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.

Using word wrap

By default, the margins for a blank document in Word 2007 are 1″ on the left and right, which is a quarter inch less than previous versions of Word. When you type enough text to fill each line, hitting the right margin boundary, Word automatically moves the insertion point to the next line. This automated feature is called word wrap, and it’s a heck of a lot more convenient than having to make a manual carriage return at the end of this line.

If you adjust the margins for the document, word wrap always keeps your text within the new margin boundaries. Similarly, if you apply a right indent, divide the document into columns, or create a table and type in a table cell, word wrap automatically creates a new line of text at every right boundary. Just keep typing until you want or need to start a new paragraph (covered shortly). Later chapters cover changing margins and indents and working with tables.

Inserting versus overtyping

Like its prior versions, Word 2007 offers two modes for entering text: insert mode and overtype mode. In the default mode, insert mode, if you click within existing text and type, Word inserts the added text between the existing characters, moving text to the right of the insertion point farther right to accommodate your additions, and rewrapping the line as needed. In contrast, when you switch to overtype mode, any text you type replaces text to the right of the insertion point.

Overtyping is a fine method of data entry—when it’s the mode that you want. Unfortunately, in previous Word versions, the Insert key on the keyboard toggled between insert and overtype modes by default. Because the Insert key is found above or right next to the Delete key on the keyboard, many a surprised user would accidentally hit the Insert key and then unhappily type right over their text.

In Word 2007, the Insert key’s control of overtype mode is turned off by default. You can use the Word Options dialog box to turn overtype mode on and off, and also to enable the Insert key’s control of overtype mode. Select Office Button➪Word Options, and then click Advanced in the list at the left side of the Word Options dialog box. Use the Use Overtype Mode checkbox (Figure 4-2) to toggle overtype mode on and off, and the Use the Insert Key to Control Overtype Mode checkbox to toggle the Insert key’s control of overtype mode on and off. Click OK to apply your changes.

Using default tabs

Every new, blank document has default tab stops already set up for you. These tabs are set at 1/2 inch (.5″) intervals along the whole width of the document between the margins. To align text to any of these default tab stops, press the Tab key. You can press Tab multiple times if you need to allow more width between the information that you’re using the tab stops to align.

To display the rulers so that you can better work with text alignment features like tabs in a document, click the View Ruler button that appears at the top of the vertical scroll bar at the right side of the Word window.

Making a new paragraph

In previous versions of Word, when you wanted to create a new paragraph in a blank document, you had to press the Enter key twice. That’s because the default body text style didn’t provide for any extra spacing after a paragraph mark, which is a hidden symbol inserted when you press Enter.

In Word 2007, pressing Enter by default not only inserts the paragraph mark to create a new paragraph, but also inserts extra spacing between paragraphs to separate them visually and eliminate the need to press Enter twice. As shown in Figure 4-3, when you press Enter after a paragraph the insertion point moves down to the beginning of a new paragraph, and Word includes spacing above the new paragraph.

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.

TIP

To show the current section number in the status bar, right-click the status bar, and then click to activate the Section item.

You’re now ready to add your two different page number formats-one for each of the two sections in your document. The idea here is to add page numbers to the document and then break the link between the second section header and the first section header. This enables you to set up different page numbering schemes in each section. Follow these steps:

1. With the cursor in the same position as when you created the section page, choose Insert, Page Number, Top of Page (or another position, if you prefer, such as Bottom of Page) and then click a page number format. Word adds a header to the document and displays the page number.
2. Under Header & Footer Tools, choose Design, Link to Previous to deactivate the command. This tells Word that the header in section 2 should not be the same as the header in section 1.
3. Choose Insert, Page Number, Format Page Numbers. Word displays the Page Number Format dialog box.
4. Use the Number Format list to click the page number format you want to use in sec­tion 2 (such as 1, 2, 3…).
5. Click the Start At option and use the associated spin box to set the starting page num­ber for section 2. In most cases, you’ll want to start the new section’s page numbers at 1, as shown in Figure 1.



Figure 1 In the second section, you’ll most likely want to start the numbering over again at 1.

6. Click OK.
7. Under Header & Footer Tools, choose Design, Previous Section. Word displays the header and page numbers for the first section.
8. Choose Insert, Page Number, Format Page Numbers to open the Page Number Format dialog box.
9. Use the Number Format list to click the page number format you want to use in sec­tion 1 (such as i, ii, iii…).
10. Click OK.
11. Under Header & Footer Tools, choose Design, Close Header and Footer.

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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:

1. Enter the step before which you want to insert the non-numbered text.
2. Press Enter twice. Word creates a regular paragraph.
3. Insert your text and press Enter to start a new paragraph.
4. Choose Home, Numbering. Word starts a new numbered list and displays a smart tag to the left of the first number.
5. Click the smart tag and then click Continue Numbering, as shown in Figure 1. Word resumes the numbering sequence of the previous numbered list.

