Adding a Text Watermark
To add a watermark to your document, you must display your document in either Print Layout or Normal View.
1. From the Format menu, select Background and then Printed Watermark
Welcome to Blaisdell's Little
Corner of the Web
Microsoft Word 97 Vol. V
MsOffice Index 1 | MsOffice Index 1I
| Microsoft Mac Office 8.0 |
Microsoft PowerPoint 97 | Microsoft Office XP | Microsoft Bug of the Month
| Microsoft
Macro Virus from MacOffice | Updated 02/21/05
Rotating Drawing
Objects
Works with; Word, Excel, Powerpoint:
Hanging Indents..has nothing to do with "Hanging
Chads".
Works for Word 97 and above
Creating an indent is pretty much straight forward, but what if you want to
create a hanging indent (in which the paragraph's first line is up against the
left margin and all remaining lines in the paragraph are indented)?
Move your insertion point (the flashing vertical bar that indicates where your cursor is) to any point within the paragraph you want to indent, then choose one of these three options:
OPTION 1: Use the Menu
Use the Format/Paragraph command. Select the Indents and Spacing tab, and in the Indentation section, select Hanging from the pull- down menu options for the Special field.
OPTION 2: Use a Keyboard Shortcut
Press Ctrl + T to indent to the first tab setting (or one-half inch if no tabs have been set). Each time you press Ctrl + T, the hanging (indented) text will move to the next tab setting.
Gone too far? Press Ctrl + Shift + T to go in the opposite direction -- the indented text's left "margin" moves to the left.
OPTION 3: Use the Ruler Bar
Notice the bottom part of the ruler bar. It contains an up- pointing triangle, indicating the position of the hanging indent. In "regular" paragraphs (those with no indents), the up-pointing triangle will be positioned at the left margin. To manually change the amount of space preceding the hanging indent, drag this triangle icon to the right along the ruler bar.
For example, for a "regular" paragraph, drag the up-pointing triangle to the right and you'll see how the paragraph is immediately formatted with a hanging indent.
Note: It doesn't matter where your insertion bar is within the paragraph. In other words, it doesn't have to be at the beginning of the paragraph. As long it's somewhere inside the paragraph that you want to format, dragging the triangle will create the hanging indent for that paragraph.
Hanging Indents The Rest of the Story:
More....
If you use hanging indents often, and don't want to use some of the default behavior of that feature, creating a style is a great way to go.
You can create a style by using the Format/Style command from the main menu. Click on the New button, name the style (Hanging, for example -- just keep the name short and simple cause we like simple. It fits our MO.).
At the bottom of the dialog box, choose the Format drop-down option, then select Paragraph. In the Indentation section, choose "Hanging" from the pull-down "Special" option, then enter the amount of the hanging indent you want (it's half an inch by default).
Click OK twice.
To apply the style, move anywhere in the paragraph and choose Hanging (or whatever name you used) from the style pull-down box on the Formatting toolbar. (Or recall our keyboard shortcut: press Ctrl + Shift + S, then type "Hanging" -- without the quotes -- in the Style box.)
An Easy Way to Enter the English Pound or Euro Symbol
Entering the Euro currency symbol is sometimes more trouble than it should be. Many keyboards don't have the character at all and choosing Insert | Symbol is a pain.
There's a simpler method that you can use to enter any unusual or unlisted symbol.
To do this you need to have NumLock ON and use the numeric keypad on the keyboard (not the numbers above the letter rows).
Hold the Alt key down then press the number code for the symbol. For the Euro that is 0128. Since the English show no signs of joining their EU partners across the Channel, it is worth remembering that the Pound symbol is 0163.
Euro --- Alt + 0128
Pound - Alt + 0163
Indent paragraphs with one click
A popular method for indenting paragraphs is to drag Word's First Line Indent marker to the desired position on the ruler. But this method is also the most difficult for new users, who often end up changing the left margin instead.
However, there's an alternative method that lets you indent with a single click. Follow these steps:
For example, to indent your paragraph one inch, click 1 on the ruler.
You can also use this procedure to set a hanging indent. Just choose the Hanging Indent marker on the left end of the ruler before making your selection.
Formatting your text to double space is set using the Format/Paragraphs option. Choose the text to be formatted in this way (or press Ctrl + A to select the entire document), then:
1. Use the Format/Paragraph command from the main menu.
2. In the Spacing section (in the middle of the dialog box), choose the Line spacing option from the drop-down menu. (Shortcut: Press Alt + N, then D, then the Tab or Enter key.)
From the keyboard there are several shortcuts available for changing line spacing. Select the text you want to change, then press:
Ctrl + 1 for single spacing
Ctrl + 5 for line-and-a-half spacing (1.5 spacing -- hence the "5" in the shortcut)
Ctrl + 2 to turn on double spacing
You can add toolbar buttons for these three spacing options. Use the Tools/Customize command from the main menu, click on the Commands tab, choose the Format category, scroll down the Commands list (the spacing commands are about half-way down), and drag the icons to any toolbar area.
If you copy double-spaced text to another document, using the Edit/Paste command will paste in double-spaced text. To keep the formatting (single-spaced, for example) of the destination document, use the Edit/Paste Special command and choose the "Unformatted text" option.
To Create An Index
1. Move to the location in your document where you want the index to appear.
2. Use the Insert/Index and Tables command (Word 97, 2000) or Insert/Reference/Index and Tables (Word 2002, 2003).
3. Select the Index tab. Be sure the Language option is correct.
4. Choose the appropriate type: Indented puts each sub-entry on a separate line; sub-subentries also get a separate line; each entry is indented. The Run-in option lists all sub-entries one right after the other; it may save space but your readers will probably find it difficult to use.
5. Chose the Columns option. The field value is set to 2 by default. Select from 1 to 4, or use "Auto" to use the column formatting from the document itself. Note that you can always generate an index, then select the index and use the Format/Columns command to change the index layout.
6. By default, Word uses a comma to separate an index entry from the page number. Assuming you selected the Indented index type (step 4), you can right-align page numbers by checking the "Right align page numbers" box. This enables the Tab leader pulldown menu, where you can select the leader character -- spaces, periods, dashes, or underlines.
7. Select a predefined format from the Formats pulldown list. Word displays the formatting in the Print Preview window. The principle difference is how the headers for the index ("A", "B", "C", etc.) are formatted. The Modern template also changes the character separating an index entry from the page number.
8. Click on OK to create the index.
If Word now displays the field code {Index} instead of the index, click on the Hide/Show button in the toolbar (the one with the paragraph symbol -- a backward "P" with two vertical lines -- on its face) or Alt + F9.
Updating Your Index
If you revise your document, you may need to regenerate your index. Fortunately, it's simple. Move to any spot within the generated index. Now either:
-- press F9 -- right-click your mouse and choose Update Field
Removing An Index
It's also simple to remove an individual index entry: display the field codes (press Alt + F9) and delete the {Index} field entry.
Changing
Font Properties
Works with Word 97 and above
Search and replace can be used for more than simply changing one word or phrase
into another. For example, if I'm creating a business letter and I import a
plain text document (or paste text from
the clipboard) that contains the phrase
The Bo Alert Newsletter, I want to format the name of our publication in italics
-- an industry style standard.
To apply the change throughout the document:
1. Use the Edit/Replace command (or the keyboard shortcut, Ctrl + H).
2. Enter the phrase to look for; in this example, I enter Bo
Alert Newsletter in the Find
what box.
3. Enter the same word or phrase in the "Replace with:" box.
4. Click on the More button if Search Options aren't displayed at the bottom of
the Replace tab.
5. Click on the Format button and choose the Font option.
6. Set the font to Italics and click on OK.
Notice that under the Replace with field is a notation: Format:
Font: Italic.
