Tag: ms word

Make your life easier – customize your MS Word toolbar

You can make your life a lot easier by customizing the MS Word toolbar with functions that you often use.

Here’s how.

  1. Click the dropdown arrow () in the toolbar.
  2. Select More Commands…
  3. Click Popular Commands.
  4. Select any command from the list and then click Add>>.

Add whatever commands you usually use. Note the following:

  • You can add a button to run a custom macro.
  • You can add a separator by selecting which is at the top of the list.
I usually add these commands:
  • Para Keep With Next – let’s you turn on/off the keep with next attribute.
  • Para Page Break Before – adds a page break before the current line of text.
  • Style – shows the current style and allows you to select a new style.

Get Rid of MS Office 2013 Animations

Some people like it, but I don’t. MS Office 2013 introduces fluid animations to various actions. For example, in Excel, when you move from one cell to another the highlight box doesn’t jump, but slides to the next box.

To get rid of all of these animations:

  1. Right click on My Computer icon on the Desktop and choose Properties option OR just hit Win+Pause
  2. In the System window click the Advanced system settings link in the left pane
  3. Click Continue button if prompted by UAC
  4. Now click Settings button under Performance section
  5. Select the Custom and un-check the option Animate controls and elements inside windows to disable animations
  6. Click OK button
  7. Click OK button in the System Properties window


[Source: How To Code]

MS Word: Paste as Text

To set up a shortcut key to paste as text, do the following:
  1. From the View tab, create a new macro named PasteSpecialAsText.
  2. Replace the contents of the code editor with the following text:

    Sub PasteSpecialAsText()
         Selection.PasteSpecial DataType:=wdPasteText
    End Sub

  3. From the File menu, choose Word Options, then Customize Ribbon, and then click the Customize button next to Keyboard shortcuts at the bottom to bring up the Customize Keyboard dialog.
  4. Choose Macros from the categories list on the left, and then your macro in the Commands box on the right-hand side. Now you can enter in a shortcut key (Ctrl+Shift+V or your own), and click the Assign button.
This procedure was taken from LifeHacker and updated for Word 2010.

[Source LifeHacker]

Reduce PDF Size

When saving a Word file as PDF there is a quick trick to reduce the resulting file size. 
Use the following procedure.
  1. In Word, use the normal Save as -> PDF
  2. Open the PDF that was created (if it does not open automatically)
  3. Select File -> Save as
  4. Click “Save”.
This overwrites the current PDF file with a new version that removes the extra baggage that Word added.

As an example, I had a file that was originally 8,594 KB. After using the above procedure it was reduced to 6,353 KB.

Setup:
  • Word 2010
  • Adobe Acrobat 9
  • Windows 7

Word: Collapse All in the Navigation Pane

I like the Navigation Pane in Word 2010, but there is one problem: Word defaults to showing all of the headings expanded (meaning that it shows all heading levels), and if you have a lot of headings it makes it hard to find the right one. Shouldn’t there be an easy way to collapse all the headings? And then also an easy way to expand them all?
Well, there is. Just right click on any topic and then choose Expand All or Collapse All.