Almost All You Need to Know

Collection of Word explanations

Shauna Kelly is a Microsoft Word MVP.

She has compiled a gathering of important Word how to's and whys.

For new users of Microsoft Word

Basic concepts - Introduction

Styles in Microsoft Word

Tips for understanding styles

Formatting

How the Styles and Formatting pane works

Numbering, Bullets, Headings, Outlines

How to control bullets

Templates

What is the relationship between a Word document and its template?

Layout

How to keep a figure on the same page as its caption

Sharing Microsoft Word documents

What happens when I send my document to someone else?

Making the most of Word in your business:
Microsoft Word FAQ


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Clip Art Gallery

Sprinkle carefully

Judicious use of Clip art can spice up a document. Here's an article about how to customize existing pictures including:

• Display clip-related toolbars
  
• Customizing your clip art
  
• Cropping
  
• Sizing
  
• Adding text wrapping
  
• Blurring
  
• Rotating and flipping
  
• Adding a drop shadow

Edit clip art in Word


 

Halloween clips


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Split View

Top and bottom

If you need to look at more than one part of a document at once, consider splitting the window.

To split the current window, just go to Window>Split from the main menu.
(View>Split in 2007)

Another way is to use the splitter control between the file tab channel and the scroll bar for the doc.



To create new windows for the same document, just go to Window>New Window and create as many views on the same document as you would like. (View>New Window in 2007)


Split Screen Feature - Word 2013


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Background Printing

Yes, you can!

Remember back in the old days of Word before 2003?

We would demonstrate how a background color or theme could be applied to a document. Then say something like, "But you can only see it on the screen."

That changed with 2003 and '07.

Go to Tools>Options.
(Word 2007+
Click the Microsoft Office Button, and then click Word Options.On the Display menu, click to select the Print background colors and images check box under Printing Options, and then click OK.)

Go to the Print tab and on the Include with document section,
put a check next to "Background colors and images" and click OK.



Now when you apply Theme formatting it will be printed as well as the text.
(A caveat might be that on a black and white printer, the result can appear muddy)

To apply a theme to a document go to Format>Theme. These are the same themes (colors, graphics and fonts) used in FrontPage.

This Knowledgebase article also offers suggestions on how to get around the problem in Word 2002.
Word 2003 or Word 2002 document that includes a background


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Merge Formatting

$ lost

The data in Access or Excel has been formatted. You have leading zeros, percents, currency is formatted and so on.

Word 2000+, however loses the formatting when a mail merge is attempted.

Here's a fix.

Word has three potential data access methods, the "old fashioned" ODBC or DDE and the newer OLE DB.

ODBC and OLE DB can, quickly, extract data from a source application without opening the program. The application does not even have to be installed.

The downside is that these methods do not transfer the formatting in the data file. Individual MERGEFIELDs need to be formatted in Word.

DDE can be used with Excel and Access. It communicates with the source and carries the formatting into the target document. This is how it worked before Word 2002.

To have a choice go to:
Tools>Options>General "Confirm Conversions at Open"

When you connect to the Data Source, a dialog box will give you the opportunity to choose the type of connection to use.


If you don't see DDE, check Show all.
Also see:

Cindy Meister:
Mail Merge FAQ

Here are some other Mail Merge resources:
Mail Merge Links


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Certificate of Anything

Make your own

Give your kid an award for not setting the house on fire in the last 24 hours.

Make a formal presentation to your dog for scaring away imaginary burglars.

The desktop publishing power of your computer can create official (looking) honors.

Here's a collection of free templates:

Southworth.com
Free Award And Certificate Templates


EducationWorld.com:
Award Certificates


Office.microsoft.com:
Certificates
(86 Certificates, labels, etc. Word, PowerPoint, and Publisher)


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WordPerfect?

Word!

I used to ask "How many have ever used WordPerfect?" Over the years it has gone from about 50% to blank stares.

WordPerfect (WP) couldn't bring itself to accept the existence of Windows, and Microsoft ran past, taking over the market.

Word is Object-Oriented, WordPerfect is Stream-Formatted.

"What does this mean? Well, this basically means that when you make a change to a WordPerfect document, the changes take effect 'From THAT Point Forward'. You generally don't need to select an Object (e.g., a word, sentence, or a paragraph) in order to effect a change. You can simply select a color, a font, a paragraph style, etc, and the whole document will be affected (as stated, from that point forward). Stream Formatted is, as you can imagine, like a stream of formatting that flows throughout the document.

Word, on the other hand, is object-oriented. Every letter, word, sentence, and paragraph is an object. To help people grasp the concept of object-oriented programming, Microsoft uses a simple analogy: oranges. You can imagine that an orange has several attributes that can be changed: it has a color, a texture, etc. It can be changed by being painted or peeled. Therefore, once you understand that you need to select an object when you want to manipulate your Word document, you begin to understand how to work in Word."

