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Taming Microsoft Word |
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Once upon a time, in the good old DOS days, Wordperfect 5.1was the king of typing software. Just by pressing the F5 key I get neat left margin hanging indents which is actually the basic skill in formating a neat document. You don't get fancy stuffs like highlightings, hyperlinks, autocorrect, etc, but you encounter less frustrations compared to the de-facto standard Microsoft Word, in today's world. It took me a long time to figure some of the idiosyncrisies inherent in MS Word which never get fixed after 10 years and numerous updates from the Bill Gates Co. |
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Bad Default font size, Bad Default Page Type :Letter:, Bad Default Margin Align Normal installation of Word assumes you want font size 10 and a paper size Letter. However font size 11 and A4 size paper is a better option suitable in many parts of the world. Americans of course are different, i am always at a loss in USA when trying to file documents, i can't find a two hole puncher to fit the usual A4 paper docuemnts i have, they use big punchers with 3 holes. Anyway the point is, the user ought to be able to decide the default arrangement during installation, just like when installing the Windows Operating System. Another bothersome issue is the case of margin alignment. By default MS Word selects "Align Left". Just look at this paragraph, i changed it to both Align Left and Right, the words are nicely framed on the left and right side. If you don't click on the both Align Left and Right icon, then MS Word will give you an ugly "jagged" right margin (because the program only aligns nicely the LEFT part of the paragraph). Difficult to use "autonumbering feature" Autonumbering of paragaphs is not for the faint hearted user. If you use it in the wrong way, a lot of strange subparagaph numberings will appear. For example when you delete certain paragraphs, all the autonumbering may be affected in unpredicatable ways. Worst still sometimes the FONT changes without your requesting it!! I found out the hard way how to use this feature. The secret is this: deleting a paragraph using mouse highlightings will result in disasterous consequences. When deleting, try deleteing by using the DELETE key on the keyboard. The effect is different!! Another tip, if subparagraphs with nested autonumbering is required, first create the running auto number shell lines of the mother paragraph first, then move the subparagaphs nestings around using the mouse. This will not jeopardise the overall plan of the autonumbering. Replace Icon buttons that you don't use with more useful shortcut buttons. Customise the icon toolbar by dragging out any seldom used command icons (Tools Customise Allcommands). Some very useful command is the Growfont (increase font size by single click of button) and Shrinkfont. Also Hanging Indent, singlepage print macros, etc.. Did you know DATESTAMP is very useful, just click on the icon and you get today's date in your letter. I wish that this useful icon should have been inserted by default when MS Word is installed! You could customise the icons in this way and save as Normal.DOT so everytime word starts you get very useful shortcut buttons. See what i have done below:
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