ADVANCEDPROJECTS
ISSUE 379|COMPUTERSHOPPER|SEPTEMBER (^2019133)
WORDISOFTENthe first tool
we reach forwhen we’re going
to createanythinginvolving
words, almost regardlessof
what that task is. Whether
that’s the odd poster or flyer,
researchpapers or work reports,Word can do
the job.Soit’s worth spendingalittle time
customisinghow Word works, as it won’t be
long before you double-clickthe blue Wand
start silentlygrumblingabout how annoying
you find this or that default behaviour.
We’ll start with tamingthose irritating
aspectsof Word, the nags, promptsand fussy
formattingniggles.Word 2010 introduced
possiblythe most annoying nag: the Paste
Optionsmenu. PastesomethingintoWord
and asmall box appearsto promptyou to
considerhow the new item should be
formatted. Youcan either click the menu or
press Ctrl to access the options,but typically
you don’t need to.Whenever you know you’ll
be pastingin text with adifferentstyle,you’d
right-click and use one of the PasteOptions
anyway. But even doing this creates aPaste
Optionsbox! To remove this nag, head to File,
Options,Advanced and untick Show Paste
Optionsin the Cut, copy, and pastesection.
If you occasionallyfind the PasteOptions
menu useful, you can leave the option
enabledand just dismissthe PasteOptions
menu by pressingEscape.Wealso suspect
the pasteoptions themselvesaren’t well
understood, so let’s recap.Keep Source
Formattingwill insert the new item (text or an
image) with its currentproperties.Keep Text
Only will strip out all the formatting.Merge
Formattingis useful forinsertinglarge chunks
of text, as Word will attempt to apply the
default formattingbut retain any emphasis
from the source;if there are words in bold or
italic, forexample,Word will try to retain
those.IfMerge Formattingsoundsideal, you
can changethis to the default behaviour in
the Advanced settingsmenu: changethe
optionsforPastingwithinthesamedocument,
Pasting betweendocumentsand Pasting from
other programsto Merge Formattingby using
the drop-downmenus.
While you’re in the Advanced
settingsmenu, there are afew
other optionsworth lookingat.
Under the Editingoptionssection,
you might want to untick the
Automaticallycreatedrawing
canvass... option as this can be
awkwardto deal with when importingimages
and arrangingtext. If you need to keep
formattingconsistent, tick the Keep track of
formattingbox and then the Mark formatting
inconsistences box. This will highlight
sectionsof text with awiggly blue underline
so you can tidy up your documentquickly.
Youmight find the AutoCompleteprompts
rarely help,inwhich case untick
Show AutoCompletesuggestions.
CUSTOMISINGWORD
‘Busy work’ refers to activitythat
isn’t really productive,and Word
can inflict plenty of it if you’re not
careful. Rather than consistently
tweak this and adjust that, it’s much
better to configureWord properlyand
eradicatethis wasted effort. There are a
couple of over-archingtechniques,and afew
small changes;again, afew minutes spent well
will save hours of annoying repetition.
If you regularlycreatecertain types of
documents,you should use templates. There
are many default templates from which to
choose,and you can use one of those as a
starter.For example,head to File,New and
you’ll see arange of categoriesfornew
documents,from newsletters and time sheets
to award certificates. Load one of these and
you’re on the waytoadesired result. Youcan
also createyour own templatefrom scratch.
As well as purely layout considerations,
templates can also embed aset of styles –
astandardfont, font size and paragraph
spacing,standardstyles forheadingsand
so on. So by using aspecific template
foreach specifictask, you can quickly
createdocumentsthat look very
differentwith minimaleffort.
Once you’ve made abasic versionof your
document–with placeholdersor gaps forthe
details that you’ll fill in, and specificstyles and
formatting–you need to save it. Setting
certain fonts or paragraphformattingis
⬆MostofWord’s nigglescan be disabledin the Advanced Optionsmenu within aminuteortwo
⬆Use templates if you regularlycreatesimilar types of documents
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