http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Microsoft-Word A listing of the most recently indexed works about Microsoft Word in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Microsoft-Word http://tc.eserver.org/35780.html http://tc.eserver.org/35780.html Two free and easy-to-use scripts convert Word's local formatting to InDesign's character styles. Two more retain InDesign formatting when you export text formatted with automatically applied character styles. http://tc.eserver.org/35717.html http://tc.eserver.org/35717.html All the screenshots in your Word document are different sizes. What’s the quickest way to get them all the same size? Is there a shortcut? Yes! http://tc.eserver.org/35718.html http://tc.eserver.org/35718.html Most people don’t know what the AutoCorrect feature in Word really does. I use to correct the document AS I WRITE and to enter long strings of text automatically. http://tc.eserver.org/35370.html http://tc.eserver.org/35370.html I needed to make some macros available to all Word documents I opened. I wouldn’t need the macros for every document, but I would need them for many documents. The documents I was working on used different templates, so adding the macro to each template was not an option. http://tc.eserver.org/35302.html http://tc.eserver.org/35302.html If you’re working in a long or large document, Word’s background pagination can become a productivity killer. While it’s occurring, you can’t work as fast as usual, and sometimes, you can’t work at all until the paginating stops. You can turn off this background pagination, but only in certain view modes in Word. http://tc.eserver.org/34982.html http://tc.eserver.org/34982.html Don't like the font that Word uses for a default in your new documents? You can pick a different font, but the way you make the selection is not as straightforward as you might expect. (This tip works with Microsoft Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, and Word 2007.) http://tc.eserver.org/34864.html http://tc.eserver.org/34864.html I am well aware of the irritating, hair-tearing frustration Word gives you when it won’t do what you want it to. Here’s a series of mini-articles showing you how to ‘get a grip’ on the program and make it do what you want, not what it ‘thinks’ you want. http://tc.eserver.org/34433.html http://tc.eserver.org/34433.html If we say that it was mainly because of the Windows operating system that a computer could become a personal computer it would not be an exaggeration. The revolution is still on. Windows is far beyond what a common man presently knows and uses. http://tc.eserver.org/33981.html http://tc.eserver.org/33981.html The OpenDocument Format ("ODF") shows promise for bringing the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to the common desktop PC of the future as the native file format for office documents in the next-generation office suites including OpenOffice, StarOffice, KOffice, Workplace, Writely and others. An ODF Plugin for MS Office -- currently under development by the OpenDocument Foundation -- can deliver this promise to the 450 million legacy Windows desktop PCs already in place. Sam Hiser, an officer of the OpenDocument Foundation, will discuss the origins and design objectives of the Foundation's ODF Plugin. He will also discuss the strategic goals of the Foundation's ODF Plugin while showing how the Plugin effort is already influencing the development of the ODF standard itself at OASIS. An audience of general business people and software developers will leave Hiser's presentation with a clear understanding of the ODF Plugin, its context of relevance and development, and how it can alter the landscape for XML. http://tc.eserver.org/33653.html http://tc.eserver.org/33653.html Here's a simple way to read one of the new Microsoft file formats, even if you have no Microsoft software installed. Let's suppose you have a file that ends with .docx, from the latest version of Microsoft Word. It's actually a zip file, so add .zip to the end and unzip it. You'll find a cluster of files and folders inside, and the one you want should be called document.xml. Double-click that and it will load in a browser window, where you can read the text. http://tc.eserver.org/33612.html http://tc.eserver.org/33612.html Table Styles are my favorite type of Style in Word. They allow you to quickly and consistently format the table itself (e.g. borders, shading, etc.), the content within the table (E.g. line spacing, font color, font size, etc.), and they can also can tell a table when to do these (e.g. shade every other row, bold text in the first column, etc.). The first two enable you to create really rich tables, and the last one (which I'll call Conditional Formatting for the rest of this post) enables you to easily work with those rich tables. Both are quite important. http://tc.eserver.org/33613.html http://tc.eserver.org/33613.html If you've ever worked document with more than one person, then you've likely had to deal with this type of nonsense: Sally likes to emphasize text by making it 13 point and bold, Sam prefers to change the font and italicize it, Billy used Emphasis Style, and on, and on. Because of this, not only do you have to work to make the language in your co-authored document consistent, but you've got to deal with formatting inconsistencies as well. http://tc.eserver.org/33614.html http://tc.eserver.org/33614.html Have you ever wanted to make some text in your document look like other text in your document? Or maybe you made a picture look just right in last week's status report and really don't want to start from scratch on the picture in this week's status report. Either way, this week's tip will save you some time. http://tc.eserver.org/33615.html http://tc.eserver.org/33615.html Field codes provide a way to customize your Word document manually. That sounds like hard work, but the field codes also give you an inside look at some of the ways that you can customize a page number or a table of contents. (Really—those are