Create your elegant lists easily with Winword 95

Create your elegant lists easily with Winword 95

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): While working on a prospectus some time ago, I
learned the hard way that creating a list in Winword 7.0 is
actually as effortless as finding police officers at the entry
points to Jakarta's three-in-one zone at 9:40 a.m. on a workday.
However, I must remind you in advance that it will take a lot of
practice to master the tricks, which you cannot find in Winword
Help. Once you get the feeling, however, you can finish creating
your lists in no time.

Conventional way

In Winword 7.0 there are at least three different approaches
that you can take in creating a list such as the one you see in
the accompanying illustration. You can select the menu item
Format from the menu bar, and then click on the Bullets &
Numbering command under it. This will bring out the tabbed
Bullets and Numbering dialog box. You choose the bulleted,
numbered or multilevel list function you'd like to use by
clicking on the appropriate tab. Each tab will show a sample of
how your list will look like. You can tell Winword to create the
hanging indent for you, or let the second line and all subsequent
lines start from the left margin. If you wish, you can even
modify the preset formats. Try this, and I guarantee you'll be
overwhelmed by the options that you can play around with.

Once you've determined which bulleted or numbered list format
you want, you can go ahead and type in your text. Each time you
hit ENTER, Winword will create a new item for you -- with a new
bullet or an increasing number. To cancel the function, i.e., to
stop adding new items to the list, all you have to do is hit
ENTER and then BACKSPACE to erase the bullet or number that has
just appeared. Your cursor should now be on the left margin, and
the text you subsequently type in will be treated as a common
paragraph.W

However, when you need to create another list, you'll have to
invoke the Bullets & Numbering dialog box again and click its OK
button.

If you like shortcuts, you can use the bullets and numbering
icons found in the Formatting toolbar. By the way, Winword 7.0
comes with no fewer than nine customizable toolbars, and you can
easily cover the entire screen with them and get overwhelmed as
well. However, it's easy to tell which one is the Formatting
toolbar; it is the one that has the font names, font sizes, bold,
italic, underline and text alignment icons on it.

Please keep in mind the magic combination of ENTER and
BACKSPACE, since, as I have found out, it is one of the most
powerful series of keystrokes in Winword 7.0.

As you go

My preferred method of creating a list is the one that I would
call "As-You-Type-It-In". Now, to really see how it works, you
have to have Winword 7.0 running on your PC and look closely at
the illustration. At the same time, read on and follow the steps
I give you next. Well, that's not as easy as it sounds, I guess.

Anyway, creating the first item you see in the illustration
was very easy. With the cursor on the left margin ready to start
a new paragraph, I typed in the number "1" followed with a period
and a space. Then I typed in the text for the first item, which
was "This is the first item in the list". I hit a couple of TABs,
and then I typed in the price.

When I hit ENTER, the space between the period after the
character "1" was magically adjusted without affecting the
location of the text "US$800.00". It's nifty. Not only that. As
the cursor jumped down to the next line, Winword automatically
added the character "2", followed by a period and an appropriate
space. My next sentence, "This is the second item in the list",
was perfectly aligned with the text above it.

I continued adding more items to the list simply by hitting
ENTER. Winword added the numbers, the periods and the spaces
automatically. Amazing is perhaps the right word here. How does
it do it? Each time you start a new paragraph with a number, a
period and a space, Winword will understand that you're creating
a list. How should you stop this automatic function? I told you,
didn't I? It's the ENTER and BACKSPACE combination!

Items a, b, and c of Item 2 are only slightly more complicated
to create, as we're now creating a multilevel list. But, it's
still manageable. Here's what I did: I hit ENTER after typing in
the text "US$300.00". Winword gave me the number "3". I typed in
the letter "a", followed by a period and a space, and I typed in
the text "This one belongs to Item 2". Now I had "3. a." as the
number of current list items. No problem. I hit ENTER again at
the end of the line. On the next line, Winword gave me the number
"4", followed by a period and a space. Now, remember this
carefully: I moved the insertion point back one line up by
hitting the Up Arrow key. The cursor now rested just before the
character "a". I hit BACKSPACE once, and bingo! The number "3"
disappeared, and "a" remained aligned with the beginning of the
text above it. To get "b", I hit END to move the insertion point
to the end of the line, and hit ENTER. Winword gave me a "b"--
followed with a period and a space -- perfectly aligned below
"a".

I could continue adding items on this level as I did on the
previous level -- level of 1., 2., 3. Now, how did I get back to
this level? It's easy. I just hit ENTER, and then I hit DELETE.
Remember, it's not ENTER and BACKSPACE, but ENTER and DELETE in
order to go up one level.

Hanging indent

Creating the hanging indent as shown by Item 3 of my list
couldn't be simpler. At the end of the line, I hit ENTER, which
gave me the number "4". I continued typing and when I reached the
end of this line I hit HOME and BACKSPACE. The number "4"
disappeared, but the text "But this one . . . " remained hanging
nicely in perfect alignment with the text above it.

To proceed with the second line of the hanging paragraph, I
hit END and then ENTER. The insertion point moved down just below
the letter "B" of the word "But". Another ENTER as I reached the
end of the second line gave me third line without any bullet or
number.

Item 4 is a multilevel list. When you know how to create Item
2, you'll have no difficulty figuring out how to create Item 4.
Just remember that to promote the next item you're going to
enter, you have to hit ENTER and DELETE.

If you think your list looks crowded and a space between the
items will make it look better, you can add the space later. When
the entire list is completed, you can hit ENTER and BACKSPACE to
create spaces between the items.

What about bullets instead of numbers? You can type in a dash,
"-", to create a square bullet mark such as the ones you see
under Item 4a. Or, you can type in the character "o", and Winword
will transform it into a round, solid bullet.

Finally, the behavior of the insertion point as you create
your list in Winword 7.0 is really interesting to see and to
learn. There's no other way you can familiarize yourself with its
movements when you hit, for instance, ENTER and ENTER, than to
experiment with it. So, try it out!