User Guide for Word 2004 -- where the heck is it?

[mister.thorne]

I just upgraded to Word 2004 (about time, right?). I was going to edit
a Word document, and so I wanted to set up how comments are
highlighted. I selected bright yellow highlight, but the only
highlighting for my comments are these barely perceptible yellow
brackets at the start and end of my comments. I wanted to figure out
how to highlight my comments in the usual way (bright yellow
highlighting throughout the commented text).

So . . . I checked the Help for Word, and found it had nothing to say.
Then, I started hunting around for the User Guide.

As best I can tell, there is no User Guide.

Is that correct? If so, WHY is there no User Guide? Strikes me as a
might outrageous to provide no user guide or any reasonable way to
find the answer to a simple question.

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi,

I'm afraid it's not exactly clear to me what you are trying to do. Do you
want to highlight text, or do you want to change the colour of your
comments? When talking about comments, do you mean text which you've added,
i.e. your personal comments, or are you referring to Word's Comments
feature? Word 2004 uses special balloons which show your comments in the
margin; if you turn these off in Word's preferences, you'll get the usual
comments pane, and Word will put two barely visible brackets around the text
which you have commented on. If these brackets are what you are talking
about, try using the balloons instead; many people do not like them, but
they certainly are more visible than the brackets you'd get otherwise.

And indeed, there is no official user guide for Word; you should use a
combination of Word's help feature (which is not always that helpful, as
you've just found out), these newsgroups and the Word MVP site, which you
can access here:

<http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>

I just upgraded to Word 2004 (about time, right?). I was going to edit
a Word document, and so I wanted to set up how comments are
highlighted. I selected bright yellow highlight, but the only
highlighting for my comments are these barely perceptible yellow
brackets at the start and end of my comments. I wanted to figure out
how to highlight my comments in the usual way (bright yellow
highlighting throughout the commented text).

So . . . I checked the Help for Word, and found it had nothing to say.
Then, I started hunting around for the User Guide.

As best I can tell, there is no User Guide.

Is that correct? If so, WHY is there no User Guide? Strikes me as a
might outrageous to provide no user guide or any reasonable way to
find the answer to a simple question.

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage & Word)

*** Please always reply to the newsgroup. ***

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Addendums to Michel's very helpful answer:

Word 2004 uses special balloons which show your comments in the
margin; if you turn these off in Word's preferences, you'll get the usual
comments pane, and Word will put two barely visible brackets around the text
which you have commented on. If these brackets are what you are talking
about, try using the balloons instead; many people do not like them, but
they certainly are more visible than the brackets you'd get otherwise.

Word X (I think, was true of Word 2001) did use highlight to mark
comments--Word 2004 has changed the approach and you can't change it
back, sorry. However, Word 2004 eschewed highlights for brackets because
WinWord 2002 and 2003 did--WinWord 2007 has now gone back to using both
highlights and brackets, so we can hope for the return of the highlight
in Word 2008.

And indeed, there is no official user guide for Word;

I'm not clear on the difference between a user guide (printed, I
assume?) and a computer help system--either the helpful material has
been written, or it hasn't, but if it isn't in the program help, I'm
willing to bet it wouldn't be in a printed user guide. It's very cheap
to add more information to a program help---expensive to add more pages
to a printed guide. A PDF user guide would not be any more reasonable to
use than the Office Help.

However--if you are using Leopard/10.5, the Help menu offers a search
box that unfortunately, does NOT search the Office Help. Be sure you
didn't fall into that trap.

If you prefer being able to read a manual to get an introduction, rather
than just searching Help as questions occur, the Take Control series has
some very good, inexpensive, relatively short and readable manuals:
http://www.takecontrolbooks.com/

If you recently purchased Office 2004, I hope you took advantage of the
deal that lets you upgrade to Office 2008 for just S&H:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/go/promotions/supersuitedeal/
Download the Coupon to read the small print to see what proof, terms,
etc is required.

