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Category Archives: Short cuts

How to customise your contents page in Word

It’s Word Tips time again and today we’re going to talk about customising your contents page.

Why do people customise their contents page?

Sometimes you have lots and lots of sub-headings in a document but you only want to show the main or main and sub-headings on the contents page, not every tiny sub-sub-heading.

In addition, you might want to change the style of your contents page or its individual font and layout. Here’s how to do it, with a worked example of changing the levels that are shown.

Reminder: how do I insert a contents page?

Here’s our document, with headings at H1, H2 and H3 level. I’ve marked these up with their heading levels already (see here for how to assign heading levels).

If we just follow the usual process for inserting a table of contents, we will create a blank page before this one, then go to the References tab and choose Table of Contents, then click on one of the automatic options that come up.

This is the result: a table of contents that includes all the headings in our original text:

How do I select which heading levels appear in my Table of Contents?

If you want to ignore all headings below level 2 (1.1, 1.2) then you need to customise the table of contents.

As before, select the References tab and the Table of Contents button. However, now click on Custom Table of Contents

This will give you this dialogue box:

There are lots of different things you can do here. For example, you can choose to show or not show the page numbers in the table of contents, and whether or not to align them. The preview panes at the top will show you the results before you click OK.

Options allows you to choose the style for the table of contents from a set of heading styles, and Modify then Modify again allows you to completely customise the appearance of the table of contents text permanently, with underlining, different fonts, etc.

At the moment, we’re concerned with eliminating the level 3 headings from the table of contents.Click on the arrows by Show levels to adjust how many levels are displayed:

And click OK. Here we have changed the number of levels to 2, and the result is this:

Even though the text still has the same headings and levels it had before, the table of contents now just includes those headings down to Level 2

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents. Find all the short cuts here … Please note that these tips are for Word 2010 and later for Microsoft. I can’t guarantee or check they will work in Mac versions of Word.

Do let me know if this has helped you – and do share with the buttons at the bottom of this article.

How do I search in a whole workbook in Excel?

20 Jun

How do I search for a word or phrase across multiple sheets in a workbook in Excel 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016?

Why would I want to search a whole workbook?

We think of Excel as being used primarily for numbers (although you might want to search for those, too), but I often encounter spreadsheets full of text. For example, when I’m localising text from US to UK English, or editing text that’s been translated, and it’s been output from a translation tool such as Trados, it often comes to me in an Excel spreadsheet.

Just like when I’m editing a Word or PDF file, I often want to either look for all instances of a word I want to change or check that I haven’t missed anything. And if that word might be in any one of many sheets in a workbook, I will want to search all of those sheets.

How do I perform a search in all the sheets of a workbook?

In this example, I want to find all the instances of the word “authorized” in all the many sheets in an Excel workbook.

First of all, press Control and F at the same time to bring up the Find and Replace dialogue box:

Using this search without changing anything will just search in the sheet I’m currently in.

Click on Options:

This brings up a load of options, including some other exciting ones we’re not looking at here, but which might be useful as well:

Click on the drop-down arrow to the right of Within: Sheet and change it to Workbook:

Now when you click “Find Next”, it will find the cell where that text is throughout the whole workbook.

In this article, we’ve learned how to search a whole workbook in Excel 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016.

If you’ve found this article helpful, please do post a comment below, and if you think others would find it useful, please share it using the sharing buttons below the article. Thank you!

How do I know when Track Changes is turned on? Word 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016

15 Feb

This article quickly explains how you know when track changes is turned on.

Do also read these articles to find out more about track changes: what Track Changes is, why we use it and where to find it, and how to customise Track Changes to suit our own preferences and learned how to work with a document that has Tracked Changes.

We turn on track changes to make sure that whoever else is using the document can see what changes (additions, deletions, moving text) we have made in the text. If you are working with an editor, they will typically turn track changes on so you can see what they have suggested. When my clients send me back amendments to a text they’re working on, I ask them to turn track changes on so I can see easily what they have done to the document.

