More Topics

The following are additional topics related to the category listed above. A bracketed number after the topic indicates how many articles are related to that subject.

• Borders and Shading [20]
• Bullets and Numbering [25]
• Captions [8]
• Character Formatting [58]
• Columns [14]
• Formatting Tables [24]
• Headers and Footers [27]
• Paragraph Formatting [56]
• Searching for Formatting [12]
• Section Formatting [52]
• Styles [48]
• Tabs and Tab Stops [29]
• Templates [26]

Tips, Tricks, and Answers

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

Absolutely Getting Rid of Formatting Want to get rid of every shred of formatting in a chunk of text? The tools are right on your system, and this tip explains how to quickly strip the formatting you no longer want. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Adding Fonts To the Context Menu Context menus appear when you right-click on different items in Word. These menus can be edited to add items, such as common fonts you routinely use. You can then apply a font to selected text by right-clicking and using your newly modified Context menu. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Adjusting the Distance between Borders and Text Word can place a border around your paragraphs easily. After doing so, you may decide the border needs to be farther from the text. Here is how to do that easily. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95

Applying Formatting in Lists How to change the font characteristics in lists without changing the text characteristics. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

AutoFormatting a Document Using the automatic formatting capabilities of Word. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Automatic Blank Pages at the End of a Section If you want to have a blank page at the end of a document section, you can insert one manually or you can use the technique described in this tip. The technique makes the added pages dynamic and easy to use. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Automatically Formatting Text within Quotes If you want to do formatting changes to quoted text within a document, figuring out exactly how to do it can be challenging. This tip discusses a couple of ideas you can use. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Basing Headers and Footers on the Previous Section Word treats the headers and footers in a document independently, based on the section in which they appear. This means that the headers and footers in one section can be different from those in the previous section—or you can instruct Word to continue the headers and footers from the previous section. This tip examines some of the interactions that these settings can cause within a document. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Breaking Lines in E-mail If you are creating an e-mail in Word, or are creating text that you will paste into an e-mail document, you may want to limit the length of each line of that text. This is easy to manually do in short messages, but much more difficult and time consuming in longer messages. The handy macro in this tip can do the tedious work for you, rendering a plain text message with each line no longer than a specific length. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Changing AutoFormatting Rules Adjusting how Word does automatic formatting. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Changing Sections A section is an organizational unit within a document that enables you to change different page-level formats in the same document. Sections are very helpful for some formatting needs, but you may not get the anticipated results when you choose to delete sections you no longer need. This tip explains why. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Changing Text Orientation Word allows you to change the orientation of text contained within certain objects, such as AutoShapes, text boxes, and table cells. Changing the orientation is easier enough, but how you do so depends on the version of Word you are using. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Changing the Default Font in Word 2000 and Later Versions An easy way to set the default font in Word's versions 2000 and later. Microsoft Word versions: 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Changing the Height of a Font Word allows you to independently adjust the horizontal width of your fonts, but not the height. There is one way around this shortcoming, as described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Columns within Text Boxes Text boxes are a common design element for some documents. If you want a text box to contain multiple columns, you are out of luck—Word doesn’t allow columns in text boxes. This tip describes how you can work around this limitation and get the design to appear just as you want it. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Consistent Formatting Between Word Versions How to troubleshoot formatting issues caused by upgrading to a newer version of Word. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Consistent Spacing Do you need to check your document to make sure that each sentence has one and only one trailing space? This tip presents a macro that will make short work of getting rid of any extraneous spaces after sentences. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Consistent Spacing in WordBasic Want to make sure you have the same number of spaces at the end of every sentence? This WordBasic macro will help you be consistent. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95

