Bend Word to Your Will
and
Migrating from Word 2004 to Word 2011: retrieving the smart bits
Article contributed by Clive Huggan
Bend Word (Word document):
Zip
1 mb
Migrating from Word 2004 (Word document):
Zip
836 kb
This article was last updated in April 2013.
This page has two downloadable resources for people who want to use Word more efficiently.
"Bend Word to Your Will" contains hundreds of tips that its author, Clive Huggan, uses in his professional work as a management consultant. If you want to use Word as "more than a typewriter", you'll find many of them will save you time and anguish.
You can download "Bend Word to Your Will" in Word document (.doc) format, as a compressed Zip file, from the link above.
"Bend Word to Your Will" covers only Word 2004 and earlier. Clive did start on the long task of updating the document to cover Word 2011. However, the directions in which Microsoft has developed its Office suite -- including substantial development of cloud facilities and the absorption of Office for Mac within the Microsoft Corporation into the PC Office structure -- hint strongly that the next edition of Office for the Mac will be very much changed from Office 2011. This potential change prompted Clive to abandon work on a 2011 update of "Bend Word to Your Will" in favour of a shorter document. "Migrating from Word 2004 to Word 2011: retrieving the smart bits", downloadable above, describes how he recovered his favourite time-savers from Word 2004 when he found they weren't in Word 2011.
If you're a serious user of Word, or aspire to be, don't be concerned about the lack of a "Bend Word" edition for the latest version. Although the user interface changed in many respects when Word 2011 appeared, the underlying capabilities of that version (and Word 2008) , especially for intensive users, remained almost the same as in Word 2004. You'll see that it isn't difficult to infer the equivalent processes in the newer versions -- if, depending on the subject, there is any difference at all.
Clive's emphasis is on configuring Word to make it suit your unique needs, but without making the documents themselves very complex. By clicking here on Table of Contents, you can see what's in the document before you decide whether to download it. For the most part it's structured like a dictionary with self-contained articles, so even though it's about 200 pages long, it isn't difficult to find information just as with a dictionary!
Some people have asked why "Bend Word to your Will" isn't a PDF. The reason: the document uses the techniques it describes, which would be lost if the document were a PDF. It's intended to be used on-screen rather than to be printed out, because the articles have clickable hyperlinks for instant access to related topics.
Clive retains copyright for this article, although he has placed no restrictions on non-commercial use. He also has his own Disclaimer. Both statements impose terms in addition to the standard Terms of Use and Disclaimer used on this website and are to be read together.