fields.) http://tc.eserver.org/33616.html http://tc.eserver.org/33616.html How you can be like a super secret CIA agent and encrypt documents using Word 2007. http://tc.eserver.org/33617.html http://tc.eserver.org/33617.html In all previous versions of Word the Document Defaults were hardcoded into Word. That is, you couldn't change them. This means that the way you would change the default properties applied to your documents would either be to change the Styles within the Template used to create the document, or to write a macro that went through all documents and updated the properties defined by the Normal Style (the paragraph Style applied to text by default). In Word 2007, you can certainly still do the former, but should know the following before you do the later: by default, the Normal Style is empty. http://tc.eserver.org/33618.html http://tc.eserver.org/33618.html In Word, a style defines a set of formatting properties that are indirectly applied to characters, paragraphs, list, or tables. Instead of directly applying bold, then 14 point font, and then red to text, you can use a style to indirectly apply these three things in a single click. This is useful because you can quickly and consistently apply rich formatting, and can later change the definition of the style all the text the style is applied will change. http://tc.eserver.org/33619.html http://tc.eserver.org/33619.html To Word, comments, the body of your document, footers, etc. are basically the same. And this is good because if a feature works in one story, there's a very good chance it works in all stories. This is why you can track changes in not only the body of your document (i.e., "main story"), but also in headers, footers, endnotes, text boxes, etc. Put simply, this common story architecture enables as much Word goodness in as many places in Word as possible. http://tc.eserver.org/33620.html http://tc.eserver.org/33620.html There are only three possible behaviors when pasting tracked changes. The one you get depends on whether Track Changes is on or off in both the document you copied from [source] and the document you are pasting into [destination]. http://tc.eserver.org/33610.html http://tc.eserver.org/33610.html Building Blocks are reusable chunks of a Word document. They can contain any thing a Word document can contain, including pictures, shapes, fields, and even other building blocks. http://tc.eserver.org/33611.html http://tc.eserver.org/33611.html Table of contents and the Document Map are designed to work best with documents that use styles. Styles not only apply a look and feel to a document, but also provide semantic structure. For example, applying a Heading 2 style to some content that exists under a Heading 1 style implies hierarchy within a document. http://tc.eserver.org/32933.html http://tc.eserver.org/32933.html If you've been having trouble with Word lately, this could be the reason why! http://tc.eserver.org/32186.html http://tc.eserver.org/32186.html MS Word is not an XML authoring tool, no matter what your IT team believes. While Word may indeed understand and use some XML, it doesn't use XML in the way technical communicators need it to. Instead, it uses XML to transfer information back and forth between MS Office products. Useful? Yes. XML authoring? Not even close. http://tc.eserver.org/32210.html http://tc.eserver.org/32210.html Just what kind of information about yourself and your company are you releasing for all the world to see? Shouldn't you know? Although it takes special forensic tools to access most hidden information in computers, some of it is in plain view without using tools to see it. This article is about one of the “plain view” instances: Information that Microsoft Word saves about you, your company, and the topic you are writing about – all of which anyone can see after accessing and opening your document. http://tc.eserver.org/31968.html http://tc.eserver.org/31968.html This guide to dealing with the trials and tribulations of Master documents is virtually guaranteed to save whatever fragments of sanity you may have left as you deal with Master documents. http://tc.eserver.org/31885.html http://tc.eserver.org/31885.html An overview of how one technical communicator moved a Word document to a wiki, and some of the issues involved. http://tc.eserver.org/31735.html http://tc.eserver.org/31735.html Although MS Word can generate XML, it should not be considered any kind of a robust XML authoring tool. Instead, its XML features are best for use with other Microsoft Office applications. However, because XML authoring is gaining in popularity, new XML authoring software tools and utilities are coming to market. In this article, Scott Abel looks at using MS Word for XML and takes a closer look at one alternative XML solution from a Microsoft partner that uses Word's familiar interface. http://tc.eserver.org/31615.html http://tc.eserver.org/31615.html The XML train is finally pulling into the station. It brings an ocean change in the way we create, store, and manage information. In October of last year, Microsoft released Office 2003, which brings the promise of XML to the desktop. Previously, Word 2000 saved only the Properties of documents in an XML module in files converted to HTML. In this new edition, you can save or export all Office documents as XML documents. Using XML tags, we can now identify various elements of our documents for manipulation, storage, and retrieval as you would data in a data bank. It also enables us to more easily share information in those documents across other applications (including Web applications), networks, and operating systems. http://tc.eserver.org/31189.html http://tc.eserver.org/31189.html This tutorial is based on the PC version of Microsoft Word 2003, but the principles explained here should be similar for older versions of the program and for Macs. http://tc.eserver.org/30364.html http://tc.eserver.org/30364.html These are some formatting/word processing tips for Microsoft Word. http://tc.eserver.org/30365.html http://tc.eserver.org/30365.html