Daiya

 

[rlp8578]

Hi,

I'm afraid it's not exactly clear to me what you are trying to do. Do you
want tohighlighttext, or do you want to change the colour of your
comments? When talking about comments, do you meantextwhich you've added,
i.e. your personal comments, or are you referring to Word's Comments
feature? Word2004uses special balloons which show your comments in the
margin; if you turn these off in Word's preferences, you'll get the usual
comments pane, and Word will put two barely visible brackets around thetext
which you have commented on. If these brackets are what you are talking
about, try using the balloons instead; many people do not like them, but
they certainly are more visible than the brackets you'd get otherwise.

And indeed, there is no official user guide for Word; you should use a
combination of Word's help feature (which is not always that helpful, as
you've just found out), these newsgroups and the Word MVP site, which you
can access here:

<http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html>






--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:Mac (Entourage& Word)

*** Please always reply to the newsgroup. ***

I use both Word 2004 and Entourage 2004 )have whole Office for Mac
2004 (Pro?) suite. (Using Tiger and current with all updates.)
When I compose an email I frequently want to highlight a word,
sentence or paragraph and there appears to be no way to do that
without doing what you originally suggested which would be to use word
and cut and paste, etc. Please, this is an important function for me.
What is the right way to do this? Thanks and Happy New Year! RLP

 

[CyberTaz]

Sorry, RLP, but there simply is no Highlighter Tool in Entourage. Even the
pasting from Word must be done by Edit> Paste Special> Paste As Picture and
the email format must be HTML in order to retain the highlighted appearance
applied in Word.

BTW - this has nothing to do with the original thread to which you posted &
should have been submitted as a new message

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

When Word (or any Office application for that matter) starts up, the default
behavior is to display the Project Gallery.

This is where the User Guide is. Click the LEARN tab. On the left side click
DISCOVERING OFFICE then click the OPEN button. The user guide is in PDF
format.

The yellow highlighter control is available in at least 2 different places
by default.

It is in the FONT section of the FORMATTING PALETTE. View > Formatting
Palette if the palette is not turned on.

It is on the FORMATTING TOOLBAR. View > Toolbars > Formatting.

You can put the highlight control onto any toolbar or menu. To do this use
View > Toolbars > Customize Menus and Toolbars. Click on the COMMANDS tab.
On the left side click FORMAT. On the right side scroll down (about 8th one
down) to HIGHLIGHT and drag the word HIGHLIGHT to any menu or toolbar.

Then click OK.

Word, Excel and PowerPoint have the ability to customize the menus and
toolbars, which is a feature I find to be very useful. Entourage does not
have this capability. Palettes can not be customized the same way.

When the customize dialog box is open you can add commands and remove them
(just drag off the toolbar and let go - just like removing things from the
dock except there's no "poof"). You can change their positions on the menus
and toolbars. You can add your own toolbars. You can click the RESET button
to restore any toolbar to its default configuration. You can right-click on
them and change the button face and/or the text the accompanies the button.
You can paste pictures from the clipboard onto the buttons. You can attach
your own custom toolbars to documents so that anyone who opens that document
can use your customized toolbar(s). And much of this is programmable using
visual basic. The visual basic recorder works with the Customize dialog
box).

-Jim




Quoting from "(e-mail address removed)" <[email protected]>, in
article (e-mail address removed), on
[DATE:

I just upgraded to Word 2004 (about time, right?). I was going to edit
a Word document, and so I wanted to set up how comments are
highlighted. I selected bright yellow highlight, but the only
highlighting for my comments are these barely perceptible yellow
brackets at the start and end of my comments. I wanted to figure out
how to highlight my comments in the usual way (bright yellow
highlighting throughout the commented text).

So . . . I checked the Help for Word, and found it had nothing to say.
Then, I started hunting around for the User Guide.

As best I can tell, there is no User Guide.

Is that correct? If so, WHY is there no User Guide? Strikes me as a
might outrageous to provide no user guide or any reasonable way to
find the answer to a simple question.

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[mister.thorne]

Michael:

Thanks for the very help.

