BitWit Word

• Understanding Word is neither intuitive nor obvious.

• Even if you have been using Word for some time, the odds are you are using it incorrectly. Chances are you have been “fiddling “ with the format features rather than using “styles” religiously.

• Anybody can “fiddle” a letter or short document to produce an acceptable printed output. That’s what most people do.

• Leaving aside the argument that this is an inefficient way of working, the downside of “fiddling” shows up at a later date when you want to transfer the saved file to someone else or use it again with some modifications.

• If you ever want to transfer or modify the file in the future, the failure to use “styles” is most likely to be catastrophic and cannot be undone easily or with certainty.

Word - Standard Features

• Word uses mouse movements and keystrokes that are fairly standard across Microsoft and other Window products, so you already know a lot.

• File management (opening, saving, saving as, naming, save in, file format selection) is very similar to any other Windows application.

• Word has drop down menus - What they list as selections may be different, but how menus work is like any other Windows application.

• Word has Buttons located on Toolbars to quickly invoke desired features like any other Windows programs.

• What is different - For most Window applications, you can accept the menus, toolbars and buttons as they are initially installed. For Word you are better off customizing the menus, toolbars and buttons since you need certain features handy and other seldom used features should be eliminated.

Word - Different Features

• The main screen is similar to other apps - the actual button items and menu items are naturally somewhat different - but commands to open, save, print or exit are located on the drop down File menu just like in other apps.

• The main screen may also be dissimilar to other apps - rulers along the top and side, buttons on the vertical and horizontal slide bars and some page detail info along the bottom.

• The toolbars and buttons thereon may vary greatly from what you find on other computers or illustrated in books as a result of customizing.

• The rulers have small little buttons that control layout settings.

• The view of the document you see depends on the “View” type selected.

• Depending on the configuration or commands given you may see a variety of “non-printing” characters.

Word - “Aspects”In order to solve and quickly deal with various problems, we will classify the problems or issues into several “aspect” categories. When confronting a problem try to see what “aspect” or “aspects” are probably involved.

• Configuration - settings for “options”, toolbars and buttons, etc.

• Mechanical - selecting, editing, moving, dragging, etc.

• Views - normal, layout, document map, outline, etc.

• Styles - creating, modifying, using, applying, etc.

• Templates - selecting, creating, modifying, using, etc.

• Inserting objects - Excel spreadsheets, pictures, graphics, etc.

• Tables - creating, editing, etc.

• Misc Tools - format painter, format buttons, clipboard, browse object, etc.

Word - Terminology

• Document - this is the file that contains your data i.e. what you have created, for example, a letter or report.

• Formatting - These are the characteristics of how the document appears such as font type, size & color; paragraph indentation, line spacing & alignment; and page layout, margins & page breaks.

• Styles - stored sets of format settings

• Templates - a document to be used as a basis for completing other documents. It already contains desired styles and most likely will contain text, pictures or other items that preclude entering items that had been used before.

ConfigurationThis involves the options selected, menu and button customization and view settings.

• In any environment where there are several computers, Word should be

configured similarly on all machines. This allows a user to comfortably use any machine. It permits one user to aid another quickly. It helps diagnose real problems. It reduces stress.

• All the options and toolbars should be setup the same. Over time as needs change some tweaking will take place to the initial settings.

• Individuality can still exist by merely adding some other desired buttons. Achieve individual needs by addition not by modification.

• Individuality should not however change the initial setup. Periodic inspection of the chosen initial setup should be made to insure the similar “look and feel”.

Mechanical - BasicsThis involves using the mouse and keyboard to manipulate text and objects.

• Edit Menu

• Cut/Copy and Paste/Paste Special

• Selecting - character, words, object, sentence, paragraph, section, all

• Inserting - object, spreadsheet, picture, graphic

ViewsIt is important to use the appropriate view at the appropriate time and some of the shortcut tricks for navigating a document.

• Normal - simple layout view for typing, editing and formatting. Also will display a styles pane when “style width area” on options menu is set to 1”.

