ADVANCEDPROJECTS
ISSUE 379|COMPUTERSHOPPER|SEPTEMBER (^2019137)
NEXT MONTH
MAKEYOUR OWN
CHROMEBOOK
Got an old or unwanted Windows
laptop? Breathenew lifeintoit
with aChrome OS installation
Spike. This tool can take multiplesections
from one documentand pastethem into
another.Touse the Spike,highlighteach
piece of text and press Ctrl-F3 to add each
sectionto the Spike.This will cut
the selected text from the
document;if you want to just
copyit, you’ll need to use undo
(Ctrl-Z)to re-insertthe text but
still keep it within the Spike.
Then move your cursor to
the destinationand press
Ctrl-Shift-F3 to pasteinthe text. This will
clear the contents of the Spike,but you can
retain the contents by typingspikeand then
pressingEnter; then move on to another
place and repeat to pasteinthe same
collectionof text snippets.
The View Side by Side tool makes using
the Spike even easier.With two documents
open, head to the View tab and then launch
the tool. While you can easily place two
documentsside by side in Windows(drag
one to one side of the screen,or press
Windows-Left/Right),the Side by Side tool
can link the two documents,so scrolling
throughone documentalso scrolls
throughthe other.You can unsync
the scrollingat any time by
deselectingSynchronousScrolling.
If you’re afan of hotkeys and
keyboardshortcuts, you can
select words and paragraphs
quicklywith keyboardcommands.
Shift-Left/Right will highlightcharacters,
while Ctrl-Shift-Left/Right will highlighton a
word-by-word basis. Ctrl-Shift-Up/Down
selects text from the currentcursor location
to the next paragraphbreak; move to the
beginningor end of aparagraphby pressing
Ctrl-Up/Down.With text selected, Ctrl-Space
will clear the formatting.
If you’ve inherited adocumentwith double
spacingor double paragraphbreaks,don’t
despair.You can use the Find and Replace
tool to sort out those typewriter hangovers.
To replacedouble spaces with single spaces,
use Find and Replace to find all instancesof a
full stop followed by two spaces and replace
that with afull stop followed by just one
space.Totidy up double paragraphbreaks,
find ^p^p and replaceit with ^p.
Word 2013 and onwardscan also import a
PDF and make it editable.You can then save
the modifieddocumentas aPDF (throughthe
Save As option),so you don’t need to buy
fancy PDF-editingsoftware.
Createsacaption
forimages
See,modify and rearrange
all inserted objects
Align and distributeobjects
quicklyand easily
T
here are other sectionsof the
Ribbonthat are easy to forget but
containpowerfultools. Forexample,the
Mailingstab has tools to design
envelopeaddressesand perform
mailmerges.The Review tab has tools to
translatewords, and also track edits and
commentsthat you might make to a
documentduring aproofing or review
process.Youcan also comparetwo
versionsof adocument,after which
Word will show you the differences.This
is very handy forversion checking,and
forrevealing changesand updates.
From Word 2016 onwards,there’s a
Check Accessibilitytool that will tell you
how readableand accessibleyour
documentis. This includeseverything
from use of languageand whetherthe
text and backgroundhave sufficient
contrast,to whetherpicturesare in a
sensibleorder and positionedneatly.
The tool also recommendsfixes.