Yes, I want add a comment to a Word document, and I want the comment
to be visible to others as highlighted text when "highlight changes on
screen is selected". The previous version of Word I was using did it
that way.

In the Track Changes dialog, "use balloons to display changes is
selected" but there are no balloons in the margin.

"Use balloons to display changes is also selected in Word preference
dialog. But there are no balloons.

I'm afraid that I'm going to have to go back to using my old version
of Word.

Bummer!

 

[mister.thorne]

Daiya:

Thanks for the help.

Yes: I'm running Leopard and Word's help system is -- as best I can
tell -- absolutely useless. So . . . no user guide, no help system.

I've just wasted my money by upgrading to Word 2004. Now, I have to go
back to using an older version of Word.

As for a printed guide, I have to say this. I'm a technical writer,
and I create user guides and on-line help systems. It doesn't cost
anything extra to add pages to a user guide distributed as PDF. Not a
dime.

Frankly, I'm not happy that there is no user guide for Word. I think
it's outrageous.

 

[CyberTaz]

On the Reviewing Toolbar make sure that in the Show button list that
Comments is checked & that the Display for Review list next to it displays
either Final Showing Markup or Original Showing Markup. If it displays
Original or Final the Comments & Balloons are hidden.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[William Smith]

I've just wasted my money by upgrading to Word 2004. Now, I have to go
back to using an older version of Word.

As for a printed guide, I have to say this. I'm a technical writer,
and I create user guides and on-line help systems. It doesn't cost
anything extra to add pages to a user guide distributed as PDF. Not a
dime.

Frankly, I'm not happy that there is no user guide for Word. I think
it's outrageous.

Most major application developers long ago abandoned packaging printed
manuals with their products in favor of quick start guides, Help menu
systems and PDF manuals. The combination of all the substitutes is often
enough to give you the basics and even a lot of intermediate instruction.

However, book publishing companies have taken up the slack and offer
manuals for sale. You may balk at having to pay for a manual that you
think should be included with the software, but frankly, the publishing
companies do a much better job. And not everyone wants or needs a
manual. Once you're familiar with a program, receiving a new set of
manuals with every upgrade is just waste since all you really need is a
list of new features.

Not including printed manuals also minimizes printing costs and reduces
shipping costs. (Whether that reduces the cost of software for you or
increases the bottom line for the developer is often a point of
contention.) Regardless, it's a cost cutting measure that was
implemented years ago.

(By the way, Jim Gordon's tip about highlighting in this message thread
seems to be just what you're wanting.)

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Also make sure you are in Page Layout view--I think Balloons will not
show in Normal view.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

Daiya:

Thanks for the help.

Yes: I'm running Leopard and Word's help system is -- as best I can
tell -- absolutely useless. So . . . no user guide, no help system.

Just to make sure--do NOT use the search box in the Help menu, but make
sure you are invoking the Word help by specifically selecting it or
hitting F1 or hitting Help on the toolbar. If you see the Apple Help
system, you've got the wrong help system.

Frankly, I'm not happy that there is no user guide for Word. I think
it's outrageous.

You saw Jim Gordon's post that there *is* a User Guide, right? 152 pages.

Also, if you bought a new retail version of Office 2004 since September,
you should be able to get Office 2008 for practically free, so that your
money is not wasted.

Daiya

 

[mister.thorne]

Just to make sure--do NOT use the search box in the Help menu, but make
sure you are invoking the Word help by specifically selecting it or
hitting F1 or hitting Help on the toolbar. If you see the Apple Help
system, you've got the wrong help system.> Frankly, I'm not happy that there is no user guide for Word. I think

You saw Jim Gordon's post that there *is* a User Guide, right? 152 pages.

Also, if you bought a new retail version of Office 2004 since September,
you should be able to get Office 2008 for practically free, so that your
money is not wasted.

