Hair on Fire

It's been a rough two weeks, for more than one reason.

I told you near the end of April that we were moving in the near future. Well, the near future has arrived, and we moved out of our home at the first of this week. Today, however, we are at a family reunion in Texas. Then, tomorrow we high-tail it back to Wyoming so we can close on the sale on Monday.

Well, about a week or ten days ago, the hosting company for the Tips.Net websites decided they absolutely HAD to do an upgrade for security reasons. They took about 12-14 hours, during which the sites were down, and when they finished they said "check it out and let us know of any issues."

There were, of course, issues. Like email not working. Like commenting not working. Like back-end processes not working. Like database access not working. Like FTP not working. On and on and on. And they were quite slow in getting things fixed.

The bottom line is that if you tried to email me a solution to last week's Help Wanted questions, there's a good chance I didn't get it. Because I wasn't getting anything! All in the middle of trying to pack up the house and a business.

As everyone knows, there are only 24 hours in a day. Sometimes a perfect storm happens, and you still need to try to get through everything in those 24 hours. There were days I was no fun to be around, I know.

I'm hoping, at this point, that things are pretty well back to normal, at least as far as my hosted servers are concerned. I guess that only time will tell, but this go-round all the hair-on-fire issues will be happening as we move into our new house this next week.

I honestly mean it when I say that I hope you've had a good week. I hope you also enjoy the tips in this week's newsletter.

—Allen
     

WordTips (menu) for 6 June 2026

Graphics
Hiding Graphics

Do you need a printout where graphics can be turned on and off? This tip provides some concrete ways you can get just want you need in such a printout.

Read this tip »

 
Word is a great word processor
Precisely Adjusting Tab Stops

When you need to be very specific about where a tab stop is located, you'll want to become familiar with the Tabs dialog box. This tip explains how you can use the dialog box to change the positioning of existing tab stops.

Read this tip »

 
Become a Mail Merge Wizard

Do you want to become a mail merge magician? Discover everything from the basics to being able to complete all your documentation needs—it's all here! Experience the magic today!

 
Files
Working with E-mailed Documents

Ding! You've got mail. That mail has a Word document attached to it. Before you rush off and open that document, take a moment to reflect on the information presented in this tip.

Read this tip »

 
Columns
Mixing Column Formats On a Page

Want to switch the number of columns used for your text, in the middle of a page? You can do this very easily by following the steps in this tip.

Read this tip »

     

WordTips YouTube Channel

Do you like to learn visually? Make sure you check out the WordTips YouTube channel. New videos are added weekly. (I typically try to add them on Tuesdays and Thursdays.)

New video: Adding a Hyperlink
Adding a hyperlink to a text selection is easy to do in Word. All you need to do is make a couple of clicks and specify the target for the link.

 

New video: Creating Non-Printing Text Boxes
Text boxes can be helpful for segmenting information from your main document and for creating unique page layouts. What if you don't want the text boxes to print with your document, however? This Quick Tip demonstrates a couple of ways you can suppress the printing of text boxes.

 
     

Special Note!

I've been publishing WordTips for years. Decades, actually. The newsletter you are reading right now is for very old versions of Word. I still publish it because I know that some people are still using very old versions of Word. Most people, however, are using newer versions of the program. If you are are using a newer version of Word (2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, or the version in Microsoft 365), then you should seriously consider changing to the version of the newsletter designed for you. You can do so by clicking this link.

Thanks for your support of WordTips, and I hope you enjoy whichever version of the newsletter you receive. If you have any questions, just let me know.

WordTips is a free service of Sharon Parq Associates. You can find thousands of tips at our website and a whole lot more. WordTips is part of the Tips.Net network.
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