Copywriter, technical writer, translator (FR>EN, ES>EN, IT>EN), journalist

Posts Tagged Microsoft Word

Rearranging a long document the easy way

Ever tried rearranging sections in long Microsoft Word documents? Even if you use Heading styles and can quickly find your headings, even if you created a table of contents to help you navigate the document, finding and moving stuff using the onscreen page is a cumbersome process.

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Tabling your prose

Want to make data-dense text more understandable in your document? Consider putting the information in a table instead of straight text. And when you do so, create the table the easy way.

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Reuse your own genius

Have you completed a document using Microsoft Word (or another word processor) and made it look exactly right? Did you hone the styles so that formatting is practically automated? Congratulations! You accomplished a grand feat, one that likely took lots of learning, work and revision. Here’s the

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Creating new Word styles – the easy way

While you’re drafting a document, you might want to create a new character style or paragraph style. (The difference? You can apply character styles to words, even individual characters, while paragraph styles apply from one pilcrow to the next.) Chances are the style you want to create

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Find (and create) the look you want for your document

Good artists copy. Great artists steal. How does this apply to you? If you’re working on a Word document that has to impress somebody and you’re daunted by the blank canvas Word presents you with when you create a new document, worry not. Become a great artist

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Avoid overformatting your documents

If you’ve ever felt like you spend too much time formatting your documents, you aren’t alone. Part of the problem is the level of detail to which you CAN format a document. One solution: Draft documents using a word processor that doesn’t give you as many formatting

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Using Print Layout view for a document

Will your word processing document end up on a printed page? Yes? Then work with it in that format onscreen.

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Better Word formatting in 20 minutes

Microsoft provides great learning resources for people who want to master its products. For example, Microsoft published a course called “Format Your Document by Using Styles”. Claiming it takes about 20 minutes to complete, it gives you a basic handle on style usage in Word. You can

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Find and eliminate double non-printing characters

In a Word document, few circumstances call for “double formatting” like double spaces, double paragraph breaks and double page breaks. And quite often, those “doubles” foil attempts at automating a Word document’s formatting. If your document is short, finding and fixing doubles doesn’t take long. If your

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Layout tips for legal documents

Last month, I read a document produced by a law firm, then one produced by Adobe Systems Incorporated. The Adobe document? Attractive. The legal document? Not so much. Could legal documents use an Adobe-inspired layout makeover?

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