Converting List Types There are two types of common lists you can create in Word: bulleted lists and numbered lists. You can switch between the type types by using the techniques described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Copying Formats Want to copy a format from one place to another without taking your hands off the keyboard? It’s easy to do if you apply the shortcut keys in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Creating a Numbered List Numbered lists provide a 1-2-3 way of organizing your document. You can create numbered lists very easily using the techniques in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Creating See-through Text Boxes Want clear areas of your text boxes to be transparent? Here's how to do it. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Deleting Borders Borders around a paragraph can be a nice touch, but you may want to remove those borders at some time. You can do so quite easily by following the information in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Detailed Measurements The ruler, a helpful tool for viewing positioning information, can be even more useful with this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Different Layouts for Footnotes If you want to have footnotes appear in a different number of columns than what your text appears in, you may be out of luck. Word won’t support this type of formatting, unfortunately. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Double Indenting Indenting a paragraph is easy in Word. In fact, the program provides shortcut keys that make it a snap. Indenting from both the left and right margins is not as easy, but you can make it easy by using the techniques described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Drop Shadows for Tables When adding borders and shading to a document’s elements, Word allows you to quickly add drop shadows to paragraphs, text boxes, and other objects. What you cannot easily do is to add a drop-shadow to a table. This tip explains different ways you can still achieve the desired results. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Eliminating "Before Spacing" at the Top of a Page One of the formatting attributes that can be specified for a paragraph is to leave space before the paragraph when flowing the text in a document. This is great for setting the paragraph (perhaps a heading) off from surrounding text, but you may not want this “space before” to appear if the paragraph is at the top of a page. This tip explains the formatting ins and outs and how you can control where Word places paragraphs formatted in this way. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Embedding TrueType Fonts How to include fonts with your document. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Embedding TrueType Fonts by Default TrueType fonts can be embedded in a Word document so that it can be properly viewed on systems that don’t have the font installed. If you embed fonts often, you may want a way to do so by default, without the necessity of explicitly going through the proper steps for each document. This tip explores ways you can accomplish this desire. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Embedding TrueType Fonts in E-mails Composed in Word When you use Word as your e-mail editor, it allows you to format the text of your e-mail messages using tools you are familiar with. Not all features relative to a document—such as embedding fonts—are available in the e-mail messages created with Word. This tip presents a way you can workaround this limitation. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Engraving Text Defining what Engrave Text is and how to use it in your Word document. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Ensuring Consistent Lines on Each Page Need to have a specific number of lines on each page in your documents? What if those documents are subdocuments to a master document? This tip explains the ways that you can get the exact number of lines you need. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Extra Shaded Lines If you insert a page break at the beginning of a paragraph, and the paragraph in which you insert the break is shaded, you could end up with some shading left at the bottom of the preceding page. This tip explains why and how you can avoid such a formatting faux pas. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Fixing Mismatched Bullets and Numbers A tip for using Show/Hide to locate mismatched features in Bullets and Numbering. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Font Substitution Problems If you exchange documents with other people you may run into problems related to font substitution. This occurs when Word, unable to find a required font, substitutes a different font, thereby altering the display and printout of the document. Different ways to approach this problem are covered in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Format E-mail using AutoFormat in Older Versions of Word How to format e-mail (or Web pages) that you paste into a Word document so that they wrap like normal text. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95

Format Painter Shortcut The Format Painter is a great help when it comes to applying consistent formatting in a document. If you memorize two easy-to-use shortcuts, you can gain even more advantages by using the keyboard instead of the Format Painter itself. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Formatted Merging When you use the mail-merge capabilities of Word, the information merged takes on the formatting of your source document, not your data source. If you want to apply different formatting to some of the information you merge, you’ll need to use the technique illustrated in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Formatting All Headings At Once If you need to apply a common formatting change to all the headings in your document, a quick way to do it is to use the Outline view of Word. This tip presents a simple technique that can save you loads of time. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Formatting Differences between Word Versions Create a document in one version of Word on one machine and then open that document in a different version of Word on a different machine and you may be surprised at the results. There can be lots of things that affect how the same document is rendered, displayed, and printed on each system. This tip discusses some of the things you can do to minimize the differences between systems. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Formatting E-mail using AutoFormat If you copy the text of an e-mail message to a Word document, you may notice that the formatting of the text leaves a lot to be desired. If you are faced with formatting text that originated in an e-mail, you’ll appreciate the information presented in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Formatting Fractions Need to have a great looking fraction in a document? It’s relatively easy to do if you apply the formatting techniques discussed in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Formatting Shortcut Key Behavior Changes in Word 2000 Ways in which the formatting shortcut keys changed in Word 2000. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000