Daiya

Just to make sure--do NOT use the search box in the Help menu, but make
sure you are invoking the Word help by specifically selecting it or
hitting F1 or hitting Help on the toolbar. If you see the Apple Help
system, you've got the wrong help system.> Frankly, I'm not happy that there is no user guide for Word. I think

You saw Jim Gordon's post that there *is* a User Guide, right? 152 pages.

Also, if you bought a new retail version of Office 2004 since September,
you should be able to get Office 2008 for practically free, so that your
money is not wasted.

Daiya

Daiya:

Thanks to you and everyone else who provided advice. Much appreciated.

Now I've got everything I need for redlining copy.

As for upgrading, I don't know. I bought Word, not Office, and I have
no idea what it's going to cost to upgrade. Hopefully, Microsoft will
make the upgraded version worthwhile.

As for hiding the User Guide in the Project Gallery rather than
offering it as a separate PDF -- I think that's a ridiculous way to do
things. Who would guess to look there? And why didn't Microsoft
provide a read me file saying how to access the user guide?

It's too bad that Microsoft used its marketing muscle to destroy the
market for word processors. Now (just about) everyone MUST use Word
and MUST suffer its many deficiencies.

It's so frustrating having my other apps slow down just because I have
Word open.

Oh . . . how I wish the Justice Department would have pursued a break-
up of that company. We'd all be so much better off by now.

Thanks again.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Quoting from "(e-mail address removed)" <[email protected]>, in
article (e-mail address removed),

Daiya:

Thanks to you and everyone else who provided advice. Much appreciated.

Now I've got everything I need for redlining copy.

As for upgrading, I don't know. I bought Word, not Office, and I have
no idea what it's going to cost to upgrade. Hopefully, Microsoft will
make the upgraded version worthwhile.

As for hiding the User Guide in the Project Gallery rather than
offering it as a separate PDF -- I think that's a ridiculous way to do
things. Who would guess to look there? And why didn't Microsoft
provide a read me file saying how to access the user guide?

It's too bad that Microsoft used its marketing muscle to destroy the
market for word processors. Now (just about) everyone MUST use Word
and MUST suffer its many deficiencies.

It's so frustrating having my other apps slow down just because I have
Word open.

Oh . . . how I wish the Justice Department would have pursued a break-
up of that company. We'd all be so much better off by now.

Thanks again.

Hi again,

Discovering Microsoft Office.pdf is a separate PDF in this directory:
Applications:Microsoft Office 2004:Office:Help:Learniscovering Office

It appears that if someone were to explore the Microsoft Office 2004
directory that they might observe that some care was taken to make the
file/folder structure logical. I'm sure if you asked 50 people what the best
arrangement is you'd get 50 very different answers, but I think Microsoft
gave some thought to it just the same.

When you run the installer, the final step is to offer to take you to the
LEARN tab. The hope is that people new to the product would take that option
rather than the other options that take you right to the application. The
default behavior after a fresh install is to open the Project Gallery on the
LEARN tab. I don't think I want Microsoft to force people to read the PDF or
use the items on the LEARN tab before they can get at the applications.

Other applications should not slow down when you have Word open. Mac OS
comes with a very handy utility called Activity Monitor. It's in the
Applications:Utilities folder. On my computer Activity Monitor shows Word
uses just 60KB of my 2 GIGs of actual RAM for a new, blank document. It uses
less than 3% of my computer's CPU. Something else must be using your CPU or
filling up your RAM, or you don't have enough real RAM. Activity Monitor
will help you troubleshoot and solve this problem.

I disagree that it is marketing muscle that resulted in Word being the most
popular word processor. Microsoft had to build a product that would somehow
compete against Corel's Word Perfect, which had nearly a total monopoly of
the word processing market when Microsoft decided to enter the market. I
would argue that Microsoft succeeded by offering a product with a larger set
of features than Corel did, and offered it at a better price. Microsoft
offered integvrated Word Processing, Spreadsheet, database and Presentation
software. First on the Mac, and later on IBM based computers.

