Let’s say you have a table that you want to convert back into text. How do you do it?

I write technical documents for a living. Part of my work is extracting text from excel files and other documents where technical information is located. Sometimes this is text inside tables that I need to get out and reformat. What’s the quickest way to do this?

1.    Open Word and select the Table you want to convert to Text.

2.    When you do this, the Layout tab appears in the ribbon.

3.    Click the Layout tab

4.    Click Convert to Text.

The table is magically converted into unformatted text where you can play with it.

If you want to convert the text back into a table, click CTRL + z

If you want to convert new back into a table, read this article here.

Related posts:

1. How to Convert Boring Text into Stunning Tables
2. How to convert backslash characters into Japanese Yen signs in Word 2007
3. Converting Tables to Text

If you’ve just moved to Microsoft Word 2007 and wondered, “where are all the file menus gone?”, then these reference guides might help.

Reference Guides

• Access — http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b9574c72-657f-438c-9de9-f8f70dd2d40d&DisplayLang=en
• Excel — http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=89718ABD-2758-47B3-9F90-93788112B985&displaylang=en
• Outlook — http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=CC37CC1E-028D-4D30-9093-96CC6513ECA1&displaylang=en
• PowerPoint — http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=BEF41DC3-8E28-4282-82D4-CEC2F416CD40&displaylang=en
• Word — http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9044790b-4e24-4277-b714-66d7b18d0aa1&DisplayLang=en

You can find more helpful Word guides and tips here: John R. Durant’s WebLog

Related posts:

1. How to Open & Save Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 files in earlier versions of MS Office
2. Download the Word 2003 to Word 2007 Interactive Command Reference Guide
3. MS Office Compatibility Pack

Murray Sargent’s blog, Math in Office, focuses on mathematics in Office along with some posts on RichEdit. For those who use math calculations, Murray’s insight is worth reading.

RichEdit has two kinds of hyperlinks

• Automatic hyperlinks (autoURLs) —automatically recognized by RichEdit as a hyperlink and is displayed as a URL.
• Friendly name hyperlinks — this hyperlink has a name, which is displayed, and a hidden instruction part that contains the actual URL.

The first autoURLs appeared in RichEdit 2.0, which shipped with Office 97, and have the usual web form, such as, http://www.msn.com.

The permitted URL protocols were http:, file:, mailto:, ftp:, https:, gopher:, nntp:, prosper:, telnet:, news:, wais:, and outlook:.

RichEdit 7, which ships with Office 2010, adds recognition for spaces in URLs without needing enclosure in <>. It also adds recognition of telephone numbers, drive-letter paths, email addresses, and URLs enclosed in ASCII double quotes “”.

Link:

Read more about Automatic RichEdit Hyperlinks here.

http://blogs.msdn.com/murrays/archive/2009/08/31/automatic-richedit-hyperlinks.aspx

Related posts:

1. How do I turn off Automatic Hyperlinks in Microsoft Word?
2. How to Remove Hyperlinks from Documents
3. How to create Absolute and Relative Hyperlinks in Word 2007/2003 documents

What’s the quickest way to change an entire sentence to Uppercase, lowercase, or BLOCK LETTERS?

Here’s how you do it.

1. Select the sentence you want to change.
2. Hold down the Shift key.
3. Press F3.

Each time you press F3 it will change the upper, lower or block case, like this.

F3, Everything is in block

SELECT THE SENTENCE YOU WANT TO CHANGE

F3, all letters are in BLOCK.

Select The Sentence You Want To Change

F3, all letters are in lowercase.

select the sentence you want to change

2^nd Tip – Shift + F4 brings you back up to the top of the page. Saves you scrolling.

What’s your favorite word tip?

Related posts:

1. Change the spacing between letters
2. How to Change the entire document’s text with one click
3. Change the spacing between characters

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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1. Glossary – make a glossary, even for a half dozen words.
2. 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.
3. Analogy – provide a comparison or analogy.
4. Graphics – Provide graphics to illustrate the object in question, how it is assembled, or how it is used by operatives.
5. Replace general, abstract, and needlessly objective words with more concrete, specific, and simpler words.
6. Break long sentences into shorter sentences.
7. 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.

Related posts:

1. Writing User Guides
2. How to Start a Career in Technical Writing
3. Checklist for Business Letters

If you want to know how many words there are in a paragraph, or block of copy, select the text and click on Word Count. 

To create a keyboard shortcut to Word Count: 

From the Tools menu, click Customize. 

Select the Command tab and highlight Tools in the list of Categories. 

Scroll down the list of Commands and select Word Count. 

Click the Keyboard button and then click the Press New Shortcut field. 

Choose which keys you want to use, then click Assign and Close. 

Related posts:

1. Word Tip – How to Automate Inserts into Technical Documents
2. Word Tip – How to scroll through Technical Documents
3. Save As Shortcut