Highlighting Information Using Shading Paragraph shading is a quick, easy way to highlight information in a document. Using the Borders and Shading dialog box, you can apply all sorts of shading to your text. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Hyperlink Formatting Word, as you type, normally formats hyperlinks automatically. If you don’t like the way that hyperlinks look in a particular document, you can make a simple change to the style used for hyperlinks and the change will be made throughout your document. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Inserting Signature Lines How to create signature lines in a Word document. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Keeping Paragraphs on the Same Page The tool to keep your paragraphs formatted to stay on the same page. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Letters and Numbers in Page Numbers How to combine letters and numbers in your page numbering Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Margin Notes in Word Some types of documents rely upon margin notes to the left or right of your main text. Getting these to appear in Word can be tricky, as there is no built-in function that creates them. This tip discusses one approach you can use, which involves tables. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

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. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Precise Ruler Adjustments When adjusting the position of things on the ruler (like tab stops), you can use the Alt key to get very precise in your adjustments. Just hold down the key as you drag items with the mouse, and you can immediately see what is happening. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Problems Using Words as Bullets If you know the secret, you can use actual words as “bullets” in a bulleted list. The built-in bulleted lists in Word aren’t the way to achieve what you want to do, and this tip explains why. It also provides a macro that you can use to apply the formatting you want to the list. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Protecting Headers and Footers If you don’t want the information in a header of footer to be changed by users of your document, there are a couple of things you can try. This tip discusses one approach, using the protection features of Word itself. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Quickly Adjusting Paragraph Spacing Word allows you to easily adjust the amount of white space before and after a paragraph. Rather than continually displaying the Paragraph dialog box, you may want to use the macros in this tip to make short work of adding the desired space. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Quickly Changing Font Sizes A quick little shortcut can help you easily step through different font sizes for whatever text you’ve selected. Word provides a shortcut for increasing font sizes and another for decreasing font sizes. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Quickly Displaying Formatting Specs Word maintains detailed formatting information about every shred of text in a document. This tip explains how you can see those details so you can understand the formatting just as Word understands it. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Quickly Formatting Multiple Documents What is the best way to apply consistent formatting across a range of documents? Templates, of course, are very helpful in this regard. There are other formatting considerations which are not controlled by templates, and this tip presents ways you can account for all the formatting you need to apply. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Read-Only Embedded Fonts How Word embeds fonts and how to work around some of the quirks involved in sharing Word documents. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Removing the Box from a Text Box Insert a text box, and it is automatically formatted to have a border around it. Getting rid of the border is easy, if you follow the steps in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Revisiting Formatting Shortcut Key Behavior Changes in Word 2000 A second take on the issue of how Word 2000 changed the behavior of some formatting shortcut keys. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000

Rotating a Page of Text Beginning with Word 2000, you can rotate a page of text by using the Far East language support built into Word. This tip shows how easy it is to implement this little trick. Microsoft Word versions: 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Setting a Negative Paragraph Indent You can format a paragraph so that it extends into the left margin area. This tip explains what you need to do to accomplish this trick. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Setting the Starting Line Number You are not limited to starting the line numbering in a document with 1. You can, instead, start the numbering at any other value you want. This is real handy when you have multiple documents that need to be printed, in order. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Setting the Wrapping Default for Objects How text wraps around text boxes and drawing objects is an important consideration in the layout of any document. This tip explains how you can make text-wrapping settings the default for those types of objects in your documents. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Sign-in Sheets Printed sign-in sheets are a staple at many meetings and seminars. Word can create them lickety-split just by using a few tabs. It’s all in the setup of your styles, as this tip illustrates. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Skipping Numbering Got a numbered list, but you want to add other types of non-numbered paragraphs in the middle of the list? It’s easy to do if you follow the steps in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Talking to Yourself Using Hidden Text Got a few notes you want to add to a document? You can do it with comments, but another way may be better: Add notes that won’t print out, right in the regular text. This tip explains how that is done and even provides a macro that makes it easier. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Talking to Yourself Using WordBasic Hidden Text Using Word's hidden text attribute, you can easily add notes for just your use. This tip includes a WordBasic macro to make the task a snap. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95

