May 21, 2008

Always Looking for a Shortcut?

Have you recently made the switch over to MS Word 2007? If so, do you miss your custom keyboard shortcuts from previous versions?

Looking for a way to get those back?

No problem!

They're still there, but the route you take to get to them is slightly different.

You either need to get into the Word Options via the Office Button, Customize section or you can right click on the Quick Access Toolbar and choose Customize Quick Access Toolbar.

Now, take a look at the bottom of the Options dialogue window. See it?

Yep, that's right. It says "Keyboard shortcuts" with a Customize button. Click it.

You'll now find yourself in a somewhat familiar place. Obviously, there are some changes, such as you're looking through commands that are grouped based on the ribbon where they're found instead of a menu, but the rest is pretty much the same.

Select a category on the left and choose a command from the right.

Click into the "Press new shortcut key" field and then actually press the key combination you're looking to use.

Check the key combination's availability below the "Current keys" box.

If it's listed as unassigned, you have one you can use without consequence.

If it lists something else, that combination is currently in use and you can either find something else that's unassigned or go ahead and assign that one anyway. Keep in mind that whatever was already used will no longer have that shortcut, so make sure it's not something you may need in the future.

When you have something you're ready to use, verify that Normal is selected in the "Save viagra pro in" field (so that it's available in all of your documents) and then click Assign.

There you have it. Keyboard shortcuts done just the way you like them!

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Letter Case Mania

Ever find yourself constantly trying to change the capitalization of words or sentences? What do you do?

Maybe you highlight the word or phrase and retype it.

Or, perhaps you're the type who only replaces the individual viagra pictures letters that need to be changed. What a headache!

Well, do you know about the Change Case feature under the Format menu?

Or, for those of you with Word 2007, the button on the Home ribbon.

You know, where you get the options of sentence case, all lower case letters, all upper case letters, all title case letters or to toggle all the letters between upper and lower case.

What I have for you today are a few shortcuts that can replace the Change Case feature and believe it or not, but they're faster than anything you've ever tried!

Let's start with the most versatile choice.

Once you highlight the text to change, use Shift + F3. With that, you can scroll between sentence case letters, all lower case letters and all upper case letters.

That looks great, but what if you want to use all caps and you don't feel like toggling through your choices?

Is there a quicker way?

Of course there is!

If you know you want your text to be in all caps, simply hit Ctrl + Shift + A.

Plus, as if that weren't enough, there's another option you can try. Yep, you can use small caps, which are all the letters in capital letter formation, but slightly smaller than the usual capital letter.

Ctrl + Shift + K will give you small caps, which is a good "attention getter," without completely shouting at the reader.

That's it. Three keys and you're on the way to the formatting you need!

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May 8, 2008

Quick Paragraph Relocation in Word

Do you sometimes find yourself highlighting entire paragraphs in an MS Word document for relocation?

(As we discussed yesterday, every time you hit the Enter key, you've finished a paragraph and are creating a new one, so just remember that "paragraphs" in Word could be as small as a single word in a bulleted list).

So, what do you do?

I bet I can guess! You first highlight the entire paragraph, then you use the mouse to grab and hold the paragraph and while still using the mouse, you run the pointer up and down the document to find the "right place" to drop the paragraph.

Then when you need to move something else, you start the process all over again. Am I right?

Whew!

That's a lot of repetition.

Well, here's a mouseless, three key solution to the situation that works so much better!

The next time you need to move an entire paragraph, try this little trick:

  • Put your cursor in the paragraph you want to move.

  • Now, hold down the Alt + Shift keys.

(Here's the move. Don't blink or you'll miss it!)

  • Press the up or down arrow in whichever direction you need to move your paragraph. That's it!

Each time you press an arrow key (while still holding Alt + Shift), your text is moved one paragraph up or down.

To move something a long way, simply hold down the arrow key and let it go!

For those of you who are already asking what makes this so different from the recent F2 trick I showed you, the answer lies within the highlighting and in the amount of text it moves. First, the F2 trick only moved the highlighted text. That tip never even instructed you to highlight! Word automatically grabs the whole paragraph and takes it along for the ride. On the other hand, if you have a couple of consecutive paragraphs to move together, you can highlight part of each one and use this trick, which will move both of them at the same time.

It's viagra online way easier than any other paragraph moving trick I've ever used!

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Paragraph Marks in Word

Did you know that a paragraph in MS Word doesn't necessarily mean complete sentences or any of the other rules your English teacher taught you?

Well, to Word, it doesn't.

I'm sure any English teacher would disagree, but here's the scoop!

Word considers a paragraph to be the text between two paragraph marks.

So, what are paragraph marks?

Well, they look like this:

You've never seen that in your Word documents, have you?

No, I'm sure you haven't, but I assure you, they're there. They're just one of the many hidden marks Word puts in to indicate viagra online generic spaces, enters, tabs, etc. You may not see them, but they do exist.

(It's possible to have Word display those marks by clicking the button on the Standard toolbar that contains the paragraph symbol. Or, if you're using Word 2007, you'll find the button on the Home Ribbon under the Paragraph section. In any version, it's a toggle button, so just click on it once to display the hidden marks and once more to hide them again).

Basically, Word inserts a paragraph mark any time you hit the Enter key.

For example, if you're making a list of items, each item becomes its own paragraph every time you hit Enter.

So, why do you care?

Allow me to tell you! There are a lot of instructions and references to a paragraph in Word. As I've worked with different people, I've noticed one thing: they usually only see a paragraph in the traditional format. Because of that, single word lists just don't register in their thinking process.

The result?

Put simply, they're often confused with instructions. It's hard to follow instructions when you don't know the definitions of the terms (at least Word's definitions).

So, now that we're clear on what Word means, keep an eye out for tomorrow's tip, because I'm going to show you some cool tricks you can do with your paragraphs. Stay tuned!

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The Magic of F2 in Word

When you move text in MS Word, what do you do?

Do you highlight the text to be moved and then use your mouse to drag and drop it to a new location? Or, do you highlight the text and then use the cut/paste options?

Either way, it's a lot of steps and for many people, it involves removing your hands from the keyboard to use the mouse.

Well, for those of you who are always looking for a way to go "mouseless," here's a trick for moving your text without ever leaving the keyboard.

  • You still need to highlight the text to be moved. (If you're looking to reduce mouse use, be sure to use the Shift key in combination with the arrow keys to complete your highlighting).

  • Now, hit the F2 key.

  • At this point, you're ready to tell Word where to put your selection. Simply use the arrow keys or the Page Up/Page Down keys to move the cursor to the new location. (If you change your mind, hit the Esc key and the F2 effect will be removed).

  • When you've found the correct spot, hit the Enter key.

Poof!

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Your selection is moved, no mouse required!

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