BOOT CAMP 266 (11/03/03)

WORD HINTS AND TIPS

It’s time once again for our annual round up of hints and tips for the three most widely-used PC applications namely Microsoft Word, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer. We begin this week with Word. Most of what follows is for Word 2000/2 though the majority of them also work on Word 97.

Many Word problems are caused by a corrupt ‘normal.dot’ document template file. To return Word to its default condition close the program and rename normal.dot (i.e. call it normal.old) and a fresh normal.dot will be automatically created when Word is opened. Normal.dot can usually be found in: C:\Windows\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates (Windows 9x) or C:\Documents and Settings\<yourname>\Templates (Windows XP).

Be aware that you will loose all of your preferences, custom dictionaries and macros, so it’s a good idea to make a backup of normal.dot when Word is running smoothly and use that as a replacement when it goes wrong. ­ You can also copy normal.dot onto a floppy and use it to transfer all of your settings and auto-correct entries to another instance of Word (it must be the same version) on another computer.

Take control of your Toolbars. The standard Word layout has a number of shortcomings and omissions. Try adding the Work menu icon. This gives you rapid access to documents that you open frequently. Right-click onto an empty area of the toolbar, click Customize, select the Commands tab and work your way down the Categories list to Built-In Menus. Select it then go to the Command list and scroll down to Work. Click, hold and drag it onto a toolbar and release and close Customize.  Click ‘Add to Work Menu’ to add any open document to the list. To delete entries press Ctrl + Alt + - (hyphen), the cursor changes to a thick bar, go to the Work menu and click on the item you want to remove.

Adding SaveAs and Document Close icons to the Toolbar are useful time-savers and putting them on the right side of the toolbar also reduces mouse mileage. On Customize select the Commands tab and click File under Categories. Scroll down the list in the Commands Windows and drag and drop SaveAs and Close onto the Toolbar. The SaveAs button doesn’t have an icon so right-click on it select Change Button Image and select something from the page. Other items you might want to add to your Toolbars include Insert Date and Page Number (on the Insert menu in Categories) and Word Count (Tools). To remove any icon or menu from the Toolbars open Customize then drag and drop the item onto the desktop. 

Keyboard shortcuts save a lot of time and Word has them in spades but you’ll be hard pressed to find much about them in Word Help. Here’s a way to print out a complete list. Go to Tools > Macro > Macros, on the ‘Macros In’ drop-down menu select Word Commands. Scroll down to ListCommands, click Run and in the new dialogue box that opens choose Current menu and Keyboard Settings. This creates a document, which you can save and print. It’s quite long but you can edit it and use a smaller typeface to get it down to 5 or 6 pages…

Whilst we’re on the subject of keyboard shortcuts, here are three to remember. When Word does anything unwanted or unexpected the instant get-out is the undo command Ctrl + Z. Copying and pasting words or chunks of text is made a lot easier with keyboard shortcuts Ctrl + C (Copy) and Ctrl + V (Paste). If you want to create your own shortcut, or change an existing one, open the Customize menu and click the Keyboard button. Locate the function in the Categories and Commands windows and the existing shortcut will be shown under ‘Current Keys’. To change it or compose a new one, enter the key combination in the ‘Press new shortcut key’ window and click the Assign button.

We’ll round off with a small selection of well hidden and undocumented features in Word, starting with a way to password protect any document. You’ll find this on the SaveAs menu, click the Tools drop-down menu and select General Options and set up your password.

On the Font Size drop-down menu the largest value shown is 72 point but you can specify any size you like (in 0.5pt increments), up to a massive 999.5 points, simply by typing in the number.

If you want to exit Word quickly and you have a lot of open documents that all need to be saved press and hold the Shift key whilst clicking on the File menu. A new item, SaveAll will appear.

When faced with a document that contains several different styles or formats you can quickly apply your chosen format to any block of text. Highlight a portion of text with the formant you want to copy then click on the Format Painter icon (paintbrush). Now move the mouse pointer to the text you want to change and drag the paintbrush across it.

Finally, Word can generate blocks of random text (actually ‘the quick brown fox…’etc., repeated over and again), which you can use for sizing or layout on dummy documents. All you have to do is type ‘=rand()’, (without the quotes) where you want it to go, then press Enter.  Putting a number inside the brackets, i.e. =rand(50) will repeat the block of text that number of times.

Next week – Internet Explorer Tips

JARGON FILTER

FORMAT

Embedded instructions within a document that specify the typeface, font size page layout and any special characteristics or features

KEYBOARD SHORTCUT

A simple and ideally memorable sequence of two or three key-strokes, used to invoke a frequently used action or activity within a program or application

MACRO

Simple programming function in Word (and many other programs) used to automate frequently used commands and functions

TIP OF THE WEEK

If you’ve ever wondered why Word document files are so large it’s due to  ‘Metadata’. This is hidden information that contains the author’s name, summaries, revisions, hidden text, previous authors and so on. Metadata can still be recovered, even if the document is sent as an email attachment. If you are concerned you can remove Metadata by sending the document as a plain text file, or have a look at Microsoft Knowledgebase, articles Q223790, Q237361 and Q290945 (Word 97, 2000 and 2002).

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;223790

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;237361

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;223790