Microsoft Word secrets

Helen Bradley introduces you to some of her favourite Word features

Beneath the surface Microsoft Word has lots of cool features and techniques that you can use to speed up your day. This month I’ll look at ten of my favourite Word features that I hope will cause you to exclaim “Wow, I didn’t know that!”. These features range from managing graphics better to quick paragraph moves.

Better behaved images
By default Microsoft Word inserts images into documents as inline images. This means that as hard as you pull on them with your mouse you really can’t move them very far at all and they don’t behave as you might expect that they should. To solve the problem right click an image and choose Format Picture > Layout tab and select Square, Tight, Behind Text, or In Front Of Text. While you can do this one image at a time, you can also change Word’s default setting by choosing Tools > Options > Edit tab. From the Insert/paste picture as dropdown list select the wrapping type to use in future and click Ok.

Quick moves
To move a paragraph up or down a document click somewhere in the paragraph and press Shift + Alt and the Up or Down arrow key. If you select multiple paragraphs before doing this you can move multiple paragraphs at a time. This feature also works inside tables and to move a table row up or down the table.

Stripping unwanted spaces
When you import text from a web site or an email message it often has additional spaces along the left margin. To remove these spaces select the text and press Ctrl + E to centre the text and then Ctrl + L to left align it. This strips the leading spaces from the text.

Disable the insert key
If you’re like me and you hate it when Word gobbles up text as you type it because you’ve touched the Insert key and enabled OverType mode you can disable this. Choose Tools > Customize and click the Keyboard button. Scroll to find the All Commands category and scroll the Commands list to locate the Cancel option. In the Press new shortcut key box click and press the Insert key. Click Assign and then Close. This assigns the Insert key to the Cancel command so that it no longer operates OverType mode. If you ever need to use OverType mode, double click the OVR indicator in the status bar to enable or disable it.

Reinstate OverType mode
Microsoft Word 2007 works differently to Word 2003 and OverType mode is disabled by default. If you love OverType mode you can reinstate the Insert key behaviour by choosing the Office Button > Word Options > Advanced group and click the Use the Insert key to Control Overtype Mode checkbox.

Characters not on the keyboard
When you encounter a symbol that you want to use in your documents but which isn’t on the keyboard such as the cent sign, degree symbol, pound symbol or an accented character, add this as a toolbar button. This way you can insert the character at any time by clicking the toolbar button. To do this, choose Customize > Commands tab. From the All Commands collection select the Symbol: option and drag it onto the toolbar. When the symbol dialog appears, select the font to use, the symbol to insert and click Ok. The symbol will be applied to that toolbar button. Right click the button and remove the current Name entry - taking note of the character number which appears there. Hold the Alt key as you type the number on the number keypad - you may need to add a leading zero for this to work. The symbol should now appear on the toolbar button. Click Close to finish.

Auto number table rows
Automatically number the rows in your table by selecting the column that is to have the numbers in it and click the Numbering button on the toolbar. When the rows are numbered and if you move the rows around the table they will renumber appropriately according to their position in the table.

Click and type blocks
A Click Here block makes it easy to click and type to fill in a letter or form. To add a click here block to a template, position the cursor where the user should type the data and choose Insert > Field > choose Document Automation from the Categories list and choose MacroButton from the Field names. Click the Field Codes button and, in the Field codes box, alter the entry to read like this then click Ok: MACROBUTTON clickhere [Click and Type your text]. Save the document as a template and each time you open it you can click to enter your text.

Instant horizontal lines
To create horizontal lines in your document try one of these combinations of characters. Type any of them at the beginning of a new line and press Enter. Three asterisks (***), three dashes (---), three equals symbols (===), three tildes (~~~) or three underscores (___). Each creates a different style of line which stretches the width of the page inside the margins. If this doesn’t work, choose Tools > AutoCorrect Options > AutoFormat As You Type, enable the Border Lines checkbox and try again.

Word does Math
You can get Word to make simple calculations using the data in a table. So, for example if a column contains a series of numbers you want to add, click in the blank cell at the bottom of the column of cells and choose Table > Formula. Make sure the formula reads =sum(above) and click Ok. If you change the numbers in the cells, recalculate the formula by clicking in the cell containing the formula and press F9. The Table Formula dialog also includes an option for formatting the formula result.