The Word Status Bar

This came from PCMAG article

The Word Status Bar
ARTICLE DATE: 04.17.09

By  Neil J. Rubenking

In Word 2003 the status bar displays a number of useful status items that have vanished in Word 2007. Maybe you don’t need an indicator to let you know that macro recording is on, or that extended selection is enabled, but it can be awfully handy to see at a glance that Word is tracking changes or that your keystrokes will overtype existing text.

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The Word Options dialog won’t help. You can scan it ’til your eyes cross without finding any settings to bring back those handy indicators. What you need to do is right-click the status bar itself. That brings up a menu of 20 distinct items that can appear on the status bar. Now you can have it your own way.

Eight Handy Tools in Microsoft Word

Shrink document by one page. A document whose last page is mostly blank is a waste of printer paper, especially if you have to make a lot of copies. Your letters and mailings will also look more professional if they fill the pages nicely. If Print Preview reveals a skimpy last page, click the Shrink to Fit (Word 2003) or Shrink One Page button (Word 2007). Word will tweak the fonts in the document to make it a page smaller. Don’t like the results? Just press Ctrl-Z to Undo.

Calculate in tables. Sure, you can embed an Excel worksheet in a Word document, but if you just need a few simple calculations, you can use Word’s own math skills. Select a cell at the bottom of a column and click Formula on the Table Tools Layout ribbon (Word 2007), or select Formula from the Table menu (Word 2003). Word will suggest =SUM(ABOVE), but you can select among over a dozen functions. Besides choosing ABOVE, BELOW, LEFT, or RIGHT to work with all cells in the specified direction, you can reference individual cells and ranges as you do in Excel—for example, =AVERAGE(A1:C3).

Merge to e-mail. Mail-merging to letters and envelopes is too-too 1990s, but you may still need to send a common message to a group of correspondents. That’s no problem, since the familiar mail-merge feature in Word can also send e-mail messages. In Word 2007, complete your letter, click Finish & Merge in the ribbon and choose Send E-mail Messages from the menu. In Word 2003 select “E-mail messages” at the very first step of the Mail Merge wizard. Either way you’ll be prompted for a subject (the same for every message) and for a data field that holds e-mail addresses of the recipients.

Compare two documents. Your newest client just returned a revised version of a contract document file but didn’t mark his revisions. Is he trying to hoodwink you with sneaky changes? Rather than ruin your eyes poring over the old and new documents, have Word find the differences. In Word 2003 open the old document, choose Compare and Merge Documents from the Tools menu, and select the new document. In Word 2007 choose Compare | Compare from the Review ribbon and select both the old and the new document.

Document inspector. Your Word 2007 documents may contain a lot more information than you realize–tracked changes, comments, hidden text, private properties, and more. Distributing a document with this kind of data present can be embarrassing. To make sure you’re not revealing too much in a Word 2007 document, click the Office button at the top left, point to Prepare, and click Inspect Document in the resulting menu. Word 2003 has no precise equivalent, but you can get some benefit using the Security tab of the Options dialog. Check the boxes “Remove personal information from file properties on save” and “Warn before printing, saving, or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments.”

Built-in translator. The Research panel in both Word 2007 and Word 2003 includes an option to translate the selected text or the entire document between various languages. It’s more useful when you’re trying to puzzle out what a foreign-language document means than when you want to communicate your own thoughts with those who don’t speak English. To see why, translate a few sentences from English to another language and then back to English.

Create fancy equations. Sure, you can write “the electric field equals one over the electrical conductivity times the electric current density,” but is a lot more compact. To insert an equation into Word 2007 choose Equation | Insert New Equation from the Insert ribbon and use the tools on the Equation Design toolbar that appears. In Word 2003, it’s a bit more awkward. Select Insert | Object from the menu, choose Microsoft Equation 3.0, and click OK, then use the Equation toolbar that appears.

Use math autocorrect. (Word 2007 only) All of those fancy math symbols can be available even outside the Equation Design toolbar. Click the Office button at the top left, click the Word Options button, select Proofing, click AutoCorrect Options, and check the box “Use Math AutoCorrect rules outside of math regions.” Now you can type \aleph to insert an aleph (ℵ), \int for an integral sign (∫) or even type \quadratic to insert the entire quadratic equation (x=(-b±√(b^2-4ac))/2a).

