Tips, Tricks, and Answers

The following articles are available for the 'Managing Macros' topic. Click the article''s title (shown in bold) to see the associated article.

   Attaching Macros to Documents
When you distribute documents to other people, you may want those documents to have associated macros that the reader can access. This can be a problem, as discussed in this tip.

   Changing a Macro Description
Part of documenting macros is to provide a good, succinct description of what they do. Changing the description of an existing macro is easy if you apply the techniques described in this tip.

   Clean Up Your Macro List
Macros are part of the document and template that are loaded into memory when you open a file. If you have "junk" macros in the template or file the document takes longer to load. Periodically reviewing your macros and deleting unneeded ones is a good practice.

   Deleting a Macro
Macros are often created to accomplish a specific task, after which they are no longer needed. If you need to delete a macro you previously created, you can get rid of it by following the steps in this tip.

   Disabled Macros
Did you recently upgrade from Word 97 to a later version of Word, only to find that your macros no longer work? Here's the reason, along with how to fix the situation.

   Hiding Macros
Don't want a particular macro to be visible in the Macros dialog box? Once you understand the criteria that Word uses when determining which macros to display, you can use this understanding to your benefit. This tip examines three ways you can keep your macros out of the dialog box.

   Making Macros Readily Available
Want to get at your macros quickly? One way is to create a Macros menu to make your most common macros immediately available.

   Printing a Macro List
Need a list of all the macros you've created? Word doesn't provide a way to create such a list, but you can use the workarounds and ideas presented in this tip to get what you need.

   Recovering Macros and AutoText Entries from Normal.dot
Many of your custom configurations of Word—most notably macros and AutoText entries—are stored in the Normal.dot template. When you try to move these entries from one system to another, you could run into problems. This tip explains what to do if trying to transfer macros and AutoText entries causes your system to hang.

   Removing a Macro from a Shortcut Key
Associate a macro with a shortcut key, and at some time you may want to break that association. (Perhaps so the shortcut key can be used for a different purpose.) Here's how to make sure that a macro is not associated with a given shortcut key.

   Renaming a Macro
Want to give your macros a different name than they currently use? There are a couple of ways you can do the renaming, as discussed here.

   Restoring a Keyboard Shortcut
Word uses keyboard shortcuts for all sorts of tasks. Sometimes you may create a shortcut that messes up one of the other shortcuts you really need to keep. This tip explains how you can "undo" a shortcut key assignment so that everything gets back to normal.

   Using the Organizer to Manage Macros
There may come a time when you want to copy or rename macros. You can do this quite easily by using the Organizer tool provided by Word.