The Standard on the Ruler A handy online resource concerning Word's ruler. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Two Page Numbering Schemes in the Same Document Word is great at numbering pages if you only need a single, consistent numbering scheme through the document. If you need two separate numbering schemes, you need to apply some workarounds described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Unable to Use Bulleting and Numbering Got a document where you just can’t get bullets and numbering to work right? It could be that your document is corrupted. This tip discusses some of the things you can do to figure out the problem. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Underlining Quoted Text Do you have a document in which you need to convert all the quoted text (text surrounded by quotes) to underlined text? If so, then the macro presented in this tip will be a huge timesaver for you. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Understanding Justification Paragraphs can be aligned in four different ways. This tip examines those alignment methods. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Understanding Lists When designing documents there are two types of lists commonly used: numbered lists and bulleted lists. This tip introduces you to the types of lists available. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Understanding Paragraph Alignment Word includes several ways you can align your paragraphs in relation to the left and right margins. This tip discusses the different alignment options. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Understanding Picas One of the units of measure understood by Word is the pica, which is equivalent to 1/6 of an inch. This tip explains how to enter picas into dialog boxes where measurements are required. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Understanding Point Sizes A point is a typographical measurement. Points are used for many types of measurements in Word; this tip explains how you can enter them directly into dialog boxes and the like. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Understanding Single Line Spacing Single line spacing, the default spacing used in a paragraph, allows Word to adjust the spacing of individual lines in a paragraph to fit the largest element on that line. You can adjust the line spacing by using the Paragraph dialog box, as described in this tip. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Understanding Strikethrough Formatting Strikethrough can assist in tracking changes with word. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Using a Macro to Change the Formatting of All Instances of a Word If you use the formatting of a specific word as a design element in your document, you may be interested in the macro in this tip. It allows you to format all occurrences of a word in a desired manner. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Using Chapter Numbers with Page Numbers Important tip placing Chapter Numbers in Word with your Page Numbers. Microsoft Word versions: 6 | 95 | 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Using Parallel Columns Users of WordPerfect know what parallel columns are. There is no such capability in Word, but there are ways you can achieve the same end results. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003 | 2007

Using Text As a Page Border Word allows you to add page borders to a document, but you might find the options in this area too limiting. What if you want to create your own page borders or use text as a page border? This tip explains how you can accomplish your designs. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Working with Other People's Files If you get lots of files from other people in your office, you may be looking for a quick way to “reformat” what they’ve done into a format that you prefer. This tip provides one technique you can try, provided you and your coworkers use styles for formatting your documents. Microsoft Word versions: 97 | 2000 | 2002 | 2003

Helpful Links

Ask a Word Question
Make a Comment

WordTips
Word 2007 Tips
ExcelTips
Excel 2007 Tips
Vital News Home
 
WordTips FAQ
WordTips Premium
 
Learn Access Now
 
Beauty Tips
Car Care Tips
Cleaning Tips
College Tips
Cooking Tips
Gardening Tips
Health Tips
Home Improvement
Money Tips
Pet Tips
Tips.Net Home
 
Advertise on the
WordTips Site

 

RSS Feeds

 Daily Nuggets (a WordTip every day)

 Allen Wyatt's WordTips (the weekly classic)