How do I know when track changes is turned on in Word 2007 and Word 2010?

Word 2007 and Word 2010 look a bit different from later versions.

When track changes is turned on, you will see the button highlighted in orange:

This means that every change you make will be displayed in Word and other people will be able to see them if they have the correct view in their version of Word.

If the button is white, like the rest of the area, track changes it not turned on.

How do I know when track changes is turned on in Word 2013 and Word 2016?

Word 2013 and Word 2017 look different and the highlighting is more difficult to see, in my opinion.

When track changes is turned on, you will see the button highlighted in blue-grey:

This means that every change you make to the document will be displayed in Word and other people will be able to see them if they have the correct view in their version of Word.

When track changes is off, the button will be white, like the rest of the area.

If you want highlighting to be in a different colour, you will need to change the theme, and that’s for another article!

This article has taught you how to check whether you have track changes turned on in your Word document. See the links below for more track changes articles.

If you have found this article useful, please share or “like” it using the buttons below, or leave me a comment to tell me what you think. Thank you!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents.

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2007, 2010, 2013 and 2016 all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

Relevant articles on this website

Track changes 1 – why use it, where can you find it, what can you do with it?

Track changes 2 – customising Track Changes

Track changes 3 – working with a document with tracked changes

How do I accept one reviewer’s changes?

Why are my tracked changes changing colour?

How do I combine Word documents without losing the formatting?

21 Dec

I’ve written about how to combine Word documents in this article. But what if combining documents loses the formatting?

I had a question in a comment from someone who had used my method to combine several chapters of a textbook. But the formatting all got lost. What should she do?

How to combine Word documents and not lose the format

Before you combine the documents into one big document, add a Section Break at the end of each document you want to combine.

I’ve covered this in more detail in this article, but here’s a summary with a screenshot from Word 2013.

Go to the Page Layout tab
Find the Breaks section and drop it down using the little arrow
Select Section Break – Next page

Once you’ve done this to all your documents, combine them. You might find you have some extra blank pages at the end of sections: turn Paragraph Marks on (see this article for how to do that) so that you can see your Section Breaks. Carefully delete the blank pages but leave the section breaks there.

This should retain your individual formatting in each individual document that you’ve combined.

If you’ve found this article on how to combine Word documents without losing the formatting, useful, please comment or share using the buttons below. Happy document-combining!

More Control Key keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-J and more

27 Sep

I have previously written about the wonders of Control-F and how this keyboard shortcut finds text in almost everything (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, web pages, WordPress back-end, etc., etc., etc). Then I discussed other Control- or Ctrl+ keyboard shortcuts that you can use to copy and paste, embolden, italicise and underline, find, goto and replace, undo, redo and open, new, print and save. But I’ve recently had some questions about the remaining Control Key commands, so let’s round up what they do.

Why do we use keyboard shortcuts?

Keyboard shortcuts are used to save wear and tear on the wrists, to interact with a computer in other ways than just using two hands and a mouse, to save time, and, maybe, to show off your amazing computer skills.

What are the rest of the keyboard shortcuts using the Control key, then?

Ctrl-D – open the Font dialogue box using Control Key + D

Ctrl-E – centres the text in which the cursor is situated (this acts a toggle, so will un-centre centred text)

Ctrl-J – makes the text in which the cursor is situated become fully justified (again, this is a toggle, so the text will return to left justification (in a left-to-right alphabet document) if it’s already fully justified)

Ctrl-K – opens the Hyperlink dialogue box – make sure you have the text that you want to create a link for highlighted before pressing Control + k

Ctrl-L – makes the text in which the cursor in situated become left-justified (a toggle, so if it’s already only left-justified, pressing this will return the text to its full justification)

Ctrl-M – increases the indent on the left (much like the Tab key)

Ctrl-Q – removes indenting, so if you haven’t got any, it will seem this doesn’t do anything

Ctrl-R – makes the text in which the cursor is located become right-justified (a toggle, so pressing this in text that is already right-justified will change it to left-justified)

Ctrl-T – moves just the bottom indent slider across one tab at a time to create a hanging indent

Ctrl-W – closes the document, giving you the option to save

———————

Did you know ALL of these shortcuts? They’ll save you some mouse clicks and some are a lot quicker and more useful than the other methods you can use to get the same results. Which are your favourites?