Word does not have a lock on the word processing market. There is serious
competition from other companies that have products that open, read, and
write in Word's file format. Apple offers TextEdit free with MacOS, and
sells Pages. The legal profession still hangs on to Word Perfect. Millel is
a popular Word alternative. Versiontracker reports 49 word processors of
various sorts are available for the Mac:
http://www.versiontracker.com/php/qs.php?mode=basic&by=releaseDate&action=se
arch&str=word%20processor&srchArea=macosx&dir=desc&pg=2

Perhaps of most interest: Sun Microsystems gives away a product called
OpenOffice simply to hurt Microsoft. OpenOffice is spiteware. Sun is a big
(now money losing) company that tried to compete by making a cheap knock-off
of Microsoft Office. In fact, for most people, if price were the only
consideration, OpenOffice would fit the bill perfectly.

So why does anyone pay for Microsoft Office when OpenOffice is free, uses
the same file formats, and essentially does everything that Microsoft Office
does? I think it's becauase OpenOffice isn't better than Microsoft's
product.

I would argue that other factors come into play. The OpenOffice user
interface is based upon Microsoft's Office versions 3 through 5 interface.
It's very old fashioned - Windows based. Lately, it's been brushed up to
look better in MacOS with an Aqua appearance and easier to work with in
NeoOffice. But OpenOffice lacks floating palettes, wizards, VBA (well, their
Calc program claims to have VBA but it doesn't work), and hundreds of little
but nevertheless useful and thus on occasion important features that come
with Microsoft Office.

Price isn't everything. In the case of word processors and office
applications it's clear that most consumers want the best working
environment and they have no problems paying the price even when a free,
almost as good substitute is available. People simply don't want "almost as
good." They want to pamper themselves with the best. Even in the Windows
world where cheap, free crappy software often prevails, OpenOffice has not
been able to make much impact - and OpenOffice is far from junk. It's just
quite a distance from being "as good."

There is nothing at all stopping anyone with a computer from building from
scratch a better version of Office and selling it. No justice department is
needed. Just someone with a vision and a willingness to put out a better
product. So far no one has.

The path to take to break Microsoft's stranglehold is almost obvious.
Incorporate the web technologies of sharing documents ala Google documents
and blend it with the best user interface (Office 2004 on the Mac), rich
feature set, and programmability of Microsoft Office (VBA for Windows). Make
it seamlessly cross platform Mac, Windows, and LINUX.

Easy to say. Hard to do.

Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

As for upgrading, I don't know. I bought Word, not Office, and I have
no idea what it's going to cost to upgrade. Hopefully, Microsoft will
make the upgraded version worthwhile.

Doesn't look like Word-only qualifies for the almost-free copy of Office
2008, but if past practice continues, it should qualify you for the
regular upgrade discount. But I think that if you have Word 2004, you
might be okay to skip 2008--assuming they get Office-2008+1 out quickly
(which no one knows if they will).

Word X was just Word 2001 ported to OS X--Word 2004 is generally
considered to be a much better program.

It's too bad that Microsoft used its marketing muscle to destroy the
market for word processors. Now (just about) everyone MUST use Word
and MUST suffer its many deficiencies.

There are a lot of people doing quite sophisticated things and not using
Word--they hang out in the Pages forums (writing novels), Mellel forums
(lots of academics) and probably Nisus Writer, which I have not
investigated at all. Not to mention Open Office. Plus several
niche-specific programs. The Mac word processor marker is quite vibrant.

Would you rather fight with Word, or deal with the tweaks necessary to
exchange Word docs with others when you aren't using it? Your choice. No
MUST about it.

Chances are, at least some of the deficiencies you are complaining about
can be remedied, if you bother to ask.

Daiya
Mac/Word MVP

 

[mister.thorne]

Quoting from "(e-mail address removed)" <[email protected]>, in
article (e-mail address removed),










Hi again,

Discovering Microsoft Office.pdf is a separate PDF in this directory:
Applications:Microsoft Office 2004:Office:Help:Learniscovering Office

It appears that if someone were to explore the Microsoft Office 2004
directory that they might observe that some care was taken to make the
file/folder structure logical. I'm sure if you asked 50 people what the best
arrangement is you'd get 50 very different answers, but I think Microsoft
gave some thought to it just the same.

