Archive for the ‘Microsoft Office Word’ Category

Keep your Table on One Page in MS Word

Monday, January 30th, 2012

When you create large, complex documents (i.e., technical manuals, theses, etc.) you will find that you are adding tables to them. It has been my experience that most tables in these documents are not very long and can very easily fit onto one page. Having said that, it can be problematic when there is a page break smack dab in the middle of your table.

Follow the steps below to prevent such behavior:

  1. Select all rows in your table.
  2. Display the Paragraph dialog box by clicking on Format | Paragraph in version 2003 and in versions 2007-2010, click on the Home tab of your Ribbon and click the small icon at the bottom-right of the Paragraph group.
  3. Be certain the Line and Page Breaks tab is selected.
  4. Select the Keep Lines Together check box.
  5. Click on OK.

Having done that, you now need to repeat the steps, with two very minor changes.

  1. First, in step one, select all the rows in your table except the last one.
  2. In step four, make sure the Keep with Next check box is selected.

This will make sure that your table stays together as a unit rather than staying with teh paragraph that follows it.

Super Fast Find Next in MS Word

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

MS Word has a very nice search feature that allows us to make replacements on the fly.

We all know the key combination shortcut to use Search and Replace — Ctrl F. It allows us to search for just about anything in our documents. There is the issue of screen real estate when using this great function however.

The Navigation Pane opens on your screen and takes up valuable real estate and not only that, it can be distracting to some folks (me).  When you click on Next that pane is still there.

Now the good news is that you CAN have your search and not have the pane (no pun intended).

Follow the steps below to learn how:

  1. Use your Navigation Pane as you normally would, specifying what you would like to search for and look for the first occurrence.
  2. When Word displays the first occurence, click your Esc key or click on cancel. Word will obey and close the Navigation Pane.
  3. To find the next occurrence, simply click Shift + F4.

It works exactly the same as clicking Next Search Result and it is just as fast without that distracting Navigation Pane!

Always looking for ways to help you work smarter, faster and more comfortably!

Replace Long Blocks of Text in MS Word Using Search & Replace

Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

MS Word has robut Search and Replace function and you should use it to its fullest capability. You all know I just LOVE to save time and keystrokes so why not put this function into use to do just that?

Sometimes you  need to replace a short block of text, with a longer, more detailed block of text throughout your document (i.e., a contract, Last Will & Testament, Thesis, Interrogatories, etc.)  Or there could be instances where you need to replace some text with a graphic (i.e., technical manual).

Follow the steps to learn how:

  1. Copy what you would like to use as a replacement to the Clipboard.
  2. Click Ctrl + H to display the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
  3. In the Find What box, enter the text you want replaced.
  4. In the Replace With area, enter ^c, which will instruct Word to use the contents of the Clipboard as the replacement.
  5. Click on Find Next.
  6. Make replacements as you wish.

This comes in very handy if you have a particularly long replacement as the contents of the Replace With box is less than 255 characters.