By Carol Bratt, CBA Consultants (Published November 15, 2004)

When MS Word users are confident in their own knowledge and in that of the people who support them, firms enhance their ability to cope with unforeseen document issues. Below are some handy tips to make you feel more confident when using Microsoft Word.

Control Formatting of Pasted Text

When you paste text that you copied from most other applications into Word, the text retains the font size and formatting it had in the original application. To avoid this in Word 2000 and earlier, you had to paste the text by choosing Edit\Paste Special and then selecting Unformatted Text. Word 2002 has a paste pop-up that makes it even easier to paste unformatted text.

Controlling How Body Text is Displayed

Applies to Word 97, 2000, and 2002
When you are working in Outline view, there will be times when you want to see the body text associated with headings. Word allows you to control how body text is displayed. You can either display the entire body text or only the first line of each paragraph of body text. This is a toggle condition, controlled by the Show First Line Only tool on the Outline toolbar.

Skipping Numbering

Applies to Word 97, 2000, and 2002
If you are working with numbered lists in your document, you already know that the numbered list is nothing more than a series of numbered paragraphs. There may be times when you want to have a paragraph or two in the middle of a list, and then have numbering pick back up after the unnumbered paragraphs. It is rather easy to do if you follow these steps:

Format your numbered list as you normally would, but make sure the paragraphs you want to be unnumbered are also included in the list. This means that those paragraphs will, for the moment, be numbered.

With the insertion point located in the first paragraph you want unnumbered, click on the numbering tool on the toolbar. Alternatively, you can right-click on the paragraph and choose Skip Numbering. Numbering is removed from the paragraph, but the sequence continues with the paragraph following.

Inserting a Non-breaking Space

Applies to Word 97, 2000, and 2002
When Word calculates line width and wraps text to the next line, it tries to break the line at either a space or a hyphen. Sometimes, however, you may not want Word to break a line at a certain space. For instance, you may want to make sure that two adjacent words appear on the same line as each other. The answer is to use non-breaking spaces instead of regular spaces when you don’t want Word to break a line at a certain space. To do this, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys as you press the Space Bar. Word then does not break the line at that point.

Picking up Where you Left Off

If you open a document you were editing when you last used Word, you can use the Shift + F5 keyboard combination to quickly jump to where you were last working in the document. This is also a good way to get back to what you were editing after browsing through a document.

You should remember an important caveat when trying to apply this tip: The Shift + F5 shortcut takes you back to where you made your last edit, not to where you last had the insertion point. For instance, if you are halfway through your document and you type a word or change a character, that counts as an edit. Suppose that you then press the Page Down key a few times to get to the bottom of the document, and then you save and close the document. When you re-open the document and press Shift + F5, Word takes you to where you made the edits (halfway through the document), not to where you were when you saved the document (at the end).

Some Quick Shortcuts

Insert a non-breaking hyphen: Ctrl+Shift+Hyphen. This is handy when you don’t want a phrase to break at a hyphen, as in Betty-Lou.

Insert the Euro (€) symbol: Type 20ac followed by alt+X. With this shortcut you may have to add support for the euro to your operating system to see the symbol on the screen.

Insert a tab character in a table cell: Ctrl+Tab

Use Format Painter without the mouse: Ctrl+Shift+C to copy the format of selected text or text the cursor is in. Then select the target text and press Ctrl+Shift+V to apply the format to that text.

Turn Track Changes On/Off: Ctrl+Shift+E.

Switching views: Alt+V, P for Print Layout, N for Normal, or O for Outline view.

Switching among print layout, normal and outline views is only marginally faster with shortcuts than with menu commands. But if you switch back and forth repeatedly, the difference is noticeable. There is no shortcut however, for switching to Web view.

Switch to print layout view: Alt+Ctrl+P.

Switch to normal view: Alt+Ctrl+N.

Switch to outline view: Alt+Ctrl+O.

Switch to or from Print Preview: Alt+Ctrl+I.

Carol Bratt is a MOUS certified Word Expert and Microsoft Certified Professional, who trains end users in the nuances of the Microsoft Office Suite, and MS Word in particular for CBA Consultants. She can be reached at cabratt@cbaconsultants.net.

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