type’ tab and here you will find the
check boxes for ‘Automatic Numbered Lists’ and ‘Bulleted Lists’. Have a look
around, you might also find a couple of other features that have been
irritating you, like the unasked for insertion of fractions, ordinals, symbols
and underlined hypertext links that appear as you type.
If you are prone to
creating really fancy looking documents with a lot of elaborate formatting you
can sometimes loose track of the fonts and styles you’ve used. To view the
attributes of a block of text highlight it then go to the Help menu and
click ‘What’s this?’ The cursor now has
a question mark attached and the details of anything you click on will be
displayed. To switch the function off just press the Escape key.
Changing margins
and tab settings can be a bit hit and miss, and not terribly accurate but you
can make it lot easier by holding down the Alt key and the ruler display at the
top of the page changes to a precise digital readout, allowing you to make
changes in steps as small as one-hundredth of a measuring unit.
Next week –
Internet Explorer hints and tips
JARGON FILTER
ORDINAL
The subscript or
superscript ‘st’ ‘nd’, ‘rd’ etc, after a number, i.e. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so on
TOOLBARS
The menus and icons
at the top of the Word desktop
MEASUREMENT UNITS
The ruler at the
top of the Word page can be configured in inches, centimetres, points or picas,
from Options on the Tools menu, select the General tab
TOP TIP
Did you know that
Word has a built in calculator function? Call up the Customize dialogue box
(see tip 1) and select All Commands in the Categories menu then find and
highlight ToolsCalculate in the Command list. Drag and drop it onto a toolbar
and it’s ready to use. Enter in a sum, using the normal mathematical operators
(plus +, minus - , divide / and multiply *, etc.) highlight the equation and
click your ToolsCalculate button and the answer will appear in the left hand
corner of the status bar at the bottom of the screen.
---end---
ã R. Maybury 2002, 2003
THE
DAILY TELEGRAPH TEXT 2...02
BOOT
CAMP 219 (02/04/02) – MORE WORD HINTS AND TIPS
Microsoft
Word is the world’s most popular word processor, and justifiably so. Even
complete novices can pick up the basics in just a few minutes but behind the
apparently simple desktop lies a powerful and sophisticated program that can do
just about anything involving words and pictures, from designing a business
card to putting together a complete web site.
However,
what frustrates many users is the way that so many really useful features are
hidden away on obscure sub menus or lost in the awful Word Help utility. This
week, in this short series of hints and tips for popular Windows application,
we’ve rounded up some little-known wrinkles that should make Word a little
easier to use, and hopefully encourage you experiment with some of the
program’s less well known features. The following tips are mainly for Word 2000
but many of them work on earlier versions.
We’ll
begin with a really useful hidden feature called the Work menu. This puts a button on the Toolbar, called
Work, which gives single-click access to documents that you are working on or
need to access frequently. Begin by right-clicking in any empty area of the
toolbar (or go to Toolbar on the View menu) and select Customize. Choose the
Commands tab, scroll down the Categories list and select Built In Menus, now
move to the Command list in the right hand pane and move down the list to Work.
Click and hold and drag it to one of the toolbars, release the mouse button and
it will be inserted into any position you choose. To include a document to the Work menu simply open it and click
‘Add to Work Menu’ on the work menu.
In
case you don’t get on with the Work menu and want to get rid of it, or change
any aspect of your Toolbars layout here’s how. Just open the Customise dialogue
box as before, and whilst it is on display now you can move buttons and icons
around, simply by clicking and dragging. To delete a button or icon just drag
it onto the desktop.
It’s
not unusual to have two or more documents open at a time but when you shut down
Word you have to go through the rigmarole of saving them one a time. Not any
more, just hold down the Shift key and go to the File menu and there you will
see a new command, called ‘Save All’
click it and all of your open documents will be saved automatically.
Word
has a very powerful spell-checker but it takes up a lot of room on the page and
sometimes it’s useful to run a quick check on a document or letter. You can do
this by double-clicking on the little open book icon at the bottom of the page.
It steps through the document, highlighting spelling and grammar errors like
the normal spell checker but with a much simpler (and smaller) menu type
display.
Word
also has quite a decent Thesaurus but it’s buried on the Tools menu and not
easily accessible, unless you know this simple keyboard shortcut. Highlight the
word with your mouse and press Shift + F7 and a list of alternatives will
appear. Incidentally, did you know that you can highlight a word either side of
the cursor by pressing Ctrl + Shift + right or left arrow key. Ctrl + Shift +
up/down arrow highlights text, above or below the cursor a paragraph at a time.
If
you spend a lot of time working on long documents or manuscripts it can be very
useful to return to the point at which you left off after your previous editing
session. Word automatically remember the last three changes you made to a
document and these can be recalled by repeatedly pressing Shift + F5.
Automatic
‘Numbering’ and ‘Bullets’ drives a lot of users to distraction, with Word
inserting numbers or bullet points in lists, without asking, and making it
difficult to undo the changes. It’s a potentially useful feature but the
trouble is, someone at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to enable it
by default, so switch it off. The option can be found on the Tools menu, select
AutoCorrect then the ‘Autoformat as you type’ tab and here you will find the
check boxes for ‘Automatic Numbered Lists’ and ‘Bulleted Lists’. Have a look
around, you might also find a couple of other features that have been
irritating you, like the unasked for insertion of fractions, ordinals, symbols
and underlined hypertext links that appear as you type.
If
you are prone to creating really fancy looking documents with a lot of
elaborate formatting you can sometimes loose track of the fonts and styles
you’ve used. To view the attributes of a block of text highlight it then go to
the Help menu and click ‘What’s this?’
The cursor now has a question mark attached and the details of anything you
click on will be displayed. To switch the function off just press the Escape
key.
Changing
margins and tab settings can be a bit hit and miss, and not terribly accurate
but you can make it lot easier by holding down the Alt key and the ruler
display at the top of the page changes to a precise digital readout, allowing
you to make changes in steps as small as one-hundredth of a measuring unit.
Next
week – Internet Explorer hints and tips
JARGON
FILTER
TOP
TIP
Did
you know that Word has a built in calculator function? Call up the Customize
dialogue box (see tip 1) and select All Commands in the Categories menu then
find and highlight ToolsCalculate in the Command list. Drag and drop it onto a
toolbar and it’s ready to use. Enter in a sum, using the normal mathematical
operators (plus +, minus - , divide / and multiply *, etc.) highlight the
equation and click your ToolsCalculate button and the answer will appear in the
left hand corner of the status bar at the bottom of the screen.
---end---
ã R. Maybury 2002, 2003
|