When you run the installer, the final step is to offer to take you to the
LEARN tab. The hope is that people new to the product would take that option
rather than the other options that take you right to the application. The
default behavior after a fresh install is to open the Project Gallery on the
LEARN tab. I don't think I want Microsoft to force people to read the PDF or
use the items on the LEARN tab before they can get at the applications.

Other applications should not slow down when you have Word open. Mac OS
comes with a very handy utility called Activity Monitor. It's in the
Applications:Utilities folder. On my computer Activity Monitor shows Word
uses just 60KB of my 2 GIGs of actual RAM for a new, blank document. It uses
less than 3% of my computer's CPU. Something else must be using your CPU or
filling up your RAM, or you don't have enough real RAM. Activity Monitor
will help you troubleshoot and solve this problem.

There is nothing at all stopping anyone with a computer from building from
scratch a better version of Office and selling it. No justice department is
needed. Just someone with a vision and a willingness to put out a better
product. So far no one has.

The path to take to break Microsoft's stranglehold is almost obvious.
Incorporate the web technologies of sharing documents ala Google documents
and blend it with the best user interface (Office 2004 on the Mac), rich
feature set, and programmability of Microsoft Office (VBA for Windows). Make
it seamlessly cross platform Mac, Windows, and LINUX.

Easy to say. Hard to do.

Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP infohttp://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Jim:

Thanks. I didn't buy Office; I bought Word. I don't recall a learn
option during install.

When a question arose about highlighting comments, I turned to the
Help menu and found nothing to answer my question. Then I put the CD
in and looked for a User Guide. Couldn't find one.

When I'm running Word, Mac OS X slows to a crawl. Others have told me
that they have the same problem.

I do freelance word for law firms, and I have to use Word because they
use Word.

Don't get me wrong. I think Word, by and large, is a good product, but
the Mac version is pretty slow at certain tasks.

 

[John McGhie]

I am not sure that I follow your logic I fail to see how we would all
be "better off" if the Department of Justice had intentionally weakened the
producer of the market-leading Word-processing software.

In sport, if you want to set a new world record you do not begin by breaking
the legs of last year's gold medal winner! That only gets you the "biggest
cheat" title.

There are several applications out there that will do "some" of what
Microsoft Word will do. For many users, one of these (usually cheaper...)
alternatives may be sufficient. For those of us who create long or complex
documents for business or professional reasons, at some point we turn to
Word because the competitors simply can't make it all the way to the finish
line Which does not mean that we think Word is perfect ‹ far from it.
In the case of Mac Word, I have a shopping list of desired improvements that
would fill a phone book. But it's a hell of a long way ahead of its nearest
competitor...

Word DOES have a "manual". It *is* the Help system. You have two problems:
you are not actually looking in the Help system, and you have thus not
learned to use the Word help.

1) Start Microsoft Word.

2) Go to the Help menu.

3) Choose the item "Word Help".

4) On the top bar, choose the item "Contents"

Voila! There's your manual. Producing it this way (as HTML Help) not only
reduces the cost of each copy of Word by about a hundred bucks, it also
enables a much larger and more detailed manual, and enables Microsoft to
keep it completely up-to-date as the software changes.

There is around 35,000 pages of information in the Word help. We could not
afford to purchase the product if they tried to include a printed manual of
that size (let alone carry it home from the shop...)

Since I produce manuals like that for a living, I can tell you that to write
one, the authors need to start between two and three YEARS before the press
rolls. The software they are describing has not even been designed yet, let
alone created.

