There are two ways you can go to the end of a Word document. The first is to use a keyboard shortcut and the second is to create a macro. There are pros and cons of each approach. Here’s how to do it.

Using Keyboard – Go to end of MS Word document

If you want to go directly to the end of a Word document when its opens:

Press Ctrl+End

This takes you to the very last character in the document.

If you want to go back to the start of the document:

Press Ctrl+Home

Using Macros – Go to end of MS Word document

You can also setup a macro to do this.

To create a macro, add the following lines of code in the Autoopen macro:

Sub AutoOpen()
Selection.EndKey Unit:=wdStory
End Sub

Which is better?

If you simply want to go to the end of the document, then use Ctrl+End.

However, if you want to run several macros at the same time, for example, to change fonts, format the document and so on, then use the macro to bring you to the end of the document when it’s finished processing.

Does this work on your keyboard? What other shortcuts do you use in Microsoft Word?

Related posts:

1. Opening at the END of a document
2. How to Stop Word from Opening Every Document Separately?
3. How to Remove Your Name from Word Macros

You can put Conditional Images in Microsoft Word documents, so that when a user performs one action, an image appears. This saves you having to create two pieces of text for each condition.

Why Create Conditional Images In Microsoft Word

Let’s say you have a User Guide and you want to show different images depending on what the user does. You could create another chapter and show what happens if/when the user performs one action. Or you could put conditional images into the Microsoft Word file so different images appear depending on what the user does.

Sound complicated? It’s not really.

Using Macros to Create Conditional Images

Here’s what to do:

1. Create a Style for each condition.
2. Create a macro that hides or shows that conditions on need.
3. When you insert the graphic, style it by Condition.

For example, we will create UserGuideBasic and UserGuideAdvanced and style them accordingly:

• Make two paragraph styles: UGB and UGV.
• Make two macros (one to hide UGB, the other to hide UGV).
• Make a button for each.
• Enter the graphic and style the paragraph to UGB.
• Click the button to hide UGV and make it disappear.

Next Steps

You can use Macros to all type of weird and wonderful things with your User Guides and other technical documents.

Let me know what other Macro tricks you know.

About the Author: Ivan Walsh provides new technical writing tips every day. Make sure to get his free tips, tools, and templates at http://www.ihearttechnicalwriting.com/

Related posts:

1. 5 Things to do if Microsoft Word won’t Print your Images
2. Using Paint to Convert Images into JPG, TIFF and PNGs
3. Using Paint to Convert Images into JPG, TIFF and PNGs

A macro virus may use Word’s macro programming language (VBA) to spread itself through your computer, infecting all your Word files. Macro viruses infect Word documents, templates, and other programs that uses a programming language. Here’s how you can reduce the likelihood of getting a macro virus.
Macro viruses do not infect programs; they infect documents and templates. The virus will spread to other documents and templates you may have on your system.

1. Install Microsoft Word anti-virus software: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q49/5/00.ASP.

2. Set a security level in Microsoft Word – Word 2000 Only.

From the Tools menu, choose Macro and then Security. On the Security Level tab, select the security level you want and then click OK.

3. Protect the global template (Normal.dot).

To prevent some macro viruses, you can apply password protection to the Normal.dot.

To do this:

1 Click on the Normal.dot file and
2 Choose Properties and select the Protection tab.

3 Apply a password, confirm the password and click the OK button.

Or you can set password protection by:

1 In Word, choose Tools, Macro, Visual Basic Editor.
2 In the Editor, click on the Normal project and select Normal Properties.
3 Apply password protection and click OK.

UPDATE: I have had some success in getting Word docs back to normal by saving them to HTML and then re-opening them in Word. Then re-save them to .doc. This seems to remove corruptions due to problems with tables, usually caused by too many table styles causing the Normal.dot to crash.

Please let me know if you know any tricks to recover damaged Word documents.

Related posts:

1. 3 Reasons Why Microsoft Word Documents Become Corrupt
2. How to Stop Word from Opening Every Document Separately?
3. How to Fix MS Word After It Crashes – Fix the Normal.dot file