Ms Office Tune Up

When you start the Word application using the Start menu, it by default creates a new, blank document file for you. This document file has the placeholder name Document1 until you save it to assign a more specific name, as described later in the chapter. You can immediately start entering content into this blank document. If you need another blank document, you can create it at any time by following these steps:

1. 1. Select Office Button➪New. The New Document dialog box appears.
2. 2. Click the Blank Document icon if it isn’t selected by default.
3. 3. Click Create. The new, blank document appears.

Typing text

When you create a new, blank document, you can begin typing text to fill the page. As you type, each character appears to the right of the blinking vertical insertion point. You can use the Backspace and Delete keys to delete text, the Spacebar to enter spaces, and all the other keys that you’re using for typing. Word also enables you to start a line of text anywhere on the page using the Click and Type feature. (This feature only works in the Print Layout view, so to learn more about that view, see the later section describing Word 2007’s views.) To take advantage of Click and Type, move the mouse pointer over a blank area of the page. If you don’t see formatting symbols below the I-beam mouse pointer, click once. This enables Click and Type and displays its special mouse pointer. Then, you can double-click to position the pointer on the page and type your text. Figure 4-1 shows snippets of text added to a page using Click and Type.

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Popularity: 5% [?]

You’ve probably seen or read books where the introductory material displays page numbers using lower-case Roman numerals (i, ii, iii, and so on), whereas the rest of the book dis­plays page numbers using Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, and so on). Using multiple page num­ber formats in this way is an easy method for differentiating two different sections of a book, and it’s a technique you can apply to your own Word documents.

The trick here is to create a section break between the parts of the document where you want to use the different page numbers. A section is a document part that stores page layout options such margins, page size, page orientation, columns, line numbering, and footnotes and endnotes. The transition from one section to another is called a section break. Sections also include headers and footers, and we’ll use that fact to set up our different numbering schemes.

The first step is to create the section break, which you do by following these steps:

1. Position the cursor at the point where you want the new section to start.
2. Choose Page Layout, Breaks. Word displays a menu of break options.
3. In the Section Breaks group, click the type of section break you want:

Next Page-Starts a new section on a new page.

Continuous-Starts a new section at the cursor. (Note that this command doesn’t create a page break, so you probably won’t use it in this context.)

Even Page-Starts a new section on the next even-numbered page.

Odd Page-Starts a new section on the next odd-numbered page. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 9% [?]

Numbered lists (choose Home, Numbering) are a great way to present a sequential series of items-steps in a procedure, rankings, Top Ten lists, and so on. When you create one numbered list, press Enter twice after the last item and then start a second numbered list, (Word starts the second list at 1). That’s usually the behavior you want, but there may be times when you have to insert text between two steps. In this case, you want to make sure that Word continues the numbering when the list continues after the inserted text.

Word gives you a couple of ways to do this, and the method you choose depends on when you want to insert the text: while you’re creating the numbered list or after you’ve finished the numbered list.

The easiest method is to insert the text after you have completed the numbered list:

1. Navigate to the end of the step before which you want to insert the non-numbered text.
2. Press Enter. Word inserts a new step.
3. Choose Home, Numbering to deactivate the Numbering button. Word converts the new step into a regular paragraph.
4. Insert your text.

To insert the text while you’re creating the numbered list, follow these steps: Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 7% [?]

One of my goals in this book is to present you with tricks that are practical in the sense that you can use them right away to be more productive or more efficient. I also try to focus on reducing drudgery, mostly by automating tedious or routine tasks with macros. This section’s trick isn’t even remotely practical, but I think it falls somewhat into the “reducing drudgery” category, as you’ll see (I hope!).

We all have certain documents that we use almost every day. A good example is a to-do list that is checked constantly throughout the day and that is added to or deleted from as nec­essary. Any document that you look at many times a day gets boring awfully fast. To add some visual interest, Listing 1 presents a macro that applies a random background texture to a specified document.

Listing 1 A Macro That Applies a Random Background Texture to a Specified Document

Public Sub ApplyRandomTexture(doc As Document)
Dim i As Integer
‘
‘ Initialize the random number generator
‘
Randomize
‘
‘ Generate a random number between 1 and 24
‘
i = Int(24 * Rnd + 1)
‘
‘ Apply the random number as a background texture constant
‘
doc.Background.Fill.PresetTextured i
End Sub

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Popularity: 8% [?]

The vast majority of documents look best when formatted with dark text on a light back­ground-especially a white background. However, there may be times when you need something a little more interesting. For example, light text on a dark background is a great way to make text box text and table headers stand out. For the document as a whole, you want to avoid busy backgrounds because they almost always render the document text unreadable. An occasionally useful exception is to use a background that resembles some kind of specialty paper. This can add a sense of realism to the document, which can be effective (if used sparingly, of course).

One of the nicest of these specialty paper backgrounds is parchment paper, which can give documents a classy, slightly old-time feel. Follow these steps to apply a parchment paper background:

1. Choose Page Layout, Page Color, Fill Effects. Word opens the Fill Effects dialog box.
2. Click the Texture tab.
3. In the Texture list, click the Parchment swatch.
4. Click OK. Word applies the texture to the background

Technorati Tags: parchment paper background, word 2007

Popularity: 7% [?]

