MS Word 2003 Tutorial - Keep your Favorite Files at your Fingertips

MS Word 2003 Tutorial - Keep your Favorite Files at your Fingertips

If you're like most people, there are a few files you use often, and would like to have a few at your fingertips. What most users don't know is Word 2003 offers a way for you to add up to 9 files to your menu, so that they are always available.

Here are the steps.

Step 1 - Set up your Work Toolbar

• Click on the Tools menu, then Customize.
  
• Click the Commands tab.
  
• Under the Save in section, make sure Normal.dot is selected. This makes the files available throughout MS Word.
  
• Under the Categories section in the left hand side of your dialog box, select Built-in Menus.
  
• Under the Commands section on the right hand side of the dialog box, select Work (scroll all the way to the last item).
  
• Drag Work from the dialog box to your toolbar.
  
• Close the document, then close Word. If you get a question asking if you want to save changes to normal.dot, choose Yes or OK.

Once your work menu is set up, you're able to add up to 9 documents.



Step 2 - Add items to your Work Toolbar

Adding items to the MS Word work menu is very simple.

• Open the file (the file must have a name).
  
• Click the Work menu, then select Add to Work Menu.

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How to Control Numbering in a Word 2003 Document

I recently taught an Intermediate Word 2003 class, and this was a question posed by one of the students:

I occassionally create documents with cover pages. How do I set up Word so that the first page in a document is the unnumbered cover page? What I'd like to see happen is for the second page in the document to be numbered page 1.

In order to do this, you would have to work with Word 2003's section break features. Here are the step-by-step instructions.

1 - Insert a New Page Section Break on the 2nd Page.

Switch to the 2nd page of your document.
Go to the Insert menu, and click Break.
Under Section Break Types, Choose Next Page.
(At this point, you can click View, then Normal to see the section page break - this is optional).

2 - View the Header and Footer Menu.

Click the View menu, then Header and Footer.
If you'd like to put the page number in the footer, click the button to Switch to Footer.

3 - Delete the link between the 1st and subsequent page(s) headers and footers.

On the Header and Footer toolbar, you will notice the Link to Previous section button is highlighted.
Click the Link to Previous button. This removes the link between the 1st page header/footer and the rest of the document's headers/footers.

4 - Insert your page numbers.

On the Header and Footer toolbar, click the button to insert the number of pages. Since you've deleted the link to the previous section, Word will start numbering on the second page of your document.

Easily Create Training Manuals Based on your Presentation

MS Powerpoint 2003, MS Word 2003

I just received a call from a colleague. She is in the midst of creating a training manual based on her PowerPoint presentation, and she wondered if there's an easy way to transfer the information.

Copying and pasting the information slide by slide was taking all day.

Fortuntately, there is.

On the File menu, click Send to, then Microsoft Word.

When the dialog box pops up, click Outline Only, and then OK.

All of the information in your PowerPoint slides will be transferred into a new Microsoft Word document.

I often use this when creating training manuals for my Software and Internet Marketing Courses. It makes the PowerPoint presentation and training manual in sync, and makes creating manuals a snap.

Add Words to your Custom Dictionary

Works with Windows XP and Office 2003
When you run spell check, does your dictionary keep checking for words that you know are spelled correctly?

Here are some examples:
Your last name
Blog
LinkedIn
Facebook

When you run spellcheck within any Microsoft Office 2003 program (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.) you have the option of adding mis-spelled words to your custom dictionary.


Wouldn't it be nice, though, if you could just add all of the words to the custom dictionary at once?

Here are the steps.

• Find the Custom.dic file.
  In Windows XP, Type CTRL + ESC, then S.
  Click All files and folders.
  In the box called "All or part of the file name" type custom.dic.
  
  Run the search, and Windows should find the file (Custom.dic) in your Proof subdirectory.
  
  
• Open Custom.dic (use the Notepad program).
  
  
• Copy and paste (or type) all of the words you'd like to add to your custom dictionary. Make sure there is one word to a line.
  
  
• Save and close Custom.dic.

Now, any Office 2003 program (Word, Outlook, etc.) will recognize the words you've added to your Custom Dictionary.

Remember, as you add words to your custom dictionary, don't forget to add the word "blog."

MS Office Tip - Save Time by Adding Buttons to your Toolbar

This tip shows you how to add buttons to any toolbar in the Microsoft Office 2003 suite (Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, etc.)