WP vs. Word

WP is still around. Mostly used in the legal profession by those who still bemoan the loss of powdered wigs.

Here are some references:

The history of WordPerfect:
Almost Perfect
(a book by W. E. Peterson)

Wikipedia:
WordPerfect


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Too Many Slices

More data than the pie will hold

A pie chart displays the per cent of the whole is represented by the component elements. Four salesmen, four slices of pie.

The problem arises when there are 10 or so components that vary in size. The labels begin to overlap and the chart is difficult to read:

One suggestion that Chris Weber offers is to rearrange the order of the slices:

The article uses MS Graph in Access, but the techniques are applicable in all the other applications that can use graphs.

SmartAccess:
Easy as Pie. . .

"Chris Weber provides you with a generic method to control the data for pie charts that are actually readable."

(A downloadable example file is also provided


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Redact That!

Redact that!

Weapon of Mass Obfuscation

"Redaction is the careful editing of a document to remove confidential information.

The Microsoft Office Word 2003 Redaction Add-in makes it easy for you to mark sections of a document for redaction. You can then redact the document so that the sections you specified are blacked out. You can either print the redacted document or use it electronically.

Sensitive government documents, confidential legal documents, insurance contracts, and other sensitive documents are often redacted before being made available to the public. With the Word 2003+ Redaction Add-in, users of Microsoft Office Word 2003+ now have an effective, user-friendly tool to help them redact confidential text in Word documents."

The redacted document can be protected and saved. The add-in creates a copy of the original, so original material is still available.

Hide Information:
OfficeWatch.com

Word 2003 Redaction download

Word 2007 Redaction Tool


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Wildcards

Seek and find

When you are looking for a particular word or file, wildcards can be used to refine the search.

An asterisk (*) can be used to represent any number of characters. A search for pop* would return popsicle, popcorn, pop1, pop2, pop37, pop29, and pop's favorite chair.

A question mark (?) is a stand-in for a single character. Popc??? would bring back only the word popcorn. Pop? searches for pop1 and pop2, but not pop37 etc.

That's a simple look at wildcards. Word has a rich variety of symbols that can do quite complex search and replace operations.

Here are some links to more detailed discussions:

Word MVP:
Using Wildcards

Felgall Pty Ltd:
Sydney, AustraliaWildcard information

Graham Mayor:
Find and Replace


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Alternate Bullets

High caliber

There are other images that can be used as bullets in Word, PowerPoint, and HTML.
Allan Wyatt's Word Tips:

Using Words as Bullets

StackOverflow.com:

Make Custom Bullets
Using CSS

Shauna Kelly:

How to control bullets in Microsoft Word
Bullets, Numbers, and Lists





Troubleshooting Bullets and numbering


Also see:
Beyond Bullets.com

Beyond Bullet Points, the book


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Custom Dictionary

Spell it the way you want to!

Although Office has its own dictionary, it probably does not contain all the words and jargon that you use. If this is the case, you can add your own frequently used terms, and names to the dictionary.

1. Open Word
   
2. From the Tools menu, click Options
   (See link below for 2007)
   
3. Select the Spelling and Grammar tab
   
4. Click the Custom Dictionaries button
   
5. Place a check beside the dictionary you want to modify
   
6. Click the Modify button
   
7. In the Word field, type in the word you want to add to the dictionary and click the Add button Click OK
   
8. Click OK to close the Custom Dictionaries dialog box
   
9. Click OK to close the Options dialog box

If you want to remove a word from the dictionary, complete steps 1 through 7. Select the word you want to remove and click the Delete button.
The Custom.dic file is a text file. You can create it or edit it using notepad.
Multiple dictionaries can be created for special purposes, like a list of employee names.
The Custom.dic file is used by all of the Office applications that do Spell checking.
How to add a custom dictionary in Word

About.com: Working With Dictionaries in Word

Microsoft.com How to create an exclude dictionary in Word

Copy the Custom Dictionary to a Floppy Disk and Use It on Other Computers

Error when you add a word to the custom dictionary


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List All Files

All files in a folder

Here is a macro that will produce a list of all the files in a selected folder.

• The folder name for the listed files
  
• The file names of the files found
  
• The file sizes of the files found
  
• The dates and times of the files found
  
• The total number of files listed

Macro to List All Files in a Folder


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Free Photos

and other graphics

Robin Good has compiled a list of places that provide royalty free images.

" Finding quality images and photos for complementing an important article, essay or news report is already quite a challenge for many. Imagine when the goal is not just too find good images, but find some that you could openly and freely use without needing to pay royalties or one-time publishing rights to someone."

Free Photographs and Other Visuals

A dozen sources are listed including:
PD Photo.org

"PDPhoto.org is a repository for free public domain photos. Unless something is clearly marked as being copyrighted, you can assume it is free to use. But if you intend to use an image you find here for commercial use, please be aware that standards for such use are higher. Specifically, you should assume no model release was obtained. And pictures featuring products or property should be used with care. The photos are here to be used, but I don't want you to get either of us in trouble over it."

