PCTips - Office

Click on the links below:

Insert Today’s Date in Excel

Open Office

OpenOffice Setup

Change default templates in OpenOffice

Word 2000 won’t open

Zoom!

Horizontal Lines in Word

Typing Symbols into Office documents

Using Unicode Symbols in Word

Word Subscript and Superscript

ThinkFree Office Suite

How to Insert and Rotate a Picture in Word XP (& later versions)

Closing Word

Changing Case in Word

Dummy Text in Word

Stop Losing Chunks of your Word Document

Umlaut

Hide the contents of an Excel cell

AbiWord

Change default template in Word

Install a second copy of Office

Word line breaks

Word Booklet Page Numbering

Turn a PDF into a PowerPoint presentation

Install a new Font

Password protect a document

New Office Document Formats

Gridlines in Word

How do I open a Publisher document?

Why are my Word borders not printing properly?

Rotate a Picture in OpenOffice

Changing all occurrences of a word or phrase in Word

Insert Today’s Date in Excel

If you are keeping records in an Excel spreadsheet you frequently have to enter the current date into a cell.

Just hold Control (Ctrl) and hit the Semi-colon (;) key, then hit Enter to record it into the cell.

Easy to do, but will you remember it next time? I wish Microsoft had used a more meaningful key combination!

Open Office

Microsoft Office is an expensive product - as I write the price ranges from £90 (for the student edition) to nearly £400 (for the full Professional suite).

But once again those Linux boys have come up with a free, open source, office suite called, unsurprisingly, Open Office. Or to be more exact they call it OpenOffice.org because it’s available from... do I have to tell you? OK, here’s the link www.openoffice.org

Now the best thing is that not only is it a Linux program, but you can also get a version for Windows.

And it’s free to download (but you will need broadband, it’s a big file).

Give it a try - you have nothing to lose. Let me know what you think of it. Contact Us

OpenOffice Setup

This is how to set up OpenOffice to always default to saving documents in Microsoft Office format.

Open one of the OpenOffice programs (Writer, for instance).

On the top menu, left click on Tools, then on Options...

In the left hand section, left click on the [+] beside "Load/Save" and then left click on "General".

Now in the right hand section, at the bottom under "Default file format" you will see two boxes, one labelled "Document type" and the other labelled "Always save as".

Left click on the down arrow beside "Document type" and select "Text document", then left click on the down arrow beside "Always save as" and select "Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP".

Left click on the down arrow beside "Document type" and select "Spreadsheet", then left click on the down arrow beside "Always save as" and select "Microsoft Excel 97/2000/XP".

Left click on the down arrow beside "Document type" and select "Presentation", then left click on the down arrow beside "Always save as" and select "Microsoft PowerPoint 97/2000/XP".

Left click on "OK".

OpenOffice will now default to saving your documents in Microsoft Office format.

If want Microsoft Office documents to always open in OpenOffice when you double click them, then:

During installation OpenOffice will ask you to "Select the file types for which you want OpenOffice.org 2.0 to be the default application". Left click on all three boxes and then left click "Next".

Or, if it’s already installed and you don’t fancy removing and re-installing OpenOffice:

Right click on a Microsoft Office document in Explorer and hover over “Open With”.
Left click on “Choose Program...”
Left click on “OpenOffice.org 2.0”
Left click to select “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file”.
Left click ”OK”.
Repeat for the other types of Microsoft Office documents (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).

You may have noticed that I have not mentioned Microsoft Access in the above instructions. That’s because the OpenOffice Database module (Base) does not open Access databases and does not save in Access format.

If you don’t want to use a Database program then this won’t be a problem for you. But if you do it may be the one reason that you buy Microsoft Office instead of OpenOffice.

Perhaps a future release of OpenOffice will embrace Access compatibility.

Change default templates in OpenOffice

When you open a new OpenOffice.org document with File - New, a blank document appears based on the default template. You can modify this template so that a new document will contain your customized Styles or other contents.