Word: Columns -- Balancing Length, Defining Headlines
How to balance columns:
Create a new document and define it to have two columns. Word will enter
your text in the first column as you type. When there's no more room in the
first column of the first page for your text, Word flows the text into the
second column on the page. Unfortunately, what you end up with (depending on
your text) may be a long first column and a very short second column
There's a way to balance out the text automatically, however, so that both columns are of approximately equal length. The trick is to use a section break.
1. I usually work in either Normal view (if I'm just getting started with a
document), but I prefer Print Layout view if my
document contains columnar text; it's so much easier to work in this mode.
2. Click at the end of the last column of the columns you want balanced.
3. Use the Insert/Break command from the main menu. Word displays the
Break dialog box. Choose the Continuous option (in the "Section break
types" portion of the dialog box), then click on OK.
Word switches to Print Layout view and displays the columns adjusted now to
approximately equal lengths.
If you have Show/Hide toggled to show hidden text, you'll see a "Section
Break (Continuous)" notation where you inserted the break.
Headlines Across Columns:
Here's another trick for columns.
If you're creating a newsletter and want to include a bold heading for a new story (or a sub-heading for a longer story), you can do so -- very easily. (See illustration for the results we're trying to achieve.)
Suppose you want to use a three-column layout. Enter the headline for the story, then press Enter twice, then enter all the text for the story itself. Press Enter twice, type in the second story's headline, then press Enter twice again and begin typing in the second story. (Repeat for each additional story.)
Now:
1. Select the text to be modified. Start with the first story (but not the first story's headline), and select the second story's headline as well as the body of the second story's text.
2. Set the number of columns to 3. (I typically use the Columns button in the toolbar because it's so fast, but you could also use the Format/Columns command from the main menu.)
3. Move to the end of the first story and insert a continuous break.
4. Select the headline for the second story, and assign the number of columns to 1.
5. Modify the headline. I usually set it to a bold, sans-serif 16 point font.
6. Add a second line to the headline so it's separated from the second story.
7. Adjust the extra blank lines at the beginning of the second story. Note: when you originally entered the story, the extra blank line wasn't strictly necessary, since here you are removing it. However, I find that lots of extra blank lines make it easier to find things (such as the beginning of the second story) when you're working in Print Layout mode.
Note: There's an alternative to the technique for modifying the second story's headline. You can place that headline in a separate text box. I've found, however, that keeping the text box anchored at the proper location in the text -- so the second headline remains "above" the text of the second story -- is sometimes more trouble than it's worth. While I've read several discussions about this online, my preference is to use the one-column technique described here to ensure the headline is where you want it.
Replacing Font Formats With Word's Replace Dialog Box
Just as you can find and replace specific text within your Word document, you can find and replace specific text formatting within your document. If you have a lengthy document and you would like to replace all the bold text with italicized text, for example, it is easier to use the Replace dialog box to change the formatting than to do it yourself manually.
1. Open the Replace dialog box (Edit | Replace or Ctrl + H)
2. Make sure no text is specified in the Find what or Replace with boxes
3. Click in the Find what box, then click Format (If you don’t see the Format button, click More to expand the search options)
4. Select Font from the pop up list
5. In the Find Font dialog box, select the text formatting options you would like to replace
6. Click OK
7. Click in the Replace with box
8. Click Format
9. Select Font from the pop up list
10. In the Replace Font dialog box, select the new text formatting options you would like to apply
11. Click OK
12. Click Replace all
13. Click OK
14. Click Close
Rotating Drawing Objects
Works with; Word, Excel, Powerpoint:
It's easy to create a simple arrow using the drawing tools built into Office. After you make sure the Drawing toolbar is displayed (use the View/Toolbars command), click on the AutoShapes command, pick a category (Block Arrows), pick an arrow, then move the mouse to the document area and draw the shape.
The Block Arrow group already has left-, right-, up-, and down- pointing arrows, but it's also easy to select and draw a right- pointing arrow and flip it in any direction. Select the arrow, then click on the Draw option on the Drawing toolbar, choose Rotate or Flip, and then choose the direction you want to flip the image. "Rotate Left" turns the object 90 degrees counterclockwise; "Rotate Right" turns it 90 degrees clockwise. "Flip Horizontal" spins the object on its vertical access -- a 180-degree spin (a right- pointing arrow is now left-pointing). "Flip Vertical" spins the object around its horizontal axis (an arrow pointing down and to the right will now point up and to the right).
If increments of 90 degrees aren't what you want, then use the rotate feature. Select the arrow, choose the Draw option on the Drawing toolbar, choose Rotate or Flip, then pick Free Rotate. The mouse pointer turns to a circular arrow; move it over one of the small green dots surrounding the drawing object, and drag your mouse to spin the object. (If your object is an arrow, the rotation reminds me of a spinner used in children's games.)
Now here are two tricks that enhance rotation.
1. Before you rotate the object, hold down the Shift key. You'll notice that the rotation jumps -- it's not smooth. Every movement is actually a rotation of 15 degrees.
2. Before you rotate the object, hold down the Ctrl key. Instead of the center of rotation being the middle of the object, the object will rotate around a point at the opposite end of the object. For example, if you rotate on one of the green dots at the head of the arrow, the arrow will rotate around a point at the tail of the arrow -- not the middle of the arrow.
View Your Outline Without Formatting
In Normal view, Word displays as close to what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSWG) as it can. However, the purpose of an Outline is to quickly view the structure of a document (and rearrange large sections of text quickly). In this case, formatting can just get in the way (unless you want to make sure it's consistent throughout the outline).
The good news is that you can temporarily turn formatting off in Outline view. The text maintains the formatting properties you've assigned -- you just won't see them in an outline.
Move your cursor to any position within the outline and switch to Print Layout view. (Use the View/Print Layout command from the main menu.)
Word should display the Outline toolbar; if it doesn't, use the View/Toolbars command and choose Outlining.
On the toolbar you'll find a Show Formatting button. (It has an A, a slash, and a bold, underlined A on the face of the button.) Click the button to toggle between formatting and plain text.
Word: Repeat Headings In Long Tables
Works in Word 2000 and above
If your table is going to span a page, it's best to repeat the column headings on each page. Fortunately, you don't have to do that manually (which would be a nightmare anyway).
Instead, enter the headings in the top row of your table. Use the Table command from the main menu, and select Heading Rows Repeat (it's a toggle).
If you're in Normal mode, you won't see the headings. In Web Mode, there is no such thing as a page break, so they won't show up there either.
Switch to Print Layout (use the View/Print Layout command) or use Print Preview (File/Print Preview) to see the headings at the top of each page.
Even though you can see the column headings on subsequent pages, you can only change the heading text in the top row of the table.
Many have written asking how one can make Word use Slashed Zeros (Ø). There are amny solution, but probably the easiest is to do the following:
Change the built-in Arial font rather than use a macro to display a slashed zero.
It can be invoked on a keyboard with a numeric keypad as follows:
1. Insure that NumLock is on.
2. While pressing the Alt key, using the numeric keypad keys, press 0216, then release the Alt key, to produce the Ø symbol.
Note: This will not work on a notebook type PC; in this case I would create a macro for the above <Alt>+0216 combination and assign a keyboard shortcut key to the macro.
The Macro:
Sub SlashedZero()
'
' SlashedZero Macro
' Macro recorded 8/3/2004 by Bo
'
Selection.TypeText Text:="Ø"
End Sub
Try using the windows CHARACTER MAP (charmap.exe)
PROCEDURE
1. Just type your entire text using the ordinary Ariel zero
character.
2. Go to the word EDIT menu and select REPLACE. In the CHANGE
window, type in an ordinary 0 (zero).
3. Click the CHARMAP.EXE icon on your desktop and select SYMBOL font.
Find the slash zero and double click, then click the COPY button.
