Want to know how to Create Keyboard Shortcuts in MS Word?
How to Create Keyboard Shortcuts in MS Word
Word Tip – How to Automate Inserts into Technical Documents
If you frequently need to insert a word, line or block of text into MS Word documents you can easily automate the process with a simple keyboard shortcut.
Highlight the text and press Alt + F3, to create an AutoText entry, then give it a name or accept the default that appears in the dialogue box [...]
How to Minimize Metadata in Microsoft Word 2000 Documents
This article explains various methods that you can use to minimize the amount of metadata in your Word documents.
Whenever you create, open, or save a Word document, it creates metadata. Metadata is used for a variety of purposes to enhance the editing, viewing, filing, and retrieval of Office documents. Here are some examples of metadata [...]
Print Out All Your Keyboard Shortcuts
Have you ever forgotten your keyboard shortcuts? This often happens if you haven’t used them for a while or changed computers. The best thing to do is print out a list of all shortcuts on your machine.
It’s very easy:
Go to File, Print.
In the Print What drop-down menu, select Key Assignments.
Quick Preview In Word
Microsoft Word’s preview tool lets you view the contents of a document WITHOUT having to open it.
This is a terrific time saver, especially if all you want to do is look at the cover sheet of a large document.
From the File menu, click Open.
Instead of opening the file, click the Views menu in the Open [...]
Word Quick Launch
Use this tip to automatically open the last document you worked on. This will save you time from having to go to the File menu and opening the document every time.
Right-click on an empty part of the desktop.
Select New, Create Shortcut.
In the ‘Type location of the item’ box, paste the following command.
For Word [...]
Change Your Word Icons
Microsoft Word lets you change and edit the icons on the toolbar.
Right-click onto an empty area of the toolbar and select Customize.
Right-click on the icon you want to change. Select either ‘Change button image’ or ‘Edit button image’.
Select a different icon or use the options to change its color and layout.
Remembering Where You Were In a Document
If you write a lot of documents, it’s easy to forget where you made your last edits. Instead of trying to find the last word you changed, you can use the Go Back feature. This automatically returns you to the last word you changed before the document was saved.
To return to the last edit you [...]
More Dummy Text
Use the =rand(x,y) trick to create dummy text or go to Lipsum.com and get dummy text there.
FYI: if you’re going to use this on a regular basis, save it as an AutoText entry.
Controlling Image Placement
This trick is very useful if you insert pictures into your documents and need to position them accurately on the page.
Click on the horizontal ruler at the top of the page. This is the ruler that shows measurements from 1 to 20.
Press and hold down the left mouse button.
A vertical line appears. You can use [...]
Print the text you only want to print
You have many options when printing in Word. As well as printing the current page only, or a range of pages, you can also tell Word to print an area in the document only. Word calls this a selection.
So, for example, if you want to print the first paragraph of an Executive Summary, follow these [...]
Create Underlined Spaces That Remain When Typed On
Underline spaces can very helpful if you want to tell the reader where to enter data, for example, type their name and address on an application form.
Name:
Address:
City:
The problem is that if you use a normal underline, it doesn’t work. The moment you type on it, the underline disappears. What you want is [...]
Spellchecking Word’s Dictionary
Word lets you add words to its dictionary and to other custom dictionaries that you may have setup.
This is very handy if you’re using a lot of technical, business, or medical terms and want to avoid accepting them every time you run the spellchecker.
But, of course, you can also make mistakes when typing in these [...]
Avoid Repeating Words
When writing long, complex documents, or writing a document over a number of days, you can get ‘snowblind’ and end up repeating text yourself without knowing it.
Luckily there is a way to check that these repetitions don’t creep into your document. To find places where you may have repeating words, follow these steps:
From the Edit menu, [...]
Creating Mirror Writing
Thought it’s not designed to do so, you can get Word to display text in mirror style. This works best if you want to have a heading or title written backwards, for example, to make a brochure or newsletter more interesting.
To write text backwards, what’s often called mirror writing, follow these steps:
Open the Drawing toolbar [...]






