BlogOffice

Making AutoText fit

category : office XP and office 2003 : AutoText

Akhil wrote from India this morning to ask this question, and I thought it might be something helpful to share. The question was how can you make AutoText fit the format of the rest of your document? It's a great thing to be able to insert sentences, boilerplate text, and what-have-you into your document easily, but how much time does it save if you have to go back into it and reformat everything each time? Here are the steps for creating AutoText entries that fit your favorite styles:

1. Insert the AutoText entry into the document as usual.

2. Turn paragraph marks on by clicking the Show/Hide tool in the Standard toolbar (this will cause the paragraph symbols to appear at the end of each paragraph)

3. Highlight the AutoText entry you just placed in your document and make any necessary formatting changes (click Body text, Normal, or whatever style you want to use).

4. Select the AutoText entry and be sure to include the ending paragraph mark in the selection (this is what preserves the formatting changes).

5. Open the Insert menu, choose AutoText, and select New.

6. Type the name of the original AutoText entry and press Enter.

7. A dialog box asks whether you want to save the revised AutoText Entry. Click Yes.

8. The entry is resaved with the new formatting changes you added. The modified AutoText entries are stored in the Normal category of the AutoText menu.

Possibilities...

category : office 2003 : templates

Ah, I love this. I was online writing up some examples for our new upcoming book, Microsoft Office Word 2003 Inside Out, a huge, advanced-level five-pound book full of Word knowledge, so I had an excuse to play with the Office Online Templates page. If you haven't checked this out yet, and you're working with the Office 2003 soon-to-be-official beta, go visit! I am so impressed with the vast collection of templates. Fifteen different categories to choose from! Stuff for school, stuff for home, presentations, business letters, even grant proposals. And fun things, too. When you download the templates (they are all free, by the way), they open on your computer and plug in all your data automatically. For example, if you download a letter template, after the letter downloads, Word displays the new template, complete with your name and address information in the header. A Template Help task pane automatically appears, giving you more information on using the template and asking you to rate (on a scale of one to five stars) what you think of the template. I'm all for creativity and ease of use--and this template system on Office Online gets a five-star rating from me for both. :)

Watching Your Words

category : office XP and office 2003: Word count

This is just a quick tip but one I love. If you need to keep an eye on word count as you write, you can let Word do the counting for you. Most people know you can choose File > Properties > Statistics to see how many words are in your document. But did you know you can display an actual toolbar that pops up over your document and lets you keep a running total as you work? Choose View > Toolbars > Word Count. A little popup counter appears over your document. You can dock the toolbar along the side of the window and click Recount after you've made significant changes. Sweet. :) k