Microsoft Word Tips, Tricks & Templates » Writing

How to Add Special Effects to your Next Business Report

Editor — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:16:05 +0000

How do I animate text in a Word Document? For example, to make dancing ants or add sparkles to the text.

1. Select the text you want to animate.

2. Click Format, Font, and then the Text Effects tab.

3. In the Animations box, click the effect you want, for example Sparkle Text.

You can preview the animation in the box at the bottom of the menu.

Only one animation effect can be selected at a time.

How to Create Keyboard Shortcuts in MS Word

Editor — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 16:03:25 +0000

Want to know how to Create Keyboard Shortcuts in MS Word?

In MS Word you can assign frequently used commands to a keyboard shortcut. To create a shortcut, follow these steps:

1. Right-click in the toolbar area.

2. Select Customize and click the Keyboard button.

3. To auto fix a table’s content, highlight Table on the Categories list, and then click AutoFixContent in the Commands window.

4. Type the keyboard combination into the Press new shortcut key box.

5. Click Assign.

If this combination is already in use, Word will advise you to find another combination or replace an existing one.

Did this work for you?

How to Create Dynamic Web links in your Technical Documents

Editor — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:21:11 +0000

Instead of using field codes to add filenames and file paths to your document, you can setup Word so that it displays these in the toolbar. You can then add these links to any page in an open document.

1. Right-click on the toolbar.

2. Select Customize and then the Commands tab.

3. Scroll down the Categories list and click on All Commands.

4. Scroll down the Commands list to Web Address.

5. Drag the Web Address onto your toolbar.

The web address bar is now displayed on your document’s path and filename.

6. To add the file path to your document, click anywhere in the page, right-click in the web address bar, and then copy and paste it into your document.

How to Improve Readability on Laptops and HD Flat Panel Displays

Editor — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:03:00 +0000

If you use a laptop to write, then get this free download from Microsoft. It gives you improved font display quality over traditional forms of font smoothing or anti-aliasing. ClearType improves readability on color LCD displays, such as laptops and flat panel displays. Readability on CRT screens can also be improved.

Tip: Use this online tuner to turn on and tune your Windows XP ClearType settings. If you experience problems download the Windows XP PowerToy version of the tuner. The online tuner does not currently work with Windows Vista.

ClearType improves the readability of text on existing LCDs (Liquid Crystal Displays), such as laptop screens, Pocket PC screens and flat panel monitors. With ClearType font technology, the words on your computer screen look almost as sharp and clear as those printed on a piece of paper.

ClearType works by accessing the individual vertical color stripe elements in every pixel of an LCD screen. Before ClearType, the smallest level of detail that a computer could display was a single pixel, but with ClearType running on an LCD monitor, we can now display features of text as small as a fraction of a pixel in width. The extra resolution increases the sharpness of the tiny details in text display, making it much easier to read over long durations.

Get ClearType and read more here.

5 Tips for Keyboard Fanatics & Time Poor Tech Writers

Editor — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:30:24 +0000

Donationcoder continue their excellent series of products with TapTap Hotkey Extender, a tiny super-efficient tray-based utility (under <100k) for keyboard fanatics.

It monitors hotkey combinations not supported by most programs (e.g. like doubletap right shift key). When such hotkey combinations are detected, TapTap will simulate a normal hotkey that the user has configured.

In this way, you can configure any of your programs to respond to these extended hotkey events as if they supported it natively.

For Example:
You might have a program which normally triggers on Alt+Ctrl+F5, but you want to configure it to trigger with a double tap of the right control key. You can use TapTap to detect Right Control Doubletap events, and send a Ctrl+Alt+F5 when it does. In this way, you can control your programs the way you want to, and they never know the difference.

TapTap Hotkey Extender is written in lean and mean C++ and highly optimized for insignificant cpu/memory access. It makes no changes to any system files and is completely safe. Comes with an installer but you can unpack the download manually and run it without installing.

Download it here: http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/TapTap/index.html

7 Steps to Better Technical Writing

Editor — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:22:00 +0000

Technical Writing is not difficult when you know where and how to start. So, when you write a technical document, consider the following 7 points:

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Glossary – make a glossary, even for a half dozen words.
Definitions – create a list of definitions and acronyms. Always explain what the acronym means when it’s first encountered.
Use bold for the definition or acronym to make it easy to find it again.
Analogy – provide a comparison or analogy.
Graphics – Provide graphics to illustrate the object in question, how it is assembled, or how it is used by operatives.
Replace general, abstract, and needlessly objective words with more concrete, specific, and simpler words.
Break long sentences into shorter sentences.
Use terminology consistently.

These points are not meant to be all-inclusive. However, if you are new to tech writing, this should put you on the right road.

New Wikipedia of Organization Charts

Editor — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:44:15 +0000

No Inc have taken AJAX and “Web 2.0-ness” to create CogMap, which is a terrific Wikipedia of organization charts.

Their own site is an organization chart wiki! This means that it is a collection of organization charts online that anyone can edit, add to, and help maintain.

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CogMap is a tool for sales people, entrepreneurs, and recruiters to understand organizations and keep information up to date. If you are like us, you had some of these things happen to you:

Worked at a company without a published organization chart and had no idea who worked for anyone else
Tried to figure out who to call at a company and come up empty
Bought a list of people to call and had all the information be wrong
Met people that all had different titles and been unable to tell who was the decision-maker in the room!

There are several demos over here http://www.cogmap.com/help.php including one on Microsoft.

How to Quickly Reduce Microsoft Word File Size – Secret #1

Editor — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:13:26 +0000

Ever had your Microsoft Word file explode from 1MB to 10MB in just a few minutes? In the tech writing world, Microsoft Word tends to get a bad rap.