Modifying Default Templates

You can define a document template for each different OpenOffice.org module. (Writer, Calc, Impress, Base, Calc, Draw)

Open a new OpenOffice.org document and edit it as necessary to create the desired template.
Save the document by choosing File - Templates - Save and saving the document in the My Templates category with any name you like.
Go to File - Templates - Organize.
Double left click My Templates in the list on the left. Right click on the template you have just saved and left click Set As Default Template.
Left click the Close button

The next time you open a new document in that module it will be based on the new default template.

Resetting Default Templates

To reset a modified template to the original default template:
Go to File - Templates - Organize.
Right click My Templates in the list on the left.
Hover over Reset Default Template. In the submenu, left click the document type whose default setting you want to restore.
Left click the Close button

Thereafter, when you open an empty document, it will again correspond to the OpenOffice.org default template for that document type.

Word 2000 won’t open

When you try to open Microsoft Word 2000 the system hangs and tells you that your system resources are dangerously low?

This is usually caused by corruption of Normal.dot which is the “Normal” template that Word uses to create a new document.

The solution is to click Start, then Search, then search for documents called normal.dot including hidden files and folders.

When you find it (or them) delete it.

Next time you start Word it will create a new Normal template. You may have to modify it to get it back to how you had it before, but at least you can use Word again!

Does anyone know if this applies to any other versions of Word?

Zoom!

“I’m disappointed with my nice new monitor because all the writing on my Word documents is so small”

Yes, this was a genuine enquiry!

When you change to a monitor with a higher resolution (more dots making up the picture) everything will appear smaller. Although things (like printing on Word documents) are still made from the same number of dots, there are more dots on the screen so the things occupy relatively less screen area.

The answer in Word and most other applications is to use Zoom

Look for a white box containing a percentage figure (probably 100%) at the end of the standard toolbar (which is probably the third line down on the screen).

Click the little down arrow at the right hand side of this box and experiment with the percentages - you are bound to find one that gives you what you want.

Horizontal Lines in Word

If you want to separate parts of a Word document with a plain or fancy horizontal line then there is a simple trick.

Just type three hyphens and hit return - you will get a horizontal line. It works with other characters too - the underscore, the equals sign and several others.

Check out the effects you get with the asterisk and the hash symbols.

Why is this better than just keeping your finger on a key until it has filled the line? Well if you use this “three characters and return” trick the length of the horizontal line will change as you change the margins of the document. Clever!

Typing Symbols into Office documents

“You know about computers don’t ya?”

“Well, er, yes I like to think I know a bit.”

“So how do I type a proper half sign in Word then?”

I didn’t know. But I do now.

There is a whole new world of symbols to be found by selecting Insert, then Symbol.

There are hundreds of Arabic, Hebrew, Latin and Weird characters, but scroll your way through them and you will find the symbols that only just didn’t make it to the English keyboard. A lot of them have shortcut key combinations already but if you use one that hasn’t you can make your own shortcut by clicking the Shortcut key button.

There are some interesting ones there - check out the “Miscellaneous Dingbats”.

And the answer, (to type ½) is: First make sure that your NumLock is toggled on, (key above the 7 on the number pad of a normal keyboard), then use the shortcut key combination Alt +0189 (hold down Alt and then type 0189 on the number pad). Then release the Alt key.

Laptop users without a discrete number pad have a “pseudo number pad” using the keys 7, 8, 9 and the letters below and to the right. These keys will be marked with the numbers, usually in a different colour. Laptop users should toggle their NumLock key and then use their “pseudo number pad” to type the numbers in the shortcut key combination.

Another example, to get a “tick-in-a-box”, is to change to the Wingdings font, make sure NumLock is toggled on and type 0254 on the number pad. Then release the Alt key.

Just to confuse us, some of the shortcut key combinations are like the one above, some use the Ctrl key instead of the Alt key and others require you to type the numbers first and then Alt+X (hold down Alt and then type X). i.e. 0169 Alt+X will give ũ.

