What’s the best way to select text in Microsoft Word? There’s different ways you can do this depending on what you want to select.

For example, do you want to select text one word at a time?

Or do you want select text, starting on the left and working your way into the document? Or maybe from right to left?

5 Ways To Select Text In Microsoft Word

1. Mouse – Click and drag the mouse to select text.
2. Shift + Arrow – Hold down Shift and an arrow key on your keyboard. If you hold down, for example, the right arrow key, then Word will select text as you move to the right.
3. Shift + Ctrl – To select one word at a time, hold down Ctrl and Shift at the same time and also use the left or right arrow keys.
4. Shift + Mouse – Another option is to use the Shift key and the Mouse. For example, hold down Shift and click to select the text between the insertion point and where you clicked. If you move the mouse around the page, while holding down Shift, you’ll see how it works.
5. Shift + Down Arrow – Let’s say you want to select a large block of text below where you’re typing. Maybe you want to select and delete it. To do this, hold down Shift and the down arrow, i.e. the arrow on the keyboard that points downwards.

Those are five ways to select text in Microsoft Word.

What others can you think of?

Related posts:

1. How to Resize Fonts in Word 2003
2. Use F3 To Change An Entire Sentence To Uppercase, Lowercase, or BLOCK LETTERS
3. How to Resize Fonts in Word 2003

Post by Ivan Walsh. Follow me on Twitter.

Is there anything worse than writing Standard Operating Procedures  all afternoon and then… Word crashes! If your Microsoft Word files suddenly become huge and start crashing, here’s one way to fix it. I’ve creating some very large SOPs in Microsoft Word and learnt a few ways to control these documents.

MS Word. Click top red arrow to expand/show the Style Menu.

And it’s not just business writers, in the world of technical publishing, Microsoft Word also gets a bad rap. Many feel that it’s unstable and crashing. It can also bloat in size until your operating system grinds to a halt.

the Problem with Bullet Lists & Large MS Word files

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

Here’s what tends to happen.

When you click a 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 Normal.dot and then applies these. Fine.

No problem! That’s what it’s supposed to do.

But….

If you cut and paste a Bulleted List from one business report into your working file, then Microsoft Word has a problem.

Which Bullet List is the Master Bullet List?

It can’t tell because suddenly you have two bullet lists in your document.

And…

If you add a third bullet style, maybe with nice styling or cool fonts, it has a nervous breakdown. Microsoft Word can’t tell which is which and begins to struggle.

How to stop Word Crashing & Losing your Business Proposal

Here’s what to do:

1. Open Word and create a separate Style for each type of bullet lists you need. For example create a Bullet Regular, Bullet List Indent, Bullet Square and so on.
2. When you need to use a bullet list, select the appropriate style from the Styles drop-down menu.
   This is the Home tab in Microsoft Word 2007.
3. If you want to import a bullet list from another document,
   Copy the text into a blank document.
4. Select it, and in the Style menu, select Clear All.
   NB: This removes all formatting.
5. Paste it into the working document.
6. Apply the correct style.

I know this seems like more work but it’s not. Just paste into a blank document, remove the formatting and then paste it in. Your files will stop crashing and will be easier to manage.

You can get a set of User Guide templates with pre-formatted style here.

In the next article, we’ll look at other ways to reduce large Microsoft Word files.

Let me know if you’ve any problem with this. Our Smart Business Tips page on Facebook is here.

About the Author: Ivan Walsh shares Business Planning Tips at Klariti. He also runs a Video Marketing Blog for videographers and video makers.

Related posts:

1. How to Stop Microsoft Word From Crashing Business Documents – Part 1
2. How to Quickly Reduce Microsoft Word File Size – Secret #1
3. How to Quickly Reduce Microsoft Word File Size – Secret #1

In the new version of Word 2010, there is a new ‘integrated flavor of the Find feature’.