• Print Layout - (Page Layout in 97) Edit and view exact layout of text and graphics on page, adjust margins and work on columns and tables

• Document Map - displays headings for navigation

• Outline - displays selected levels of headings and body text

• Web Layout - create and view document as web page

• Master Document - in Outline view - can break document into sub-documents when working on very large documents for speed and efficiency

• Note - Show/Hide button configuration is very important for Views

Styles - Why use them ?If you don’t use styles constantly you aren’t “word processing” in Word and you are creating inefficient and non portable files.

• First - styles are a stored set of format settings.

• Styles exist in all documents.

• A blank new document comes with embedded styles.

• Word is a “style-driven” wordprocessor. If you don’t work using styles, Word will not work efficiently and unseen results can cause real problems later on.

• Second - Word uses styles to “tag” or identify various parts of the document such as a heading, a footnote, a hyperlink, or body text.

• The “tagging” process expedites making formatting changes and navigation.

Styles - Types - Character and ParagraphTables and List are also types of Styles

• Character styles can be applied to individual words and even single characters. Character formatting is built from the formatting options available from the Format menu. It includes settings for font, border, shading and language.

• Note - the styles pane which can be seen (if setup in options) in normal view displays only paragraph styles and not character styles.

• Paragraph styles contain both font and paragraph formatting. It addition to the formatting settings for character style it contains tabs, spacing, alignments indents and numbering. Hence, it is more flexible.

• Note - choose the “show” option to display paragraph marks

Styles - Tips

• Work in “Normal view” - make sure the style pane is visible on the left. (If it isn’t visible select from the menu Tools>Options>View and set the width of the “style area width” as at least 1 inch)

• To remove a Character Style, select Default Paragraph Font ( or “clear formatting” in Word 2002)

• Never use a carriage return or blank line to insert spacing in the document. (Got to the trouble of defining a style to fix the spacing you need)

• Use the Show/Hide button and make sure it displays “all”. (Check by selecting from the menu Tools>Options>View and insuring that the“all” box is the only one checked for the “nonprinting characters”)

Misc Tools

• Format Painter - paintbrush copies format from source text to target text. One click on paintbrush carries format once. Double click on paintbrush toggles painter on and permits multiple targets to be painted - to stop painting (toggle off) paintbrush must be clicked again.

• Browse by Object - This is the round circle dot button near the bottom of the right hand scroll bar. Clicking it allows selection of how the double arrow scroll bar buttons jump from item to item. Black double arrows indicate it is sent to jump page by page.

• Clipboard - holds up to 12 prior cuts or copies for pasting

• Format Buttons - besides font type, size and style one can add buttons to increase or decrease font size

Templates -

• Templates hold components for other documents, especially text, Autotext, Macros & Toolbars. They also hold style definitions. Finally, they hold additional modifications to your user interface such as keyboard shortcuts and changes to the built-in menus and toolbars.

• Autotext entries, Macros, Keyboard customizations and Toolbars in the template are available to the document so long as the document remains attached to the template, but are not normally transferred into the document. (Documents cannot hold Autotext entries but can have macros and toolbars.)

• In general day to day work can be done by merely creating and using “document templates” i.e. saving your model document as a template.

• The theory and “advanced” use of templates can be safely ignored.

Word - Using Prior Documents• If you are going to share your templates with others, or simply plan on using

them to make a number of documents try to plan and structure them with care. Avoid making a template from any documents converted from a different word processing program or even a much earlier version of Word. Because there is no way to translate feature-for-feature a complex document structure from one program to another, these conversions are prone to document corruption. In Word, even documents created in the current version of Word can cause problems if they have automatically numbered paragraphs.

• The basic idea of templates is to give you or someone else a boost in creating a new document. If your template is full of errors, those errors will replicate themselves ad infinitum! That isn't something that you need. It isn't an example that you want to set.

• If what you really want to share is text, try sharing it as an AutoText entry.

• To clean up text from a converted document, save it in RTF (or even text) format, reopen that and save it again as a document file. Copy that text into a new document based on a solid template. Save that new document as your template. Then apply appropriate styles to all of the text in your document.

Comments

• According to Microsoft's research, “normal” users do not use or even know about templates. When Word comes out of the box, it is set up to cater to users who do not understand word processing.

• There are many versions of Word still being used 6.0, 95, 97, 98, 2000 and 2002. You may have to look around in the user interface from version to version to find certain things.

