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.