One of the arguments put against Word is that its fairly unstable and prone to creating ‘horrors’, such as bloating in size until your (Microsoft!) operating system grinds to a halt.

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Compared with Adobe FrameMaker, this is true. FrameMaker is very stable, BUT can be awkward to use. Not even cut and paste…

I’ll admit it! I prefer Microsoft Word any day.

Bloated file sizes are a real problem. No-one will deny this. But, in the course of creating some long documents in MS Word, I’ve learned a few small secrets.

And these small secrets are guaranteed to save you ALOT of time.

The first offender is Bullet Lists. If there is one thing that’s guaranteed to destroy Word, its bullet lists.

Here’s what tends to happen.

When you click on the Bullet List from the Word toolbar, Word ‘points’ this Bullet List to the Normal.dot file.

In other words, it uses the default settings in the Normal.dot and applies these settings. Fine. No problem!

But… if you then cut and paste a Bulleted List from another document into your working file, Word gets very confused.

“What Normal.dot file do I now link to?”

AND, if you then use a special bullet style, it has a nervous breakdown…

What happens? Suddenly, your machine starts to grind while Word struggles to resolve this issue. And as it can’t, it crashes!

Here’s what to do instead!

In Word, create separate styles for each different bullet lists that you need, for example Bullet Regular, Bullet Indent, Bullet Square and so on.
When you need to use a bullet list, select the correct style from the drop-down menu.
If you want to import a bullet list from another document, first select the Clear Formatting option from the drop down menu (this removes all formatting) and then cut it into the working document. Then apply the correct style.

Follow these three steps and you’ll keep your Word docs happy and healthy.

In the next article, we’ll look at another way to reduce large word files.

This is our first ‘insider secret’ on taming Microsoft Word. What’s been your experience?

PS: Please drop me a line at ivan klariti com and we’ll share it online.

ivanwalsh.blogspot.com

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When is a Word document not a document?

Editor — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:33:47 +0000

The new Word Blog over on MSDN keeps cranking out the good stuff.

Scroll down this page and read the Q and A about document types.

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Q: When is a document not a document?

A: When it’s a form.

“This is another question that we spent a lot of time discussing when we started to think about building what became content controls. We didn’t just want another tool for doing online forms in Word – not only is there a great tool to do it today, but people already know how to do that in Word and don’t need another way to do the same thing.

Review The Office 2007 UI Bible

Editor — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 22:25:37 +0000

Jensen Harren has compiled the 200 or so posts he’s made since starting last September.

To make it easier for the rest of us he and a colleague created a Table of Contents of all the posts.

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“I’ve been meaning to sit down and create a kind of table of contents for all of the posts here—a starting point for people to read about the Office 2007 UI. But then, I found out that someone already did the work for me. Patrick Schmid, a OneNote MVP and friend of the Office 2007 UI, put together what he called the Office UI Bible on his blog—a fully organized catalog of many of my posts.”

This is worth bookmarking if you’re interested in the new Office user interface.

Visio Hyperlink Problem in Internet Explorer 7

Editor — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 22:40:48 +0000

Visio is used by many Technical Writers and Programmers to create diagrams and flowcharts. Some of you have encountered issues involving hyperlinks in Visio’s HTML output and Internet Explorer 7. For example, clicking a hyperlink in a drawing saved as HTML from Visio 2003 results in an error that says “Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site. Operation aborted.”

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Then you may want to read this post as it offers some ways to work around it. Visio’s HTML output and IE7

How to update the Date automatically when you open Microsoft Word 2003

Editor — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:42:42 +0000

You can update the Date and Time in Word when you open it. There are two steps involved here:

To add a date that Word will updated automatically, you need to insert a ‘field’.

1. To do this, go to Insert, Date and Time and choose the format you want.

This inserts a field in the page which displays the time. This time, by the way, is determined by your computer’s clock.

2. Check “Update Automatically” so that it will update when you print.

The second approach is if you want to change the format of the date field or work with the other features.

To do this:

1. Click File, Insert, Field, Date and Time.

2. Select Date from the field names list and pick a format that suits your needs.

Tip: to manually force an update, click in the date and press F9.

How to Change the Windows Desktop Theme

Editor — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 22:43:31 +0000

Like its brother-in-arms, the Screensaver, the Windows Desktop Themes eat away at your computer’s memory. Unless you really need them, uninstall! You’ll have a much quicker and more reliable machine.To change or remove desktop themes, follow these steps:

On the Desktop, right-click and click Properties.
Click the Themes tab.

3. In the Theme box, select the theme you want or click None.

Tip: if you have to use a theme, select one with few graphics.

Word 2003 Tip – How to Change the Background Color in a Word Document

Editor — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 13:38:05 +0000

The bright white text area of most word processors can become a quite tiring on the eyes after a few hours. You can of course jiggle the brightness and contrast settings on your monitor but a far better solution is to give your blank pages a light grey tint.

Open Word so that you can judge the effect.
Click Start, Control Panel and then Display.
Select the Appearance tab and click into the area marked Window Text.
Click in the Color box, open the color palette, and chose the shade of grey that’s most comfortable.

FYI: The tint only applies to the display and will not affect the way documents look when they are printed.

How to Compare Fonts in MS Word

Editor — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:44:02 +0000

If you are constantly fussing over fonts for your documents then there’s a very handy feature in Windows that allows you to quickly compare typefaces according to style and design.

Open the Control Panel and double-click Fonts.
From the View drop-down menu, click List Fonts by Similarity.
Click List Fonts… and choose a font.

This displays a list of comparable typefaces, ranked according to similarity.