Below are some tips for formatting tables or reports. Your formatting should be consistent throughout your document. http://tc.eserver.org/29383.html http://tc.eserver.org/29383.html Buried within Word are lots of cool tricks that not too many people have discovered. These are small things--shortcuts that, in some cases, may not look much more efficient than pulling down a menu and heading for the dialog box you need. But if you perform a certain task a thousand times a week, being able to bypass some steps or automatically slap a change into a document without having to stop and think about it can be a welcome convenience. The techniques included here include things like making vertical text selections, creating a shortcut to launch Word using a specified template, placing the Calculate command on a toolbar for quickly adding numbers, and duplicating text and objects with the mouse. http://tc.eserver.org/29343.html http://tc.eserver.org/29343.html Microsoft Word 2002's Handwriting Recognition feature allows you to use a pen and electronic tablet or a mouse to add a signature to your documents. Find out how you can start adding this feature to all your letters. http://tc.eserver.org/29300.html http://tc.eserver.org/29300.html Microsoft breathed new life into legacy office documents by opening an XML window (Office Open XML) to its office products through its royalty-free XPS specification. XPS stands for XML Paper Specification that specifies cross-platform, open standard, document representation that can be used for generating, sharing, printing and archiving of paginated documents. Its virtues in Microsoft's own words are, "With XPS, documents print better, can be shared easier, be archived with confidence, and are more secure." http://tc.eserver.org/28632.html http://tc.eserver.org/28632.html The home of the Office Users Group, built to provide some very unique help for users of the Office applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access. We've built the site to be independent and a constant source of up-to-date information and assistance. http://tc.eserver.org/28618.html http://tc.eserver.org/28618.html Acronyms Master is a free utility for MS Word that automatically creates acronyms table in the document. http://tc.eserver.org/27706.html http://tc.eserver.org/27706.html There has been a lot of attention to the legal encumbrances in Microsoft's new MS XML format. In this article we'll look at the technical side, and try to show you how the design of these formats affect interoperability. After all, that is the purpose of open standards. http://tc.eserver.org/27707.html http://tc.eserver.org/27707.html When Microsoft announced a week ago Monday that it had decided to open up its Office 12 XML file formats and had submitted the formats to be considered as a formal open standard by ECMA International, Alan Yates, the general manager of Microsoft's Information Worker Strategy, said, 'The new license that will accompany the Open XML format with the standards organization will go well beyond traditional standards licensing and will be very positive for the vast majority of developers, even open-source developers.' But. The only difference between Microsoft's November 2003 open and royalty-free license for the Office 2003 Reference Schemas and today's Office 2003 license, according to the company, is that 'Microsoft is offering a covenant not to sue for the Office 2003 Reference Schemas.' http://tc.eserver.org/27708.html http://tc.eserver.org/27708.html Microsoft has stated on numerous occasions that they believe in and support open standards. But from my experience, they do this not by joining existing open standards efforts, but instead by creating entirely new, parallel (and arguably redundant) 'open standards' efforts around their own technologies. And often it seems these new standards efforts are around new, untested, and immature technologies that began life as proprietary to Microsoft--introduced into the standards process when a pre-existing open standards effort already exists, and exists around proven and shipping technologies which were developed in the open with lots of input from a variety of expert stakeholders. http://tc.eserver.org/27467.html http://tc.eserver.org/27467.html Degunking Microsoft Office, by Christina Palaia and Wayne Palaia, addresses the problem of anything that slows down the computer, interferes with your operations, crashes applications, or loses data, and presents some ways of avoiding it. http://tc.eserver.org/27234.html http://tc.eserver.org/27234.html Whenever I insert a graphical object (picture, drawing object, etc.) into a Word 2000 table cell I lose the vertical formatting. The text is always aligned at the top of the cell, instead of being centered or at the bottom of the cell. Why, and what can I do about it? http://tc.eserver.org/27232.html http://tc.eserver.org/27232.html Objects in the drawing layer are visible in Page Layout (Print Layout) view and Print Preview but not in Normal view. Interestingly, a frame is a sort of hybrid object that can appear to float (and text can be wrapped around it), but it is actually inline and can be viewed (though not in position) in Normal view. http://tc.eserver.org/27237.html http://tc.eserver.org/27237.html You can use the old Word 2 command: WordBasic.ToolsBulletsNumbers Replace:=0, Type:=1, Remove:=1 This command is particularly useful for removing manually typed numbering from Headings in a document you have been emailed, prior to applying List Numbering. http://tc.eserver.org/27243.html http://tc.eserver.org/27243.html The most reliable way of creating numbered paragraphs is to use paragraph styles to apply the numbering. This makes all paragraphs with the same numbered style belong to the same numbered list, and numbering is continuous through the whole document. http://tc.eserver.org/27238.html http://tc.eserver.org/27238.html If you want to update the style definitions of a document with the style definitions in its attached template, you can manually select Tools + Templates and Add-ins, check the box which says 'Automatically update document styles', click OK; and then, because that setting is sticky (and most of the time, undesirable), immediately select Tools + Templates and Add-ins again, deselect the 'Automatically update document styles' box, and click OK. http://tc.eserver.org/27241.html http://tc.eserver.org/27241.html Publishers call the preliminary pages in a book the 'front matter.' They aren’t always numbered separately—some books start with the title page as page 1 and are paginated continuously throughout—but when there is a significant amount of front matter, it’s conventional to number it using lowercase roman numerals. http://tc.eserver.org/27242.html http://tc.eserver.org/27242.html If you insist on doing this – and if you do, don't say I didn't warn you! – then the best procedure is as follows. http://tc.eserver.org/27239.html http://tc.eserver.org/27239.html If you have applied the latest service release for your version of Word, and you still have the Page X of Y problem, any of the solutions mentioned below will work for you. http://tc.eserver.org/27233.html http://tc.eserver.org/27233.html Word 2000 can be a nightmare when it comes to positioning shapes – Word 97 was much more predictable. http://tc.eserver.org/27240.html http://tc.eserver.org/27240.html Word 2002 will display 0 for all page numbers in headers or footers, and all page numbers in a Table of Contents, in the following circumstances. http://tc.eserver.org/27235.html http://tc.eserver.org/27235.html Because Word is a WYSIWYG application, it will always try to represent on screen the result you will get if you print on the printer that is selected as the default. Changing printer drivers will almost always change the layout at least slightly and sometimes radically. There are a number of ways to minimize the changes. http://tc.eserver.org/27236.html http://tc.eserver.org/27236.html Numbering in Word is difficult to understand because Word attempts to hide 'complexity' from us. In many cases, it provides insufficient detail in the explanation of features. Regrettably, a simplistic explanation does not help understanding of a complex subject. It fills our heads with loose ends, which makes the problem worse! http://tc.eserver.org/27220.html http://tc.eserver.org/27220.html If you can't understand a program, then you can't debug it. Even with code that you have written yourself, if you come back to it six months or a year later, you may find yourself wondering “Why on earth did I write that? What was it for?” It doesn't take long to forget the details of a program when you aren't working on it any more. Make life easier for yourself, and write programs as clearly as possible. Also, provide such defences as you can against the possibility that VBA might change between versions of Word. http://tc.eserver.org/27214.html http://tc.eserver.org/27214.html The ease of copying and pasting text from Web sites and email greatly simplifies many tasks in Word, but problems often arise in making the pasted text conform to the style of the document into which it is pasted. One of the most common chores is getting rid of excess line breaks, which cause the text to wrap short of the right margin. There are several ways to work around this problem. http://tc.eserver.org/27217.html http://tc.eserver.org/27217.html Word's macro recorder can help you acquaint yourself with macros and with Office 97's VBA programming language. http://tc.eserver.org/27228.html http://tc.eserver.org/27228.html The first questions is – why do you need to know the index number? http://tc.eserver.org/27213.html http://tc.eserver.org/27213.html Word's draw layer is a metaphysical space where floating objects reside. It really isn't a layer, since floating objects can be sent behind the text layer or brought out in front of it. Either way, they continue to reside in the draw layer. http://tc.eserver.org/27227.html http://tc.eserver.org/27227.html There are two ways to use Automation (or OLE Automation) to programmatically control another application. http://tc.eserver.org/27229.html http://tc.eserver.org/27229.html There are two Help topics in Word VBA Help that are required reading to get you started with built-in dialogs: 'Displaying built-in Word dialog boxes' and 'Built-in dialog box argument lists'. Unfortunately, in the latter article, Microsoft listed the arguments you can use but forgot to mention what the arguments mean or what values they can take! Fortunately, the dialog box arguments are almost identical to the arguments of the commands of WordBasic, so if you know one, you can work out the other. Therefore, the WordBasic Help file is at present by far the best resource for programmers wanting to use the dialogs. It is an absolute must-have. http://tc.eserver.org/27218.html http://tc.eserver.org/27218.html I can't turn you into a VBA expert but I can suggest a way to explore VBA that you may find helpful. Below, I've listed 22 steps that can be completed in approximately 15 minutes, assuming someone is kind enough to read them to you as you sit at your keyboard. If you have to read them by yourself and turn your attention alternately to the keyboard and back to the steps, then you may need a half hour or longer to complete the steps. Either way, the steps should give you a feel for what it's like to program in Word. http://tc.eserver.org/27216.html http://tc.eserver.org/27216.html Do you re-use some of your documents over and over again, making slight changes just before you print, fax, or email it each time? Do you, for example, send the same basic letter to each new customer, but edit the letter each time so that it refers to the specific product purchased by that customer? Starting with Word 97, there's an easy way to add a pop-up list of choices to any Word document. This new feature lets you point at a word or phrase and simply right-click the mouse to switch to some other word or phrase. http://tc.eserver.org/27219.html http://tc.eserver.org/27219.html This example will step you through