CONTENTS OF BEND WORD TO YOUR WILL

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Note: While page numbers are shown here, they will, of course, be different on your computer. That's because Word repaginates the entire document to print from your printer with your fonts.

 

Welcome to my notes!

13

Please read this section before going further

17

Fonts used in this document

17

Displaying this document

17

Why some headings in these notes are coloured

18

The Command key

19

If you’re using a Windows version of Word

19

Menus or keyboard shortcuts?

19

Using hyperlinks in this document

20

A note: Work-arounds for F9, now that it has been used by Exposé in OS 10.3 onwards

21

Sources of information on Word

21

The working preferences and tasks that influenced these notes

24

Configuring your Mac to minimise problems in Word

25

The notes

28

Recommended modifications to Word’s initial set‑up

28

First step:  Back up the settings files immediately after installing Word

28

Increasing Word’s memory allocation (pre-OS X only)

28

To control Word, first dumb it down, then smarten it up

28

Modify these settings to get Word to behave the way you want (well, partly)

29

On the Word or Edit menu

30

On the View menu

36

On the Insert menu

36

On the Format menu

37

On the Tools menu

37

On the Help menu

39

If you have Adobe Acrobat, you should get rid of the toolbar it inserts in Word

39

Further modifications

40

Language, default

40

Buttons, transferring between toolbars

40

Why is it best not to alter the default toolbars?

41

A new Standard toolbar

42

A new Formatting toolbar

43

Buttons, adding to toolbars from the Tools » Commands lists

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Do this in each case

45

Adding to personal Standard toolbar

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Adding to personal Formatting toolbar

46

Positions of toolbars

47

Scrollbar, horizontal, and status bar, removing from view

47

Menu item, adding to menu

48

Backing up the Normal template, other templates, and settings files

48

Which files to back up

48

More about backing up

51

What the Normal template and settings files contain

52

What to do if you have a damaged Normal template

53

Testing the template

53

Transferring customisations from a damaged Normal template

53

Modifications later on (in alphabetical order by main keyword)

53

AutoCorrect

53

Date and time, changing format of in headers etc

54

Document map

54

Headers and footers

54

To set up headers and footers

54

Page numbers in headers and footers

55

To continue page numbering shown in the header or footer, or to re-start at 1

55

To put a portrait-position page number on a landscape page

55

Hyperlinks: de-activating hyperlinks of web URLs and e-mail addresses

56

Hyperlinks: removing the blue underlined formatting from web URLs and e‑mail addresses

56

Keyboard shortcut for strikethrough, restoring as in Word 5.1a

57

Macros

57

Ordinals, removing the superscripted 8-point font (1st)

57

Page numbers

58

Page numbers, re-establishing them when they don’t show during scrolling

58

Section properties

58

Style menu, alternative to formatted pop-down menu

58

Styles

58

Tables

59

Table of contents, compiling

60

Table of contents, formatting of

61

Table of contents, index or other table — updating

62

Table of figures, compiling

62

Track changes, turning off

62

Track changes, important settings for

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Track changes, using — if you really can’t use “compare documents”

65

Always remember this if you are tracking changes

65

Work menu, documents and commands on

66

Standard keyboard shortcuts in Word

67

Changing keyboard shortcuts

68

Assigning a keyboard shortcut to a button

68

My most often used default keyboard shortcuts

68

Examples of keyboard shortcuts I’ve assigned

75

AutoCorrect — a great time-saver

79

Examples of AutoCorrect items I’ve assigned

80

Using AutoCorrect to prevent Word from nominating text as wrongly spelled

82

Styles and templates — the keys to consistency and saving time

84

What are styles?

85

Do I need to bother with styles?

85

The three sets of styles in Word

86

Some advantages of using styles

86

How styles are applied

88

When to use styles and when to format directly

90

The minimum you need to know about styles

91

Use heading styles in long documents; don’t embolden Normal text

91

Use a body text style, not Normal, in long documents

95

Specifications for style “bt” and other styles used in this document

96

A few more ways to format documents better

97

Good articles on styles

97

Paragraph styles and character styles — what’s the difference?

98

Managing styles

99

Modifying the styles only in the document you are working on

99

Templates — convenient places to store styles and other formatting

100

What is a template?

100

Why create a template?

100

A template for this document

101

Creating a template

101

Attaching a template to a document

102

Finding / changing the template on which a document is based

102

Some advantages of attaching a document to a template other than Normal

103

Basing a style on styles in an existing document

104

Transferring styles

105

Transferring a style from another document — the quickest way

105

Transferring styles with Format Painter — within or between documents

105

Transferring styles from one document or template to another via the Organizer

106

Changing styles in a document then changing the document’s template

106

Modifying styles quickly

106

Restoring paragraph style

106

Restoring character format

107

A note: Work-around for Control-spacebar, now that it’s used by Spotlight in OS 10.4 onwards

107

And a work-around for the F12 key — snatched by OS 10.4 to open Dashboard (widgets)