[Note: You could also launch
charmap.exe using Window's Start/Run command.]
4. Back to your WORD "Replace" window, click in the
REPLACE WITH box, press the SHIFT + INS keys to paste in the zero slash
character.
5. Click the REPLACE ALL button.
That's it. Every zero in your text is now a slash zero.
Note: you could also pick the slashed zero
(ASCII 0216) from the Arial font instead of the symbol font in step 3.
Use the replacing Arial with a font that has the slash already:
You can also download the Monaco font that has a slashed 0.
http://www.pa.msu.edu/ftp/pub/misc/tek-phaser/ttfonts/MONACO.TTF
(Monaco is not an embedded font)
That could be a problem if you're sharing the Word document with other users,
however.
Use the built-in font editor; click the below link to learn more:
http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/privchar.htm
Try replacing Arial with a font that has the slash already:
Word, Powerpoint, Access: Changing Pop-Up
Menus
Works in Office 97 and above for these applications
Displaying the Function Key toolbar (by using the Tools/Customize menu command).
The Shortcuts Menu option behaves differently from the other options. The Shortcut Menus option isn't designed to be used while you edit a document. Rather, it's a tool for changing the right-mouse (context-sensitive) pop-up menus.
Here's how it works in Word.
Add a table with any number of rows and columns to your document. Select any individual cell (not a cell range), then click the right-mouse button. The pop-up menu shows several options: Insert Table, Delete Cells, Split Cells, and so on.
You want to add Check Spelling to that list of options.
1. From the main menu, use the Tools/Customize command.
2. Choose the Toolbars tab, and toward the bottom of the dialog box you'll find
a Shortcut Menus checkbox. Check the box.
3. Word displays the Shortcuts Menu with three options (Text, Table, Draw).
Choose Table -- pop-up menus that deal with tables are listed here.
4. Note the Table Text option in the drop down list. Click the right-pointing
arrow to the right of this option. The expanded menu now looks like Figure 1
(see our online edition).
5. Click back in the Customize dialog box, choose the Commands tab, and choose
Tools in the Categories list at the left of the panel.
6. Scroll down the Commands section until you find Spelling (with the ABC and
check-mark icon).
7. Drag the Spelling option to the Table Text option list, just underneath Split
Cells.
8. In the Customize dialog box, click on the Close button.
Now return to the table in your Word document. Select a cell, right-click and notice that the pop-up menu now includes the Spelling option.
The pop-up menu management feature can be used to create some very creative
toolbar options. For example, you can add a menu option to the pop-up
menu; see
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/TblsFldsFms/CellAlignmentProbs.htm
to learn how to create a new menu option for aligning cell contents (it actually
replaces the current cell alignment options). The site offers a very
thorough explanation of the technique and shows you what you can do with the
pop-up menus.
In addition to Word, we found the Shortcut Menus option available in PowerPoint and Access, but not in Excel, Outlook, and FrontPage.
Adding Watermarks to Your Word Document
Adding a Text
Watermark
A watermark can be a valuable addition to your Word document – whether you want to
enhance the appearance of the document by adding a seal or image or whether you want to
add a text watermark that identifies the document contents as a draft or confidential
information, the watermark feature in Word is a definite asset for intermediate to
advanced users of Word.
Adding a Text Watermark
To add a watermark to your document, you must display your document in either Print
Layout or Normal View.
1. From the Format menu, select Background and then Printed Watermark
2. In the Printed Watermark dialog box, click the radio button beside Text
Watermark
3. In the Text drop-down box, select the text you would like to use for the
watermark
4. You can use the Font, Size, and Color drop-down boxes to specify
font formatting for the watermark text
5. Make sure the box next to Semitransparent is checked so that the watermark text
doesn’t interfere with the document text
6. You can change the orientation of the text by selecting either Diagonal or Horizontal
beside the Layout label
7. Once you have selected your watermark text and applied the formatting options, click OK
The watermark will be applied to your document; you should be able to see it on the screen
and when you print the document.
Keep Function Keys Always In View
Works with Word 2000 and above
If you ever forget that F5 is the "Go To" command or Shift + F11 is "Go to Previous Field", fear not. Word offers a little-known toolbar that reminds you of what the function keys do. Press Shift and you'll see what the Shift + function key combos do, press Ctrl and you'll see those shortcuts, and so on.
The toolbar is automatically placed at the bottom of the screen (underneath the document area); like any toolbar, you can drag it and dock to it any side of the screen, or let it float.
To display the Function Key Display toolbar:
1. Use the Tools/Customize menu command.
2. Select the Toolbars tab, then check the Function Key Display box.
3. Click the Close button.
Press the Ctrl, Alt, or Shift keys to see the toolbar buttons (shortcut hints) change.
Leaders:
You know, those "........." thingies?
Reader Punkie (No we do not make up these names) writes:
I just learned about your website and I want to thank you --
great job!
My question: How do I add leader dots to create a page numbers listing in a Table of
Contents, using Office 97/Word? For example
Cashflow........................19
I've tried the Index tabs every which way and all I keep coming up with is : Error! There
is no information in Table of Contents". I've highlighted stuff, put the cursor
at the start, at the end, everything I can think of. In Word Perfect, you could use
an F key once, the cursor would automatically jump to the right, hit the key again and the
leader dots would fill in the space. Is there a similar shortcut in Office 97 for
Word? I've tried all the shift/control/alt keys and can't find that
combination. It can't be that hard to do this!
Thank you for your help or suggestions.
The none geek version:
| 1. | Select the text to which you want to apply tabs. |
| 2. | Go to the Format menu and select Tabs. |
| 3. | Select the alignment you want for the tabs you are setting (left, right, center, and so on). |
| 4. | Enter a number in inches in the Tab Stop Position box. |
| 5. | Click the Set button to set the new tab stop. |
 |
Tips: |
 |
Set the leader dots for the tabs if you are using the tabs for a table of contents or index and want leader dots between the item and the page number. |
Preserve blank lines in Word when you copy and paste
Use this simple find-and-replace trick to preserve the blank lines in your Word documents when you copy and paste them into other applications.
When you copy and paste the contents of a Word document into another application, the receiving application usually respects (processes) blank lines. For instance, if you paste a Word document into an Excel spreadsheet, the blank lines from the Word document translate into blank rows in the spreadsheet.
Most of the time, those blank lines are welcome because they preserve the vertical spacing of the text you copied. But from time to time, you'll run into an application that ignores or suppresses blank lines when you paste data copied from a Word document. Here's what to do when you need to stamp blank lines with a placeholder.
In general, you can define a blank line in a Word document as two paragraph markers (hard line breaks) in a row. Assuming your document contains no more than one blank line in a row, the Find And Replace dialog box can help you preserve the vertical spacing while stamping the blank lines with placeholder text.
Figure A
Take the "P" out of Field Codes
Question:
As usual, I have a weird Word question that's baffling me. Awhile back, I began to
notice that text that I had cut and pasted into Word documents from the Web is displaying
in very weird ways. For example, I pasted the following text from the Web several weeks
ago:
Open Fonts in Control Panel.
It read that way for weeks. Now, however, it's changed how it displays, and it reads like
this:
Open { HYPERLINK
"ms-its:C:\\WINDOWS\\Help\\fonts.chm::/windows_fonts_print.htmEXEC=,cont
rol.exe,%20fonts%20CHM=ntshared.chm%20FILE=alt_url_windows_component.htm " \o
"" } in Control Panel.
I can't get it to display properly. I'm sure I've changed some kind of oddball setting
without realizing it, but I can't for the life of me figure out what or where it is. Any
thoughts?
