Some tips for using Winword 7.0 more efficiently

Some tips for using Winword 7.0 more efficiently

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): I remember, about six years ago, when we first
started to work meaningfully with a new product called Windows.
We were so excited about all the snazzy icons and buttons which
ornamented most of the new software programs. Then Samna brought
out Ami Pro, the first word processor designed to take full
advantage of the new software environment. It had SmartIcons, a
series of buttons lined up across the top of the screen.

Lotus took over the program from Samna, and the word "Smart"
stuck to the company's products. Even now Lotus has not decided
whether to change the name of 'SmartSuite', their flagship
program, to 1-2-3 Office or something else. The word 'smart',
from SmartIcons, has become an integral part of Lotus' marketing
success.

Today we have so many icon bars and tool bars that we can
easily fill half of our screen with them. Want to try? Run
Winword, click on View, and then Toolbar. In the dialog box that
appears you will have a list of eight standard Winword toolbars.
Check each of them, and click on OK. Some of the toolbars may
appear in palettes, but you can drag them with the mouse pointer
placed just inside their frame and change them into ribbons.
Arrange them vertically, and you'll have your screen almost
entirely covered with icons.

But some of us have begun to tire of these icons. They have
become so pervasive even though many are rarely used.

Luckily, they are customizable. One way to reduce the number
of icons is to create a new toolbar and place only the icons that
really need in it.

This can very easily be done by clicking on the New button in
the Toolbar dialog box. Just give the new toolbar a name, click
on OK, and the rest is like shopping in a supermarket. You just
pick the icons you want and drag across to the new toolbar, which
grows automatically as more icons are added.

If you like using a particular font as a variation to your
standard font you can even add a text button to the toolbar that
shows its name. To change the font of a block of text, all you
have to do is highlight it and click on this button.

Enlarge the view

If you are using somebody else's PC, however, you might not
have the liberty to create your own toolbar. I always become
frustrated when someone uses my PC and changes the settings and
forgets to change them back. People usually prefer to work in
familiar surroundings and this is true when working with a PC.

However, you can temporarily get rid of the icons by going
into Winword's full-screen mode. Click on View, and then on Full
Screen. What you will see is a screen similar to the accompanying
picture.

If you have palettes that are always in the foreground, such
as the Microsoft Office toolbar, it will cover small parts of the
page. If this bothers you, close them.

Now you may wonder how to access the menus you can no longer
see. No problem. Push your mouse up where the menu bar used to
be, click the left mouse button once and the pull-down menu list
will appear. If you don't want to use the mouse, pressing Alt-F
will bring up the File pull-down menu and so on.

In the accompanying picture you'll see a small button in the
bottom right corner. Click on it, and you will be back in the
original 'icons everywhere' mode. Interestingly, when you are in
Winword's full-screen mode, Windows 95's Taskbar will disappear.
When you load another program it will not fill the entire screen
as Winword does. You still can invoke the Start menu by hitting
the Windows 95 key--if you have a Windows 95 compatible
keyboard--or Ctrl-Esc.

Combine keys

If there is a special character you often use, you can make
use of any unassigned key combination. It is very easy to set.

For example, I like to use the em dash instead of double-
hyphens when punctuating a sentence. To automatically add this
special character, I have set up a particular key combination.
This is what I did: I clicked on Insert, and then the Symbol. A
dialog box containing symbols showed up, as you can see in the
top left section of the picture. Then I selected the em dash,
clicked on the Shortcut Key button in the dialog box's bottom
right.

A new dialog box, like the one in the top right of the
accompanying picture, will appear. Then I checked which key
combination I could use. First, I tried Ctrl-D, as D would remind
me of the word 'dash'. It turned out that Ctrl-D, was already
assigned to the command Format Font. I did not want to change it,
so I tried Alt-D. This key combination was unassigned. I clicked
on the Assign button, and the next time I press Alt-D, Winword
will type an em dash for me. It's so easy.

Just remember this new shortcut key is available only for the
specific style you are using. If you want to make it available in
other styles, you have to repeat the process each time.

Finally, if you prefer using the keyboard to the mouse, you
may want to learn by heart the key combination for each specific
task. For example, you can center a piece of highlighted text by
pressing Ctrl-E. Where can you find the information, short of
browsing in the Help files? You can get Winword to show you the
key combination in the ToolTips balloons which appear when you
place the mouse cursor on each of the icons.

This is how you do it: Click on View, and then on Toolbar. The
toolbar dialog box, like the one in the bottom left section of
the accompanying picture, will appear. Activate both the Show
ToolTips and With Shortcut Keys options.

Now brush the font size window on the Format toolbar with the
mouse cursor, and you will find that to change the size of a
highlighted block of text, you only have to press Ctrl-Shift-P.
You still have to use the Up or Down Arrow keys to select the
size you want, but you do not have to touch your mouse to do it.