Copyright Information


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Microsoft Word 2007-2013 Tutorials

How it's done

Microsoft Office Online:

"It's time to get up to speed with Microsoft Office Word 2013. Learn the best ways to use the new Ribbon, get a handle on finding popular commands, and understand what the new file format does for you."

Microsoft Word 2013 Tutorial

Word 2010 for 2003 Upgraders

Also:

BayconGroup.com:

Microsoft Word 2007 Tutorial


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Word Form or Content

Shape or substance

"The legibility of a typeface should not be evaluated on its ability to generate a good word shape.

Word shape is no longer a viable model of word recognition. The bulk of scientific evidence says that we recognize a word's component letters, then use that visual information to recognize a word. In addition to perceptual information, we also use contextual information to help recognize words during ordinary reading, but that has no bearing on the word shape versus parallel letter recognition debate. "

The science of word recognition
by Kevin Larson
From EyeMagazine
Suggested by:
Microsoft Typography

Also see:
Cmabrigde


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Legal User's Guide

Object with style

"At first glance, you might think that not much has changed in the latest version of Microsoft Word; however, when you take a closer you look and discover the added collaboration functionality, research capabilities such as Encarta, translation and more, increased security, and new XML-enabled opportunities, you will quickly realize that Word 2003 offers even more benefits for the legal user."

Word 2003 Legal User's Guide

Charles Kenyon has put together the Intermediate User's Guide.
This Intermediate Users' Guide is based closely on the Legal Users' Guide and supplements it. It contains all the text from the original Legal Users' Guide together with additional guides and links to other resources.


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Unicode

Index resource

"Have you ever tried to include a passage in a different alphabet in one of your documents, for example a quotation in Russian in an English document, only to find that you have no Cyrillic characters available? Or sent a Spanish document in electronic form to someone in Greece, only to be told that the accented Latin characters have been replaced by Greek characters? Or produced a Web page that includes technical symbols and found that it works with Windows but not with Mac OS or Unix?"

Alan Wood's Unicode Resources
—
Unicode fonts for Windows computers

From the Word Help file:

If you know the Unicode (hexadecimal) value of a character, you can use the ALT+X keyboard shortcut to enter the character directly in your document.

Type the Unicode (hexadecimal) value of the character. Press ALT+X.
Note: The value string can also begin with U+.

Microsoft Word replaces the string to the left of the insertion point with the character you specified.

You can also use ALT+X to display the Unicode character code for a particular character. Place the insertion point to the right of the character, and then press ALT+X. The character is replaced by its character code. Press ALT+X again to switch back to the character.

• Љ — Hex=0409
  
• א — Hex=05D0
  
• ئ — Hex=0626
  

Editorium.com:
How to use Unicode characters in Microsoft Word

Also see:
Unicode Fonts and Keyboard
—
Unicode Macros


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Sequentially Number Documents

Budget0056.doc

Here's an example of how to use an external text file to record incremental numbering.

"Sometimes, when working on a project, you may want to save your documents in sequential order (for example, "0001", "0002", "0003", and so on).
If you wanted to do this manually, you would need to sort through your working directory for the latest file number before you could assign the next number to a new file.
Using this fairly straightforward Word macro, you can make creating sequenced files as easy as pressing a button."

LogicalExpressions.com:

Using Sequential Document Serial Numbers
(Allen Wyatt)

Also see:

Autonumber Invoices


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Special Characters

The other letters

• Ctrl+'
  Adds an acute accent to the character typed next

  Á

  
  
• Ctrl+'
  When followed by d or D, creates the old English character "eth"

  Ð

  
  
• Ctrl+`
  Adds a grave accent to the character typed next

  À

  
  
• Ctrl+^
  Adds a circumflex to the character typed next

  Â

  
  
• Ctrl+~
  Adds a tilde to the character typed next

  Ã

  
  
• Ctrl+:
  Adds a dieresis or umlaut to the character typed next

  Ä

  
  
• Ctrl+@
  Adds a degree symbol above the letters a and A; used primarily in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish

  Å

  
  
• Ctrl+&
  Creates combination or Germanic characters based on the character typed next

  Æ

  or

  ß

  
  
• Ctrl+,
  Adds a cedilla to the character typed next

  Ç

  
  
• Ctrl+/
  Adds a slash through the letters o and O; used primarily in Danish and Norwegian

  Ø

  
  
• Alt+Ctrl+?
  Creates an inverted question mark

  ¿

  
  
• Alt+Ctrl+!
  Creates an inverted exclamation mark
  

  ¡

  
  

Also see: Word MVPS.org:
How can I insert special characters, such as dingbats and accented letters, in my document? Article contributed by Suzanne S. Barnhill


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