Microsoft Word is a word processor, part of the Microsoft Office suite of computer applications. It is commonly used by technical writers, sometimes in combination with document design applications.
#32186
Who Says You Can't Use Microsoft Word To Do XML?
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.
Abel, Scott. TechCom Manager (2007). Articles>Writing>XML>Microsoft Word
#32210
Hidden Information for All to See
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.
Molisani, Jack. TechCom Manager (2006). Articles>Management>Security>Microsoft Word
#32933
If you've been having trouble with Word lately, this could be the reason why!
Craig's Joke Images (2004). Humor>Word Processing>User Interface>Microsoft Word
#33610
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.
Boyer, Jodie. Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word
#33611
Taking Control of Your Table of Contents or Document Map
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.
Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word
#33612
Behind the Curtains: Table Styles
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.
Microsoft (2008). Articles>Document Design>Style Sheets>Microsoft Word
#33613
How to Make the Formatting in Your Document Consistent 
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.
Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Style Sheets>Microsoft Word
#33614
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.
Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Style Sheets>Microsoft Word
#33615
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.)
Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word
#33616
How you can be like a super secret CIA agent and encrypt documents using Word 2007.
Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Security>Microsoft Word
#33617
Styles, Doc Defaults, Style Sets, and Themes
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.
Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Style Sheets>Microsoft Word
#33618
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.
Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Style Sheets>Microsoft Word
#33619
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.
Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word
#33620
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].
Microsoft (2008). Articles>Word Processing>Collaboration>Microsoft Word
#33653
Why Microsoft's .docx Format is a Good Thing
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.
Schofield, Jack. Guardian Unlimited, The (2007). Articles>Document Design>XML>Microsoft Word
#33981
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.
Hiser, Sam. XML 2006 (2006). Articles>Word Processing>XML>Microsoft Word
#34433
Productivity Tips for IE, MS Word, Outlook
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.
Bangar, Pawan. Technical Communication Center (2009). Articles>Software>Usability>Microsoft Word
#34864
How to Use MS Word Without Frustration
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.
Bentley, Carol. Technical Communication Center (2005). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word
#34982
Changing the Default Font in Microsoft Word
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.)
Wyatt, Allen. Word Tips (2009). Articles>Typography>Software>Microsoft Word
#35302
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.
CyberText Consulting (2009). Articles>Word Processing>Workflow>Microsoft Word
#35370
Word: Separate Out Macros and Attach Them to All Documents
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.
CyberText Consulting (2009). Articles>Word Processing>Software>Microsoft Word
#35717
How to Change 100 Screenshots to the Same Size with a Single Click
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!
Walsh, Ivan. I Heart Tech Docs (2009). Articles>Document Design>Image Editing>Microsoft Word
#35718
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.
Walsh, Ivan. I Heart Tech Docs (2009). Articles>Word Processing>Editing>Microsoft Word
#35780
Easy Fixes for Microsoft Word Formatting in InDesign 
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.
Concepcion, Anne-Marie. Creative Pro (2009). Articles>Document Design>Microsoft Word>Adobe InDesign
