They are not really secrets but unless you have been shown them, then you won’t know about them. And as I write this, I am aware that I too made these mistakes when I first started using computers.

First may I say that I think Microsoft Word is a fantastic tool as it allows people with almost no training in computers, write letters and CV’s and all sorts of simple documents. It may be responsible for the crime that is “the (mis)use of Comic Sans” but it does get the job done, most of the time. The problem is that when the documents get a little bigger or complex, the wheels start to come off the cart.

Because small documents can be literally hacked together, there is no need for consistency in a one page document as long as it looks OK when printed. However when the page count gets bigger and the number of sections increased, the style of the document begins to change throughout the document. This is because as we create a document we need to make little decisions about hoe it will look as we go. This problem is doubled if there is any collaboration in a document. Both contributors will make their own decisions as they go and usually they will be different. For example, at the end of each sentence some people mistakenly put two spaces after the full stop, thinking it’s the right thing to do. (Double spaces are a throwback to the days of mono-spaced typewriters where it was not easy to see the end of a sentence however these died out years ago with proportional fonts and so too should the practice of double spaces.)

There is a simple button which reveals (mostly) what is going on in a word document and it looks like this 

You’ll find it in the centre if the menu bar and it is used to show the hidden characters.
To activate it, just press the button and to turn it off, press it again.

The first thing you will see is that the page will probably look much more cluttered and if the document has been written by somebody else, you may get an insight into a colleague you weren’t expecting. I have seen words on the right hand side of the page, put there by typing spaces across the page as opposed to right aligning the text. A really common one is starting a new page by pressing the enter key a number of times until a new page appears as opposed to putting in a page break.

So what will you see and what are they?

The first thing you should see is our little friend on the button .

This is what you get when you press the enter key. It marks the end of a paragraph. That is important about that is that often there is extra space added below a paragraph which separates it from other paragraphs. Some like to put an extra space between paragraphs to give them definition and knowing no better put in an extra carriage return. Actually a carriage return (Typewriter speak) is achieved by pressing SHIFT and ENTER at the same time. A page break is achieved by pressing CTRL and ENTER at the same time. Really what they should do is to change the space between the paragraphs in the style definition.

The other common ones are :

The first is a space and it is between every word. The arrow is a tab mark and the third is the carriage return I just mentioned. This just skips to the next line with without any extra space.

This post is about keyboard shortcuts or hot keys. If you are an IT or design professional, there is nothing new here, however you still may learn a little something.

At some level everyone is aware that there must be an easier way to get things done when creating a word document and the truth is your right. When I first started to learn to code I realised that I would very soon be using every key on the keyboard and in often in combination.

The result is I can make the machine do my bidding with a few keystrokes. These are Keyboard shortcuts and some of them work at the operating system level and so it can occasionally get you out of a tight situation.  This is why you can copy text out of a PDF or browser window into a word document, often when you are not even offered the option.

So what are they? Well let’s start with the one we were just talking about. Copy. Select the text you want to copy with the mouse and then press the letter C while pressing the Control key or Ctrl. Then using the mouse place the curser where you would like to Paste the text and press the letter V while holding down the Ctrl key. If you select some text and then go to the icon in the ribbon menu for Copy, you will see the tooltip has (Ctrl+C) written on the right hand side.

Bar none, the best one to know is (Ctrl+Z) which is Undo last. Did you just do something you didn’t mean? (Ctrl+Z) That will get you out of so many different situations.

The list is long and not every program uses the exact same ones but the majority do. Common keyboard shortcuts are :

CTRL+C:            Copy

CTRL+X:            Cut

CTRL+V:            Paste

CTRL+Z:            Undo

CTRL+B:            Bold

CTRL+U:            Underline

CTRL+I:             Italic

CTRL+P:            Print

CTRL+O:           Open

CTRL+N:            New Document

CTRL+S:            Save

CTRL+A:            Select all

The last one is also the source of possibly one of the most distressing things that can happen when you are creating a long document, especially if you can touch type. By pressing Ctrl+A, you select all the text and the next key you press will replace the entire document with whatever you just pressed. I have seen the blood drain from the face of a grown woman at the prospect of losing their entire document. Fortunately the resolution is as easy as CTRL+Z (undo).

Of course the keyboard shortcuts are not just limited to Microsoft Windows, Macs too have their short cuts but they have a key that only appears on their keyboards, Command. I have on too many occasions found myself on a Monday morning wondering where the command key is, and I know I’m not alone. So while it won’t teach you how to write computer code it may save you quite a bit of effort in the future.