the process of creating a template that contains an autonew macro which, when you create a new document from the template, will cause a Userform to be displayed, into which you can enter some information that you want to appear in the document. http://tc.eserver.org/27230.html http://tc.eserver.org/27230.html Supposing you frequently need to add Multiline Text Boxes to your UserForms, with the EnterKeyBehavior property set to True. Or let's say you want to drag a 'Next' button straight onto your userform and not have to change the text in it to say 'Next', and not have to change the dimensions of the button. http://tc.eserver.org/27223.html http://tc.eserver.org/27223.html Most of us write routines that do similar operations more than once. It makes your code much less cumbersome and much easier to follow if you hive off all such repetitive chunks of code into separate subroutines or functions. The difference between a sub and a function is that a function can return a value. Within the function itself, you can treat the function name like a variable, and give it a value and then you can call the function and get that value. http://tc.eserver.org/27215.html http://tc.eserver.org/27215.html Word's sorting capability is fairly rudimentary, especially for those migrating to it from WordPerfect (though it's surprising how many people don't realize Word can sort paragraphs, not just tables – or maybe not so surprising, given where the item is in the menus! The ability to sort on word 2 in field 3 would certainly be very useful (in Excel as well). But there are various things you can do in the meantime. http://tc.eserver.org/27231.html http://tc.eserver.org/27231.html If you want a macro to be fired whenever any document is opened, regardless of which template the document is attached to, the simplest way is to write an AutoOpen macro and store it in Normal.dot. http://tc.eserver.org/27224.html http://tc.eserver.org/27224.html When Microsoft released Word 97, a new programming language VBA replaced the WordBasic language that had been available in earlier versions of Word. For most things, VBA is a much more powerful and flexible programming language than WordBasic, but there are a few very useful WordBasic commands which have no direct equivalents in VBA. Fortunately, VBA includes the WordBasic object, which gives access to most of the old WordBasic commands. http://tc.eserver.org/27225.html http://tc.eserver.org/27225.html The rules are confusing concerning the use of parentheses to enclose argument lists. I have even seen MS Knowledgebase articles that have got it wrong. The rules are as follows. http://tc.eserver.org/27222.html http://tc.eserver.org/27222.html Almost all Microsoft Word variables should be dimensioned as whatever they are (Dim MyRange As Range, Dim MyString As String, etc.). http://tc.eserver.org/27226.html http://tc.eserver.org/27226.html The most important thing you need to know when working with bookmarks in Word is that there are two 'types' of bookmarks: 'placeholder' bookmarks and 'enclosing' bookmarks. http://tc.eserver.org/27195.html http://tc.eserver.org/27195.html Microsoft Word supports many file formats which can be used as a Data Source for a mail merge. This article covers specifications and frequently asked questions on the most commonly used Data Sources, along with how to set up a Data Source in Word. http://tc.eserver.org/27183.html http://tc.eserver.org/27183.html The natural tendency of most users of word processing applications is to create a document and use it as a model for future documents. That is, you format a letter the way you want all (or most) of your letters to look, save it, and then, when you want to write a letter, open this document and save it under another name as the starting point for your letter. In WordPerfect, until recently, this was the only way to create a template. Word uses a different approach. http://tc.eserver.org/27200.html http://tc.eserver.org/27200.html This article tells you how to create a template to produce a software manual. http://tc.eserver.org/27204.html http://tc.eserver.org/27204.html Wildcards are like the blank pieces in Scrabble, or like the Jokers you can use in some card games to stand in for any card. http://tc.eserver.org/27203.html http://tc.eserver.org/27203.html How to find text that has particular formatting and replace it with different text, but without changing the formatting. http://tc.eserver.org/27190.html http://tc.eserver.org/27190.html Many Word users don't realize how easy it is to insert special characters. There are at least four ways to do it: through the Symbol dialog, using shortcut keys, automatically with AutoCorrect, or by direct keypad entry. http://tc.eserver.org/27207.html http://tc.eserver.org/27207.html Saving when resources are low can cause corruptions. If you notice Word start to slow down noticeably it's always best to quit and restart Word immediately; to close any other applications that are open; and to clear the clipboard, by selecting any character and copying it. http://tc.eserver.org/27201.html http://tc.eserver.org/27201.html The Microsoft Word Help suggests that you can automatically generate an index. Sorry, but you can't (the 'result' looks like an index, but the reader can't use it). You can automatically mark index entries: however, the amount of work required to edit the result into a usable index is usually double the effort required to manually mark the index entries one-by-one. http://tc.eserver.org/27202.html http://tc.eserver.org/27202.html Word's page numbering scheme isn't directly obvious but it isn't needlessly complex, either. Indirect might be a good term for it. Once you understand how it works, all sorts of possibilities open up. Unfortunately, the built-in tools that simplify the insertion of page numbers also happen to make it more difficult to tell what's really going on. So, for the moment, forget everything you've learned or think you know about page numbers. http://tc.eserver.org/27194.html http://tc.eserver.org/27194.html Mail merge