Carol's Corner Office

Creating a document is as easy as starting Word and typing text. If you choose, you can work with Word's default settings. However, many documents require different layouts. It's important to know how to change the settings so that you can change ... the way the text looks on the page. If you haven't changed the settings in your Normal template, you'll find the defaults (in the U.S. version of Word) to include top and bottom margins set to 1 inch, left and right margins at 1.25 inches, header and footer margins at .5 inches, gutter position left, paper size is 8.5X11 inches, portrait page ... (view more)

One of the biggest complaints I get from readers is that they can't use automatic numbering in word because once you get to double digits, the numbers don't line up correctly. Well I guess this is just going to make your day because I am going to ... tell you how to remedy that particular problem. The reason that the double digits change the indentation after the numbers is because the extra digit pushes the text to the next tab setting and it doesn't look pretty. To fix the spacing, move the first tab -- along with the hanging indent -- a bit to the right. Highlight all the numbered text and ... (view more)

Every new Word document contains an empty header and footer automatically. Headers are repeating text or graphics that appear at the top of every page of your printed document. The footers appear at the bottom of each page. Some folks put their ... company logo in the header. Many times, you put your letterhead information in the header. You can use the header and footer in various ways. Below is more pertinent information regarding the use of headers and footers in your documents: Typically hold such document elements as titles, chapter headings, page numbers, confidentiality notices, document ... (view more)

You can spare yourself a lot of grief by simply saving your document and saving it often. Before you make one keystroke -- save your document! There are a multiple ways to save your documents in Word: Click File | Save or Save As. Ctrl + S. Click ... the Save icon on your toolbar. Word's default folder for saving your documents is My Documents. However, you can change that location to any folder you like, such as Open Cases, Closed Cases or whatever is intuitive for you. Go to Tools | Options. lick on the File Locations tab. Highlight Documents. Click on the Modify button. You can then change the ... (view more)

It's very easy to confuse the three powerful "Autos" in Word. It is very helpful to be able to distinguish between these three distinct features. When you find yourself inserting the same text over and over again, you can create an AutoText entry. ... When you begin to type, Word suggests the completion. You can press Enter or F to accept the suggestion or just ignore it. Similar to AutoCorrect, where you can type an abbreviation which Word automatically expands, AutoText allows you to control whether the abbreviation expands. AutoText is one of Word's most powerful timesavers. AutoText entries ... (view more)

Most section-level formatting is controlled by the Page Layout dialog box found on the File menu of MS Word. The dialog box is made up of four tabs, each controlling a separate category of section formatting: Margins, Paper Size, Paper Source, and ... Layout. Margins Since margins are section-level formatting, when you change any margin at any point in a section, you change that margin for the entire section. If your document is just one section, then changing any margin at any point in the document changes that margin for the entire document. To change one or more margins: Click File | Page ... (view more)

Like page breaks, section breaks are best viewed in Normal or Outline view, where they are always visible. In Print Layout View, section breaks are visible only if your Show/Hide button is enabled. (Your Show/Hide button looks like a paragraph ... symbol and when it's activated you are able to see all non-printing characters). Deleting Section Breaks Section breaks can be deleted if necessary, but proceed with caution. When you delete a section break, you delete all the section-level formatting of the section above it. To delete a section break: Switch to Normal view, if necessary. Click directly ... (view more)

Microsoft Windows provides a temporary storage place called the Clipboard to store a file or copied or cut text or cells, etc. while you are rearranging things in your spreadsheet. The Office Clipboard improves on this by allowing storage of up to ... twelve items in version 2000 and up to twenty-four items in version 2003, including text, images and other elements from MS Office applications Such as Excel and PowerPoint. If you attempt to copy a 25th item, Word displays a message warning you that it will delete the oldest (the one that was copied into the Clipboard first) of the 24 items ... (view more)

Most folks don't know the names of the toolbars in MS Word. Well, this tip will teach you about one of them. The Status Bar is at the very bottom of the screen in MS Word. You may have seen those four little boxes that reside on the Status bar but ... weren't aware of what they are or do. Think of them as status indicators that let you know if a certain feature is active or not. Below is a list that will explain what they mean and how they work. REC – Indicates the Macro Recorder is running. Double-click it to open the Record Macro dialog. TRK – Shows the status of the Track Changes feature. ... href="/news/1554/using-status-bar-indicator-boxes-ms-word" class="more-link">view more)

Many times I hear from people complaining that when they are trying to select a large block of text using Word, the text scrolls too quickly to accurately highlight the text. When you try to select a block of text that spans multiple pages in a ... large document, the pages start to fly by at a speed that makes your head spin! Stopping where you want to end your highlighting is next to impossible. If you go past and then try to go back, the pages scroll just as fast in the opposite direction. What to do? That's where Extend Selection Mode comes into play! There are a couple of ways to invoke ... (view more)