Word's Environment and Interface

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Word's Environment and Interface' topic. Click the article's title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

Adding a Little Color
The normal way to change the color of selected text is through the use of the Font Color tool. If you have to use the same color over and over again, there is a different way—you can create your own color tool as described in this tip.

Arranging Document Windows
Got a bunch of document windows cluttering up your screen? Make them nice and tidy by using the tools that Word provides for keeping them in line. This tip explains the easiest way to make your document windows just the way you want.

Asking for Delete Confirmation
When you select some text and then press the Del key, the text should immediately be removed from your document. If you see a message on the status bar asking if you are sure you want to make the deletion, this is an artifact of the WordPerfect support built into Word. This tip explains how to get rid of this prompt so you can get on with deleting.

Automatically Using Smart Quotes
As a way to make your documents look more professional, Word can utilize "smart quotes" for both quote marks and apostrophes. Here's what that term actually means and how to control the capability in Word.

Button for Leaving Full-Screen Mode
If you display your document in full-screen mode, there are a couple of ways you can get back to normal mode. One method relies on a special toolbar, but what are you to do if that toolbar doesn't display as you expect? This tip provides a couple of things you can do to get operations back to normal.

Changing Text Color
How to create an icon on a toolbar to automatically add a color to your text.

Controlling Display of the Status Bar
The status bar is used to display all sorts of information about the document on which you are working. Depending on your version of Word, you can easily turn the status bar off if you never use it.

Controlling Field Shading
If you use fields in your documents, you may want to highlight them in some way so that you can find them easier. Word includes a setting that allows you to specify exactly how you want your fields shaded.

Discovering Where Word Stores Settings
How to find your setting information in Word.

Entering Units of Measurement in Dialog Boxes
Word is very flexible in letting you enter measures in virtually any manner you can imagine.

Fonts in Word Splash Screens
Ever wonder how you can change the font used in a Word splash screen?

Getting Context-Sensitive Help
Word employs what is called a context-sensitive help system. This means that the program tries to direct you to the portion of the help system that is most likely to answer your question, based on what you are viewing or doing. There are several ways to invoke this type of help, as you learn here.

Minimized Word Window
When you open a document by double-clicking its icon, does it open maximized or minimized on the screen? This tip explains one of the causes of Word not opening the way you want it to—through making some configuration changes in Windows itself.

Miss Reveal Codes in Word 2000?
A quick link to a Microsoft Knowledge Base article about reveal codes.

Nifty Zooming With the Mouse
Want to use the mouse to control the zoom level for your document? You can do it by combining your mouse use with the Ctrl key.

Page Layout Zoom Settings
The zoom setting at which you view a document can sometimes be saved with a document. This tip explains how the zoom setting is set and reset within Word.

Resetting Word Menus
Word allows you to customize the program's menus as much as you want. At some point, however, you may want the menus to revert to their default condition. This tip explains how you can quickly and easily accomplish the reversion.

Restoring Lost Window Settings
Can't find your Word window, but you know it's there? Try this tip to get things back to normal.

Single Instance of Word
Here's a nifty macro that allows you to limit how many instances of Word 97 are open at the same time.

Turning On Picture Placeholders
Documents with lots of graphics can slow down the editing of a document, or they can be distracting. One way to deal with lots of graphics is to turn on picture placeholders. This feature, described in this tip, shows positioning information for a graphic, but does not display the graphic itself.

Understanding MRU Files
MRU, or most recently used, refers to the files you've most recently worked with in Word. You can specify if Word keeps track of these files, and if so, how many it tracks.

Understanding the At and Ln Indicators
Word's status bar includes two positional indicators: At and Ln. The purpose and relationship of these figures may not be immediately apparent. This tip explains what they are for and what they mean.

Understanding Views
Word allows you to view your document in any of four different methods. This tip describes the four methods completely so you can decide which viewing mode is best for you.

Using Text Boundaries
One of the design aids that Word provides is known as "text boundaries." You might find using them to be helpful. This tip explains what they are and how to control them.

Using the Style Area
Sometimes it is handy to know what style has been applied to paragraphs. This is where the style area comes in really handy. Turning on the style area is easy, provided you are viewing your document in the proper way. This tip explains how to use the style area.

Viewing Your Document Full-Screen
Want to see the absolute most of your document that you can? Then you need to become familiar with the full-screen display built into Word.

Viewing Your Entire Document Width
The Zoom tool is very useful to help you see all of your document information. Here's how to make sure you can see all the document information horizontally.

Working with Document Panes
Dividing your document into panes allows you to view different parts of the same document at the same time. This tip describes how to divide the document window into panes and then how to get rid of the panes.

 

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