--Jay--
Answer:
If you know what's happening, the solution is simple (We like SIMPLE): almost always if
you highlight, either the section of the document showing the gobbly-gook and then right
click on it you will see an option in the right-click context menu which shows, "Toggle
Field codes", the gobbly-gook goes away.
If you want to to dig into Word and get rid of the Field Codes. That's simple, too - if
you know how to do it. To bring back the Field results, click Tools |
Options | View and uncheck the box marked Field Codes.
Words shortcut list changes. How do I get it back?
Questions: I'm facing often this problem with Word: I open it and the shortcuts are different than usual. For example the copy is not Ctrl+C but Ctrl+Insert and paste not Ctrl+V but Shift+Insert e.t.c. How can I change form one set of shortcuts to other? - Stelios
3 Possible Answers: Is "every" shortcut changed? You mention only 2, and I explained how to change them both back below
How to change Shortcuts one at a time:. If ALL of your shortcuts are changed, you may want to rename your Normal.dot (with Word closed) and have Word build a new one (when you reopen it). Note that this will erase any macros or styles you've built into the normal template and any toolbar, menu, or keyboard shortcut customizations you've made. But it will reassemble as a default as it was when you first got your Word application. You can find Normal.dot in the following location by default. If you have installed to another drive letter or even drive, substitute that for the one below:C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Normal.dot
Be sure that Normal.dot is not in use when you attempt this fix.
Rename Normal.dot to something like Normal.dot.old
. After you have used MsWord for a time and discover that your shortcuts are indeed fixed, go ahead and delete the *.OLD* file.There may also be another copy of Normal.dot in the following location:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Templates
What to do if you want to keep your macros and other items except shortcuts etc:
You can recover your customizations, *except* for shortcuts, as follows:
If you had built all your shortcuts via code, you could recover them also, by running the macro that generates them.
Assuming you've changed the shortcuts to the actual Word commands
(as opposed to, say, using an add-in to modify
the keybindings), click Tools | Customize | Keyboard.
What might cause this problem?
Sometimes when, say a Russian, program is installed or is run, the program will activate its own rules for the Russian language which should be universal. If this continues to happen, it is quite possible that another program is causing this to revert back to what yu discribe. I would suggest removing the program in question. I use Russian only as an example.
Unless you go in and change Word's infuriating default setting, every time you type an
email address like billg@microsoft.com, Word
takes it upon itself to turn the email address into a hot link. Among other things, that
means the text suddenly appears underlined and in blue. It's also "hot": if you
click on the Word-mangled email address (Ctrl+Click in Word 2002 or 2003), Word cranks up
Outlook, starts a new email message, and addresses that message to the address you typed.
That process takes about, oh, a hundred years, and your machine sits there staring at you
while Word sucks up all the available PC processing cycles to do something you never
wanted it to do in the first place. (In earlier versions of Word, you also get treated to
a completely useless Toolbar that appears out of nowhere, and takes forever to hide
again.)
Microsoft calls it Intellisense (TM). I call it IntelliNONsense.
Fortunately, like most things in Word, you can fudge em. What? You didn't know about Microsoft's hidden fudge factory? Okay, sorry, here is how to loose that nonsense. You can do this by clicking Tools | AutoCorrect (or AutoCorrect Options) | AutoFormat As You Type, and unchecking the box marked Internet and Network Paths With Hyperlinks.
The next time you type the @ symbol, it ain't gona stick.
Useful shortcuts for Word, MSWorks, and Wordpad
Reader Jason writes:
Question: I have a simple prob, i had forgotten how to double space my lines w/o hitting the enter key twice. I am workin with Microsoft wordpad, what is the command that lets me double space my lines w/o me hitting enter everytime. thanks
Answer: Sure Jason, here is how:
To double space lines in Microsoft WordPad do the following:
Other useful shortcuts are:
1.
Ctrl + A-------------Select All (Hi-lites whole text)
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
2.
Ctrl + B-------------Makes text BOLD
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
3.
Ctrl + C-------------Copies to clip board
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
4.
Ctrl + D-------------Brings up Font Menu
Word
5.
Ctrl + E-------------Center a line of a Paragraph
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
6.
Ctrl + F-------------Brings up Find Box
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
7.
Ctrl + G------------ Brings up Go to Box
Word/ MS Works
8.
Ctrl + H------------ Brings up Replace Box
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
9.
Ctrl + I--------------Makes letters Italic
Word/ MS
Works/WordPad
10. Ctrl
+ J-------------Justifies the text
Word/ MS Works
11. Ctrl
+ K------------To create a Hyper-link
Word
12. Ctrl
+ L-------------Left Aligns a Paragraph
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
13. Ctrl
+ M------------Indents a Paragraph from the left
Word/ MS Works
14. Ctrl
+ N------------Brings up a new page for a new document
Word/MS Works/WordPad
15. Ctrl
+ O------------Brings up the OPEN box
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
16. Ctrl
+ P------------Prints
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
17. Ctrl
+ Q------------Removes Paragraph Formatting
Word/ MS Works
18. Ctrl
+ R------------Right Aligns a Paragraph
Word/WordPad
19. Ctrl
+ S-------------Saves your work
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
20. Ctrl
+ T------------Creates a Hanging Indent
Word
21. Ctrl
+ U------------Underlines the Text
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
22. Ctrl
+ V------------Pastes what is on the clipboard
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
23. Ctrl
+ W-----------Closes out the active document window
Word/ MS Works
24. Ctrl
+ X------------Cuts out what is hi-lited
Word/ MS
Works/WordPad
25. Ctrl
+ Y------------Redo Cut
Word
26. Ctrl
+ Z------------Will undo the last things that were done
Word/MS Works/WordPad
27. Ctrl
+ 1------------Makes Single space lines
Word/ MS
Works/WordPad
28. Ctrl
+ 2------------Makes Double space lines
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
29. Ctrl
+ 5------------Makes lines spaced 1½ times
Word/ MS Works/WordPad
30. Ctrl
+ End--------Takes you to the end of the document Word/MS
Works/WordPad
31. Ctrl
+ Home----Takes you to the beginning of the document
Word/MS Works/WordPad
32. Ctrl + Backspace---Deletes one word to
the left
Word/ WordPad
33. Ctrl
+ Delete--------Deletes one word to the right
Word/ WordPad
MSWord 97 Shows Cursor on Pages When Bookmaking, Why?
Tony writes: I have noticed suddenly that at the insertion point where I place a bookmark or even a link to a bookmark, that the cursor shows in the document making it look very messy, especially when there are a lot of bookmarks. Why? and how do I remove them?
Okay Tony, here is the scoop. I am willing to bet that you share your MsWord with a member of your family. I too had this very problem. One day my documents look fine, the next there was all this hen scratching all over the place. I couldn't figure out why or what had happened. Searching the Microsoft Database was a dead end. Though I did learn a lot from searching. I get distracted easily. Oh yeah, the problem:
Most likely someone with access to your computer had inadvertently turned on the hidden bookmarks feature in Word. This allows the author of the document the ability to see where each bookmark is in any document. This can be handy if you have multitudes of documents that you use for public database4s or display. This way you know exactly where the bookmarks are.
Generally Word shows these bookmarks and links as in the example below:
HyperlinkI words: This shows that a single bookmark was placed at
the end of the word Hyperlink
Hyperlink IwordsI This shows that the entire
word, "Word", is bookmarked
Now, for the next part of your question, How to remove them:
Uncheckmark, "Bookmarks"
That is all there is to it. Amazing how the most simplest of answers cause the greatest amount of trouble.
| Hidden File Detector v1.9 |
| Version:1.9 File Size: 98KB Price:Free Operating System(s):Windows 9.x, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows NT Requirements:Microsoft Word 1997, 2000, or 2002 |
An innocent-looking document might contain memory-hogging embedded graphics or even
sneaky spyware. This add-on locates hidden fields and linked files in Microsoft Word
documents. The program slips an icon into your Word toolbar to make it easy to launch
Hidden File Detector. Click the icon whenever you need to search a Word document for
unwanted visitors. Download from PcWorld.com.