If you are using an old version of Word (earlier than 2002, then some of the Unicode symbols (like ũ above) are not available either through Insert, Symbol or through shortcuts. But there is a way....(see below).

Using Unicode Symbols in Word

Versions of Word prior to Word 2002 (also known as Word XP) do not enable you to insert some of the Unicode Symbols using Insert, Symbol or directly by using the Alt-X shortcut.

OpenOffice also does not support the Alt-X Unicode shortcut

But the version of WordPad that comes with Windows XP Service Pack 2 DOES support these symbols.

So if you want a special symbol, open WordPad (Start, All Programs, Accessories, WordPad), type the Unicode for the Symbol that you want, followed by Alt-X (hold down Alt whilst typing X).

For example: 0169 Alt+X will give ũ.

Then just copy and paste the symbol into your Word (or OpenOffice) document.

Note that not all symbols are available in all fonts - so if you really want a particular symbol you may have to get it from a similar font.

And how do you know what the Unicode is for the symbol that you want?

Go to http://www.unicode.org

Word Subscript and Superscript

Microsoft Word has keyboard shortcuts that let you switch between normal, subscript and superscript text styles.

For subscript text use “Ctrl” and “=” together. Then toggle back to normal with the same key combination.

For superscript text use “Ctrl” and “Shift” and “=” together. And the same key combination to toggle back to normal.

ThinkFree Office Suite

You can find my tip concerning OpenOffice.org here.

Now there is a free Office Suite that you don’t even have to download - you use it online.

ThinkFree only contains a Word Processor, Spreadsheet and Presentation program (so far), but that is more than most people want.

You first have to register on the web site then they send you an e-mail that you have to click on to activate your registration. (Annoyingly you cannot register using Firefox - it goes through the motions but the final “I Agree” button doesn’t send your info)

Then you just sign in on the web site and either create new documents or upload old ones to be edited.

You can store documents on the site or download them back to your own computer. If you keep them on the site you can access them and edit them from any computer in the world that is connected to the internet and has a java enabled browser.

Initial comments - the spreadsheet doesn’t use UK style dates and doesn’t support hidden rows.

How to Insert and Rotate a Picture in Word XP (& later versions)

Open the Microsoft Word document that you want to insert the picture into.

Left click at the place where you want to insert the picture.

Left click Insert, then: Picture, then: From File...

If the Insert Picture box is not open in the right folder then navigate to the right place.

Left click on the picture that you want to insert and left click the Insert button.

The picture will be inserted into your Word document.

To rotate the picture:

Left click on the picture to highlight it. The Picture toolbar will open (if it isn't already open).

One of the icons on the toolbar is Rotate Left (it looks like two triangles beside each other with a curved arrow above). Left clicking the Rotate Left button will rotate the picture by 90 degrees. So click it until you get what you want.

Closing Word

If you work with a number of different Word files open at the same time there is no need to close down each one individually.

Just hold down the Shift key whilst left clicking on the File menu and the Close command will change to Close All.

Changing Case in Word

Sometimes you can accidentally hit the Caps Lock key and type a load of words in capitals by mistake - (touch typists don’t do that because they look at the screen, not the keyboard, and notice mistakes immediately).

You don’t have to delete it and type it all again - just highlight the offending text and use Shift F3. This toggles between UPPER CASE, lower case and Title Case.

Or, if you click Format, Change Case, you can get two further options: Sentence case and tOGGLE cASE.

tOGGLE cASE IS THE ONE TO USE IF YOU HAVE TYPED A WHOLE SENTENCE WITH cAPS lOCK ON AND HAVE USED THE sHIFT KEY FOR NAMES ETC.

Dummy Text in Word

If you are designing a document like a newsletter, brochure, etc. you may want to get the layout right before typing in the proper text.

You may want to see how text flows around pictures and fills columns, for instance.

