C
Clive Huggan
Dear all,
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS ABOUT A *NON-COMMERCIAL* RESOURCE BASED IN PART ON
ACCUMULATED ADVICE FROM THIS NEWSGROUP
The May 2006 edition of my notes on Word -- titled "Bend Word to Your Will"
-- is now available for downloading from the Word MVPs' site
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).
If you have downloaded the notes before, here are the changes: This latest
edition incorporates more coverage of features of Word 2004, as well as many
minor improvements made since the previous edition of December 2005. Some of
the new or amended topics include: a macro to automatically remove active
formatting from all hyperlinks in a document; formatting of tables of
contents; the relative advantages of having leading above and/or below a
paragraph, and a macro for adjusting leading; useful keyboard shortcuts for
the "Replace" pane; updated information about the "Disk full" bug; and a
keyboard shortcut to reduce the leading under headings.
Read on if you haven¹t downloaded the notes before.
WHAT IS "BEND WORD TO YOUR WILL"?
"Bend Word to Your Will" is not a commercial product for sale -- it's free.
It's a dictionary-style (mainly) set of notes on Word that I've been
continually adding to and polishing for the past five years. They are "real
life" notes, which I keep consulting in my professional work, especially
when explaining some of Word's features to my colleagues.
COVERAGE
To see what the document contains before downloading it, on the download
page you can click on the words "Table of contents" in the third paragraph.
The main things that interest me are those that improve my speed and
efficiency -- especially in working on long and/or complex documents. I'm
especially interested in reducing the chances of corruption in my documents,
which are usually distributed back and forwards between many people, on PCs
and Macs.
Among many dozens of topics in the notes, I first describe ways of amending
Word's settings to keep control of what you're doing. I cover styles
extensively -- they're essential for saving time and frustration in long
documents. I describe how easy it is to modify toolbars to reflect your own
way of working rather than keeping the averaged-out preferences of Word's
tens of millions of users. I explain how I use AutoCorrect to expand
abbreviated terms that I type in "shorthand" much of the time, and I
describe a small number of very useful, simple macros. Sources of further
information on Word are also provided.
But the above is only a small sample of the coverage.
The emphasis is on configuring your copy of Word as *you* see fit, to make
it suit your needs -- not on making the documents themselves so advanced
that they confuse people who have only a basic knowledge of Word. The ideas
in the notes don¹t require you to be a geek -- I¹m not one -- although some
of the solutions are best absorbed with the TV off!
I don't cover graphics, equations or networked configurations of Word,
because I don't use Word in those contexts.
Much of the material draws on, and most is consistent with, advice given in
the microsoft.public.mac.office.word newsgroup by Mac Word gurus John
McGhie, Beth Rosengard, Daiya Mitchell, Elliott Roper, John McGimpsey, Paul
Berkowitz, Corentin Cras-Méneur, Jim Gordon, Bob Jones, Michel Bintener and
others. Like so many people, I've greatly benefited from their freely given
expertise.
WHAT VERSIONS DO THE NOTES COVER?
I wrote the first editions of the notes for Word 2001, after moving from
Word 5.1a. However, I also took into account other versions (Mac and PC)
that I've used in the past 20 years. I skipped Word X, then moved to Word
2004. The new edition covers many of the changes introduced in Word 2004.
WHAT'S THE STRUCTURE OF THE NOTES?
"Bend Word to your Will" is a Word document, for the most part structured
like a dictionary with broadly self-contained articles. It's intended to be
used on-screen rather than to be printed out, because the articles have
clickable hyperlinks leading to related topics. It's about 200 pages long,
and you'd be crazy to read it from end to end, just as you would with a
dictionary. Instead, it's best to leap into particular topics via the "Find"
command and the table of contents.
(However, it's *essential* to read the front end of the document --
especially pages 3 and 5, so you can select some Word settings that will
allow you to use the document effectively. You'll also benefit from the
introductory section starting on page 17 -- there are some really important
tips in there for getting the most out of the notes.)
Accompanying the "Bend Word to your Will" document (but downloadable
separately) is a Word template. Among other things, it includes a skeleton
for long documents that I create using techniques covered in "Bend Word to
your Will", and macros that I mention in "Bend Word to Your Will". If you
aren't familiar with templates, don't bother to download it -- you can get
it later if you need it.
Enjoy! I hope you bend Word to *your* will!