Why would you use this, may ask? I have found that adding a couple of buttons to the toolbar for frequently used commands speeds up my productivity. A perfect example, from Microsoft Excel, is the button to delete a row from a spreadsheet. Clicking on a button is a lot faster than having to go through the Edit menu each time I need to remove a row.

Here are the instructions for adding the Insert Rows button to your toolbar. Although this is an Excel command, similar steps will work for all MS Office programs.

• Right click in the blue area to the right of any of your toolbars.
  
  
• Click on Customize.
  
  
• When the dialog box pops up, click on the Commands tab.
  
  
• Under the Categories list box, click on Edit.
  
  
• Scroll down the Commands list box until you come to Delete Rows
  
  
• Click on Delete Rows and drag it to any toolbar.

Voila! You're done. The next time you need to delete a row, simply click on the button you've added to your toolbar.

Now, go and experiment to see how many buttons you can add to your existing Access, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint or Publisher toolbars to save you tons of time.

How yours truly used technology to save $5,000 a year

One of the guiding principles in my business is I show business professionals ways they can use technology to save time, lower costs or generate revenue.

Here's a real life example, based on an Excel project I was working on this morning.

Project overview: This project involves updating a 290 row, 10 column spreadsheet. Just for grins and giggles, I decided to try updating the sheet manually, and then using Excel formulas to get the job done - just to see how much time and money I would save.

The old (expensive) way: It took 1 hour and 57 minutes to update 63 rows, at a typing speed of 80+ words per minute. At this rate, it would have taken another 7.02 hours to complete this project. (I started at 8:36 am and finished 63 rows at 10:33 am).

The smarter way: Through modifying and combining a couple of Excel formulas, I was able to finish the remaining 157 rows in 13 minutes!

This included the time spent:

• modifying the formula,
  
• copying and pasting it throughout the spreadsheet,
  
• creating a formula to test my results, and
  
• correcting 4 errors.
  Note: I made the errors while updating the report the slow and expensive way. Without formulas, I wouldn't have been able to test my results and catch errors.

The bottom line: Let's assume this report is generated once a month. By properly using Excel, I will save $4,908 of my time each year. If this is a weekly report, the annual savings are a whopping $21,268.

My point: Properly using technology not only saves time and money, it may also save your reputation (by enabling you to check results).

For additional information, see Learn Excel Formulas from A to Z - Atlanta Excel Training Class.

MS Word Tip - Print Keyboard Shortcuts

While recently teaching a Microsoft Word 2003 class in Atlanta, I happened to mention some of the differences between Office 2003 and 2007.


(For a review of two major differences, check out this article on the probiztechnology.com website).


Class attendees were shocked to find out that the menu interface they just learned was not included in the Office 2007 version. There is good news however: (a) some vendors have already issued software add-ons to convert the Office 2007 menu to Office 2003, and (b) the same keyboard shortcuts that work in Office 2003 also work in Office 2007.


Word® 2000 and 2003 offer a simple, easy way for you to print a list of keyboard shortcuts. Go to the Tools menu, point to Macro, and then click Macros. In the Macros in box, click Word commands. In the Macro name box, click ListCommands. Click Run. In the List Commands dialog box, click Current menu and keyboard settings. On the File menu, click Print.

MS Word Tip for Article Marketers.

Works with Microsoft Word 2000 and 2003


Writing articles is an excellent way to boost your search engine position. (For additional information on article writing as a SEO strategy, see my class Using eMarketing to Grow your Business.)

Whether you submit your articles to print or online publishers, a publisher will usually give you a word count limit.

Here are a couple of ways to count the number of words in your document.

The traditional way.

Go to your Tools Menu, and click on WordCount.



This works great, however, wouldn't it be more helpful to have that word count right in your document, so you could easily see it as you're working on the document?

Here's another way to update your word count, frankly, it's the method I prefer.

Click the Insert menu, and choose Field.

When the dialog box pops up, select the NUMWORDS code. This box shows the MS Word 2003 version, Word 2000 is slightly different.



This pops a field into your document that shows the number of words in your document.

Here's the key to making this work -- make sure the code is at the bottom of your document. You'll soon see why this is important.

Whenever you want to update the number of words in your document, put your cursor anywhere in the field and hit F9. Since the NUMWORDS field is the last item in your document, you're always only a couple of keystrokes away.