How do I access the Customize Ribbon menu in Word 2010, 2013 and 2016?

29 Mar

This article explains how to access the Customize Ribbon menu, from where you can customise your ribbon. This will link in to posts on customising the ribbon and assigning keyboard short-cuts.

This information applies to Word 2010, 2013 and 2016 for PC.

What is the ribbon in Word?

The ribbon is the set of menus found at the top of your screen in Word which allow you to do all sorts of things, from changing the font to merging documents and adding tables. You can use short-cut keys for some commands, and I’ll explain that in another article. You might call it a toolbar, too. Here it is:

Why would I want to customise the ribbon in Word?

The ribbon in Word is filled with things Microsoft thinks you will want to use, in places it thinks you will look for them. But you might well want to customise it to add your own favourite short-cuts and commands. Or you might want to remove a particular tab altogether, and Word allows you to do this.

How do I find the customize ribbon menu?

There are (of course) two ways to get to the dialogue box where you customise the ribbon.

The first way uses the File tab, the second uses a right-click.

Using the file tab:

Navigate to the Word Options menu:

And once in Options, select Customize Ribbon:

The alternative way is to right-click anywhere on the tabs in the ribbon and then select Customize Ribbon:

How do I customise the Word ribbon?

Following either of the routes described above, you should come to this menu:

On the left-hand side, you can see a list of commands, and on the right-hand side you can see a representation of the tabs you have in Word at the moment.

Here are some things you can do:

Add an item to the Word ribbon (see above) – highlight the item you want to add, highlight where you want it to go, and click the Add button in the middle
Remove an item from the Word ribbon – find the item you want to remove by expanding all the menus on the left, highlight it and click the Remove button
Create a new tab – maybe you want to make a tab that only contains commands you use a lot – you can use the New Tab button on the left to create a new tab, then add items to it (an item can be in more than one tab)
Rename your tabs – rename them to whatever you want!

Don’t forget to click OK before you exit from this menu – or Cancel if you don’t want to change anything after all.

In practice, I wonder how many people do much customisation – do let me know in the comments if you’ve either customised your ribbon already or have followed these instructions to do so.

This article has shown you how to find the customize ribbon menu, why you might want to customise the ribbon in Word, and how to do it.

I closed Windows Explorer and now I can’t see my task bar: how do I get it back?

11 Jan

This was a question that arose for me the other day. I was trying to rename a file in the folder view of Windows Explorer and everything froze. I opened Task Manager (see my article on Task Manager if this is new to you) using control-alt-delete, selected Windows Explorer and clicked End Task. To my horror, what I now know is called the “Shell” – the explorer view but also the lower task bar and my desktop, the clock, the Windows button – all disappeared. How would I get it back?

My poor sad monitor view with no desktop, Windows button, bottom task bar, clock, etc.

How do I restore a closed app using Task Manager?

Just as you can use Task Manager to close an app or piece of software that’s frozen, you can use it to restore, too.

Open Task Manager using the Start button or Control-Alt-Delete and click the File tab (note, this is Windows 10, so yours might look a bit different, but it will have the same features that we’re talking about here).

If you haven’t previously used Windows 10 Task Manager, you will need to expand it from the initial view:

Click More details and you’ll see the full view:

Select Run new task. You will then see this dialogue box:

Type “Explorer” (or whatever else you can’t find) in the Open field and then press OK (Don’t worry about the admin privileges bit at the moment: you would know if you needed to use that).