is for simplifying repetitive documents and tasks. Mail merge can be used for creating many documents at once that contain identical formatting, layout, text, graphics, etc., and where only certain portions of each document varies. Mail merge is also used for generating mailing labels, envelopes, address lists, personalised training handouts, etc. As well as hard copy mailshots, it can be used to generate multiple emails and electronic faxes. And it can even be used to create a 'friendly' front-end to spreadsheet or database information. http://tc.eserver.org/27208.html http://tc.eserver.org/27208.html Notice how this article starts off with the cheerful assumption that you want to 'recover' a Master Document? I bet you were hoping that we would tell you how to 'fix' one! We can't. If you are having a problem with a master document, the problem is the master document. Any attempt you make to repair one will inevitably make your problem worse. http://tc.eserver.org/27186.html http://tc.eserver.org/27186.html Word's Outline View is wonderful for long documents and – used properly – can cut the time taken to write a typical report, proposal, thesis, or dissertation by as much as 50%. http://tc.eserver.org/27206.html http://tc.eserver.org/27206.html WordPerfect considers a document to be a 'type stream.' If you picture WordPerfect sitting on the end of the printer cable, sending characters one-by-one, and every now and again inserting a COMMAND to change what the printer is doing, you'll get the idea. For example, WP sends the commands for 'Arial' font and 'bold'. It then expects the printer to print every character that way until it tells the printer to do something else. Word, on the other hand, considers a document to be a 'container.' Within this container are more containers and, within them, still more. Into each of these containers, Word inserts objects. The objects can be bits of text, or bits of pictures, or complete files created by other applications. http://tc.eserver.org/27205.html http://tc.eserver.org/27205.html There is nothing in Word directly comparable to Reveal Codes in WordPerfect. There is a very good reason for this. WordPerfect can be thought of (and I understand is) basically a text stream with codes interspersed (for more on this, see John McGhie's article on Word vs. WordPerfect). This is what you see when you Reveal Codes. You have codes or markers that turn on and off certain formatting characteristics. Word, on the other hand, is a series of nesting containers, characters inside words inside paragraphs inside sections inside documents. The formatting of these is by styles and by pointers at the beginning and end of the document. http://tc.eserver.org/27196.html http://tc.eserver.org/27196.html Almost any mail merge will work better if you use IF fields, as the frequently used scenarios discussed below attempt to illustrate. http://tc.eserver.org/27185.html http://tc.eserver.org/27185.html If your problem manifests with just one document (or a specific subset of documents), but not with all documents, it is probable that you’re suffering from document corruption. Symptoms may include weird page numbering (drag the thumb down the right vertical margin and watch the page number counter – it will go crazy when you pass a corruption) infinite repagination, incorrect document layout and formatting, unreadable characters on the screen, hangs or crashes when you load or view a particular file. Such corruption is generally carried in the very last paragraph mark in a document, which is the marker for a hidden container in which Word stores all document properties including formatting information. http://tc.eserver.org/27191.html http://tc.eserver.org/27191.html If you work for a company of any size at all, then simply getting your staff to use the ruler properly will save them many hours every week, and significantly increase your company's profitability. http://tc.eserver.org/27188.html http://tc.eserver.org/27188.html This list doesn't attempt to be comprehensive, but is a list of the shortcuts which save me the most time. http://tc.eserver.org/27192.html http://tc.eserver.org/27192.html When you open a new blank document in Word, you begin typing at the left side of the screen/page and continue typing to the right margin, where Word wraps your text back to the left so you can start again. All your lines of text are full width. But sometimes you need to divide your text into two or more columns. http://tc.eserver.org/27184.html http://tc.eserver.org/27184.html If you have no clue what is causing your problem with Word, work through The Basics and all the General Troubleshooting topics. Beyond the basics, probably 70% of the problems in Word are caused by a corrupt Normal template or corrupt Preferences. http://tc.eserver.org/27197.html http://tc.eserver.org/27197.html Purists might argue that the power it gives ordinary users isn't necessary because they should use Access queries for this sort of thing and link the merge to the query. But in my experience, many people who are very comfortable working with Word and Excel find Access (or any full-fledged database application) very difficult to work with, and can get the job done far more quickly and easily using a combination of Word and Excel. At the end of the day, getting the job done is what matters. The vast majority of the world's databases (in terms of number of databases, rather than in terms of amount of data) are stored in Excel spreadsheets. http://tc.eserver.org/27199.html http://tc.eserver.org/27199.html In one form or another, Word is ubiquitous. If you buy a new computer, chances are good that it will come with some version of Office or Works Suite (which includes Word) installed. Word is a powerful word processing program that incorporates many of the features of a page layout application, but there are times when a page layout or desktop publishing application is what is needed. If you are using the Small Business Edition of Office 97 or Office 2000 SBE, Professional, or Premium, you have such