Scott Walker, Lead Program Manager, for Microsoft Word explains that ‘Rather than a modeless dialog box that jumps about on the screen to get out of the way, the basic Find experience now sits conveniently at the top of the navigation pane.”

Note: The Word 2007 Find dialog is still available by clicking the dropdown at the right-hand edge of the search box.

So, what is the new Find user experience?

Scott runs through how it works:

Type in the Search Document box at the top of the navigation pane to start.

As you type:

• All matches within the document highlight yellow. Word scrolls the document to the first match (and continues to scroll as you refine the term).
• If you’re on the headings tab of the navigation pane, any tab corresponding to a heading whose content contains the term you searched for is highlighted yellow
• If you’re on the pages tab of the pane, the thumbnails for the pages that don’t contain the search term are filtered out, leaving you with just the list of pages that have what you’re looking for
• If you’re on the search results tab, you’ll see the list of matches with a small snippet of context. Note that this list grows and shrinks as you refine your search
• Hit Enter is the same as clicking Find Next.
• The dropdown menu to the right of the search box also offers many of the popular object types you might want to search for, including graphics, tables, equations, footnotes/endnotes, and comments (by author).

Other features

You can turn off the incremental search mode, and in the search options you can change settings such as match case, whole word only, etc.

The New Find Experience in Microsoft Word 2010: http://blogs.msdn.com

Related posts:

1. How Word 2010 will be different than Word 2007
2. MS Office 2010, New Mini Translator feature
3. Microsoft Word 2010: How to open Word files online in Protected View

Over the years Microsoft Word has crashed on me several times. What’s interesting is that the error message I get tend to vary but the result it always the same – I can’t get Word to start.

Here are some common error messages, the reason why they appear, and what you can do to re-start Word. 9 times out of 10, if you delete the Normal.dot file and re-start, you’ll be fine. If that doesn’t work, please read on.

Error Message when Starting Word

When you start Microsoft Office Word, you may receive error messages that are similar to the following error messages:

• run-time error.
• subscript out of range.
• Compile Error in hidden module module name.
• Visual Basic Error – Object doesn’t support this property or method.
• Cannot display the template add in template is not valid template name.
• Word cannot open this document template template name.
• module name cannot be found.
• Command cannot be performed because a dialog box is open.
• Cannot open this file file name.
• The file cannot be opened.
• Microsoft VisualBasic – The macros in this project are disabled.
• The add-in template is not valid.

Why am I getting this message?

This behavior occurs because an add-in in one of the startup folders is not compatible with Word.

How to fix this?

To identify the add-in that may be causing the behavior, follow these steps:

1. Quit all Microsoft Office programs, including Word and Microsoft Outlook.

2. Open the following folder for depending on your version of Word.

For Microsoft Office Word 2007:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Startup

For Microsoft Office Word 2003:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\Startup

For Microsoft Word 2002:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\Startup

For Microsoft Word 2000:

Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Startup

3. Move any files that are located in that folder to your desktop.

4. Open the following folder:

Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup

5. Move any files that are located in that folder to your desktop.

6. Restart Word.

For more information about how to use the Support Template, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 820919  (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/820919/ )

Did that work for you?

If not, please tell me what version of Word you’re using, what happened when you tried to re-start it, and any other information that may help diagnose this problem.

Related posts:

1. How to Recover a Lost File in Word 2007 or Word 2003
2. How to Fix Error Message “Do you want to download a compatibility pack so that you can work with this file”
3. How to Force Word to Close after it Crashes

Microsoft has published an introduction to how Word 2010 will work. Interesting concepts here for technical writers and others who use Word for document creation.

Microsoft starts by saying that:

• In the past, individuals worked on relatively simple, local documents, from their office.
• Today, it is common for groups to work on rich, shared documents, from anywhere.

With this in mind, it has focused Word 2010 on improving document collaboration, graphics, and navigation.

It also plans to take this one step further and put Word into the browser and onto mobile phones.