How to save paper when printing from Word

<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:1; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-format:other; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:0 0 0 0 0 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”,”serif”; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:10.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} /* List Definitions */ @list l0 {mso-list-id:1749692294; mso-list-template-ids:-353631926;} ol {margin-bottom:0in;} ul {margin-bottom:0in;} –>

/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:”Table Normal”;
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-qformat:yes;
mso-style-parent:”";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:”Times New Roman”,”serif”;}

Wasting paper wastes money. There are a number of ways you can squeeze a little more text onto the page to eliminate those “orphan” lines. You could use a slightly smaller font size. Or you could use the margin settings. But the easiest way is to let Word do it for you. Here’s how in Office 2003 or 2007:

1. In Word 2003 (or 2007 with Classic Menu installed), click File | Print Preview. Or in Word 2007, click the Microsoft Office logo button, select Print and then Print Preview.
2. Click the Shrink to Fit or Shrink One Page button.
3. Word will automatically adjust text size and spacing.

If you don’t like the results, press CTRL+Z to undo.

Eight Tools in Microsoft Word

Shrink document by one page. A document whose last page is mostly blank is a waste of printer paper, especially if you have to make a lot of copies. Your letters and mailings will also look more professional if they fill the pages nicely. If Print Preview reveals a skimpy last page, click the Shrink to Fit (Word 2003) or Shrink One Page button (Word 2007). Word will tweak the fonts in the document to make it a page smaller. Don’t like the results? Just press Ctrl-Z to Undo.

Calculate in tables Select a cell at the bottom of a column and click Formula on the Table Tools Layout ribbon (Word 2007), or select Formula from the Table menu (Word 2003). Word will suggest =SUM(ABOVE), but you can select among over a dozen functions. Besides choosing ABOVE, BELOW, LEFT, or RIGHT to work with all cells in the specified direction, you can reference individual cells and ranges as you do in Excel—for example, =AVERAGE(A1:C3).

Merge to e-mail. Mail-merging to letters and envelopes is too-too 1990s, but you may still need to send a common message to a group of correspondents. That’s no problem, since the familiar mail-merge feature in Word can also send e-mail messages. In Word 2007, complete your letter, click Finish & Merge in the ribbon and choose Send E-mail Messages from the menu. In Word 2003 select “E-mail messages” at the very first step of the Mail Merge wizard. Either way you’ll be prompted for a subject (the same for every message) and for a data field that holds e-mail addresses of the recipients.

Compare two documents.Someone just returned a revised version of a  document file but didn’t mark his revisions.  Have Word find the differences. In Word 2003 open the old document, choose Compare and Merge Documents from the Tools menu, and select the new document. In Word 2007 choose Compare | Compare from the Review ribbon and select both the old and the new document.

Document inspector. Your Word 2007 documents may contain a lot more information than you realize–tracked changes, comments, hidden text, private properties, and more. Distributing a document with this kind of data present can be embarrassing. To make sure you’re not revealing too much in a Word 2007 document, click the Office button at the top left, point to Prepare, and click Inspect Document in the resulting menu. Word 2003 has no precise equivalent, but you can get some benefit using the Security tab of the Options dialog. Check the boxes “Remove personal information from file properties on save” and “Warn before printing, saving, or sending a file that contains tracked changes or comments.”

Built-in translator. The Research panel in both Word 2007 and Word 2003 includes an option to translate the selected text or the entire document between various languages. It’s more useful when you’re trying to puzzle out what a foreign-language document means than when you want to communicate your own thoughts with those who don’t speak English. To see why, translate a few sentences from English to another language and then back to English.

Create fancy equations. Sure, you can write “the electric field equals one over the electrical conductivity times the electric current density,” but is a lot more compact. To insert an equation into Word 2007 choose Equation | Insert New Equation from the Insert ribbon and use the tools on the Equation Design toolbar that appears. In Word 2003, it’s a bit more awkward. Select Insert | Object from the menu, choose Microsoft Equation 3.0, and click OK, then use the Equation toolbar that appears.