a program: Microsoft Publisher. http://tc.eserver.org/27198.html http://tc.eserver.org/27198.html The macrobutton field can be used as a text marker within a template, or, as the name implies, it can be used to run a macro. http://tc.eserver.org/27187.html http://tc.eserver.org/27187.html Occasionally a new user of Word is alarmed to discover that his previously pristine document is full of strange symbols – dots, arrows, paragraphs marks, and the like. For experienced users, the usual reaction of such a user seems almost comical because experienced users know how invaluable the display of nonprinting characters can be both in formatting and in troubleshooting documents. http://tc.eserver.org/27209.html http://tc.eserver.org/27209.html The complete explanation would be a book in itself. For now, it is enough to know that a Word document is a great big 'list' of objects. An object can be anything you can put in a Word document. Each of these objects has many, many 'properties' that determine how it appears and how it behaves. http://tc.eserver.org/27189.html http://tc.eserver.org/27189.html Word has a built-in command ListCommands, which produces a table of all the Word commands with their current key and menu assignments. However, it does not list the commands using their actual names; nor does it include descriptions of what the commands actually do. http://tc.eserver.org/27193.html http://tc.eserver.org/27193.html When you delete a section break, or move an entire section to another part of the document, you get what seem to be very strange results. For instance, deleting a Continuous section break causes the preceding Next Page section break to convert to a Continuous one, or deleting a section break causes an important Header to disappear from the document, or causes the entire document to become landscape. http://tc.eserver.org/27085.html http://tc.eserver.org/27085.html While it takes special forensic tools to access most of the hidden information in computers, some of it is in plain view and can be seen without forensic tools. This article is about one of the 'plain view' instances: information Microsoft Word saves about you, your company, and the topic you are writing about, all of which can be seen by anyone who has access to your document. http://tc.eserver.org/26753.html http://tc.eserver.org/26753.html Large documents often require several page number formats in the same document. In this article, we describe how to setup different page numbering formats. http://tc.eserver.org/26752.html http://tc.eserver.org/26752.html A macro is an action, or a set of actions, that automate tasks. Macros are recorded in the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programming language. You can use the macro recorder to record a sequence of actions as a macro, or write VBA code in the Visual Basic Editor. http://tc.eserver.org/26751.html http://tc.eserver.org/26751.html Microsoft Word will 'lose' documents in certain situations. For example, it may lose a document if Word is forced to quit unexpectedly, if your computer has a power interruption while you're writing, or if you close the document without saving changes. In this article we explain different ways to recover these lost documents. http://tc.eserver.org/26746.html http://tc.eserver.org/26746.html Bloated file sizes are a real problem. No-one will deny this. But, in the course of creating some long documents in MS Word, I've learned a few small secrets. http://tc.eserver.org/26750.html http://tc.eserver.org/26750.html Word can be very unforgiving! Once a document becomes too unwieldy, it starts to stagger and then collapses, wiping out all the formatting in the process. In some cases, you can recover the raw text but, as a rule, the layout and presentation is destroyed. However, there are several ways that reduce the likelihood of this occurring. http://tc.eserver.org/26749.html http://tc.eserver.org/26749.html When you insert a graphic into your Word document, it increases the file size automatically as Word has to ‘store’ (i.e. duplicate) a rendering of the graphic in the document. To avoid this happening, you can reduce the file size by storing only the links to the graphics and not the actual graphic itself. http://tc.eserver.org/26748.html http://tc.eserver.org/26748.html Word can be very frustrating. Take, for example, when it refuses to open a file that you have worked on only a few minutes earlier. You know you closed the file correctly. There were no error messages when you exited. So, why does this happen? http://tc.eserver.org/26747.html http://tc.eserver.org/26747.html Even if you do everything right, sooner or later one of your documents will become corrupt. Sometimes word will even open the file, but before you can do any work, it crashes! How can you retrieve the document? http://tc.eserver.org/26326.html http://tc.eserver.org/26326.html It's ironic that the process of exporting a document from Word to HTML would have the effect of breaking the web page in Internet Explorer only. It's also pretty darned annoying. http://tc.eserver.org/26117.html http://tc.eserver.org/26117.html This section will show you how to insert text, symbols, and special characters; select characters, words, and paragraphs; and copy and paste text. This section also covers methods of automatic text entry, including AutoCorrect and AutoText. http://tc.eserver.org/26118.html http://tc.eserver.org/26118.html This section shows you how to use Word’s spelling, grammar, and research tools. You also learn how to hyphenate documents, print envelopes and labels, and work with XML. http://tc.eserver.org/26123.html http://tc.eserver.org/26123.html Word performs many behind-the-scenes actions that some people hate and some people love. You already learned about AutoRecover, which saves files in the background every few minutes. Word offers three other big automated features: AutoCorrect, Smart Cut and Paste, and background spelling and grammar check. http://tc.eserver.org/26064.html http://tc.eserver.org/26064.html A discussion of th Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level formula, as implemented in Microsoft Word. http://tc.eserver.org/25876.html http://tc.eserver.org/25876.html You can increase your efficiency and at the same time, improve the appearance of your Microsoft® Word documents by using styles. http://tc.eserver.org/25081.html http://tc.eserver.org/25081.html If you are like most technical writers, your procedures have automatically numbered steps (whether in tables or text), Microsoft Word provides two relatively simple ways for you to cross-reference a step number. http://tc.eserver.org/24273.html http://tc.eserver.org/24273.html This paper, and my presentation, focus on the how I developed the idea of using Microsoft Word macros as a single source solution. They also discuss the benefits of these macros and their effectiveness. http://tc.eserver.org/24203.html http://tc.eserver.org/24203.html I recently began looking for a way to eliminate the need to manually perform small repetitive tasks. In Microsoft Word, that way is through the software’s 'automatic text' features: Autoformat, Autocorrect, and Autotext. In this article, I’ll focus on these features in Word, but will also discuss how to lighten the work load in other software. http://tc.eserver.org/24190.html http://tc.eserver.org/24190.html My documents keep crashing in Microsoft Word. What can I do? http://tc.eserver.org/24179.html http://tc.eserver.org/24179.html Word has powerful language tools, but if you don't understand how they work, even a simple spellcheck can pose problems. In this article, I'll discuss how to take full advantage of Word's language settings. http://tc.eserver.org/23675.html http://tc.eserver.org/23675.html Using heading levels and styles in Microsoft Word, you can automatically generate a table of contents. It is useful when doing a long document that needs a table of contents and generating a table of contents is much faster than doing one manually. http://tc.eserver.org/23462.html http://tc.eserver.org/23462.html For long Word documents, I never use the main/sub document feature. It's unreliable. Instead I link the graphics without saving in the document. When the document is completed I change it to relative path (using a Find & Replace procedure) for reliable file transfer. http://tc.eserver.org/22993.html http://tc.eserver.org/22993.html Most people use word processors incorrectly. Rather than use true headings, they simply enlarge the font size and make it bold. If you do this, the document has no real structure that can be discerned by a screen reader. The correct way to provide structure within Word documents is to use Word styles. http://tc.eserver.org/22742.html http://tc.eserver.org/22742.html When you open a new file in Word, the font is probably set to Times Roman size 12. It doesn’t have to be like this; maybe you’d prefer a more glamourous font! In this tutorial, we'll explain how to create a new Word template. http://tc.eserver.org/22743.html http://tc.eserver.org/22743.html Here are some tips that I have gathered for making technical publications in Microsoft Word 2000. The tips are written for someone with experience using MS Word who needs a boost on the basic techniques for specific layout problems. In developing and documenting these techniques, I have in mind a regular, technical conference paper with columns, equations, and figures. There is an accompanying MS Word document that gives examples of these techniques. http://tc.eserver.org/22136.html http://tc.eserver.org/22136.html This technique (involving two macros) works in Word97, but not in Word6 or 7/95. The requirement is to indicate (for audit purposes) whether an editorial change was accepted or rejected by the author or other authority. http://tc.eserver.org/22075.html http://tc.eserver.org/22075.html Some ways to find answers to your Office questions and solutions to your Office problems. http://tc.eserver.org/22050.html http://tc.eserver.org/22050.html One of the more powerful features of Microsoft Word rests in the capability for the user to develop specialized document templates. I have found it beneficial, as you will see in the Template Library area of this site, to develop a “library” of specialized templates I rely on to speed document production for my clients. The templates allow me to get through that difficult document design phase. Much time and effort has been devoted to defining effective documentation formats and I have integrated those features in the templates. I overcome any “design” debate by presenting a proposed format (sometimes with outline) for approval. This way unique requirements are identified and implemented immediately, in this early stage. http://tc.eserver.org/21792.html http://tc.eserver.org/21792.html One of the first hurdles facing any major content or document management implementation is what to do with legacy documents.  Chances are, many or most of those documents reside in Microsoft Word format, but enterprises often want to get them into a more open format, like XML.  This is particularly the case for STM (Scientific, Technical, Medical) publishing, where you find complicated -- but highly structured -- information along with tantalizingly attractive re-use opportunities.  But it is also true for everyday corporate documents as well. http://tc.eserver.org/21676.html http://tc.eserver.org/21676.html In Microsoft Word, you can use menus and toolbars to control how you manage your documents. Menus display a list of commands. Most menus are located on the menu bar at the top of the Word window. Shortcut menus are available when you right-click text, objects, or other items. Toolbars can contain buttons with images, menus, or a combination of both. By default, the Standard and Formatting toolbars are docked side by side below the menu bar. You can also add a custom menu to your toolbar. http://tc.eserver.org/21680.html http://tc.eserver.org/21680.html For technical writers, a well-crafted index helps organise the writing process, in particular, when you get to the production stage.