The Draw Tab in Word

The Draw tab in the Word ribbon is a great feature - but it may be turned off by default.

To turn it on do the following:

1.    File

2.   Options

3.   Customize Ribbon

4.   Select Draw

This will enable you to use a freeform marker in your Word doc.

Cut and Paste Metadata in Word

This metadata can conflict with the document's own metadata - creating inconsistent results for example in spell checking, within the same document.

Working with Word Templates

Word templates offer a good starting point for documents you may be required to mass-produce e.g. a document explaining IT strategy or architecture for multiple organizations.  However they may not work well out-of-the-box.

Things to look out for:

1. Word templates may do funny stuff with margins.  This is to create interesting and effective custom alignments - particularly for cover sheets. However, you may want to use more standard margins for the broader document if you need a more traditional, essay-style flow for your document.  For this go to  Layout and explore the various Margins, ranging from Narrow, Moderate, Wide up to Custom Margins.

2.Colour schemes. May be garish. Decide if you want to tone down the schemes for ease of printing. Or perhaps go the other way and tone up for maximum impact.

In short, expect to do a great deal of customisation, even if you have a standard template ready-to-run.

Convert a Word Doc into A Presentation (Ad Hoc)

A Word doc can be brought to life as a presentation quite easily.

Go to View in the Ribbon.

Under Page Movement select Side to Side (this changes the display so you can see the flow of the document - it is not strictly needed - but helpful to start visualising flow).

Now under Views, you will most likely see "Print Layout" selected.  Select instead "Read Layout". 

This will start a presentation-mode document presentation.

(There is also a third layout; called Web Layout, which effectively turns your document into a web page - albeit a very messy one in all probability).

Control-Star - The Magic Key Combination in Word

 Control-Star - will make hidden characters appear and disappear in Word.

Word AI is Not Intelligent

Macros are better. Even with feedback, Word AI is not good. It cannot be classified as "intelligent".

OOXML versus OpenDocument

When configuring Microsoft Word on a new machine, you will be prompted if you wish to have Office Open XML (informally OOXML) or OpenDocument (extension .odt for text) as the default format.

Choose the former if you want to be more Microsoft-centric and use all features of Microsoft's ecosystem, choose the latter if you need interoperability with applications like LibreOffice.

OOXML started out as an XML format for Excel and later extended to other applications such as Word.

Publish a Min SIZED PDF from Word (no DiscLOQ)

Word oft generates massive PDF files.

To generate a PDF of minimum size (and no DLOQ - discernible loss of quality) you can do Save As, select PDF, and More Options.

You will get an option to Optimize for -

- "Standard" as well as
- "Minimum size (publishing online)".

Select the latter and you will see the output file size reduce dramatically.

Print Preview in Word - Control F2

Can be useful in finding mysterious blank pages inserted when saving a Word document as PDF.

The Reviewing Toolbar in Word

In Word, the Reviewing toolbar appears under the header "Review" in the Ribbon. Changes can be viewed by clicking "Reviewing Pane" -> "Reviewing Pane Vertical" (or "Horizontal").

Using C# to Process Open XML Format Documents

To open up and process DOCX format Word documents you need the Open XML SDK, currently on Version 2.0. It is built on System.IO.Packaging. The SDK uses LINQ technology to provide strongly typed object access to the XML content in the Word doc.

Finding out Version of Word and Excel in Office 365

How do you find out what version of Word or Excel you are using in Office 365?

The old, traditional Help->Version menu accelerators no longer work.  The model of old is broken.

In the new world, go to File and then Account. All version information will be provided to you there.

Understanding Microsoft Word's XML Formats

MS Word has various options for saving documents as XML and other open/semi-open formats.

Let's look at them.

• Microsoft XPS - XPS Document (*.xps).  XPS stands for XML Paper Specification. It can describe single page and multi page documents, similar to PDF. The key difference is XPS is tightly linked to the Windows operating system (since Vista - worldwide release January 2007). XAML (language used to describe Windows graphic elements) is a superset of XPS.
• 
  

Make Table Headings Run on to Subsequent Pages

By default, table headings are omitted when tables run on to subsequent pages.

To change this -

1. Right click on your table and select "Table Properties"
2. Select "Row"
3. Tick "Repeat as header row at the top of each page"

Job done.

Viewing Code in Landscape Mode in Microsoft Word

Code in Word often looks better in Landscape mode rather than Portrait mode when rendered in Word.

To change a document to Landscape, click on "Layout" (or "Page Layout" in some versions of Word), find Orientation and switch to Landscape.

Manipulating Code in Microsoft Word

Manipulating Visual Studio code in Microsoft Word can be a messy affair.

For example, System.Text is not a recognized word in Word's dictionary.

An Error(argument) function might be corrected to Error ( argument ) by the Grammar Check.

So if you are manipulating code in Microsoft Word, here's the best thing to do. Turn off automatic spelling AND grammar checking as you type.

To do this, go to File, Options, Proofing and uncheck:

• Check spelling as you type
• Mark grammar errors as you type

Job done.

Make a Multi Column Word Document

Start with a regular Word doc.

Select All -> Layout -> Columns, and specify the number of columns you want.

Update Table of Contents Programmatically in Word

Assuming your document has only one Table of Contents, the following code will update it.

Sub UpdateTableOfContents()
 
    ActiveDocument.TablesOfContents(1).Update

End Sub

You can also assign a keyboard shortcut to this code using File->Options->Customize Ribbon->Keyboard Shortcuts (Customize).

Assign a Keyboard Shortcut to a Macro in Word

Sequence of steps to assign a Keyboard Shortcut to a Macro in Word -

1. File

2. Options

3. Customize Ribbon

4. Keyboard Shortcuts: Customize...

5. Select Macros (under Categories)

6. Select Macro (under Macros)

7. Type in Keystrokes for Shortcut

As you type the candidate keystroke, Word will tell you if it is already used and what it is used for.

Use Word's "Tell Me" Feature

If you are stuck on how to do something in Word, one option is to use the "Tell Me" feature.

Hit Alt-Q

Type your query