Some formatting tips and guide to Word XP

Zatni Arbi, Columnist, Jakarta, zatni@cbn.net.id

It has been quite some time since I last shared some tips and tricks on using some common productivity tools such as Microsoft Office and Outlook. There is a reason for that. In the past year or so, I have basically been doing the same kind of work day in, day out. Therefore, I have not had a strong incentive nor the opportunity to explore new things in the applications that we use every day.

Almost a year ago, however, I moved up to Microsoft Office XP. My initial experience was not as exciting as I had thought it would be. In fact, XP has been giving me a few headaches. For instance, each time I try to close Word XP, it will think there is a crash and it offers to recover itself. It even offers to send notification to Microsoft about the problem. So, in effect, I am unable to close Word in one single step as we normally do with other applications. However, as time passes by, there are some useful tips that I have learned, and who knows maybe you will find them useful, too.

* Formatting pasted materials

For the research work that I do, I usually have to copy materials from the Web and paste them into one single Word document. Normally, the Web formatting is also applied to the pasted materials. Normally, too, the formatting differs from the rest of the document, so they need some reformatting. But, before we can reformat them, it is better that we first discard the original Web-based formatting.

First, each time you paste text in an open Word XP document, you will see an icon just underneath the end of the pasted stuff. Swipe your cursor over the icon, and Word will tell you that it is the Paste Options. If you click on the down arrow, which will only appear if you place the cursor on top of the icon, you can choose whether to keep the original Web formatting, or to format the pasted stuff based on the document's current formatting, or to discard all formatting.

To match the formatting used in the open document, for example, select the second option. To get rid of all formatting so that you can reformat the pasted text together with the rest of the document, choose "Keep Text Only". It is the third option. If you want to apply specific styles that you already have created for your document, click on "Apply Style or Formatting". This will open the Style and Formatting pane, which contains all the styles that you can choose from.

What about shortcuts? We all love shortcuts. There are a couple of shortcuts that you can also use. First, if you want to change a formatted string of text, such as a Web address or a link, into a non-formatted string of text, just highlight it and press Ctrl-Space. So, for instance, if you have copied a link, a piece of text that allows you to jump directly to a Web site or another part of the same document, you can clear the underlining and change the blue color of the characters by selecting all of them and pressing Ctrl+Space.

Any other shortcut for the same purpose? That's the problem with Word: Over the years, there are so many new ways to achieve the same result -- or more or less the same results. If only we could remember all the methods. To get rid of the formatting, you can also select the part of the document and then press Ctrl+Shift+N.

Or, if you do not remember this key combination, and you are using Word XP, click on the Style and Formatting box in the Formatting toolbar, and go to the top of the list of styles until you see the command "Clear Formatting". This command is only available in Office XP, though.

* Why still messy?

You have formatted some parts of the document, but then you have to take a break. When you come back to your computer, you have already forgotten your default fonts, default spacing, etc.

WordPerfect fanatics know very well that the Reveal Codes function was WP's main forte. In fact, I bet a lot of WP users today are still faithful to this program just because this feature enables them to format complex documents with a lot of changes in styles, margin settings and spacing. Microsoft has finally caught up, but unfortunately the facility is not as easy to find as in WP.

To get to it, click on the Style and Formatting icon on the far left of the Formatting toolbar. The icon is two blue A letters, one on top of the others. Like the "Apply Style and Formatting" option of the Paste Options button, it will open the Style and Formatting pane. Find the down arrow just to the left of the X ("Close Window") icon. You will get a drop-down menu, and one of the menu items is "Reveal Formatting." It will tell you the default font, paragraph alignment and indentation, etc.

If you would like to have Word display all the formatting marks, go to the bottom of the pane and check the "Show all formatting marks".

Honestly speaking, I still prefer WordPerfect's more direct way of displaying all the formatting codes, which are all shown in a separate window underneath the document. Let us hope that Microsoft will eventually adopt it in the upcoming Word version.

Finally, here's a tip for those of you who need to count the number of words you have in a document or in a selected part of the document. You can show the counter permanently on the screen by clicking one of the toolbars with the right mouse button. Click on Word Count, and you will have the counter available all the time. Each time you want to check the latest statistics after some editing, just click on the Recount button.