[June 2007 ]

Hi everyone. I hope this newsletter finds you all well.

School is out and the weather is warm and sunny. I'm loving life!

We finally finished the reconstruction going on in our home and have got everything back to where it belongs. It was driving me crazy there for a while. I like everything to be neat and tidy. I try anyway and that's what counts.

I have decided that from hereon, part of the fee for every premium newsletter subscription will be donated to one of my favorite charities that provides for homeless children, so please tell your friends and family all about Carol's Word Bytes Newsletter so you and I can help homeless kids have a pillow to lay their heads on at the end of the day. I will keep you posted as to how it's going.

Carol's Signature

Table of Contents

Record and Run a Macro in MS Word -One click results!

A Snazzy Text Box in MS Word -Get creative and artistic!!

Different Spacing in a Bulleted List in MS Word - Single spacing is sometimes very difficult to read.

Record and Run a Macro in MS Word

Many times you find yourself doing the same task over and over and sometimes a task is very difficult for a new user or its a task that is used so infrequently that even an experienced user has to take the time to figure out exactly how it's done again!

Macros are automatically stored in the Normal template. When you exit Word, you will see a prompt asking whether you want to save the changes to the Normal Template.

Follow the steps below to create your macro:

  1. Click on Tools | Macro | Record New Macro or double-click REC on the Status bar.

Macro Dialor

  1. Enter a name for the macro.
  2. Click OK.
  3. Perform the keystrokes and mouse actions for the task. As you do this, you will see the Stop Recording toolbar on the screen with a Stop and Pause button in case you need them.

Macro toolbar

  1. Click the Stop Recording button or double-click the REC button on the Status bar.

The steps you recorded are saved as a macro that you can run with a single action.

There are many reasons to create a macro, such as a form that you use all the time in your business. Once your form is created, you can record a macro that opens it and put that macro on your toolbar as a special button. Next time you need that form, all you do is click the button and voila - you have your form!

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A Snazzy Text Box in MS Word

The traditional, rectangular box is what many Word users are familiar with when you mention a text box and let's face it, we are all familiar and comfortable with that traditional text box. But let's take a walk on the wild side and do something different that looks sort of snazzy!

Follow the steps below:

  1. First, make sure that your Drawing toolbar is visible.

If it is not, simply right-click on one of your toolbars and click on the word Drawing. You will now see the Drawing toolbar on your screen at the bottom.

Drawing toolbar

  1. Click the AutoShape button on the Drawing toolbar to create an AutoShape.
  2. Select a shape. (I like the folded corner myself).

Folder Corner AutoShape

  1. Right-click that AutoShape and chose Add Text on the pop-up menu that appears.
  2. Add your text and you are finished.

Wasn't that simple to do? And everyone will wonder how you got so artistic!

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Different Spacing in Bulleted Lists in MS Word

Sometimes bulleted lists are difficult to read. When bullet items have more than two lines of text, which frequently happens when writing instructions, it would be nice to have bullets that have more space between them. I find that as I age, my ability to read items that are close together is lacking.

You could go through your list and double space it but that seems like a lot of keystrokes and wasted time. A better solution would be to create a style to care care of it.

Follow the instructions below to find out how:

  1. Enter the bullet list, one bullet after another. Do not bother with extra bullets to create double-spacing.
  2. Select the bulleted items.
  3. Use the Format | Styles and Formatting command from the main menu.
  4. Click the New Style button at the top of the styles and Formatting pane.
  5. Create a new name for the bullet style. By default, Word will base your new style on the properties of the selected text (i.e. the original list).
  6. Click on the Format button in the lower left corner of the dialog box.
  7. Choose Paragraph from the drop-down list.
  8. On the Indents and Spacing tab, find the Spacing section. Adjust the Before and After settings. I chose 4 points for each.
  9. Click OK twice to set the bullet spacing.

Now you have a new bullet style that you can apply to all your documents whenever you need it.

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