If this link did not work, please click
here.
Word Searches with Regular Expressions
Have you ever had to make a large number of repetitive changes to a document by hand? For
example, have you ever had to find and remove duplicate rows from a large table, or
transpose a list of names (change them from "Colin Wilcox" to "Wilcox,
Colin")? That type of repetitive find-and-replace work gets old in a big hurry.
You can automate many of those find-and-replace tasks. Microsoft Word provides a set of
wildcard characters that you can use to build regular expressions, combinations of literal
text and wildcard characters. You can use regular expressions to find text that matches a
given pattern and then replace those matches with new text.
To start, let's define a couple of terms:
That may seem a bit abstract, but you've seen (and most likely used) wildcard
characters and regular expressions since you first began computing. For example, the Open
dialog box (on the File menu, click the Open command) uses the asterisk
wildcard character extensively:
And, if you ever used the MS-DOS operating system, you probably used a command and a
simple regular expression to copy files:
copy *.doc a:
That command uses the asterisk wildcard character and the .doc literal text string to copy a set of Word documents to hard disk drive A. If you look around a bit, you'll see that Microsoft Windows® and the Microsoft Office applications use wildcard characters everywhere.
The steps in this section explain how to use a regular expression that transposes names. Keep in mind that you always use the Find and Replace dialog box to run your regular expressions. Also, remember that if an expression doesn't work as expected, you can always press CTRL+Z to undo your changes, and then try another expression.
| Josh Barnhill |
| Doris Hartwig |
| Tamara Johnston |
| Daniel Shimshoni |
(<*>) (<*>)
\2, \1
| Barnhill, Josh |
| Hartwig, Doris |
| Johnston, Tamara |
| Shimshoni, Daniel |
At this point, you may wonder what to do if some or all of your names contain middle initials. See the first example in Putting Regular Expressions to Work for more information.
The next section explains how those regular expressions work.
From here on, keep this principle in mind: The content of a document controls most (but not all) of the design of your regular expressions. For example, in the sample table you used earlier, each cell contained two words. If the cell contained two words and a middle initial, you'd use a different expression.
Let's examine each expression from the inside out:
In the first expression, (<*>) (<*>):
In other words, the expression says: "Find both words."
Note Searching on this expression, (*) (*>), produces the same results. However, the expression in the example is easier to describe, and you should use restricting characters whenever you can, because doing so ensures greater accuracy in your results.
In the second expression, \2, \1:
In other words, the expression says: "Write the second word, add a comma, write the first word."
Next, let's take a look at the full set of wildcard characters and what they do.
The following table lists and describes the wildcard characters that are available for use in Word. Keep one fact in mind as you go: Wildcard characters become more powerful when you combine them.
| To find this | Type this character | Examples |
| Any single character | ? | s?t finds "sat" and "set." This character also finds the chosen combination of characters within a word. For example, it could locate "set" within "inset." |
| Any string of characters | * | s*d finds "sad" and "started." The asterisk returns all
characters and spaces that lie between the literal characters. For example, use the s*t
expression to search for the phrase "analysis system." The following images show
you the matches that search highlights: Notice that the asterisk returns st as a match. That is default behavior. Word does not limit the number of characters that the asterisk can match, and it does not require that characters or spaces reside between the literal characters that you use with the asterisk. So, be careful when using the asterisk, because it can return a lot of unwanted results. |
| The beginning of a word | < | <(inter) finds all the words that start with "inter," such as "interesting" and "intercept," but not "splintered." |
| The end of a word | > | (in)> finds all the words that end with "in," such as "in" and "within," but not "interesting." |
| One or more specified characters | [ ] | w[io]n finds "win" and "won" but not "worn,"
because the "r" is not specified. Always use brackets in pairs. If you use an opening bracket, you also use the closing bracket. |
| Any single character in a given range of characters | [x-z] | [r-t]ight finds "right" and "sight." The ranges you specify must be in ascending order. In other words, you can specify [a-m], but not [m-a]. |
| Any single character except the characters in the range inside the brackets | [!x-z] | t[!a-m]ck finds "tock" and "tuck," but not "tack" or "tick." |
| Exactly n occurrences of the previous character or expression | {n} | fe{2}d finds "feed" but not
"fed." f[a-z]{2}d finds "find," "feed," and
"food," but not "fed." Always use braces in pairs. If you use an opening brace, you also use the closing brace. |
| At least n occurrences of the previous character or expression | {n,} | fe{1,}d finds "fed" and "feed." |
| From n to m occurrences of the previous character or expression | {n,m} | 10{1,3} finds "10," "100," and "1000." |
| One or more occurrences of the previous character or expression | @ | lo@ finds "lot" and "loot." |
| Any wildcard character | \wildcard_character | [\?] finds all question mark wildcard characters, [\*] finds all asterisk wildcard characters, and so on. |
| To group characters and establish orders of evaluation | () | Use parentheses (also called round brackets) to create complex regular expressions. The example earlier in this column, and the reference article Putting Regular Expressions to Work, demonstrate some of the ways you can use parentheses. |
You can sort any table or list in Word by selecting the items to
be sorted then choosing Table | Sort . This works even if the selection is not
a table.
For a simple list, sorting is simple, you just select the list, eg:
| Superman |
| Spiderman |
| Batman |
| Robin |
Choosing Table | Sort, click OK and it becomes:
| Batman |
| Robin |
| Spiderman |
| Superman |
This also works with a bulleted or numbered list.
There's an option in the Sort dialog 'My list has' a header row or no header row.
If you choose 'header row' the sort will ignore the top entry in the list.
It's worth keeping an eye on this option; I've known experienced computer users get caught
with the wrong header setting. You do not have to be superman to get caught by this
problem.
With a table you can sort easily by the columns, the sort dialog will use the column
headings as guides in the 'Sort by' drop down list.
Everything in each table row is moved with the fields being sorted.
Sorting can be alphabetical (text), numerical or date; ascending or descending order.
With dates and numbers make sure the formatting is consistent. For example don't mix
12/03/03, 12 March 2003 and Dec 3, 2003!
Sorting is not automatic, if you add an entry to the list or table you have to resort.
If you have more than one column to sort you just specify the criteria for each column.
For example, school class then students alphabetically within each class.
Normally you'd sort by columns from left to right but you don't have to.
SORTING WITHOUT TABLES
For non-tables you can treat the text as if they were in columns by clicking the Options
button in the Sort dialog box and choosing a delimiter (usually a comma or a tab).
Generally it's easier to keep a track of data if it's in a table because one stray comma
or tab can mess up a delimited list. But delimited lists do have their uses, see sorting
by surname below.
For complex sorting of non-tables you may find it easier to convert the text to a table
(Table | Convert) do the sorting then convert back to text.
SORTING BY SURNAME
You can use the delimited list sort option to do the common task of sorting a list by
surname. Take this list of problem children.
| Bo Blaisdell |
| Sue Bonunje |
| Mark Hardy |
| Cindy Louper |
To sort this list by surname, select the list, choose Table | Sort | Options 
find 'Separate fields at' then choose Other and type a single space in the
box provided, then OK.
Under 'Sort By' choose 'Word 2' (ie the word after the space delimiter).
Check the other sort settings are correct then OK again to get the list
sorted by surname:
Bo Blaisdell
Sue Bonunje
Mark Hardy
Cindy Louper
This works as long as there's no people with middle names or initials in the list.
HIDDEN SORTS
Occasionally you might need to sort by an order that is not displayed. For example,
teachers in a school might be listed in order of the grade they teach, but you don't want
the grade displayed. To do this delete the sorting column after you've sorted.