Word has the facility to generate dummy text using the command =rand()

If you type =rand() into the document and hit enter you will get three paragraphs of five sentences. This is the default result.

Parameters within the brackets like =rand(7,9) will give seven paragraphs, each of nine sentences. You can work out the rest!

Unfortunately you can’t change the content of the sentence. Unless, so I am told, you change to a different language....!

Stop Losing Chunks of your Word Document

Touch typists look at the screen, not at the keyboard, so pick up their mistakes immediately. But the rest of us look at the keyboard and may miss certain things.

A very common thing that happens with laptop users is that their hand touches the touchpad by mistake whilst typing. That stray touch may highlight a section of text (which the typist doesn’t notice because they are looking for the next key to press) and then as soon as the next key is pressed it replaces the text that was highlighted.

When the typist looks back at the screen, a whole chunk of text is missing (and they may not even notice it).

The solution - learn to touch type! No, seriously, if this is something that happens to you the thing to do is to switch off the option “Typing replaces selection”.

You will find it in Tools, Options, on the Edit tab. Just left click the tickbox to unselect the option.

Now when you accidentally highlight a portion of text your new typing will just go in front of it and you will lose nothing. (Perhaps not even your patience!)

Umlaut

Umlaut marks are two small dots over a vowel (upper or lower case). i.e. the “i” in “naïve”.

To create characters with umlaut accent marks in Microsoft Office and Works (and OpenOffice.org) hold down the Alt key whilst typing the appropriate number code on your numeric keypad (not the top row of keys on the keyboard) - and then release Alt to see the character.

Codes for upper case letters are:

Ä 0196
Ë 0203
Ï 0207
Ö 0214
Ü 0220
Ÿ 0159

Codes for lower case letters are:

ä 0228
ë 0235
ï 0239
ö 0246
ü 0252
ÿ 0255

To create characters with umlaut accent marks in HTML, type & (ampersand symbol) then the letter (A, e, etc.), then the letters uml, then ; (semicolon) i.e:

& euml; for ë
& Uuml; for Ü

For more tips on using special characters, click here

Hide the contents of an Excel cell

Most people know how to hide a complete row or column in Excel:

Left click on the row number or column letter to highlight the row or column,

With your mouse pointer still over the row number or column letter, right click and then left click Hide.

Fewer people know how to subsequently UNHIDE the row or column:

Left click and drag over the row numbers or column letters to highlight the two rows or columns either side of the hidden one, (so if column D was hidden you need to highlight columns C and E),

Then with your mouse pointer still over the row numbers or column letters, right click and then left click Unhide.

Even fewer know how to Unhide Row 1 or Column A if they are hidden (the above method won’t work because you can’t highlight both sides of the first row or column!

Left click the small empty rectangle in the top left hand corner where the row numbers and column letters start. This will highlight the whole sheet.

Then with your mouse pointer still over that rectangle, right click and then left click Unhide.

That will Unhide everything hidden on the entire worksheet, but that’s the price you pay for having hidden Row 1 or Column A!

I didn’t know the next one until someone asked me (there’s always one awkward customer - you know who you are!) - how do you hide the contents of a single cell?

Right click on the cell and then left click Format Cells...

Left click to select the Number TAB (it will probably already be selected)

In the Category list, left click to select Custom at the bottom.

In the box immediately below the word Type:, left click and stroke over to completely select what is already in the box and then type three semi colons (;;;) to replace it.

Left click OK.

The cell contents will not be visible on the screen or when printed.

Now the only way you can see what is in that cell is to highlight it and the contents will appear in the Formula bar (just above the column letters). Or you can change the cell format back to what it was before.

Another way to hide cell contents is to set the font colour to be the same as the sheet colour (usually white)
Format Cells, Font, Color.

What I don’t know is why anyone would want to do it, but then I’m just the Tipster, not the Tipee!

AbiWord

Most home users only use their computers for three things - surfing the net, communicating (e-mail, messaging and VoIP) and as a typewriter replacement.