That's a problem that affects all printed manuals, including the ones
produced by the publishers and listed here:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/resources/resources.aspx?pid=books

While some of these are quite good, EACH of them was written by an author
who has never seen Word! That is a simple truth: to produce a commercial
printed book, you need to start a year before the book goes on sale. Before
the product it is about exists. I suggest that you would not want to get
all your information from a book that was 12 months out of date when it was
printed

If you want to become really skilled with the world's most powerful
word-processor, I suggest you start with the Help System built in to Word.
Do yourself a favour: spend ten minutes reading the topic " About getting
help" and its sub-topics. The time you invest will be repaid a thousand
times over. Note: you MUST access the Help the way I described in the four
points above. Apple recently made an update that means its search no longer
finds Microsoft Word's help. I will leave it to you to consider whether
Apple may have done this on purpose!

Once you have found your way around the Word Help, chances are you will have
all the information you need. However, if you prefer longer and more
detailed articles, you will find a large selection here:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/word2004/using.aspx?pid=usingword2004

Once you become comfortable with finding your way around Word, I recommend
Clive's "Bend Word to your Will", available here:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html

Although that is a fairly substantial manual, it's free, and Clive updates
it three or four times a year

Someone else has already referred you here:
http://word.mvps.org/Mac/WordMacHome.html

For seriously in-depth information, see here:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/resources/resources.aspx?pid=resourcekits

When you are ready for the deep end, try here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/default.aspx?wt.svl=leftnav

Of course, you need to be aware that PC Word is a much bigger product than
Mac Word. While "most" of what you read there applies directly to Mac Word
2004, some doesn't. By the time you get there, you will easily be able to
work out which is which.

If you have lots of time on your hands, and you just demand to know the byte
offset of the style table in a Word .doc file, then start here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ms772425.aspx

I am not really trying to rev you up (yes I am...!) but to show you that
Microsoft Word is arguably the MOST comprehensively documented software
product on the planet.

The truth is out there ‹ if you care to look. Nearly all of it is at no
extra charge (hint: ignore the books ‹ everything in them is available free
"somewhere" and the free version will be more up-to-date).

Of course, you "could" print all this stuff. It would take a while, and
make a substantial and unwelcome contribution to global warming. But you
"could"

Or you could become accustomed to accessing all this information on-screen.
Not only will you save a lot of time and money, you will get the current
version each time. The trick is "Don't ever try to 'learn' it, there's too
much of it. Instead, learn where to look it up as you need it."

Oh, and if reading things on screen is uncomfortable for you, there's your
perfect excuse to pop into the toy shop and buy yourself a larger monitor
Apple's very covetable 30" Cinema Display is a snip at $1,799.00. The
Dell equivalent is a few hundred bucks cheaper and goes just as well

(Before you buy, just check that your computer has a graphics card powerful
enough to drive the screen you choose. Few computers have a graphics card
with enough grunt to drive the big muthas to their full capability )

Hope this helps

Jim:

Thanks. I didn't buy Office; I bought Word. I don't recall a learn
option during install.

When a question arose about highlighting comments, I turned to the
Help menu and found nothing to answer my question. Then I put the CD
in and looked for a User Guide. Couldn't find one.

When I'm running Word, Mac OS X slows to a crawl. Others have told me
that they have the same problem.

I do freelance word for law firms, and I have to use Word because they
use Word.

Don't get me wrong. I think Word, by and large, is a good product, but
the Mac version is pretty slow at certain tasks.

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Sydney, Australia. S33°53'34.20 E151°14'54.50
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Clive Huggan]

Jim:

Thanks. I didn't buy Office; I bought Word. I don't recall a learn
option during install.

When a question arose about highlighting comments, I turned to the
Help menu and found nothing to answer my question. Then I put the CD
in and looked for a User Guide. Couldn't find one.

When I'm running Word, Mac OS X slows to a crawl. Others have told me
that they have the same problem.

I do freelance word for law firms, and I have to use Word because they
use Word.

Don't get me wrong. I think Word, by and large, is a good product, but
the Mac version is pretty slow at certain tasks.