Make up the table including a column for the criteria that you want to sort by. Sort
the table as usual, then highlight the unwanted column and delete it. If you
might want to amend and resort the list, put it in a separate document then copy to each
new document only the columns you need for that occasion.
MANUAL SORTING
Sometimes the order is arbitrary and not something a machine can do for you. There's
still an easy way to move paragraphs or list items up and down and it's an old favorite of
Woody's Watch readers.
Select any block of text or item in a list then press Alt + an up or down arrow key.
This will move your selection up and down the document, list or table.
SORTING IN FRONTPAGE
There's table support in Frontpage but no sorting function. To get around this,
select the table, paste it into a blank Word document, use Word's sorting features, then
copy the list back again.
SORTING BY COLUMNS
And while we're talking about sorting, a reminder that most (but not all) columns in
Windows programs and Windows itself are sortable.
All you have to do is click on the column heading to sort by that column, click again to
reverse the order.
This is very handy in Outlook, in an Inbox view, click on the From column to sort the
senders alphabetically. Click the subject column to see all the received messages on
a particular thread.
In Windows you can sort folder viewers by file name or date. This includes file
views in the File Open dialog box, choose Details from the View dropdown list then click
on a column heading to sort.
A very common choice in File | Open is to choose Details view then click on the date
heading to see the most recent or oldest files in the folder. Or click name for an
alphabetical list or Type to see all the files of a particular type grouped together.
The same trick may work in other Windows programs, it depends on what the developer has
done. It's worth clicking on a heading to see what happens, it can't hurt.
What to do if Word simply up and disappears
Robert, writes:
Question: I am running windows xp. I have had office 97 running on this machine since I got it. About 1 year now. About a month ago word disappeared. When I clicked on the startup item word Microsoft access would come up. I decided to completely uninstall office. I did this with no problem. I re-installed office 97 with no problems. I then clicked on the word startup item, Word comes up for about 10 seconds then disappears off my screen. When I click on the startup item again Microsoft access comes up. WINWORD.EXE has been removed from my office folder and the only place I can find it when a do a find is in my PREFETCH folder which is A "PF" file type and of course nothing can open it and read it. I have been looking for a solution to this problem for over a month. It is driving me CRAZY.
Answer: An infection with the
Klez virus can cause this. if you have an AV product with recent definitions it
would be a good idea to do a complete system scan. You can also download one of the
free available tools to check and clean your system. These tools are available at the
sites of all the large AV product companies. For example: You can get the Klez
removal tool at Symantec.
The Symantec removal tool
W32.Klez Removal Tool - Please note: There are a large number of
viruses, worms and Trojans which affect Word. I use Klez as an example. Klez may, or may
not be the virus that you have but it is a good place to start. To learn more about
viruses, please see, "Bo's Latest
Virus Lists". I have a ton of information on virus though I haven't updated the
site in some time...it is next on my list of things to do.
What is Klez?
This article from the Symantec site contains a removal tool and provides information on
how to determine if you are infected since it disables your virus scanner:
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.gen@.html
There are instruction on this page which will allow you to make an assessment and manually remove some of the viruses properties.
I recommend that as soon as you have removed the bulk of the virus's evil little nasties, that you reboot the system, update your definitions and do a full and through scan of your entire system.Download the vulnerability patch
If you haven't already, be sure to download the vulnerability patch from Microsoft for
Outlook and Outlook Express. The worm exploits a vulnerability in Microsoft Outlook and
Outlook Express to try and execute itself when you open or preview the message.
Information and a patch for the vulnerability can be found at:
To learn more of this vulnerability, check out this Microsoft TechNet Library article: |
If a virus isn't the problem, then it could be that Word is not properly registered.
Technically, Word 97 and Windows XP are totally compatible. The fact that you recently began noticing a problem does indicate a virus of one type or another. However, if your search for a virus comes up nill, you can attempt the below instructions to re-register Winword.exe
If you find that Word files do not open in the desired version of Word when you double-click them in Windows Explorer, or that when opening them from the Desktop or Explorer, a series of messages appear claiming that the file cannot be opened, such as:
“Cannot open C:\My”
“Cannot open "Documents\The”
“Cannot open "Test.doc"”
.. you need to re-register Word. To fix the
problem:
1. Select a shortcut icon used to start
Word
2. Right-click it and select “Properties”
3. In the Shortcut tab, go to the Target box.
4. Make sure there is one space after the path for winword.exe
5. Type: /r (Looks like C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Office\winword.exe /r) You should use the relative location of your Office
installation if it is different from the example shown.
6. Close the dialog box
7. Click the icon; Word will not run, but it should re-register
8. Once completed, remove the /r switch
Autoshape Defaults In Word
Versions: 97, 2000, 2002, AND 2003
If you've ever used the Drawing Toolbar in Word, you've no doubt come away frustrated by the fact that you can't make shape formatting "stick" from document to document.
Huh? Here's what I mean.
Start a new document, and bring up the Drawing Toolbar (Tools | Customize | Toolbars |
Drawing). Click, oh, AutoShapes and pick one of the Callouts. Click on the document and
drag to create a picture.
Still with me?
(Bo's tiplet: If you're using Word 2002, and you pick an autoshape, Word will create something called a Drawing Canvas that you're supposed to draw on. Some people like the Drawing Canvas. Most people hate 'em. I tend to side with the latter camp. The whole idea of Word for me is to do as few steps as possible to accomplish what I want. To get rid of them, click Tools|Options|General and uncheck the box marked "Automatically Create Drawing Canvas When Inserting AutoShapes").
The first time you draw a new shape in a Word document, the outline of the shape comes out as a solid black line, 3/4 point in width, with an opaque white "fill" (actually, a background color) that obscures everything underneath. If there's an arrow in the autoshape, and there are in every callout, the arrows don't have any arrowheads on the end.
That's the way Word's supposed to work. Hate it? Love it? Don't give a hoot?
If you hover your mouse over the shape until it turns into a four-direction pointer, right-click on the shape and choose Format AutoShape, you have an opportunity to change the way the shape looks. Bet you thought you were stuck with the default didn't you.
I, almost always, choose "No Fill" so the autoshape doesn't obscure the text lying underneath it. Typically I turn the outline into solid red at 1 point. And always put arrowheads on the arrows. Play with it a bit and you'll see what I mean.
Once you've formatted the autoshape just the way you want it, you can right-click on the shape and choose Set AutoShape Defaults. When you do that, every new autoshape that you create in this same document will take on the same formatting. Ahhh, another day dawns doesn't it.
That's great,you say, but it doesn't go far enough. There's no way to tell Word "make all my new autoshapes in all my documents look like this." I want to set Word's default autoshape formatting, and make it stick permanently.
Okay, there is a solution to this, though it is hardly the perfect solution. Read on.
Making Word Autoshape Defaults Permanent
There is an easy way to make your custom Word autoshape formatting defaults stick: be sure
to set the defaults in normal.dot!
First, open normal.dot. There are lots of ways to do that, but the easiest one is to:
Once you have normal.dot open:
That's all it takes. From that point on, every time you create a new blank document
(based on the normal template), it'll have your preferred autoshape formatting set up and
ready to roll. Waait for effect....there now wasn't that simple?
Keep getting the error message "Word can not open this document template"?
Having a problem that you can't seem to track down? This problem involves just Word
applications.
Each time you start Word you get the message: "Word can not open this document
template" and gives the name as EZPHOTO.DOT file. The message does not seem to
affect the application except to replace the show/hide icon in the menu bar. It adds more
of the same icon every time you open Word.
Ends up that Bill hit a bad add-in template for an old version of a product called
EZ-Photo. For details on how to clean up...
Moving A Paragraph Up And Down - Quicker!