For the latter they don’t need a full office suite like Microsoft Office or OpenOffice - they just want a word processor that will read and write documents in Microsoft Word format.

AbiWord fits the bill, and is one of the best free word processor programs, available (free!) from www.abisource.com

It runs quickly and includes every Word feature that I want or know about.

Change default template in Word

When you open Word you see a blank page, ready to type on. But that blank page has a number of things already set up - and you may not like them.

The default blank page of a new installation of Word is set to Times New Roman size 12 with left and right margins of 1.25 inches. I personally don’t like any of those. So how do you change it?

Each new blank page is created from a master document template called Normal.dot

So to change it all you need to do is open Normal.dot, alter it and save it.

Open Word and close down the blank document that opens (Document1?) using the grey cross just below the red cross in the top right hand corner.

Left click on File and then on Open...

Navigate to C:\Documents and Settings\YourName\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates and double left click on Normal.dot. (If your Normal.dot is not there you will have to find it using Search for all files and folders)

Make all the changes that you want to turn it into the default blank page that you want.

And then just save it in the normal way (except that it will warn you that you are changing the normal.dot template)

Install a second copy of Office

Microsoft don’t shout about this (of course) but if you buy and install a standard retail (not OEM) copy of Microsoft Office then you are also allowed to install it on a laptop for your own use.

I quote:

“MICROSOFT SOFTWARE LICENSE TERMS
2007 MICROSOFT OFFICE SYSTEM DESKTOP APPLICATION SOFTWARE

a. Licensed Device. You may install and use one copy of the software on the licensed device.

b. Portable Device. You may install another copy on a portable device for use by the single primary user of the licensed device.”

I understand that you need to register the laptop installation over the phone - trying to do it on the net will fail.

So you are breaking the terms of the licence if you allow someone else to use Office on your laptop - but not if you let them use it on the “licensed device”.

Even better, if you are a teacher, student or a parent of a minor student then if you buy the Students and Teachers edition of Office “You may install a copy of the Software on three personal computers or other devices in your household for non-commercial use by people who reside in your household.”

Or you could just install as many copies of OpenOffice as you like for absolutely nothing!

Word line breaks

All word processors will use the spaces between words to determine where to start a new line. When the line is full, the program will work back to the first previous space and put a line break there.

Most word processors will also put a line break at a hyphen if that comes first when working back along the full line.

But sometimes it is not convenient to have a break at a particular space. In a telephone or identity number for instance you would probably want the whole number on one line, not split.

What you need to use is a nonbreaking space instead of an ordinary space. To type a nonbreaking space you need to hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys when you press the spacebar.

You can also insert a nonbreaking space by left clicking through: Insert, Symbol..., Special Characters and finding it in the list, highlighting it and left clicking Insert. Here you will also find a nonbreaking hyphen and several other interesting (but fairly useless) symbols.

Word Booklet Page Numbering

Normally we want a multipage document to start at page 1 and go on to the end.

But when producing a booklet most people want the page numbering to begin with page 1 from the third page onwards. The first page is the “front cover” and the second page is the inside of the front cover (usually blank) so the third page is the first page proper of the booklet so needs to be page 1.

So, this is how to do it:

1. So that you can see what you are doing, left click through Tools, Options..., and in Formatting marks select All and then OK.

2. Left click at the end of the 2nd page of the document (inside front cover) and then click through Insert, Break... and then under Section break types select Next page and then OK.

3. If this has pushed the rest of the document forward by inserting an extra blank page you need to delete a page break or some paragraph marks to get to the state where the Section Break (Next Page) is the last thing on the second page and the third page is the first page of the booklet content.

4. Left click anywhere on the third page, then left click View, then Header and Footer. The Header and Footer toolbar will appear. If you want the page numbering in the footer then you need to left click the Switch Between Header and Footer button.

5. Left click the Same as Previous button to deselect it - the writing “Same as Previous” that was over the header (or footer) box will disappear.