“With Word 2010, you can co-author right within Word. You don’t need to hassle with email attachments, or documents with names like TSP_final_2_reallyFinal_FINAL.docx. Instead, just open your document, and start co-authoring. You can see who else is working with you, and where they are editing.”

Read about Word 2010 from 30,000 Feet: http://blogs.msdn.com

Related posts:

1. How to Recover a Lost File in Word 2007 or Word 2003
2. Top 10 New Features in MS Office 2010
3. Tracking Business Processes from within MS Office

Israeli-based ActionBase have released an interesting application that provides Security Officers with “wave” collaborative software that addresses corporate governance, audit trails security. What interesting from a Microsoft Office perspective is that all of this can be done from within Microsoft Outlook and other Office applications.

Tracking Business Process from within MS Office

How does it work?

ActionBase converts regular e-mail into business-class e-mail, whereby all content is located under a one-line item in your inbox.

This means that all process stakeholders and participants in a discussion thread share the same content, can ask questions, respond and comment or add files instead of scattering feedback across different e-mail messages in the traditional paradigm.

It incorporates all actions that were initiated subsequently by any user involved in the process.

The ability to have drill-down capabilities from inside Microsoft Office applications allows process stakeholders to view the big picture — without compromising collaborative functionality.

Key features

1. Hierarchy model for business processes
2. Ensures process-related discussions remain associated with their original context, reducing e-mail overload.
3. Simplifies process-related search and follow-up by providing process visibility, i.e. related attachments and history, audit trails and change history.
4. Reporting mechanism provide real-time process information.

The company has also expanded ActionDoc (its action-driven Word documents) functionality to turn plain Word documents to executable working documents with a real-time graphical status view over the whole process.

ActionBase is currently offering a free trial, tailored to specific regulatory, auditing and organizational challenges.

More at www.actionbase.com

Related posts:

1. Office 2003 to 2007 User Interface Guides
2. How to Force Word to Close after it Crashes
3. How to Recover a Lost File in Word 2007 or Word 2003

Word crashed. But when you go to re-open it, it refuses to do so. What’s happening here and how do I fix it.

How to Force Word to Close after it Crashes

When Word crashes, the Winword.exe file may still be running behind the scenes. I know.

If it is running, why won’t it open? There is no easy answer to this but here’s how you can get it re-started.

What you have to do is close this the Winword.exe before you re-open Word as otherwise system conflicts may arise, i.e. you may not be able to open Word, as the system sees that Winword.exe is currently running.

To close Winword.exe let’s use the Task Manager

1. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL. In the Windows Security dialog box, click Task Manager.

2. On the Processes tab, click any instance of Winword.exe, and then click End Process.

3. Close the Windows Task Manager, and then re-start Word.

Final Tip

One final tip here is that when you re-open Microsoft Word, make sure that the files you were looking for can be opened.

If you have difficulty with this, please take a look at this very detailed tutorial over on the Klariti site.

Related posts:

1. How to Open and Repair a Damaged Word file
2. How to Recover a Lost File in Word 2007 or Word 2003
3. Office 2003 to 2007 User Interface Guides

You can “force” Word to recover a document after it has crashed. Microsoft Word tries to automatically recover a damaged document if it detects a problem with the file. Here’s how.

Microsoft Word tries to automatically recover a damaged document if it detects a problem with the file.

When this happens, it will re-open Word and show you a version of the document – before it crashed. It may also show you a second version of the document, which will be a second version of the document, usually recovered with the ‘autosave’ function.

How to Recover Text from a Crashed Word file

1. Open Word, and in the File menu, click Open.

2. In the File of type list, click All Files *.*.

3. In the Open dialog box, select your document.

4. Point to the arrow on the Open button, and then click Open and Repair.

This will open the Word file.

The style and formatting may be slightly damaged but you will have most of the text and can, at least, use it to rebuild a new document.