Click once anywhere inside a paragraph. Then hold down Alt+Shift and press the up or down arrow. Viola! The entire paragraph moves up or down.
This is an interesting techneque. If you select more than one paragraph, Alt+Shift+ up or down arrow will move all of the selected paragraphs up or down, adjusting numbering (for numbered paragraphs or styles) as you go.
If you hold down Alt+Shift and push the right arrow key, Word turns the paragraph to Heading 2 style. Push the right arrow again, and the paragraph becomes Heading 3, then Heading 4, and on to Heading 2. (No idea why it skips Heading 1.) Push Alt+Shift and the left arrow key and the paragraph turns into Heading 9, then Heading 8, and so on, down to Heading 1. Nope, no pushing of the left or right keys will return the paragraph to its original style - even if it was Normal.
What if Word has a corrupt document?
The answer may be easier than you think.
Winword's (Word) "/a" switch and how to use it
+What
Is the /a Switch?
+List of Word Startup Switches
What to do if other problems with your document persists
To use a command-line switch to start Word, use one of the following methods.
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office
NOTE: The path to Winword.exe is enclosed in quotation marks. " "
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Winword.exe" /a
Follow these steps to create a shortcut to start Microsoft Word from the Windows desktop:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office
NOTE: This location of this folder may be different on your system.
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Winword.exe"
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Winword.exe" /a
If you put the switch inside the closing quotation mark and then click OK,
you receive one of the following error messages:
-or-
If you specify a path or file name that contains spaces after a switch, enclose the path in quotation marks. For example, if you want to start Word and automatically create a document based on the Contemporary Fax template, the switch should look similar to the following:
/t"c:\program files\microsoft office\templates\1033\contemporary fax.dot"
Therefore, the complete startup command would be similar to the following:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Winword.exe" /t"c:\program files\microsoft office\templates\1033\contemporary fax.dot"
This is also true for the /l switch.
The following Word startup (command-line) switches are listed in Word Help.
| Type | To do this |
| /a | Starts Word and prevents add-ins and global
templates (including the Normal template) from being loaded automatically. The /a switch also locks the setting files; that is, the setting files cannot be read or modified if you use this switch. |
| /laddinpath | Starts Word and then loads a specific Word add-in. |
| /m | Starts a new instance of Word without running any AutoExec macros. |
| /mfilen | Starts Word and then opens the specified file
on the Most Recently Used (MRU) list on the File menu. |
| /mmacroname | Starts Word and then runs a specific macro. The /m switch also prevents Word from running any AutoExec macros. |
| /n | Starts a new instance of Word with no document open. Documents opened in each instance of Word will not appear as choices in the Window menu of other instances. |
| /ttemplatename | Starts Word with a new document based on a template other than the Normal template. |
| /w | Starts a new instance of Word with a blank document. Documents opened in each instance of Word will not appear as choices in the Window menu of the other instances. |
| (no switch) | A new Word window is opened with a blank document using the existing instance of the Word program. |
The following Word startup (command-line) switches are not listed in Word Help. Back to Topics
| Type | To do this |
| /c | Starts a new instance of Word and then invokes NetMeeting. |
| /q | Starts Word without displaying the Word splash screen. This switch is only available in Word 2000 Service Release 1 (SR-1). |
| /r | Starts Word in the background, makes changes in the Windows registry, and then quits. This switch forces a re-register of Word in the Windows registry. |
| /u | Has no effect and does not start Word. |
| /x | Starts a new instance of Word from the operating shell (for example, to print in Word). This instance of Word responds to only one DDE request and ignores all other DDE requests and multi-instances. If you are starting a new instance of Word in the operating environment (for example, in Windows), it is recommended that you use the /w switch, which starts a fully functioning instance. |
| (any other switch) | Starts a new instance of Word. For example, if you start Word with just the / and no switch, or with any unlisted switch combination, Word just starts a new instance of Word with a new blank document. |
The /a switch is a troubleshooting tool that is used to determine
where a problem may exist when you are working with Microsoft Word. When you use the /a
switch to start Word, the switch prevents add-ins and global templates from being loaded
automatically. The /a switch also locks the setting files; that is, the
setting files cannot be read or modified when you use this switch.
NOTE: The /a switch is not recommended as a normal
operating startup switch. This switch prevents your preferred settings in Word from being
retained and should only be used when a Microsoft Support Professional requests it, or
when you need to troubleshoot Word to determine where a problem may exist.
The /a switch starts Microsoft Word, bypassing or locking the
following.
NOTE: The paths mentioned in the following are the default locations and
may be different on your system.
C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates
C:\WINDOWS\Profiles\ user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates
C:\Documents and Settings\ user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Startup
C:\Documents and Settings\ user name\Application Data\Microsoft\Word\Startup
C:\WINDOWS\Temp
C:\WINDOWS\Profiles\ user name\Temp
C:\Documents and Settings\ user name\Temp
Q228856
WD2000: How to Identify Word COM Add-insHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Word\Data
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Word\Options
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\Assistant
Virus Scanning on Normal.dot is disabled since the Normal.dot is not loaded
For additional information about a known problem with some settings that are reset to their default when you use the /a switch, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q243966
WD2000: Starting Word with the "/a" Switch Resets Some Word OptionsTo start Word by using /a, follow these steps:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office
NOTE: The Winword.exe file may be located in a different folder on your system.
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Winword.exe"
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Winword.exe" /a
NOTE: The /a switch must be typed outside of the quotation marks. If it is typed inside the quotation marks, an error message similar to the following appears when you attempt to run the command:
REFERENCES
For additional information about other Word command-line switches, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q210565
WD: Word Startup (Command-Line) Switches and Their PurposeFor more information about how to control what happens when you start Microsoft Word, click Microsoft Word Help on the Help menu, type startup switch in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topics returned. Back to Topics
This is the easiest and most complete document recovery method; always try it first.
Save the document in a different file format; it is suggested to save the document either
as Rich Text Format (*.rtf) or Web Page (*.htm; *.html) first as these formats preserves
the formatting in your Word document.
After you save the file in a different format, close and re-open the document in Word, and
then save it as a Word Document (*.doc). If this method is successful, the file damage was
removed during conversion. If the damage persists, try saving the file in another file
format.
Try saving your file in the following file formats in descending order:
Rich Text Format (*/rtf)
Web Page (*.htm; *.html)
Any other word processing format
Text Only (*.txt)
IMPORTANT NOTE: Saving files in Text Only format frequently corrects the document
damage problem; however, all document formatting, graphics, and macro code are lost. This
method requires more reformatting; therefore, use it only after other file formats fail to
correct the problem.
For additional information about macro code lost when saving in a different file format,
click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Q212387
WD2000: VBA Code Lost When Converting to Another File FormatWord for Windows associates a wide variety of formatting with the last paragraph mark,
especially section and style formatting. If you copy everything except the last paragraph
mark to a new document, the damage may be left behind in the original document. In the new
document, reapply the section or style formatting.
NOTE: You can select everything except the last paragraph mark by pressing CTRL+END, and
then CTRL+SHIFT+HOME. If your document contains section breaks, copy only the text between
the sections breaks (do not copy and paste the section breaks because this may bring the
damage into your new document).
Microsoft recommends working with your Word document in Normal view when copying and
pasting between documents to avoid transferring section breaks between documents. To
change to Normal view, click Normal on the View menu.
Sometimes you can determine the location of file damage in your document. In such
cases, copy everything except the damaged portion to a new file, and then reconstruct the
damaged section of your document.
NOTE: If your document contains section breaks, copy only the text between the sections
breaks (do not copy and paste the section breaks because this may bring the damage into
your new document).
BLOC recommends working with your Word document in Normal view when copying and pasting
between documents to avoid transferring section breaks between documents. To change to
Normal view, click Normal on the View menu.