6. Now left click the Insert Page Number button and position and size the page number as you want it.

7. Left click the Format Page Number button and under Page numbering deselect Continue from previous section and then left click OK.

8. Finally close the Header and Footer toolbar and remember to left click through Tools, Options..., and in Formatting marks deselect All.

Turn a PDF into a PowerPoint presentation

You can cut and paste sections of a PDF (Portable Document Format) document into a set of PowerPoint slides.

First open a new “Blank Presentation” in PowerPoint. Select the completely blank layout.

Leave PowerPoint open and open the PDF document with Adobe Reader. In Adobe Reader, left click through Tools, Select & Zoom, Snapshot Tool.

Position the crosshairs at the top left of the section you want to copy, click and hold down the left mouse button then move to the bottom right of the section. When you release the mouse button the selection will be automatically copied.

Switch to PowerPoint (use Alt-Tab) and right click over the slide. Left click Paste and your selection will be pasted into the slide.

Repeat as necessary.

Not that the resulting PowerPoint presentation will be a much bigger file than the original PDF.

If you are using Foxit Reader instead of Adobe Reader the Snapshot tool is on the main toolbar (camera icon).

Install a new Font

(Sorry Vicar, wrong sort of font!)

There are thousands of free fonts available on the internet, and thousands more that you have to pay for.

So if you download one, how do you install it?

Most font files have the suffix “.ttf” (TrueType Font). If yours are in this format then just copy them into the c:\WINDOWS\Fonts folder and miss out the next section.

Because of various security reasons font files are usually compressed into “.zip” files.

Save the zip file to the desktop.
Close everything to get back to the desktop
Double left click on the zip file to open it.
Left click on Extract all files in the left hand column under Folder Tasks. (If you haven't got that, click on the Folders button and it should come up)
The Compressed (zipped) Folders Extraction Wizard will open.
Left click Next.
Left click on Browse and navigate to select the c:\WINDOWS\Fonts folder.
Left click OK.
Left click Next.
Untick Show extracted files.
Left click Finish.

In many cases this is all you have to do - open Word or any Office program and see if your new font comes up in the list of fonts. If it does then it is installed and you are done.

But sometimes they need installing separately:

Open Fonts in Control Panel.
On the File menu, left click Install New Font.
Navigate to, and double left click the c:\WINDOWS\Fonts folder.
In List of fonts, select the fonts you want to add, and then click OK.
The fonts will now be installed.

Password protect a document

My friend travels a lot and keeps photo copies of his important travel documents in a separate place in case he loses them. (I’m not sure how useful the photocopies might be in the event of loss, but at least all the document numbers and dates would be available).

He thought that it might be easier and more secure to store scanned images of the documents on a USB thumb drive, especially if he could password protect or encrypt the data. Then no-one could access the copies if he lost the drive, but he would be able to view, display or print the copies on any handy PC if he needed to.

There are two ways to crack this one:

1. Encrypt the whole USB drive. I recommend the Open source program TrueCrypt for this. Read about it and download it from http://www.truecrypt.org/. But this is probably an overly extreme method of protection for my friend’s purpose.

2. Embed the scanned images within a Word document and then password protect the Word document.
Although a Word password is not up to US Government security levels, it should be sufficiently secure for this purpose.
Just copy and paste the scanned images into a new (or old) Word document
Left click through: File, Save As, Tools, General Options (or Security Options).
In the Password to open box, type a password, and then left click OK.
In the Reenter password to open box, type the password again (in case you didn’t type what you thought you did!), and then left click OK.
Left click Save.
Save the document to your USB drive, try not to lose it and remember the password!

Unfortunately you cannot use OpenOffice to create password protected Word documents. But you can use it to open password protected Word documents (if you know the password).