Use math autocorrect. (Word 2007 only) All of those fancy math symbols can be available even outside the Equation Design toolbar. Click the Office button at the top left, click the Word Options button, select Proofing, click AutoCorrect Options, and check the box “Use Math AutoCorrect rules outside of math regions.” Now you can type \aleph to insert an aleph (ℵ), \int for an integral sign (∫) or even type \quadratic to insert the entire quadratic equation (x=(-b±√(b^2-4ac))/2a).

Copy and Paste Problems

I have Office 2003.  Word stopped deleting selected text when I pasted contents over it.  But it still leaves the selected text instead of replacing it with the new text.

Some people want Word to work exactly this way.   Here’s how to get Word to do this. Click Tools | Options and then click the General tab. There are two options that reference WordPerfect. Make sure these aren’t checked. Now click the Edit tab. In the Editing Options area, all options should be unchecked except these five:

Typing replaces selection
Drag-and-drop text editing
Use smart paragraph selection
Use CTRL + Click to follow hyperlink
Keep track of formatting

If anything else in that first area is checked, click the box to uncheck it. All the boxes in the Cut and Paste options section and below should be checked. Click OK.

Straight and Curly Quotes in Word 2003

In the Find dialog, click the More button and then check the box titled Use wildcards. Enter a regular double-quote in the Find what box. When Use wildcards is checked, it will find only the regular, straight quotes.

To find the curly quotes, leave the Use wildcards box checked and enter this in the Find what box: [“”]. That is, open square bracket, left curly quote, right curly quote, close square bracket. To enter the left curly quote, make sure that NumLock is on, hold down the Alt key, tap out the numbers 0 1 4 7 on the numeric keypad (not the top-row numbers) and release the Alt key. For the right curly quote, use the numbers 0 1 4 8. Or you may find it easier to just copy/paste the curly quotes from the document itself. While in the Use wildcards mode, Word searches for any characters found within square brackets, so you will find both left and right curly quotes this way.

Left- and Right-Align on One Line

You use Microsoft Word from Office XP. This is how you left-align and right-align separate pieces of text in the same sentence. You can apply it to Resumes or apply it to existing documents as well.

That’s easily done. Select Tabs from the Format menu and click the Clear All button. In the Tab stop position box at top, enter the width (in inches) of the editable area of your document. You can get that value by looking at the right-hand end of the ruler above the document. Check the Right option and click OK. Now type some text, press the Tab key, and type some more text. The text before the tab is left-aligned; the text after the tab is right-aligned. Easy! If you want to end the right/left alignment after you’ve typed some lines, open the Tabs dialog again and click Clear All.

The drill is almost the same when you apply this effect to existing text. First, highlight the lines you’re going to change. Use Find/Replace to replace any tabs (represented by ^t) with spaces. Then proceed to set the right-side tab as above. Finally, insert a tab character at the desired location in each line.

There are some variations on this technique that may prove useful. When you create the right-aligned tab, you can choose from one of several Leader styles. Word will fill the space before the right-aligned portion with dashes, dots, or underscores. You can also set a tab in the middle of the ruler and define it as a Center tab. Now enter a line of text split by two tabs. The first part will be left-aligned, the middle part will be center-aligned, and the last will be right-aligned.

Inserting Copyright, Trademark and Registered Symbols

To insert the Copyright symbol, type:  (c)               ©

To insert the Trademark symbol, type ™             ™

To insert the Registered symbol, type (r)               ®

 

This works in Word, Excel and Powerpoint.  Please note that the “Replace Text as You Type” Autocorrect option must be turned on for this to work.  (Tools, Autocorrect Options, Replace Text as You Type.)

 

Placing a Text Watermark in a Word Document

You can place a watermark (ie Confidential) in a Word document in this manner:

1. From the Word menu, select Format, Background.
2. Select Printed Watermark.
3. Select Text Watermark
4. Select the desired options
5. Click Apply, then click OK.

 

Or Use an Image as a Watermark Here’s how:

You can insert clip art images, etc. as watermarks in Word documents.

1. From the Word menu, select Format, Background.
2. Click Picture Watermark.
3. Click Select Picture
4. Select the desired picture, then click Insert.
5. Click Apply, OK, then click Close.
6. The watermark can be viewed in Print Layout view.

Shrinking a document to fit

If you’ve created a document and one or two lines spill over unto a new page, you can use the “Shrink to Fit” feature to fit everything on the page. Choose File, Print Preview and click on the Shrink to Fit button.