One final suggestion is to copy the material into a new Microsoft Word document, just in case there is some gremlin in the recovered document.

Does this work for you?

Let me know if your system is different. I’m on XP and use 2003 & 2007. Maybe XP is different.

Related posts:

1. How to Recover a Lost File in Word 2007 or Word 2003
2. How to Fix Damaged & Corrupt Word 2007 Documents – Part 2
3. How to Recover Corrupt Microsoft Word documents

Question: I have a serious problem, I am unable to edit any of the document. All documents/sheets are locked. Why do they say ‘read-only’?’

You may have opened the Word file directly from a zip file.

In this case, the file will say ‘read-only’.

So, you have two options:

1. Unzip the files to a folder on your PC and then open them. They will open as regular files or

2. In Word, click File, Save As and then save the file with another name, eg Process2.

If you re-open it back in Word, it will no longer be read-only.

Related posts:

1. How to Remove Visual Basic References to Other Files
2. Using Excel to read Twitter
3. How to change the list of document options in Word 2007

Before you start, make sure that the Text boundaries option in Word is not selected.

FWIW: these steps worked at the time of writing but (as you may know) things change with Microsoft applications, so you may have to experiment a little.

To do this, follow these steps:

• Start Word 2003.
• On the Tools menu, click Options.
• In the View tab, under Print and Web Layout options, verify that the Text boundaries check box is selected.
• If the Text boundaries check box is selected, click to clear the Text boundaries check box.
• Remove all the Asian languages from the Enabled languages list.

To do this, follow these steps:

• Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Tools, and then click Microsoft Office 2003 Language Settings.

• In the Enabled languages list, select and remove all the languages that you do not use except English (U.S.).

To do this, follow these steps:

• In the Enabled languages list, select a language that you want to remove, and then click Remove.

• Click OK to update the language settings.

Note: You can also press the CTRL key and select more than one language, and then click Remove to remove those languages.

XXXX

Related posts:

1. How to get rid of Crop Marks in Microsoft Word 2002 / 2003 / 2007
2. What are Crop Marks – Microsoft Word 2002 / 2003 / 2007 Tips
3. How to Search for and Remove Text Formatted As Hidden

When you open a document in Microsoft Word, margin marks or crop marks may appear on each corner of the page.

Crop marks are markers that appear in the top left and right of your Microsoft Word documents.

These are called ‘crop marks’.

To remove these, you have to disable Asian language support.

These markers often appear after you open a file which has an Asian language setting; Microsoft Office might activate this setting to display embedded fonts. It’s just trying to be helpful.

What causes Crop Marks?

This occurs if you have one of the following Asian languages turned on in Microsoft Office Language Settings:

• Chinese (Traditional)
• Chinese (Simplified)
• Japanese
• Korean

Margin marks or crop marks are different from text boundary marks. To turn on or turn off text boundaries, use the Text boundaries option in Microsoft Word.

Related posts:

1. How to get rid of Crop Marks in Microsoft Word 2002 / 2003 / 2007
2. How to change the list of document options in Word 2007
3. Frank Rice’s Tips When Using Word 2003

When you open a document in Microsoft Word, margin marks or crop marks may appear on each corner of the page. Crop marks are markers that appear in the top left and right of your Microsoft Word documents. These are called ‘crop marks’.

To remove these, you have to disable Asian language support.

These markers often appear after you open a file which has an Asian language setting; Microsoft Office might activate this setting to display embedded fonts. It’s just trying to be helpful. The thing is: how do you remove it?

What causes Crop Marks?

This occurs if you have one of the following Asian languages turned on in
Microsoft Office Language Settings:

• Chinese (Traditional)
• Chinese (Simplified)
• Japanese
• Korean

Margin marks or crop marks are different from text boundary marks. To turn on or turn off text boundaries, use the Text boundaries option in Microsoft Word.

FWIW: these steps worked at the time of writing but (as you may know) things
change with Microsoft applications, so you may have to experiment a little.