• In a workplace you adhere to a Style Guide and a Formatting Specification. This is a template that is the repository which stores all the specifications and choices that implement your Style Guide and Formatting Specification.

Word -Things to avoid

• Inserting blank lines or spacing - an empty paragraph can cause problems.

• Directing formatting - use styles instead even if you have to make a new one.

Template - types

• Normal.dot

• Global

• Attached

• Lists

Templates - Global

• Global templates are a type of add-in for Word. Global templates are different from document templates; so different, in fact, that giving both the name "template" can be confusing. They are normally not "attached" to any document and usually do not contribute text or styles to any document. Instead they are excellent vehicles for holding and sharing AutoText, macros, and toolbars.

• You can make any template global by clicking Templates and Add-Ins on the Tools menu, and then clicking Add. The Add Template dialog box will open showing the User templates folder's contents to choose from. You can navigate to another location and add a template from there. Since they don't contribute text and are not used to start new documents, global templates are probably best kept separate from both user template and workgroup template folders. If you add a template as an add-in this way, it will remain global until you restart Word. At that time, you could add it again, if needed. Or, you could make it load automatically on start up by putting the template or a shortcut to the template in the Word Startup folder. This is not the Startup programs folder in your Windows Start menu, but rather one specifically for Word. You can find (or change) its name and location with by clicking Options on the Tools menu, and then clicking the File Locations tab.

Templates - Storing components

Component Document fileNormal or otherattached template Global templates

AutoText entries No Yes YesBoilerplate text andgraphics

YesCopied to thedocument when it iscreated

Yes No

Custom toolbars, menus,and shortcut keys

No Yes Yes

Default page settings YesCopied to thedocument when it iscreated

Yes No

Document text andgraphics

Yes No No

Macros Yes Yes YesStyles Yes

Copied to thedocument when it iscreated

Yes

No

Template - Normal.dot

• It is the default or global template that Word uses to create a blank document. Normal.dot is always in use when Word is open, even if you are using another template. It is very common for normal.dot files to become corrupt. They also store macro viruses.

• If Word cannot locate a normal.dot file, it creates a brand new one. When you first install Word, normal.dot is not installed with it. Uninstalling does not delete normal.dot.

• In the New dialog box, Word lists the Normal.dot file on the General tab as Blank Document

Template - Customizing Normal.dot

• The two strategies to adopt are:

• Keep all customizations, tools, toolbars, menus, autotext, styles and so on in a global add-in template which is loaded to each users Word session.

• Discourage users from creating documents based on Normal.dot - to this end provide a Blank.dot template which has the corporate layout and styles set within it. Put the Blank template on the toolbar and behind the default new document tool button, this will make it easy for users to use.

Mechanical - Selecting Text

• Swipe with mouse to highlight text

• Word - double click word

• Sentence - CTRL key and then click sentence

• Paragraph - triple click or double click selection bar

• Line - click selection bar (selection bar is to left of line in white space)

• Entire document - CTRL key plus selection bar or triple click selection bar

• Vertical block - Alt key plus drag through text

• Large amount - insertion point at beginning, hold SHFT key, click at end

• Note: You can also use cursor, page up/down, home/end keys with CTRL and SHFT to achieve similar selections

Notes

• Each Office application handles templates in an entirely different way. Excel templates don't work anything at all like Word templates. PowerPoint "templates" aren't really templates at all. Outlook has forms, and they bear almost no semblance to any of the other templates.

• Word opens normal.dot every time it starts, and normal.dot stays open until Word shuts down. That means anything you put in normal.dot is available any time Word is running.

• Every Word document is bound to exactly one template. You choose that template when you create the document. If you create a "blank" document, the document is bound to normal.dot. You can change the template bound to a document by opening the document and choosing Tools | Templates and Add-

Ins, and pressing the Attach button.

Notes 97

• In Word 97, the situation is quite different. Word documents cannot hold custom Toolbars, custom menu entries, or custom keyboard shortcuts. Templates can have all three. That's a pain in the neck: if you create a custom menu entry for a document in Word 97, that menu entry doesn't travel with the document - it stays in the template. If you take the document home and edit it on your home PC, the menu entry doesn't appear, unless you bring along the template, too.