A watermark is a bit of text (or sometimes an image) that displays “behind” the text on each page and is visible both onscreen and in the printed version of the document. The purpose of a watermark is to display a broad message to the reader about an aspect of the document. For example, a watermark consisting of the word “DRAFT” tells the reader that this is not the final version of the document. Similarly, the watermark “ASAP” tells the reader you want the document handled as soon as possible.

Word offers a number of built-in watermarks. In the Watermarks gallery (choose Page Your, Watermark), for example, you can select from watermarks that use the following text: CONFIDENTIAL, DO NOT COPY, DRAFT, SAMPLE, ASAP, or URGENT, each of which you can display diagonally or horizontally across the page.

If none of these predefined watermarks is quite right for your needs, you can build a cus­tom watermark that consists of the text you want to display and the font, size, color, and layout you prefer. Here are the steps to follow: Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5% [?]

Using linked text boxes is a great way to get control over your layout while still maintain­ing text flow. However, as convenient as it is for you, it may not be all that convenient for your readers, who might find it difficult to follow the story from one text box to the next.

One solution would be to include an instruction below the first text box that tells the reader where to go to continue reading the article (for example, Continued on page 4). Make sure you put this instruction outside of the text box, or you’ll interrupt the flow between the text boxes.

In the publishing world, such an instruction to the reader is called jump text. In the Word world, however, it does suffer from a fairly major problem: In most cases, you can only be sure of the page number after you’ve completed the entire document. This means that after your document is finished, you need to run through the whole thing and insert the correct page numbers into all the jump text. That is inefficient and labor-intensive.

A much better solution-and one that takes advantage of one of the inherent strengths of electronic documents-is to set up the jump text as a link to the next text box. This enables you to use a more generic instruction-such as Ctrl+click here to continue this arti­cle-and it makes life much easier for the reader by creating true “jump” text. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5% [?]

When you read a newspaper, magazine, or newslet­ter, you often come across an article that starts on one page and then continues on a different page later in the publication. In some cases, you may have to make several “jumps” from one page to another to complete the article. This is a useful technique because it enables the publisher to place several articles on the front page of the publication, which helps create interest. It also helps on the inner pages of the publication because it gives the publisher more flexibility to lay out the articles (whether they’re continuations from the front page or new articles).

If you’re creating a multi-page publication in Word, how can you break up articles so that they appear on different pages? The most obvious way is to insert the first part of each arti­cle on the front page and then copy the rest to an inner page. That might work if all your text is complete and no longer requires editing. However, you may still have trouble fitting the text properly on the pages, so it may require quite a bit of cutting and pasting to get a suitable layout. And, certainly, this type of setup is a nightmare waiting to happen if your text or formatting still needs to be revised.

The problem with cutting and pasting to get this effect is that the different parts of any one article aren’t connected in any way, so there’s no flow. In Word, you usually create flowing text by converting that text into two or more columns: The text flows from one column to the next and from the last column on one page to the first column on the next. Even better, each time you add, format, move, or delete text in one column, Word automatically adjusts the position of the text in the other columns to compensate. Unfortunately, you must keep columns together; you can’t start an article in columns on one page and then continue it in columns on a different page. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 4% [?]

When you’re working with fields, it’s common to need to update all of a document’s fields at one time. One way to do this is to select the entire document and press F9. This works, but it’s a hassle because not only must you perform the extra step of selecting the entire document, but that extra step also means that you lose your current cursor position.

To avoid this problem, use the VBA macro in Listing 1 to update all the document’s fields.

Listing 1 A Macro to Update All the Fields in the Active Document

Sub UpdateAllFields()
ActiveDocument.Fields.Update
End Sub

Add this macro to a Quick Access toolbar button or assign it a keyboard shortcut (I use Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F9).

It’s also often useful to update all of a document’s fields when the document is opened. Word doesn’t do that by default, but you can create a macro that does.

Launch the Visual Basic Editor and open the project that corresponds to your document. In the project’s Microsoft Word Objects branch, double-click the ThisDocument object. In the code window that displays, select Document in the object list and select Open in the event list. Add the following statement to the Document_Open() stub that displays: Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 5% [?]

When you share a document with another person, you usually turn on revision marks, so that you can see the changes the other person makes. Unfortunately, it often happens that the other person accidentally turns off revision marks before or in the middle of editing so that you can no longer easily see the changes he made. In the past, this meant opening the two versions and then switching from one window to another or trying to arrange the doc­uments, so that you could see both at once.

Word 2007 helps you avoid this extra work by offering a new View Side By Side feature, which arranges the document windows so that you can easily compare the two files. Here’s how it works:

1. Open the two documents you want to compare and make one of them the active docu­ment.
2. Choose View, View Side By Side. Word displays the Compare Side By Side dialog box.
3. Click the other document you want to use and then click OK. Word arranges the two windows side by side, as shown in Figure 1.

NOTE

The View Side By Side feature includes synchronous scrolling, which means that as you scroll up or down (or even side to side) in one document, Word scrolls in the same direction and by the same amount in the other document. If you find this distracting, you can turn it off by choosing View, Window, Synchronous Scrolling.

4. When you’re done, choose View, Window, Compare Side By Side. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 4% [?]