Need a New Page? Don’t Hit Enter Till You Get One, Hit CTRL+Enter

Sometimes the smallest computer tip escapes me because I’ve known and used it for so long, but today, I helped someone create a Table of Contents for a document and when I turned on Show/Hide paragraph marks, check out what I saw on the page my client had reserved for the TOC:

I didn’t count the hard returns, but suffice it to say this is NOT the best way to get a new page. In this particular situation, as soon as the Table of Contents is generated and fills the page, ALL those hard returns will have to be deleted.

In the broader scope of document editing, anytime someone presses the Enter key multiple times to get to the next page, all those extra hard returns will have to be deleted when the document is edited and pagination changes. When this method of getting to a new page is used multiple times throughout a document, editing can easily turn into a circular game of adding and deleting hard returns every time text is added or removed.

Instead of pressing the Enter key over and over and over and OVER again, try pressing the keyboard shortcut “CTRL+Enter” to insert a page break at the location of your cursor.

With the paragraph marks shown, it looks like this:

>

I’ll address all the unnecessary spaces and tabs after the word ARTICLES in another post.

create faux letterhead for fax and pdf attachments.

Historically, I’ve created faux letterhead to be used when letters were to be sent via fax. More recently, they are used for letters to be sent as PDF attachments via email.

The reasoning behind this is to save money on pre-printed stationary letterhead. Economically, there’s no reason to print a letter on this expensive paper when the recipient will never actually touch it.

First, I re-create the content and format of a client’s pre-printed letterhead using the same fonts and layout as the printed version. The goal is that the recipients of these letters won’t notice a difference between the paper letters they receive from a firm via USPS and the letters they receive from the same firm via fax or email.
Continue reading “create faux letterhead for fax and pdf attachments.”

prevent editing in a Section of a MS Word template/document

Occasionally, I’ve needed to protect a portion of a Word template from accidental editing. There are many reasons to do this, but one example – the one I’ll be using in this particular #pragmaticcomputertip – is to protect the content and formatting of what I call “faux” letterhead. (Note: This tip applies to MS Word 2007 and later.)

Click HERE to read the previous #pragmaticcopmutertip about creating faux letterhead. After finalizing, it’s a good idea to to be protect that section of the form against accidental editing. Here’s how that’s done:

Continue reading “prevent editing in a Section of a MS Word template/document”

send someone a text via email.

Did you know you can send text messages from any email program to a cell phone? For example, to email a text message to someone who uses AT&T, you would address the email like this: 10digitcellnumber@txt.att.net

However, when sending text messages via email, follow a few best practices:

1. Keep the message to just text (no images or attachments).
2. Keep the text plain (no text formatting).
3. Keep these messages short. If you send a large message, it will be broken up into multiple smaller 140 or 160 character messages. #annoying
Continue reading “send someone a text via email.”

#outlook shortcuts: replying to messages

Quick and easy shortcut for you today. Regardless of whether you have an email open or if it’s just highlighted within your Inbox or email folder, you can press:

Ctrl+R to “Reply” to the sender, Ctrl+Shift+R to “Reply to All” or Ctrl+F to “Forward” the email.

pragmaticcomputingtips outlookshortcuts reply forward

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