New Office Document Formats

Our friends in Microsoft have introduced a new set of file formats called the Microsoft Open Office XML Format. They want this to become the new standard for Office documents. You can recognise these files because their file type ends in “x”, e.g. .docx .xlsx .pptx

Microsoft Office 2007 saves documents in the new formats by default, but can be changed to save documents in the older formats if the user wants.

Older versions of Microsoft Office and OpenOffice cannot read the new type of file. So if you need to open one of the new format files you will not be able to.

The best solution is to ask the creator of the file to open it and then save it in an older (doc, xls or ppt) format. That way everyone will be able to open it in future instead of just those with Office 2007.

Microsoft have produced a conversion program that can convert the new files into old type files, thus enabling you to read them. It is called “Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack for Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats” and is available free from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/

The actual program is called FileFormatConverters.exe
Microsoft do not check for a genuine copy of Windows when you download it, nor do you need to have any version or part of Microsoft Office installed on your PC.

If you have an older version of Microsoft Office on your PC then, once you have installed the converter program, when you try to open a new format file it will be converted and opened as a new file that you can then save in your old format.

If you don’t have any version of Microsoft Office on your PC (you are using WordPad, OpenOffice, Star Office etc.) then things are more complicated:

Once you have installed the FileFormatsConverters program it will become the default program for opening ALL types of Office files, old and new.

So when you try to open a docx file it will convert it to a doc file and ask you where to save it. Fair enough.

But when you try to open that doc file (or any doc file) rather than open the file in your previous default program (Wordpad or whatever) it assumes that you want to convert it to a docxm file (the new format including macros).

And then when you try to open the docxm file it will convert it to a doc file and then say that there is already one there!!!!

So after installing the FileFormatsConverters program you will need to re-establish the default programs to open each of the 3 “old” file types.

Open My Computer, then left click through: Tools, Folder Options, File Types. Scroll down to the DOC extension, left click on it and then on the Change button. Select the program that you want to open the file, make sure that the box before “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file” is ticked, and then left click OK.

Repeat for XLS and PPT file extensions.

Now when you convert a new format file you will be able to click on the resultant old format file and it will open in your chosen program.

Why do Microsoft insist on making life difficult for us poor old users?

Gridlines in Word

Whenever I open a Word document I get a grid pattern like this:

wordgrid

It doesn’t get printed, but how do I get rid of it?

In Word, left click View then Toolbars and make sure that the Drawing toolbar has a tick against it.

Now find the Drawing toolbar - it is probably at the bottom of the screen but may be anywhere - it can be floated to any position (it has the words Draw and AutoShapes on it).

In the Drawing toolbar left click on Draw and then on Grid... (if you can’t see Grid... hover your mouse pointer over the double down arrow at the bottom of the box until the box expands).

In the Drawing Grid box that opens, left click to untick the box beside “Display gridlines on screen” and then left click the Default...button.

Left click the Yes button and you should be rid of the gridlines.

How do I open a Publisher document?

People that have a full version of Microsoft Office including Microsoft Publisher often don’t realise that the vast majority of other computer users don’t have that program and cannot open any Publisher files that they may be sent.

There is no free “viewer” program from Microsoft for Publisher documents (like there is for Excel) and there are no Open Source programs that open Publisher files.

So how do you view that Publisher file?

Send it to PDFonline and they will e-mail you (free) a PDF version of the Publisher file. You can then open it with Adobe Reader or Foxit.

They will also convert many other file formats to PDF for you. Obviously they will include an invitation to buy their products with their e-mail, but that’s fair, they have given you a free service.

Why are my Word borders not printing properly?

You can produce decorative borders easily with Word, but the borders sometimes don't print properly.

One reason for this can be because the printer and/or document is set up for the American "Letter" size of paper instead of the European "A4" size. See my tip here to correct this.

But there is another reason for the borders not printing fully.

Most printers cannot print up to the edge of the paper on all 4 sides (if at all). So you need to find out the minimum margins for your particular printer and then set the borders to print inside them and the text to print inside the borders.