Microsoft Word

What follows are some ideas that I wish someone had shared with me all those years ago when I started working with computers. I share them now in the hope that it will make your life easier. If you use word a lot, there is probably nothing new here.

Lesson 1 – It doesn’t matter what you say, just say it with style

The problem of keeping consistency within a document should be relatively simple until you come to a point that you wish to emphasise. Out comes the bold or an underline. (Although these days, underlines are now taken as meaning a hypertext link and so should not be used for anything else.) That’s fine for the one occasion that emphasise is required but what if later in the document you need to emphasise something to a greater extent, you have already used your bold and your underline. All that’s left is your italics or maybe font size. Maybe you could dial down the emphasis on the last one. And in going back through the document you find another one that was already bold.

Because small documents can be literally hacked together, there is no need for added complexity in consistency in a one page document as long as it looks OK when printed. However when the page count gets bigger and the number of sections increased, the style of the document can often begin to change as you go through the document. This is because as we create a document, we are forced to make little decisions here and there about how it will look as we go.

This problem is doubled if there is any collaboration in a document. Both contributors will make their own decisions as they go and usually they will often be different. For example, at the end of each sentence some people (mistakenly) put two spaces after the full stop, thinking it’s the right thing to do. (Double spaces are a throwback to the days of mono-spaced typewriters where it was not easy to see the end of a sentence however these died out years ago with proportional fonts and so too should the practice of double spaces.)

The solution I am proposing to haphazard formatting like this is the use of styles. Many people aren’t even aware that they are by default using a style. Every time you change a font size or type, Word creates a new style for itself which it then applies.

SNAFU – situation Normal

When you first start typing in word, all the text is of the style normal. Word allows you to change the size of the test and make it bold and still call it normal.

The problem with this approach is that when you have styled the piece of text the way you want it, you then have to manually convert any other piece of text you want to look like it manually in order for it to the same way.

There is of course the format painter. But are you sure you got everything? The format painter is great for the quick hack but it’s not keeping track of your document. In addition, the parts that you can’t see are copied too, which again is fine but only if you know exactly what those hidden things are.

The answer is “Styles”. You can create your own style or modify the Normal style so that it behaves is a way that will help with the expression of ideas. For example, I often come across documents where someone has put in an extra carriage return between paragraphs to give each of them space. So rather that add all the extra bits that comes with a paragraph style, all that is required is to add a little space after each paragraph in the Normal style.

This indecently is another crossover from the internet which did not allow you to indent the first line of each paragraph. If you prefer this as a way of delimiting paragraphs, editing the Paragraph style will allow you to consistently add this style. (Although you should never mix the extra space after a paragraph and first line indent.)

Everything in its place

When we have a document to write, we chop our text into paragraphs, with one idea per paragraph and order those paragraphs into a logical sequence to tell a story. When you have a large document, you must have an order so that people can navigate through the document without getting lost. We need that structure before we can start putting out our ideas.

In design for print these days we tend to follow the format of a newspaper. We have a Headline and then a sub-headline followed by headings describing what is explained in the following paragraphs. And each paragraph has one idea. If you are writing a novel then you can have long rambling pages of text for your reader to get lost in but otherwise, it is inappropriate.

So in MS Word we have an attention grabbing headline which we give Heading 1 and then in our hierarchy we can descend through the headings as needed. Word by default gives us 6 but there is nothing stopping us from having more. The great thing about ordering your document in this way you can automatically add numbers to your headings. If you chop one section out and paste it further up. The numbering reorders itself, just like a numbered list. The chapter numbers will always be in sequence.

Changes for the better

The beauty of this approach is that we can have a consistent approach to the whole of the document. Because the different styles are linked we can make universal changes to the style and it changes everything without us having to check.

So for example you have written a large dissertation for college and you are about to submit it and you see that they require Double Space lines. By changing the normal style, every piece of text that is in normal is now double spaced.

The big finish

Now with your headings sorted and the rest of your text in a consistent style, the document has an internal structure.

Having done this, a really great trick is the automation of a table of contents. Just go to the References tab and click Table of Contents and it will be automatically created using your heading structure. In ordering your document in this way you take back control over the whole document and allow you to create very sophisticated layouts with ease.

This is the first in a series of posts about using MS Word and possibly computers themselves. If you enjoyed this post and there are any subjects you would like me to cover in future posts, please drop me an email to killian@killianhalpin.com