Back to Topics
There are several techniques you can use to try to open a document that will not open. Which method you use depends on the nature and severity of the damage to your document and the nature of the behavior exhibited. Although many of these methods succeed regularly, not every damaged document can be recovered.
Sometimes, you can open a document in draft mode without link updating when it will not open otherwise. To do this, follow these steps:
If you are successful in opening the document, you may be able to recover or repair the file by using the steps in the "Things to Try If the Document Opens But Exhibits Unexpected Behavior" section of this article.
The final paragraph mark in a Word document contains information about the document. If
the document is damaged, you may be able to retrieve the text of the document if you can
omit this final paragraph mark.
To access a document, but leave its final paragraph mark behind, follow these steps:
NOTE: You may need to reapply some formatting to the last section of your new document.
If the "Insert the Document as a File in a New Document" (Method 2) doesn't
work, try this method.
This method may allow you to open the file if part of the file header or if the final
paragraph mark is in the damaged area of the document.
Follow these steps to link to an undamaged file, and then change the link to point to the
damaged file:
Are you sure you want to break the selected links?
You can now reformat and save the recovered document.
The Recover Text from Any File converter allows you to extract the text from any file.
The file does not have to be a Word file. Using the Recover Text from Any File converter
does have its limitations. Document formatting is lost, along with anything that is not of
a text nature. Graphics, fields, drawing objects, and so on, are lost. However, headers,
footers, footnotes, endnotes, and field text are retained as simple text.
In addition, after the document is recovered using the Recover Text from Any File
converter, there will be some binary data that could not be converted, primarily at the
top and bottom of the document. This binary data needs to be deleted before you reformat
and save your file as a Word document.
For additional information about how to use the "Recover Text from Any File"
converter, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge
Base:
Q212274
WD2000: How to Recover Text from Any FileWhen you cannot open a damaged document in Word for Windows (usually because of damage in the file header), you can strip out the file header and open the file as text. When you strip the header information, all formatting is lost. The following method strips out the file header information.
You can now reformat your new document and add any graphics, fields, and other formatting that your damaged document may have contained.
September 17, 2002
Remove Word's Pesky Horizontal Line
| In several places, my Word document has a horizontal line that I did not enter and
do not want. I can't remove the line, because the cursor moves right through it. Even
though I can't delete the line, pressing Enter above it moves it down—as if I can see
the line but Word can't. How do I get rid of this line? Is there some way I can look at
individual characters and delete them one at a time? Vernon What you're seeing is not a line of characters or even a drawing object. Rather, it's a border. By default, if you enter three or more hyphens (-), underscores (_), equal signs (=), or asterisks (*) followed by a carriage return, Word automatically gives the current paragraph a thin, thick, double, or dotted bottom border. You must have done this accidentally. To get rid of the line, put the cursor directly above it and select Borders and Shading from the Format menu. Click the None box and click OK. To prevent the automatic insertion of borders, select AutoCorrect Options from the Tools menu, click the AutoFormat As You Type tab, and uncheck Border lines. In Word 97, the menu item is AutoCorrect and the check box is labeled simply Borders. TIPS: REVERT TO
DEFAULT PARAGRAPH FORMATTING Pressing Ctrl+Q, which preps the underlying paragraph formatting, is just one way to quickly apply paragraph formatting in Word. This is really good when trying to get out of some of the tangles you can get into with bullets and numbering. Yep. Personally, I re-set paragraph formatting by choosing the style from the style name drop-down box on the Formatting toolbar, then picking "Re-apply the formatting of the style to the selection." It's easier (for me) than remembering another key combination, but your fingers may well have better long-term memory than mine! FAST OVER-SCROLLING IN WORD I have a solution, reader. The best solution is to left-click once at the beginning of the block you want to select, scroll down to the end, hold down the Shift key, and left-click once again at the end. ANOTHER CURE FOR THE RUNAWAY MOUSE 1. Move to the start of the information that you want to highlight. The extend mode does not have to be turned off if the next step is to perform some action on the selected text. Otherwise, press ESC in Word to cancel or press F8 again to cancel the mode in Excel. Thought that I would share this tip because it is popular with fast typists as well as those folks that still mourn WordPerfect (this process is similar to the block mode in WP). A different approach, from MS: "Select the block with the mouse and drag as normal until the bottom of the page. When you go past the page end is when the trouble starts. So instead, use the scroll wheel to move the text up the screen while still holding down the mouse button." INTELLINONSENSE No, you aren't going crazy. Word is haunted. I know. In fact, if you've used various versions of Word - say, Word 97, 2000, and 2002 (the version of Word in Office XP), you know that not only is Word haunted, it's getting more and more haunted with each subsequent version. Microsoft claims that it's engineered Word so the program anticipates what you want, thereby making it easier for you to get your job done. Microsoft calls it IntelliSense(tm). I call it IntelliNONsense. If you're sitting next to a computer, try this. Start Word with a new, clean document. Type 1. (note the period) followed by some text. Hit Enter. Word's Autonumbering "Intellisense" feature kicks in, indents the paragraph you just typed, and starts a new paragraph, automatically, with the number "2.". Type some more text. Hit enter twice. You should have a list with entries numbered 1 and 2, followed by two empty paragraphs. Type in some more text. You can even type an entire book if you like. Hit Enter. Now type 4. (note the period), and a word or two, then push Enter. See how Word behaves? It starts autonumbering again, changes the "4." you typed into a "3.", with nary a notice or fare-thee-well, and kicks you back into autonumbered paragraphs one more time. Far as I'm concerned, that's NONsense. Autonumbered paragraphs aren't like regular paragraphs: the numbers don't really exist, even though Word tries hard to make you think that they do. For example, if you try to select one of the numbers, Word won't let you highlight the number with your mouse. There are other ghouls lurking. How about a different IntelliNONsense setting? - The one that changes short phrases, when you type them, into headings. There's another bit of NONsense that converts Web addresses and email addresses into "hot" links as soon as you type them. Not only are the automatically generated addresses clickable, depending on the version of Word that you use, they're formatted in blue, bold and underlined. One major magazine that I read every month has all of the Web addresses in articles appear underlined - most distracting, and stylistically flawed, to say the least. If you want Word to stop the numbering mischief, click Tools | AutoCorrect (in Word 2002, click Tools | AutoCorrect Options). Bring up the AutoFormat As You Type tab, and uncheck the box marked Automatic numbered lists. If you want to protect your phrases from auto-conversion to headings, uncheck the box marked Built-in heading styles. If you don't want your typed Web addresses and email addresses to get that "special" treatment, uncheck the box marked Internet and network paths with hyperlinks. Personally, I uncheck almost all of the boxes, except for the first four "Replace as you type" options (curly quotes, superscript ordinals, fractions and dashes). I hate it when a program thinks it's smarter than I am. Even when it is! Cynical sidebar: I just love that "AutoFormat As You Type" tab. Could somebody tell me the difference between "Replace as you type", "Apply as you type" and "Automatically as you type"? Sheeesh. Cynical sidebar II: "Intellisense" has been trademarked by so many companies it's hard to keep track of them all. My favorite: Maytag has used the term "Intellisense" since 1995 to describe its dishwashers, e.g., "IntelliSense, Maytag's dishwasher with a "brain," does all the thinking for you." Yes. That's precisely the problem. I don't mind having a dishwasher that does all my thinking for me. I just don't like my word processor to get too uppity. Ah well. Progress. For more Office tips and anything Windows or Office be sure to visit Woody's Office
Watch at Attention Telemarketers: I do not allow organizations to use my name or to contact me to make solicitations other than as permitted in my Junkbusters Declaration.Version Dec 7 Copyright © 2001 Larry Blaisdell
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