IT Support BlogWord » IT Support Blog

Smarter Navigation

Fifosys News Desk — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:15:35 +0000

Many Word users know that the up-and-down double arrows at the foot of the vertical scroll bar will page up and down through an open document. Fewer, however, know that the little dot icon between those arrows, called the Select Browse Object button, lets you change the function of the double-arrow buttons and of the Ctrl-PgUp and Ctrl-PgDn key combinations. You can, for example, choose to browse by heading, so the buttons will automatically jump you up or down to the next heading. Other choices let you browse by footnote, endnote, comment, graphic, or table.

Open the Last Opened Document

Fifosys News Desk — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:42:02 +0000

You can create an icon on your desktop that will launch Word and automatically open the document you last opened. Either locate the file Winword .exe in Windows Explorer (for Office 2003, this is typically in C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOFFICE11) or find it with the Search item on the Start menu (in the Search tool, you’ll probably need to turn on More advanced options, then add checkmarks next to Search system folders and Search subfolders).

Once you find Winword .exe, right-click on the file icon and drag it to your desktop, and then select Create Shortcuts Here. Right-click on the new shortcut icon, choose Properties, and go to the Shortcut tab. In the Target field, after the existing file path, add a space and then /mFile1. You can also assign a shortcut key if you want to launch the file with a keystroke combination. When you’re done, click on Apply. In the General tab, give the shortcut a descriptive name and click on OK.

Rearranging Paragraphs with Two Keystrokes

Fifosys News Desk — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:03:38 +0000

Do you need to swap the second and third paragraphs in the document you’re working on? Don’t waste time dragging text around within your document using the mouse. Just click on the paragraph you’d like to move, hold down Shift-Alt, and move the paragraph up or down using the arrow keys. Each press of the arrow key causes the selected paragraph to jump over one adjacent paragraph.

Taming Squiggles and Smart Tags

Fifosys News Desk — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 09:23:10 +0000

Some of the features that are supposed to help you can just be downright annoying. Take those squiggly red and green underlines Word puts under words and sentences. Intended to point out spelling and grammatical errors, these are often wrong or inappropriate. To turn off the squiggly lines, choose Options from the Tools menu, select the Spelling & Grammar tab, then uncheck Check spelling as you type and Check grammar as you type.

Similarly, the Smart Tags that appear under dates, telephone numbers, pasted text, and so on can be distracting. You can choose AutoCorrect Options from the Tools menu, then select the Smart Tags tab to turn off individual features or all Smart Tag displays.

Using Special Characters

Fifosys News Desk — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:20:32 +0000

Click on start then run and type ‘charmap’. This will start an application that has a selection of characters and alphabet that you will not find on your keyboard. You can then copy the text you have selected and paste it into Emails and word documents.

Edit Two Parts of a Document

Fifosys News Desk — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:30:36 +0000

Are you worried about the consistency of your introduction and conclusion? A spectacular yet underused feature is Word’s ability to display two different parts of a document at the same time. To do this, you can either select the Split option from the Window menu to display a dividing line in the current window. Alternatively, you can drag down the tiny divider tool at the top of the right scroll bar. You can navigate to different parts of the document in each pane and use F6 to jump between them.

Fast Formatting

Fifosys News Desk — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 14:33:30 +0000

One of our favorite hidden gems is the Format Painter. This Paintbrush icon should appear by default on the standard toolbar. In is located on the Home menu in the Clipboard section.

When you click on this icon, Format Painter copies the text formatting of the area where the cursor is located. If you select an entire paragraph or cell and then click on the icon, Format Painter will also copy the paragraph or cell formatting. You can then “paint” the copied formatting into other parts of the document by simply highlighting text.

By double-clicking on the Format Painter icon, you can apply the copied formatting repeatedly until you press Esc.

Fixing Stubborn Formatting

Fifosys News Desk — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 13:29:19 +0000

Ever try to fix formatting that refuses to change? You can start with a clean slate by removing all formatting from the selection—select the block of text and press Ctrl-Shift-N.

Alternatively, you can use Word’s Reveal Formatting task pane to modify the formatting. In Word 2003 & 2007, just hit Shift-F1; in Word 2002, select Reveal Formatting from the Format menu. When you click on an underlined link, an options dialog will display settings that you can modify. By checking the Distinguish style source option, you can view whether formatting was applied directly or via a style

Line Breaks without Bullets

Fifosys News Desk — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:35:26 +0000

When you’re creating a bulleted or numbered list in Word or PowerPoint, you might want an item to appear on the list without a bullet. You can start a new line without a bullet by pressing Shift-Enter. The next time you press the Enter key, the new line will continue the bulleted or numbered list. Another useful trick: In Excel, you can press Alt-Enter to start a new line within a cell.