©2006 Dipl.-Ing. Jerzy CzopikNovember 10&11, 20062. ProZ.com Regional Conference Edinburgh Edinburgh 2006 Word – the widely unknown animal Formatting Word

November 10&11, 2006 2. ProZ.com Regional Conference Edinburgh ©2006 Dipl.-Ing. Jerzy Czopik

Edinburgh 2006

Word – the widely unknown animal

Formatting Word files – a quick guide

2. ProZ.com Regional Conference Edinburgh

Preparing Word for work

• Prepare a reasonable folder structure on your HDD

• It is a good idea not to place documents you create on the same partition as your programs. In case of any system crash and reinstallation afterwards your documents will remain untouched.

• Go to Tools, Options, File locations and make proper allocations there


Setting up Word behaviour

• Using the editing options, you can tell Word how to behave. For example you can select how to insert images, how the text will be selected, and much more. Just look at the settings, consult the Help file or get quick help by clicking the question mark sign, then point to the button or setting you need more information about.

• I would recommend de-selecting the format tracking option, as this usually hinders more than helps.


Customizing view options

• To make formatting easier, switch all formatting marks on.

• Switch the field shading to “always” – so you can more easily distinguish field texts from the normal text, and thus not overwrite them by accident.

• Use the page layout view instead of normal view – you can see more, and the formatting is easier.


Customizing Word

• From Tools menu select Customize

• Click on Commands

• Now you can either select a symbol from a tool bar and drag it away to delete it, or select a command in the right window and drag it onto a tool bar of your choice. If you click on Toolbars and then on New, you can create your own new toolbar. Then you can select the commands for it as described above.

• If you wish to change menus, click on the menu you want to modify – drag the items away, then re-order them or drag new items from this window into a menu of your choice.


Creating own shortcuts

• In Categories select the group you need

• In Commands select an option (it can be a command or a macro, such as tw4winClean.Main)

• Click in “Press new shortcut key” field

• Press the keys you want to use for that item

• Press assign

• Repeat for all other items you wish

• If Word is set to ask for saving the Normal.dot template, you will need to confirm this and save it


Creating autotextes

• You can create autotext entries for frequently-used text pieces, for example the German “GmbH” – “Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung”. Instead of typing the whole name, you can type just “GmbH” – and Word will put the whole text in place for you.

• Using the auto-correction feature helps you to teach Word to correct your typing errors.

• Check the “Show AutoComplete suggestions” box: when you type “GmbH”, Word will place the auto text instead.


Using the auto-format options

• Auto-format options may be helpful, but some of them are really ugly, so it is better to switch them off.

• For example allowing Word to assign and define styles on its own to the text you type will mostly result in a minor disaster.

• For example: Word defines a paragraph, formatted as centred text, as a header. But it is certainly not a header. Or, Word formats a bold paragraph to be a heading. But you have created your own headers and headlines. Now you wish to change them globally (we shall return to this later) – and Word changes also the paragraphs it formatted on its own.



• When you check these boxes Word will automatically create numbered lists, changing straight quotes to smart quotes, 1/2 to ½ and so on.

• You can experiment with these settings to see which are necessary or useful for you. Allow Word to do only those changes which are helpful for you, and switch everything else off.



• Almost the same settings for “AutoFormat As You Type”. Be sure to switch the marked options off – as otherwise they will mess up your documents.

• Experiment with other settings to find out which are useful for you.


Creating a new document

• Press CTRL+N to create a new document, based on your Normal.dot or go to File – New to create a document based on a different template.

• The settings of the template determine the font style, the font size, paragraph style and so on.

• You can modify the templates by opening and adapting them as normal Word documents.

• After you created a new document you can either start typing and format the text as you type, or make some formatting preparations.


Formatting text

• Use styles to format your document. The style for the plain text is usually the Standard style. If you wish to write your document for example in German, adapt the Standard style – not the text locally!

• To do so (and to make any other changes to styles) go to Format – Styles – Style Name and from the Tab “Format” select the properties you want to change


Setting the language

• From the “Format” tab …

• select “Language”

• Select the required language for your document

• Now your document will be completely in this language – as per default, all styles are based on Standard style – so if you change the Standard style, all common parameters of all styles will be updated accordingly

• The common parameters are – if not specified differently – the font, line spacing, alignment and language

• De-select both check boxes – auto selecting language does not bring big advantages


Selecting the font

• From the “Format” tab in Style properties …

• select Font

• Make the settings you need

• These will affect the whole document, that means headers and footers, headings, and other formats - as long you do not specify something else


Setting the paragraph properties

• From the “Format” tab in Style properties, select “Paragraph”

• Make the changes you need

• All these changes will also affect the whole document

• If you wish to place spacing between paragraphs in your document, do not insert empty paragraphs, but use the spacing option here. This is extremely important for keeping headers in line with the following text


Special styles

• Word uses some special styles

• These are the Headlines, Headers, Footers and some others

• Headlines have a special function – they may be used for creating tables of contents

• As long the global settings remain the same as in the Standard style, any modification of Standard style will affect these styles too

• When you modify font (line spacing etc.) this will remain, even if you then modify Standard style

• When you format your document in this way, using style, you will be able to apply changes to the document very easily. Changing style settings will affect the whole document


Creating own styles

• Type a text in Word – for example centred bold text, as often used in legal contracts

• This text will be kept with the following paragraph, separated from the paragraph above with three empty lines, and will have a distance of one line to the following paragraph

• After you have typed this text, format it as specified – font 12 pt bold, space before 36 points, space after 12 points, keep with the following paragraph

• In Word …

• click here

• and type a name for the style and press Enter

§ 1

Terms of contract

Documents

©2006 Dipl.-Ing. Jerzy CzopikNovember 10&11, 20062. ProZ.com Regional Conference Edinburgh Edinburgh 2006 Word – the widely unknown animal Formatting Word