Cheers,
Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS ABOUT A *NON-COMMERCIAL* RESOURCE BASED IN PART ON
ACCUMULATED ADVICE FROM THIS NEWSGROUP
The May 2006 edition of my notes on Word -- titled "Bend Word to Your Will"
-- is now available for downloading from the Word MVPs' site
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).
If you have downloaded the notes before, here are the changes: This latest
edition incorporates more coverage of features of Word 2004, as well as many
minor improvements made since the previous edition of December 2005. Some of
the new or amended topics include: a macro to automatically remove active
formatting from all hyperlinks in a document; formatting of tables of
contents; the relative advantages of having leading above and/or below a
paragraph, and a macro for adjusting leading; useful keyboard shortcuts for
the "Replace" pane; updated information about the "Disk full" bug; and a
keyboard shortcut to reduce the leading under headings.
Read on if you haven¹t downloaded the notes before.
WHAT IS "BEND WORD TO YOUR WILL"?
"Bend Word to Your Will" is not a commercial product for sale -- it's free.
It's a dictionary-style (mainly) set of notes on Word that I've been
continually adding to and polishing for the past five years. They are "real
life" notes, which I keep consulting in my professional work, especially
when explaining some of Word's features to my colleagues.
COVERAGE
To see what the document contains before downloading it, on the download
page you can click on the words "Table of contents" in the third paragraph.
The main things that interest me are those that improve my speed and
efficiency -- especially in working on long and/or complex documents. I'm
especially interested in reducing the chances of corruption in my documents,
which are usually distributed back and forwards between many people, on PCs
and Macs.
Among many dozens of topics in the notes, I first describe ways of amending
Word's settings to keep control of what you're doing. I cover styles
extensively -- they're essential for saving time and frustration in long
documents. I describe how easy it is to modify toolbars to reflect your own
way of working rather than keeping the averaged-out preferences of Word's
tens of millions of users. I explain how I use AutoCorrect to expand
abbreviated terms that I type in "shorthand" much of the time, and I
describe a small number of very useful, simple macros. Sources of further
information on Word are also provided.
But the above is only a small sample of the coverage.
The emphasis is on configuring your copy of Word as *you* see fit, to make
it suit your needs -- not on making the documents themselves so advanced
that they confuse people who have only a basic knowledge of Word. The ideas
in the notes don¹t require you to be a geek -- I¹m not one -- although some
of the solutions are best absorbed with the TV off!
I don't cover graphics, equations or networked configurations of Word,
because I don't use Word in those contexts.
Much of the material draws on, and most is consistent with, advice given in
the microsoft.public.mac.office.word newsgroup by Mac Word gurus John
McGhie, Beth Rosengard, Daiya Mitchell, Elliott Roper, John McGimpsey, Paul
Berkowitz, Corentin Cras-Méneur, Jim Gordon, Bob Jones, Michel Bintener and
others. Like so many people, I've greatly benefited from their freely given
expertise.
WHAT VERSIONS DO THE NOTES COVER?
I wrote the first editions of the notes for Word 2001, after moving from
Word 5.1a. However, I also took into account other versions (Mac and PC)
that I've used in the past 20 years. I skipped Word X, then moved to Word
2004. The new edition covers many of the changes introduced in Word 2004.
WHAT'S THE STRUCTURE OF THE NOTES?
"Bend Word to your Will" is a Word document, for the most part structured
like a dictionary with broadly self-contained articles. It's intended to be
used on-screen rather than to be printed out, because the articles have
clickable hyperlinks leading to related topics. It's about 200 pages long,
and you'd be crazy to read it from end to end, just as you would with a
dictionary. Instead, it's best to leap into particular topics via the "Find"
command and the table of contents.
(However, it's *essential* to read the front end of the document --
especially pages 3 and 5, so you can select some Word settings that will
allow you to use the document effectively. You'll also benefit from the
introductory section starting on page 17 -- there are some really important
tips in there for getting the most out of the notes.)
Accompanying the "Bend Word to your Will" document (but downloadable
separately) is a Word template. Among other things, it includes a skeleton
for long documents that I create using techniques covered in "Bend Word to
your Will", and macros that I mention in "Bend Word to Your Will". If you
aren't familiar with templates, don't bother to download it -- you can get
it later if you need it.
Enjoy! I hope you bend Word to *your* will!
Cheers,
Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia