C
Clive Huggan
Dear all,
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS ABOUT A *NON-COMMERCIAL* RESOURCE BASED IN PART ON
ACCUMULATED ADVICE ON WORD FOR THE MAC FROM THIS NEWSGROUP
The October 2007 edition of my notes on Word -- titled "Bend Word to Your
Will" -- is now available for downloading from the Word MVPs' site
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).
If you have downloaded the notes before: this edition incorporates new
material about the Work menu and adding/removing menu items, and John
McGhie's posts about Master Documents, resulting from recent discussions at
microsoft.public.mac.office.word -- plus many minor improvements made since
the previous edition of March 2007. To see exactly what has changed, open
the new edition, then choose the Tools menu => Track changes => Compare
documents => navigate to the previous edition on your Mac => Open -- then
wait!
The rest of this announcement is relevant only if you haven't downloaded the
notes before.
WHAT IS "BEND WORD TO YOUR WILL"?
"Bend Word to Your Will" is not a commercial product for sale -- it's free.
It's a dictionary-style (mainly) set of notes on Word that I've been
continually adding to and polishing for the past six years. They are "real
life" notes, which I keep consulting in my professional work, especially
when explaining some of Word's features to my colleagues.
COVERAGE
If you would like to see what the document contains before downloading it,
on the web page you can click on the words "Table of contents" in the third
paragraph.
The main things that interest me are those that improve my speed and
efficiency -- especially in working on long and/or complex documents. I'm
especially interested in reducing the chances of corruption in my documents,
which are usually distributed back and forwards between many people, on PCs
and Macs.
Among many dozens of topics in the notes, I first describe ways of amending
Word's settings to improve the control of what you're doing. I cover styles
extensively -- they're essential for saving time and frustration in long
documents. I describe how easy it is to modify toolbars to reflect your own
way of working rather than keeping the averaged-out preferences of Word's
tens of millions of users. I explain how I use AutoCorrect to expand
abbreviated terms that I type in "shorthand" much of the time, and I
describe a small number of very useful, simple macros. Sources of further
information on Word are also provided.
But the above is only a small sample of the coverage.
The emphasis is on configuring your copy of Word as *you* see fit, to make
it suit your needs -- but not to make the documents themselves so advanced
that they confuse people who have only a basic knowledge of Word. The ideas
in the notes don't require you to be a geek -- I'm not one -- although some
of the solutions are best absorbed with the TV off!
I don't cover graphics, equations or networked configurations of Word,
because I don't use Word in those contexts.
Much of the material draws on, and most is consistent with, advice given in
this newsgroup by Word:Mac gurus John McGhie, Daiya Mitchell, Bob Jones,
Elliott Roper, Michel Bintener, Corentin Cras-Méneur, John McGimpsey, Jim
Gordon, Paul Berkowitz, Beth Rosengard and others. Like so many people, I've
greatly benefited from their freely given expertise, especially on the
microsoft.public.mac.office.word newsgroup.
WHAT VERSIONS DO THE NOTES COVER?
I wrote the first editions of the notes for Word 2001, after moving from
Word 5.1a. However, I also took into account other versions (Mac and PC)
that I've used in the past 20 years. I skipped Word X, then moved to Word
2004. The new edition contains more coverage of the changes introduced in
Word 2004 that I have found useful.
WHAT'S THE STRUCTURE OF THE NOTES?
"Bend Word to your Will" is a Word document, for the most part structured
like a dictionary with broadly self-contained articles. It's intended to be
used on-screen rather than to be printed out, because the articles have
clickable hyperlinks leading to related topics. It's about 200 pages long,
and you'd be crazy to read it from end to end -- it's a dictionary, not a
novel! So it's best to dip into particular topics via the "Find" command and
the table of contents.
(It is, however, *essential* to read the front end of the document --
especially pages 3 and 5, so you can select some Word settings that will
allow you to use the document effectively. You'll also benefit from the
introductory section starting on page 17 -- there are some really important
tips in there for getting the most out of the notes.)
Accompanying the "Bend Word to your Will" document (but downloadable
separately) is a Word template. Among other things, it includes a skeleton
for long documents that I create using techniques covered in "Bend Word to
your Will", and macros that I mention in "Bend Word to Your Will". If you
aren't familiar with templates, don't bother to download it -- you can get
it later if you need it. (My apologies: the template does not yet include
the most recent formatting changes made in the ³Bend Word to Your Will²
document.)
Enjoy! I hope you keep bending Word to *your* will!