How to remove margin marks in Word 2003

Before you start, make sure that the Text boundaries option in Word is not
selected.

To do this, follow these steps:

• Start Word 2003.
• On the Tools menu, click Options.
• In the View tab, under Print and Web Layout options, verify that the Text boundaries check box is selected.
• If the Text boundaries check box is selected, click to clear the Text
  boundaries check box.
• Remove all the Asian languages from the Enabled languages list.

To do this, follow these steps:

• Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office
  Tools, and then click Microsoft Office 2003 Language Settings.

• In the Enabled languages list, select and remove all the languages
  that you do not use except English (U.S.).

To do this, follow these steps:

• In the Enabled languages list, select a language that you want to remove, and then click Remove.

• Click OK to update the language settings.

Note: You can also press the CTRL key and select more than one
language, and then click Remove to remove those languages.

How to remove margin marks in Word 2002

Make sure that the Text boundaries option in Word is not selected.

To do this, follow these steps:

• Start Word 2002.
• On the Tools menu, click Options.
• In the View tab, under Print and Web Layout options, verify that the Text boundaries check box is selected.
• If the Text boundaries check box is selected, click to clear the Text
  boundaries check box.
• Remove all the Asian languages from the Enabled
  languages list.

To do this, follow these steps:

• Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office
  Tools, and then click Microsoft Office XP Language Settings.
• In the Enabled languages list, select and remove all the languages
  that you do not use except English (U.S.).

To do this, follow these steps:

• In the Enabled languages list, select a language
  that you want to remove, and then click Remove.
• Click OK to update the language settings.

How to remove margin marks in Word 2000

Make sure that the Text boundaries option in Word is not selected. To do
this, follow these steps:

• Start Word 2000.
• On the Tools menu, click Options.
• On the View tab, verify that the Text boundaries check box is selected under Print and Web Layout options.
• If the Text boundaries check box is selected, click to clear the Text
  boundaries check box.

How to remove Asian languages from Microsoft Word

To do this, follow these steps:

• Click Start, All Programs, Microsoft Office Tools, Microsoft Office Language Settings.
• In the Enabled languages list, remove all the languages that you
  do not use except English (U.S.).

To do this, follow these steps:

• Open the Enabled languages list
• Select a language that you want to remove, and then click
  Remove.
• Click OK to update the language settings.

For Word 2003 users, you can try turning off these markers by going to Start,
All Programs, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Office Tools, Microsoft Office 2003
Language Settings.

Let me know if this works for you. If not, please drop me a line.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter / Facebook / Flickr / Templates /  Tips

Related posts:

1. How to change the list of document options in Word 2007
2. Frank Rice’s Tips When Using Word 2003
3. Word 2003 Tip – How to Search for and Remove Text Formatted As Hidden

In Word documents, it is possible to format text as hidden. Because hidden text can contain information you may not want to distribute, you may want to unhide and remove it. To remove all of the text in a document that is formatted as hidden, perform the following steps:

1. On the Tools menu, click Options. Select the View tab. 
2. Click to select the Hidden text check box, and then click OK. 
3. On the Edit menu, click Replace. 
4. Click the More button to expand the dialog box. 
5. Click in the edit box next to Find what. 
6. Click the Format button, and then click Font. Click to select the Hidden check box, and then click OK. 
7. Click Replace All. 

All hidden text is removed from the document. 

Related posts:

1. How to Search for and Remove Text Formatted As Hidden
2. How to Remove the Border around Text Boxes
3. Word Tip – How to Automate Inserts into Technical Documents

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

In Word, if you go to the Font Size drop-down menu, the largest value shown is 72 point.

However, to get whatever font size you like – up to 999.5 points – just type in the number and Word will update the font size.

Try it!

Related posts:

1. How to add sound To Word Documents
2. How to Resize Fonts in Word 2003
3. Create Underlined Spaces That Remain When Typed On