CPR e.news - April 2008: 10 Indispensable Word Tips

10 Indispensable Microsoft Word Tips (complete article from April e.news)
by Chris C. Michels, Service Sales Specialist, Corporate Technologies

No matter how long you’ve been using Microsoft Word, you can always learn new techniques to help you work faster and smarter. Here are some tips and tricks for Word 97, 2000, 2002(XP), 2003, and 2007.

1.	Learn to use Undo: Make a mistake? Press [Ctrl] Z or choose undo from the Edit menu right away. Keep pressing [Ctrl] Z to backtrack through and undo the most recent editing changes you’ve made. In Office 2007, the undo button is on the Quick Access toolbar in the top-left corner. Redo does double duty with the new Repeat button
2.	Save Often: Press [Ctrl] S or click Save button on the standard toolbar. Save your work frequently. You can also instruct Word to automatically save your work periodically. Open the Tools menu, select Options, click the Save tab, and activate the Save Auto Recovery Info Every Option. You can specify an interval from 1 to 120 minutes. In Word 2007, click the Office button (in the top-left corner) and the click the Word Options button at the bottom right of the resulting dialog box. Now, click Save. You’ll find the Save Auto Recovery Information Every option in the Save Documents section.
3.	Quickly Move To The Beginning Or End Of A Document: To move to the top of a document, press [Ctrl] [Home]. To move to the bottom of a document, press [Ctrl] [End].
4.	Paste Plain Text: When you copy and paste text from a web page or another document, the text brings its formatting into your document. To get around the behavior, copy the text and place the insertion point marker where you want to insert the copy. Then, open the Edit menu, choose Paste Special, and select the Unformatted Text option. In Word 2007, the Paste Special command is on the Paste drop-down list. The Paste option is in the Clipboard group on the Home tab.
5.	Simplify Copy and Paste: Highlight the area you want to copy. Once it is highlight press [Ctrl] C. The text is now copied to your clipboard. To paste, place the marker where you want to paste and then press [Ctrl] V.
6.	Print Envelopes: Want to address your envelopes using a printer? Type an address in a blank document or letter. Open the Tools menu and select Envelopes and Labels. (Word 2002 users choose Letters and Mailings and then select Envelopes and Labels. In Word 2007, highlight the address and choose Envelopes from the Create group on the Mailings tab.) Now, in the Envelopes tab, enter the return address if you want one and click print.
7.	Jump Quickly Between Documents: If you work with a lot of open, overlapping documents, here is a quick way to cycle between them. Press [Ctrl] [F6] to jump from one to the next. [Ctrl] [Shift] [F6] will jump you backwards.
8.	Make Spell Check More Efficient: You don’t have to repeatedly click Ignore or Ignore All every time the spell-checker stops on a proper noun or a term that’s commonly used in your documents. Click Add (Add To Dictionary in Word 2002 and later) so you don’t waste time checking the same words over and over.
9.	Deleting Old Text Your Replacing: You don’t have to delete text you want to replace before adding the new text. Select the old text and start typing the new. The first keystroke replaces the old selected text. Don’t waste time pressing [Delete] first.
10.	Get There Fast: Double-Click the left end of the status bar to bring up the Go To tab so you can jump to an item in your document, such as a bookmark, a specific page, a table, a section, and so on.

If you've recently upgraded to Office 2007 or are making the upgrade soon, consider taking the Office 2007 New Features classes at the CPR Learning Center. We offer classes for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Most classes are only a half day and cover all the latest features and changes to the programs.