Figure 1 When you resume the numbered list, click the smart tag and then click Continue Numbering.

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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

Word has 24 predefined textures, and these are given the numbers 1 through 24 in the Office object model (these are msoTexture constants). This macro uses the Rnd function to generate a random number between 1 and 24 and then uses the PresetTextured property to apply the random texture. Note that the macro takes a Document variable named doc as its argument. To run this macro each time you open a document, display the Visual Basic Editor, click the doc­ument’s project, and then double-click the ThisDocument object. In the Object list, select Document and in the Event list select Open. In the Document_Open() stub that displays, add the ApplyRandomTexture ThisDocument statement, as shown in the following:
Private Sub Document_Open()
ApplyRandomTexture ThisDocument
End Sub

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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

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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:

1. Choose Page Layout, Watermark, Custom Watermark. Word displays the Printed Watermark dialog box.
2. Click Text Watermark.
3. Use the Text combo box to either select existing watermark text or to type a custom message.
4. Use the Font list to select the watermark font.
5. Use the Size list to choose a size for the watermark.
6. Use the Color palette to choose the watermark text color.
7. Click either Diagonal or Horizontal.
8. Click OK. Word adds the custom watermark to your document.

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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.

The first task here is to create a bookmark for the spot in the document to which you want to jump. Your initial thought might be to create a bookmark for the next text box. However, that’s not a great idea because when you jump to a text box, Word selects the entire text box, which isn’t something you want your readers handling. Your second thought might be to jump to the top left corner of the text box (that is, the position to the left of the first character). That’s better because Word doesn’t select anything, but that position may change if you edit or format the text. The ideal jump spot is an empty line just above the text box. Click that line, choose Insert, Bookmark to display the Bookmark dialog box, type a Bookmark Name, and then click Add.

Now you can set up the jump text by following these steps:

1. Click below the text box from which you want to jump.
2. Choose Insert, Hyperlink to display the Insert Hyperlink dialog box.
3. Use the Text to Display box to type the jump text you want the reader to click.

TIP

When the reader hovers the mouse pointer over a hyperlink,Word displays a ScreenTip that shows the path name of the document and the bookmark name, which is not friendly. I prefer to use the article name, which helps to reinforce to the reader that the link continues the article (see Figure 1).To change the ScreenTip text that the reader sees, click ScreenTip, type the text that you want to display, and then click OK.

4. Click Place in This Document.
5. In the Select a Place in This Document list, click the bookmark for the next text box.
6. Click OK.

Figure 1 shows a document with a couple of linked text boxes, each of which has jump text below it.

Figure 1 You can add jump text to enable the reader to quickly navigate to the next linked text box.

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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.

The solution that gives you both flowing text and the ability to jump from one part of the publication to another is the concept of linked text boxes. This refers to two or more text boxes configured so that the text in one box flows into the next box, even if that box is located elsewhere in the document.

Assuming you’ve created two text boxes (choose Insert, Text Box), you create a link between them by clicking inside the first text box, choosing Format, Create Link (the mouse pointer changes to a pitcher), and then clicking inside the second text box.

CAUTION

If you have existing text that you want to include in the text boxes, resist the temptation to cut and paste the text into the boxes for now. For linking to work, the text boxes (particularly the second one) should be empty.

Now add all your text to the first text box. When the text reaches the end of the first text box, it flows into the second text box.

What if you want to use more than two text boxes? That’s not a problem because Word enables you to link up to 32 text boxes. Begin by creating all the text boxes. Then link one text box to the next using the Create Link command. (That is, link the first to the second, then link the second to the third, and so on.) When that’s done, add all your text to the first text box.

Whether you use 2 or 32 linked text boxes, you need to know how to navigate from one to the other. Word gives you the following techniques:

• To move to the next text box-Move the cursor to the end of the current text box and then press the right arrow key. Alternatively, right-click any border of the current text box and then click Next Text Box.
• To move to the previous text box-Move the cursor to the beginning of the current text box and then press the left arrow key. Alternatively, right-click any border of the current text box and then click Previous Text Box.

NOTE

Unfortunately,Word doesn’t give you any way to reorder linked text boxes. If you need to change the order of the links, you must break them and then recreate them in the new order.

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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:

ThisDocument.Fields.Update

Figure 1 shows the completed code.

Figure 1 Add this code to your document’s Open event to update all fields each time the document is opened.

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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.

Figure 1 Activate the View Side By Side command to compare two documents side by side.

TIP

You can get Word to help you compare the two documents. Choose Review, Compare, Compare to open the Compare Documents dialog box. Use the Original Document list to specify the original document and use the Revised Document list to select the document with changes. If you want to specify what changes to look for, click More and use the check boxes to modify the Comparison Settings. Click OK, and Word opens a Compare Result window, which includes the Original Document pane, the Revised Document pane, the Reviewing Pane with a list of the changes, and a Compared Document pane that combines the changes into a single document.

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