And now all of the Windows Explorer Shell has reappeared:

In this article, I’ve shown you how to make Windows Explorer (or any other app or software you have made disappear) reappear when you’ve accidentally closed Windows Explorer and your desktop icons and task bar have disappeared.

How do you create a two-line figure caption and a one-line entry in your Table of Figures? Word 2010, 2013, 2016

26 Oct

This one was suggested by a regular reader of this blog in a comment, and I promise to write about it quite a long time ago.

This is a very specific situation where the style guide for your organisation or publisher demands that you have Figure and Table captions set out over two lines, but you want the Table of Figures to have one line including both Figure label and caption, so it looks something like this:

How not to create a two-line figure caption

The natural inclination is to use the Return key to split the Figure label and caption, either by entering it all in one line in Insert Caption then splitting it up or using Insert Caption to add the title, hitting Enter then adding the caption. However, when you create your Table of Figures, it either won’t pick up the second line at all or will create two entries in the Table of Figures:

How to create a two-line figure caption so the Table of Figures only has one line per figure

This is how you do it correctly. The key is to use the soft line return (Shift+Enter) rather than a hard, paragraph return (Enter).

Place the cursor where you want to insert your caption and go to the References tab, Insert Caption:

Make sure the figure label reads as you want it to (adjust the label to Table, etc.) and then hit OK

Place the cursor at the end of the figure label and hit Shift+Enter to start a new line:

Type in your caption:

ALTERNATIVELY

Type the whole caption into the Insert Caption box and press OK:

Place the cursor at the start of the caption and press Shift+Enter to move it down to the next line:

Now create your Table of Figures using References, Insert Table of Figures and you should have one entry per Figure:

This article has taught you how to create two-line figure captions which show on one line in your Table of Figures.

If you have found this useful, please comment using the comment box below and/or share using the social media sharing buttons. Thank you!

Why are my tracked changes altering their colour when I save in Word 2010, 2013 and 2016

05 Oct

We’ve already learned what Track Changes is, why we use it and where to find it, and how to customise Track Changes to suit our own preferences and learned how to work with a document that has Tracked Changes.

This article explains what to do when your tracked changes alter their colour when you press the Save button. It’s weird, it can be annoying, and your initials might disappear, too, which can be confusing if more than one person is commenting on the text.

Screen shots are from Word 2013.

Has your track changes markup ever changed colour?

This has only happened to me when working with a document that has originated from someone else.

You have made lots of changes in a document, and they show up in red, as normal (or whatever colour you have set for your corrections), but when you save, yours go into blue and your initials disappear. This might also happen if you’re working on a document which already includes someone else’s tracked changes: yours show in a different colour to theirs until you press Save. Then they’re all blue (or whatever colour the first person’s were).

What is happening here?

The original owner of the document has specified that the personal information of whoever is working on the document will be removed when they Save the document.

How to check whether your personal information is being removed upon Saving the document

To check whether this is the reason for your tracked changes changing colour, follow these steps.

Go to File (the extreme left tab in Word) and Options:

Clicking on Options will give you this Word Options menu; choose Trust Center:

Click on Trust Center and then go into Trust Center Settings by clicking the button at the bottom right:

Once in the Trust Center Settings, you need to go into Privacy Options (it will default to Macro Settings):

…. and once you have accessed Privacy Options, you will see that Remove personal information from file properties on save is ticked, which means that when you save, all references to your name are removed from both track changes and the properties of the file itself:

Now, at this point, this can be “unticked” so that your changes stay in your colour (in your own view, only, of course) and with your initials (everywhere). But do stop to think: did the person who created the document do this on purpose? It’s quite a lot of clicks to make by accident, so I do tend to check this, see why it’s happening and then leave it as it is. I might change it so I can see my own changes then make a note to change it back before my final save, but in general, I leave it.

Why might someone choose to remove personal information in a document?