108

Modifying via Style Area

108

Creating buttons on toolbars to apply selected styles and formatting

108

Creating the toolbar

111

Creating the button

111

Editing the button

112

Transferring a “non-Normal” toolbar to another template or document

112

Applying a style via keyboard shortcuts

113

Stopping Word from changing your definitions of styles

113

Checking whether a style has been manually modified or not

113

Removing manually applied formatting from a style

114

Removing styles from copied text to be pasted in

114

Stopping other people’s styles over-riding yours when they receive your document

115

The setting that over-rides your specifications

116

Three alternatives to prevent over-riding

116

Nowadays I don’t apply Normal style to any paragraph

117

Attaching a small styles toolbar to a document is helpful to my colleagues

118

Avoiding broken numbering sequences

118

Displaying style names in the style area of the document window

118

Printing specifications of styles

118

Revealing automatic and manually applied formatting of a paragraph

119

Miscellaneous tips and reminders (in alphabetical order by main keyword)

119

AutoText (formerly Glossary)

119

Example — creating and inserting a pre-formatted table via AutoText

120

Bookmarks in cross-referencing

121

Borders

123

Comment, deleting

123

“Comment” feature, a simple substitute for

123

Conversion of text from other formats when converters don’t work

125

“Recover Text from Any File” is a dangerous “sticky” setting

125

Corruption of documents, removing

125

Crop marks

128

Cross-references

128

Custom dictionary

129

Document formatting, best ways of

129

Document from someone else — checking and fixing formatting of

129

Document map — be careful before you use it

130

Dragging text from one document to another

132

Fast Saves — avoid this “setting from hell”

132

Field, converting to plain text

133

Field, showing the scripting in

133

Fields, updating

133

“Find” command — useful keyboard shortcuts

133

File size, keeping it small

133

Font size changes when you move the border of the document window

134

Fonts that retain the same pagination on Macs and PCs

135

Fractions, formatting of

136

Function keys, if they don’t work in Word

136

Graphics, source of advice on

137

Graphics, reducing file size caused by

137

Graphics, speeding up document containing

137

Header that shows the electronic title of the document

138

Header that shows the wording of the chapter heading

138

Header that displays the edition details, or other details, from the front page

139

Hyperlink to another document, creating

140

Hyphens, optional and non-breaking

140

Index, creating

141

Language, default — applying to text that has a different version of English

141

Leading (blank space above and/or below a paragraph)

141

Linked object’s setting — change to automatic or manual updating

141

Manually imposed (colour) highlights

141

Master documents — best avoided

142

“Minimum maintenance” formatting

143

Normal view, why it’s best used when working on a long document

143

Numbered headings; outline numbering

144

Numbering, automatic

144

Outline view

145

Page breaks, avoiding

145

Paragraph spacing — Word uses greater of two values for leading

145

PCs and Macs, main differences in Word interfaces

145

Print preview, advantage of

147

“Read-only recommended” protection

147

Recovering badly damaged documents

147

Re-formatting text obtained from the Web or other sources

148

“Replace” pane — useful keyboard shortcuts

148

Saving documents, strategies for

148

Screenshots, pasting directly into Word

149

Space, non-breaking

149

Symbols and accented letters, inserting

149

Track changes / reviewing

150

Transferring documents to/from other computers, especially PCs

150

Versioning — best avoided

150

Web toolbar, to stop it appearing when clicking on TOC or other hyperlinks

150

Windows of the same document — opening two or more

151

Some retrograde features of Word 2001 and later — and some work‑arounds

151

“Automatically update” tickbox in “Modify style” window is dangerous

151

Bullets

152

Case format limitations

153

Corruption in some Word 5 documents opened in later versions of Word

153

Dates — common variants are not easy to invoke

153

De-splitting the document — controlling which half disappears

154

“Disc full — cannot save” (the “60 saves” bug)

154

This template may help

155

Find / Replace problems in Word 2001

155

Font colour — quickly changing a selection

156

Footnotes

156

Spaces inserted or deleted by “smart cut and paste”

158

Margins — changing the size of

158

Print Preview — losing the place on coming out of

159

Scrolling is too fast

159

Spelling — ignoring one instance of mis-spelling

159

Totalling columns and other series of numbers

159

Appendix A: The main “minimum maintenance” features of my documents

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To avoid having to manually alter your formatting before printing or e‑mailing

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To minimise problems on other people’s computers (Mac or PC)

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To minimise document corruption

166

Appendix B: Specifications for some of my styles — especially to reduce the chances of changed appearance on other computers

167

The advantages of including leading (blank space above or below) in styles

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Leading above, or below, paragraphs?

173

Appendix C: Making a toolbar with buttons for a variety of date formats

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Dates in “updating” format

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Dates in fixed format

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Dates in fixed non-standard format

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Appendix D: Making buttons for formatting shortcuts

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Making a new toolbar, button and macro

183

Making your own toolbar icons

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Useful buttons and macros

186

View the document at 125 per cent

187

Paste unformatted text / plain text

187

“No proofing” button

188

Hide Web toolbar

188

Apply a preferred language to selected text

188

Add or subtract two points of paragraph leading

189

Prevent cells (rows) from breaking across the page

190

Font colour buttons

190

Change the font of the Normal (or another) style

192

Delete unwanted OLE_LINK bookmarks

193

For frequently used commands, a keyboard shortcut alone may suffice

194

A keyboard shortcut to go to the table of contents from anywhere in the document

194

A keyboard shortcut to reduce the leading under headings 3, 4 and 5

195

Appendix E: Checks before printing

196

Appendix F: Formatting of fractions using AutoCorrect

198

Appendix G: Automating standard comments via AutoText items on a toolbar

202

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