[February 29, 2008]

I was just about convinced that Spring was making an early appearance this year but as I sit here creating this newsletter for you my driveway is covered with ice and there is more freezing rain failling as it has been all day long!

Ah well, spring will be here soon enough right? We have actually had a very easy winter where I live this year and so I cannot complain!

Welcome to Richard, Wendy, Mimi, and Beek, Marjory, Michael, our newest premium subscribers. Welcome to the family!

Carol's Signature

Table of Contents

Grammar Anyone? - You can change those grammar rules!

Ruler Preferences in MS Word - Do it Your way.

Ignore Me Please - Is Spell Check ignoring you?

Grammar Anyone?

Lord alone knows that I am forever correcting grammar in documents even though MS Word has tried to fix it for me! If you have that same complaint, I can show you how to pick and choose which grammar rules MS Word uses to check your documents!

Follow the steps below:

  1. Click on Tools | Options.
  2. Click on the Spelling and Grammar tab.

Tools and Options Dialog Box

You can now select or deselect your options. You can use the drop-down list and choose to have MS Word check either Grammar Only or Grammar and Style.

  1. Click on Settings.

Grammar Settings

If you select Grammar Only, you will only get the grammar portion and if you select Grammar and Style, you will be able to select choices from both parts of the list selected.

You can now pick and choose which Grammar Rules you would like MS Word to use when checking your documents.

  1. When you are finished making your selections, click OK twice.

Now you are ready to have your document checked and you now know how to customize the selections to suit YOU.

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Ruler Preferences in MS Word

Personally I always have my Ruler in view while working in MS Word. I would be lost without it. Most folks give me a hard time when I train them and tell them that they have to have their Show/Hide activated and their Ruler visible. They say they find it distracting to see all the non-printing characters and the ruler. I say to them is that they must learn to live with it so that they know what is going on in their documents. If you want to run with the big dogs and be a power user, you simply must become accustomed to having these features enabled.

So now that you all have your Ruler visible in MS Word, I will teach you a few things about it:

  • The first thing you need to know is that if your Ruler is not visible, simply click on View | Ruler. Yes, it's that simple.

Want a reason why you should have your Ruler visible? Well alrighty then!

  • One of the biggest reasons I know is so that you use it to place the tabs in your document where you want them!

    Ok, so now you know how to view your Ruler and you have a very good reason to use it but suppose, after looking at it you decide it just isn't the the kind of measurement you are used to or that you care to use? Geez, you've gone to all the trouble to learn something new and it isn't even what you wanted!

    Take heart! You can change your Ruler to suit your own personal preferences. You can control the units of measurement on the Ruler in MS Word.

    Follow the steps below to find out how:

    1. Click on Tools | Options.
    2. Click on the General tab.
    3. At the bottom, find the measurement units field.
    4. Use the drop-down list to select your measuring preference.
    5. Click OK.

    Your Ruler is now measuring things your way.

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Ignore Me Please

Somehow, some way, you have hit just the right key combination and now your Spellcheck is not checking your spelling in your documents! One should never rely primarily on MS Word's Spellcheck feature - you should also perform the old fashion proofread. Having said that, MS Word's Spellcheck feature if still pretty nifty to have and use and so you will want to rectify whatever you have done to make it stop working - that is unless you enjoy going through a fifty page document word-by-word with a dictionary at your side.

Nah, I didn't think you wanted to do that anymore than I would.

If you want to trick MS Word into spell checking your document while you have told it to ignore the entire document, follow the steps below:

  1. Click on Tools | Options.
  2. Click on the Spelling & Grammar tab.

At the bottom of the dialog box, you will see Recheck Document.

  1. Click on it.

Word will then give you a warning about what you are doing and it will check your document for spelling errors just as it did before you told it to ignore the spelling.

  1. Click Yes to confirm that you want your document to be checked.

You have just tricked MS Word into ignoring your ignore instructions.

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