Cheers,
Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia
THIS ANNOUNCEMENT IS ABOUT A *NON-COMMERCIAL* RESOURCE BASED IN PART ON
ACCUMULATED ADVICE ON WORD FOR THE MAC FROM THIS NEWSGROUP
The October 2007 edition of my notes on Word -- titled "Bend Word to Your
Will" -- is now available for downloading from the Word MVPs' site
(http://word.mvps.org/Mac/Bend/BendWordToYourWill.html).
If you have downloaded the notes before: this edition incorporates new
material about the Work menu and adding/removing menu items, and John
McGhie's posts about Master Documents, resulting from recent discussions at
microsoft.public.mac.office.word -- plus many minor improvements made since
the previous edition of March 2007. To see exactly what has changed, open
the new edition, then choose the Tools menu => Track changes => Compare
documents => navigate to the previous edition on your Mac => Open -- then
wait!
The rest of this announcement is relevant only if you haven't downloaded the
notes before.
WHAT IS "BEND WORD TO YOUR WILL"?
"Bend Word to Your Will" is not a commercial product for sale -- it's free.
It's a dictionary-style (mainly) set of notes on Word that I've been
continually adding to and polishing for the past six years. They are "real
life" notes, which I keep consulting in my professional work, especially
when explaining some of Word's features to my colleagues.
COVERAGE
If you would like to see what the document contains before downloading it,
on the web page you can click on the words "Table of contents" in the third
paragraph.
The main things that interest me are those that improve my speed and
efficiency -- especially in working on long and/or complex documents. I'm
especially interested in reducing the chances of corruption in my documents,
which are usually distributed back and forwards between many people, on PCs
and Macs.
Among many dozens of topics in the notes, I first describe ways of amending
Word's settings to improve the control of what you're doing. I cover styles
extensively -- they're essential for saving time and frustration in long
documents. I describe how easy it is to modify toolbars to reflect your own
way of working rather than keeping the averaged-out preferences of Word's
tens of millions of users. I explain how I use AutoCorrect to expand
abbreviated terms that I type in "shorthand" much of the time, and I
describe a small number of very useful, simple macros. Sources of further
information on Word are also provided.
But the above is only a small sample of the coverage.
The emphasis is on configuring your copy of Word as *you* see fit, to make
it suit your needs -- but not to make the documents themselves so advanced
that they confuse people who have only a basic knowledge of Word. The ideas
in the notes don't require you to be a geek -- I'm not one -- although some
of the solutions are best absorbed with the TV off!
I don't cover graphics, equations or networked configurations of Word,
because I don't use Word in those contexts.
Much of the material draws on, and most is consistent with, advice given in
this newsgroup by Word:Mac gurus John McGhie, Daiya Mitchell, Bob Jones,
Elliott Roper, Michel Bintener, Corentin Cras-Méneur, John McGimpsey, Jim
Gordon, Paul Berkowitz, Beth Rosengard and others. Like so many people, I've
greatly benefited from their freely given expertise, especially on the
microsoft.public.mac.office.word newsgroup.
WHAT VERSIONS DO THE NOTES COVER?
I wrote the first editions of the notes for Word 2001, after moving from
Word 5.1a. However, I also took into account other versions (Mac and PC)
that I've used in the past 20 years. I skipped Word X, then moved to Word
2004. The new edition contains more coverage of the changes introduced in
Word 2004 that I have found useful.
WHAT'S THE STRUCTURE OF THE NOTES?
"Bend Word to your Will" is a Word document, for the most part structured
like a dictionary with broadly self-contained articles. It's intended to be
used on-screen rather than to be printed out, because the articles have
clickable hyperlinks leading to related topics. It's about 200 pages long,
and you'd be crazy to read it from end to end -- it's a dictionary, not a
novel! So it's best to dip into particular topics via the "Find" command and
the table of contents.
(It is, however, *essential* to read the front end of the document --
especially pages 3 and 5, so you can select some Word settings that will
allow you to use the document effectively. You'll also benefit from the
introductory section starting on page 17 -- there are some really important
tips in there for getting the most out of the notes.)
Accompanying the "Bend Word to your Will" document (but downloadable
separately) is a Word template. Among other things, it includes a skeleton
for long documents that I create using techniques covered in "Bend Word to
your Will", and macros that I mention in "Bend Word to Your Will". If you
aren't familiar with templates, don't bother to download it -- you can get
it later if you need it. (My apologies: the template does not yet include
the most recent formatting changes made in the ³Bend Word to Your Will²
document.)
Enjoy! I hope you keep bending Word to *your* will!
Cheers,
Clive Huggan
Canberra, Australia