Dear [whoever],

Word 2004 is a *little* slower at certain tasks than recent PC versions, but
in normal use it's not something that's intrusive. And OS X "slowing to a
crawl" is very unusual. Like Daiya, I suspect something is wrong. You will
need to provide detailed information on the problem

"I do freelance [work] for law firms" gives some indication that you work on
longer documents and would benefit from techniques that save you time, since
presumably you are "on the meter". In that case, here are suggested sources
of information on Word:

1. The very comprehensive website run by the people who are involved in this
newsgroup and others devoted to Word on the Mac and Windows platforms
(http://word.mvps.org). Among other things, it contains answers (at
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs) to many frequently asked questions posed in these
newsgroups. If you need comprehensive information on a problem, chances are
that other people have had the same problem and a thorough explanation is at
this website.

2. Ongoing: This newsgroup. Searching by topic over the previous few months
is a rewarding strategy.

Another newsgroup that often has useful information on it is
microsoft.public.word.formatting.longdocs
(most discussion centres on features used in long documents on the Windows
platform; it¹s highly relevant to Mac versions and Mac-capable people answer
questions there).

Similarly, I find microsoft.public.word.docmanagement can sometimes provide
useful information. If you use automatic numbering,
microsoft.public.word.numbering is a must.

Here's where all the Microsoft groups are listed:
http://www.microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/FlyoutOverview.mspx

Use newsreader software or Entourage to access these groups, not your web
browser -- the display is better and the time delays with web access
(several hours) are virtually non-existent. See how to use Entourage for
this purpose at www.entourage.mvps.org/support_options/subnews.html
<==[www.entourage.mvps.org is a very good site].

3. Other websites, including those run by people who participate in this
newsgroup. I list some of them on page 23 of some notes on the way I use
Word for the Mac, titled "Bend Word to Your Will", which are available as a
free download from the Word MVPs' website
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html). I develop strategic
plans and policy -- similar to legal work in many ways -- and some of the
techniques in "Bend Word to Your Will" are relevant. [It's designed to be
used electronically and most subjects are self-contained dictionary-style
entries. If you decide to read more widely than the item I've referred to,
it's important 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.]

4. Reference books. I still find it quicker to flash-read a papyrus manual
than web pages. Macworld® Microsoft® Office [year] Bible, Bob LeVitus and
Dennis R. Cohen, Hungry Minds Inc. is useful. In a similar vein is Office
2004 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual, Mark Holt Walker, Franklin Tessler
and Paul Berkowitz, Pogue Press/O¹Reilly Associates. But the more detailed
manuals available are Word for Windows manuals such as Que Corporation¹s
Using Word [year] series and Wiley¹s Word [year] Bible series. The Word 2000
versions are better for Word 2004 users than the Word 2003 books.

5. Word's Help. Unfortunately it's still the victim of a misguided exercise
in trimming the content a few years go; also, I often find it won't come up
with an article in response to some very obvious keywords. Maybe it's just
me...

Cheers,

Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
(My time zone is 5-11 hours different from North America and Europe, so my
follow-on responses to those regions can be delayed)
====================================================

 

[Clive Huggan]

On 1/1/08 9:34 AM, in article
C39FB9BB.327E2%[email protected], "Clive Huggan"

Use newsreader software or Entourage to access these groups, not your web
browser -- the display is better and the time delays with web access
(several hours) are virtually non-existent. See how to use Entourage for
this purpose at www.entourage.mvps.org/support_options/subnews.html
<==[www.entourage.mvps.org is a very good site].

And an excellent article, "NNTP is your friend", at Barry Wainwright's blog:
http://www.barryw.net/weblog/files/nntp.html

CH
===

 

[mister.thorne]

I am not sure that I follow your logic  I fail to see how we would all
be "better off" if the Department of Justice had intentionally weakened the
producer of the market-leading Word-processing software.

In sport, if you want to set a new world record you do not begin by breaking
the legs of last year's gold medal winner!  That only gets you the "biggest
cheat" title.

We'd have competition, rather than a monopoly. That's what the whole
action against Microsoft was about.

As for the sports analogy, it's as if Microsoft was using steroid,
i.e., CHEATING.