Microsoft make this simple concept quite difficult to implement, but it can be done:

1. Set the measurement units to "points"
Microsoft measures the borders only in "points" so to set up the page we need to measure everything in points. When you have finished you can change the measurement units back to inches or centimetres.

Open a new blank document in Word, left click on Tools, then on Options then on the General tab. In the Measurement units box select select "Points" and then left click on the OK button.

2. Find out the minimum printer margins.
Left click on File, then on Page Setup..., then on the Margins tab.
Set all the margins to zero, then left click on OK.
A box will open saying "One or more margins are set outside the printable area of the page. Choose the Fix button to increase the appropriate margins."
Left click on the Fix button and Word will change the zero margins to the minimum figures that your printer will allow.
Write these margin figures down on a label and stick it to your printer. This is the only way I know of finding out the minimum margins. Wouldn't it be nice if the printer manufacturers printed them on the printer, or at least put them in the instruction book? Every different model of printer has different minimum margins, so why aren't they easy to find?

(And now you realise why Word documents that are created for one printer don't necessarily print the same on another printer....!)

3. Create your document and select the decorative border
Create a document then left click on Format, then on Borders and Shading... and then on the Page Border tab.
Create your decorative border (using Style, Color, Art, etc.). Look in the Width box to see and remember the width of the border that you have selected (in "points").
Left click on the Options button. Here you can set the margins for the border. Set them all to the same small number of points (say 4 or 8) (and remember it) and select the Measure from: Text option. Left click the OK box and then the next OK box.

4. Set your page margins
Left click on File, then on Page Setup..., then on the Margins tab.
Set each margin to be the sum of: the border width plus the border margin plus the minimum print margin. Left click on the OK button.

As an example, my current printer has minimum print margins of:
top: 8.4pt, bottom: 39.6pt, left: 8.4pt, right: 8.4pt
My fancy border has a width of 28 points and I set it to be 4 points away from the text.
So I need to set my page margins to be at least:
top: 41pt, bottom: 72pt, left: 41pt, right: 41pt to ensure that the borders are fully printed.

(You may like to know that there are approximately 72 points in an inch and approximately 28 in a centimetre.)

5. Set the measurement units back to centimetres or inches
Left click on Tools, then on Options then on the General tab. In the Measurement units box select what you want and then left click on the OK button.

Rotate a Picture in OpenOffice

If you insert a picture/photo directly from a file into OpenOffice Writer then it is not possible to rotate it.

The trick is to first insert it into OpenOffice Draw, then copy and paste it into OpenOffice Writer. That effectively converts it into a “Draw Object”. Then you can rotate it within Writer.

In more detail, the steps are:

Open OpenOffice Draw,
Hover over Picture,
Left click From File...
Navigate to the picture that you want and left click to select it.
Left click on the Open button.
If the picture is too big or small then resize it using the green square “handles” in the normal way.
Left click Edit, then Copy.
(You can close Draw now if you want, no need to save anything.)

Use OpenOffice Writer to open the document into which you want to put the picture.
Left click Edit, then Paste.

Right click on the picture,
Left click Position and Size...
Left click on the Rotation tab and then select your required Pivot point and Rotation angle.
Left click the OK button.

Resize the picture using the green square “handles” and move it by dragging with the left mouse button depressed.

Changing all occurrences of a word or phrase in Word

The “powers that be” decreed that every time the company’s registered trademark name was used it should be followed by the ® symbol. So how could my client change all the occurrences of the trademark in her document?

Add the symbol to the first occurrence of the word by putting the cursor at the end of the word and holding Alt and Ctrl and pressing the R key

Highlight the whole word including the symbol and copy (Ctrl C) it.

Left click just away from the word to un-highlight it

Open the Replace box by holding Ctrl and pressing the H key

In "Find what:" type the original word (without the change)

In "Replace with:" paste (Ctrl V) your copied word

Then left click Replace All.

Obviously this procedure will work for all replacements of a word or phrase with another word or phrase.


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