I’m not entirely sure that I have an answer to this. Maybe they have edited the document and don’t want their end client to be confused by lots of different names on the file. Maybe they’re a student who wants to make sure no one else’s name is on the file. I do tend to assume they have a reason, and respect that.

But this is how and why the tracked changes colour sometimes changes when you save your document.

This article has taught you how to work with a document that has been marked up using Track Changes where the colour of the track changes alters. You can read more about what Track Changes is and why we use it, how to work with a document including tracked changes and how to customise Track Changes.

If you have found this article useful, please share or “like” it using the buttons below, or leave me a comment to tell me what you think. Thank you!

This is part of my series on how to avoid time-consuming “short cuts” and use Word in the right way to maximise your time and improve the look of your documents.

Please note, these hints work with versions of Microsoft Word currently in use – Word 2010, 2013 and 2016 all for PC. Mac compatible versions of Word should have similar options. Always save a copy of your document before manipulating it. I bear no responsibility for any pickles you might get yourself into!

Relevant articles on this website

Track changes 1 – why use it, where can you find it, what can you do with it?

Track changes 2 – customising Track Changes

Track changes 3 – working with a document with tracked changes

How do I accept one reviewer’s changes?

9 Comments

Posted by Liz Dexter on October 5, 2016 in Copyediting, Errors, New skills, Short cuts, Word, Writing

Tags: Copyediting, skills, students, Word tips, Word2007

How do I highlight the text related to my comment balloon in Word 2013 and 2016?

28 Sep

I have already published a range of posts on issues with comment boxes or comment balloons, including ones on comment boxes suddenly going tiny, or comment box text running in the wrong direction, changing the language in your comment balloons. This article covers how to highlight the text that a comment balloon relates to.

Why can’t I see which bit of text this comment balloon is about?

As a default in Word 2013 and Word 2016, you can see your text and you can see your comments, but you can’t see which bit of text the comment refers to. Why? I have no idea. Microsoft tends to try to make things look simpler, but personally, I don’t find it helpful. It looks like this …

… and what we want to see is this:

How do I highlight the text that’s being commented on?

You can change the settings to do this by going to the Review Tab and the Track Changes area. You will see a box marked Simple Markup. Click on the down arrow to the left to access the dropdown menu:

Select All Markup.

Now the text that the comment is about will be highlighted when you’re looking at the document:

Don’t forget …

This only applies to your individual view of the document on your particular computer / screen. If your editor, client or co-writer wants to change this view, they’ll have to change it themselves. Send them here to see how it’s done!

If you have found this article helpful, please add a comment and/or share it using the buttons below. Thank you!

Category Archives: Short cuts

Why do people customise their contents page?

Reminder: how do I insert a contents page?

How do I select which heading levels appear in my Table of Contents?

Related articles on this website

Why would I want to search a whole workbook?

How do I perform a search in all the sheets of a workbook?

Other useful posts on Excel on this blog:

How do I know when track changes is turned on in Word 2007 and Word 2010?

How do I know when track changes is turned on in Word 2013 and Word 2016?

Relevant articles on this website

How to combine Word documents and not lose the format

Other useful articles on this website

Why do we use keyboard shortcuts?

What are the rest of the keyboard shortcuts using the Control key, then?

What is the ribbon in Word?

Why would I want to customise the ribbon in Word?

How do I find the customize ribbon menu?

How do I customise the Word ribbon?

Related articles on this blog

How do I restore a closed app using Task Manager?

Related posts on this blog

How not to create a two-line figure caption

How to create a two-line figure caption so the Table of Figures only has one line per figure

Other useful posts on this blog

Has your track changes markup ever changed colour?

How to check whether your personal information is being removed upon Saving the document

Why might someone choose to remove personal information in a document?

Relevant articles on this website

Why can’t I see which bit of text this comment balloon is about?

How do I highlight the text that’s being commented on?

Don’t forget …

Other related posts on this blog

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