Tag: tip

Selecting a Text Block

I just came across the shortcut of the year for MS Word over at TechRepublic.  Normally, when selecting text, you select it in a continuous line.  You can expand the selection forwards or backwards.
But, did you know that you can select a text block?  This is one of the powerful features of Vim for those of you who have used Unix computers.
Just hold the ALT key while you click.

For example, if I have the following text:

REM First  line
REM Second line

REM Third  line

You can hold the ALT key and then select the first three letters of each sentence:
REM First  line
REM Second line

REM Third  line

You can also cut and paste a block of text. In the above example, one could cut the selection and then paste it in the middle of the first line, resulting in:

 First REM line
 SecondREM line

 Third REM line

Note that selection of text blocks does not work inside of tables.

[Source TechRepublic]

Too Much Style

Police Officer: You in the red Corvette! Pull over immediately.
Xander Cage: Yeah, yeah. These monkeys are following me because I just took this car. Obviously the car doesn’t belong to me, it’s not my style…
If you are overwhelmed by the number of styles in Word 2007, you can configure Word to show only the styles that are currently being used in the document:
  1. Alt + Ctrl + Shift + s  (opens the style box)
  2. Click on Options on the bottom right
  3. Under Select styles to show choose In use

Now, in the panel on the right you only see what is currently being used in the document.  The ribbon at the top still gives you access to all the styles.  If you apply a style that is not currently being used, then it gets added to the panel on right.

You can also use Ctrl + Shift + s to pop up a window where you can type in a style name. This window has auto complete, so just start typing and the closest match to the style name will fill in.

Saving images from MS Word 2007

What’s the easiest way to save images that are in an MS Word 2007 file?  Word 2007 changed the file format from .doc to .docx, which is really just a zip file (Like Java jar files).  Just change the file extension from .docx to .zip and then extract it with any Zip program (like Winzip).  Inside the extracted directory there is a sub-directory with all the graphics in the file along with XML files that describe the document.

[Tip from Graham Mayor]