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Tag: MS Word
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”
autotext/quick parts/building blocks.
If you used Autotext in MS Word 2003 or earlier, it’s one of the first questions you’ll have:
“Does Word still have Autotext?”
The answer? YES.
What’s the next question?
“WHERE is it? I can’t find it anywhere!”
I know.
Autotext has been renamed. reorganized. buried. Some refer to it as QuickParts. or Building Blocks. or both. But forget names. Let’s cut to the chase:
Alt+F3 and F3.
“Keystrokes?” the die hard mouse people whine ask?
(To you mouse people, go ahead, use the mouse. Click the “Insert” Ribbon, then click the Quick Parts dropdown, then . . . who am I kidding? I’m not typing up mouse instructions for this. sorry)
For you long time Autotext users, the good news is that Microsoft left in the legacy keystrokes for this feature.
Quick and Easy.
To CREATE an Entry:
1. Select the text you never want to type again, whether you open a document which contains that text or whether you type it from scratch – select it. Continue reading “autotext/quick parts/building blocks.”
automatic text generation. a variation for the easily distracted.
In the previous #pragmaticcomputingtip, entitled “automatic random text generation. improved?” I shared a nifty little feature in Word 2007 and 2010 which automated the generation of random text.
Check it out and then come on back and I’ll walk you through you a variation.
no. really. check it out. I’ll wait.
okay, welcome back.
While =rand(p,s) is effective and fun, its use has a potential problem. It generates interesting text. Okay, “interesting” is debatable, but it generates English text that makes sense, which means there’s a potential for distraction.
If you don’t want your reader/learner/audience to focus on the content of your text, there’s another, similar feature that generates nonsensical random text that will keep people focused on the form of your document/website without tempting anyone to read for content absorption. Try this:
Continue reading “automatic text generation. a variation for the easily distracted.”
I can’t save autotext!
Do you create autotext entries or buttons in Microsoft Word 2002, 2003 or XP but can’t seem to find them later?
If you also have Adobe Acrobat Professional or Standard loaded on your computer, you’re not imagining things or doing anything wrong! There’s a conflict between Word and Acrobat 7.0 which prevents autotext, macros, preferences and custom setting (like buttons) from saving in MS Word. For those of you who care or understand – Word ‘s “normal.dot” can’t save changes.
The good news is that Adobe knows about this problem and has issued an update! For detailed info and the download link, CLICK HERE to visit the “Tech Note” in the Adobe Knowledgebase.
Converting Between WordPerfect and Word.
Want to edit a Word document using WordPerfect?
If you have the latest version of WordPerfect, just open the Word document and WordPerfect will convert it automatically, no matter what version of MS Word was used to save it.
Don’t have the latest version of WordPerfect (WP13 aka WPx3)? Then you need “The Know How.” Keep reading (or scroll down to skip the explanation and get right to it.)
Want to edit a WordPerfect document using MS Word?
Just open the WordPerfect document in any version of MS Word. Since WordPerfect’s document format has remained the same from version 6 through 13, this method should always work when opening any WordPerfect file in any version of MS Word.
Why can’t any version of WordPerfect open any Word file?
Nearly every version of MS Word produces a unique document format, so attempting to open a Word document in a previously released version of WordPerfect produces the message “Unknown File Format.”
(That’s okay, some previously released versions of MS Word had/have trouble opening newly released MS Word file formats – without a patch.)
Each version of WordPerfect produces the same document format – so MS Word has been able to read it since Word 6.0. Did WordPerfect just get it right the first time? Novell and Corel think so. Continue reading “Converting Between WordPerfect and Word.”
automatically generate placeholder text in Microsoft Word.
When I provide computer training, I often need fake documents to work with. Most of the time, I will have a trainee type a single sentence and then have them copy and paste it over and over again to create a paragraph. Then I’ll have them copy their little paragraph and paste it over and over again to create a multi-paragraph, multi-page document. It provides some keyboard text selection and cut/copy/paste shortcut key practice and we end up with a safe document to work with during training.
But if you’re using Microsoft Word, there is another way to build a fake document. MS Word can generate random text automatically. Try this:
In MS Word 2003 or earlier, at the beginning of a line, type:
=rand()
Press enter.
The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” (which contains every letter of the English alphabet) appears multiple times, forming three paragraphs of five sentences each.
cool.
You can also specify the number of paragraphs and sentences by typing numbers between the parenthesis, like this: Continue reading “automatically generate placeholder text in Microsoft Word.”
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