When I type a heading, I might select it, press Ctrl+B (bold), and then launch the Font dialog box to apply the Small Caps effect and perhaps choose a larger point size. I might also launch the Paragraph dialog box to change the indentation and spacing.

This way of applying formatting attributes is called direct formatting, in contrast to style formatting. Direct formatting has a number of disadvantages that are discussed in Chapter 9, "In Style!" For now, however, I'm sure you recognize that repeatedly applying the same sets of direct formatting to particular kinds of recurring text, such as headings, is both tedious and error prone.

Instead of using direct formatting, you can use a style. In the current example, you probably would want to use a heading style, such as Heading 1 if it's the top level of organization in your document. To apply this style to a heading, simply click in the heading, and with the Home ribbon displayed, click Heading 1 in the Quick Style Gallery, shown in Figure 4.1.

Figure 4.1. The Quick Style Gallery displays the most recently used styles first.

If the desired style is not displayed in the ribbon, you can scroll through the list of styles using the up and down triangles at the right end of the Quick Style Gallery. Alternately, you can display more of the gallery at one time by using the drop-down arrow below the down triangle.

In Word 2007, there are two basic types of styles: character and paragraph. Character styles convey character-level formatting information and can be applied to any text selection in a document. If no text is selected, then the character style will be applied to the current word (this is the default; to change the default, choose Office

Paragraph styles can be applied only to one or more whole paragraphs and affect the entire paragraph (although I'll later show you some sneaky techniques that enable you to seemingly sidestep this limitation). Because paragraph styles affect the entire paragraph, if you're applying a style to a single paragraph, you don't need to select it—just make sure that the insertion point is in the paragraph you want to style.

Although there are just two basic types of styles, there are three additional special cases that sometimes are treated as distinct style types: linked (character and paragraph together in the same style), table, and list. Even so, you really only need to know about the character/paragraph distinction to begin using styles effectively.

Suppose, in reviewing this document, your boss decides that Tasks D and E should be reversed. Without benefit of Word's outlining mode, you would carefully select everything encompassed by Task D, cut it to the Clipboard, and then paste it after Task E.

In outlining mode, however, it's much easier and less error prone to complete this task. Use the Show Level control, shown in Figure 4.3, so that no detail below Task D/Task E is showing. In this case, that would be level 2. Click anywhere in the Task D line, and click the move down control, also shown in Figure 4.3. This moves Task D to below Task E, including all text and heading levels that are within Task D.

Figure 4.3. Outlining mode gives you tremendous organizational power.

If you're fond of keyboard shortcuts, you can press Alt+Shift+Down, instead of clicking the move down button. Alt+Shift+Up would move the level containing the insertion point up.

Using the Demote control (Alt+Shift+ Right) reduces the organizational level of the current selection by 1. For example, if the highest level in the selection is level 2, then it is demoted to level 3, and all collapsed levels below that are also demoted. Therefore, level 3 becomes level 4, level 4 becomes level 5, and so on. The Promote control (Alt+Shift+Left) works in precisely the opposite direction.

Between the Demote and Promote controls, the Level control is used to change the level of the selection as well. If you want to move something from, for example, level 2 to level 6, it might be easier to reset its level to 6 here, rather than demoting four times.

The Expand and Collapse buttons are used to show additional detail contained within the currently selected level. If Show First Line Only is selected, then you won't see all of the text in that particular document section.

Custom Levels for Non-Heading Styles

Sometimes it can be useful to treat certain document styles, such as document titles, captions for tables, figures, and so on, as if they were heading levels in order to make them visible in Outline view. At the same time, you usually don't want to use the same styles you use for headings (except possibly for the document title when the document is to become part of a larger document). Word enables you to associate any style with any outline level.

For example, let's associate the Caption style with outline level 9. Assuming that you're not using Heading 9, this then provides a way for you, in Outline view, to see the location of anything using the Caption style.

To modify the Caption style, press Ctrl+Shift+S to display the Apply Styles task pane, and type Caption, but do not press Enter. Pressing Enter would assign the Caption style to the current selection (which is fine if a caption is selected, but it doesn't have to be to modify the Caption style). With "Caption" showing in the Style Name box, click Modify

Another useful tool is the Document Map feature. Unlike outlining mode, Document Map is a display and navigation tool only. It can't be used to reorganize or shuffle document contents. However, and I hesitate to say this lest it become an excuse not to use Heading styles, Document Map does not require the use of Heading styles. Conversely, without using styles that contain organizational level settings, hierarchical information is lost, and what you see in the Document Map pane won't necessarily indicate which headings are subordinate and superior. Hence, Document Map is no substitute for using outline level styles.

To display the Document Map, shown in Figure 4.4, click the Document Map checkbox in the View ribbon. Document Map enables you to see your organization while your document remains in Print Layout or Draft view. For many users, this is a lot more convenient than trying to work in Outline view, or having to shuffle two windows or a split view.

Figure 4.4. With Document Map you can see an overview of your document, even if Heading level styles were not used.

Clicking a heading in the Document Map pane switches the view in the document to that heading. Use the + and - buttons to expand and collapse levels displayed in the Document Map pane.

In Figure 4.4, notice the drop-down arrow to the right of Document Map at the top of the Document Map pane. Unlike most other task panes, the Document Map pane does have a functional drop-down option: Thumbnails. You can also display thumbnails from the View ribbon by clicking the Thumbnails checkbox. Note that the Thumbnails and Document Map checkboxes are mutually exclusive, and therefore really shouldn't be checkboxes, but Microsoft opted for a consistent look instead of technically correct controls.

There are two aspects of AutoCorrect. The first aspect is a set of options that affect Word's overall behavior in correcting five common "errors." Errors is in quotes because we don't always agree with Word that a particular occurrence is an error. These options can be turned on or off. Click Office

Figure 4.5. For many Word users, this dialog box provides the cure to many headaches.

The first option, Show AutoCorrect Options buttons, controls whether AutoCorrect options are displayed in a drop-down control when an autocorrection occurs. If you click the corrected word, the drop-down lets you change it back (the same effect as pressing Ctrl+Z) or stop correcting that particular item in the future. If having the button appear automatically disturbs you, you can turn it off.

The rest of the options are self-explanatory. You'll need to decide if they help more than hurt. If they hurt only sometimes, click Exceptions to see if you can tame it not to correct the ones you want left alone.

For many of us, the "Replace text as you type" feature saves many hours of tedium. Becoming acquainted with Word's built-in list can save you some surprises. You'll also learn that in addition to correcting what you type, AutoCorrect provides a convenient set of shortcuts. Even so, there are some you probably can't live with.

To remove a built-in AutoCorrect entry, type the item you don't want corrected in the Replace box. Suppose, for example, that you prefer to decide for yourself when to and when not to accent certain letters, yet AutoCorrect insists on correcting cafe to café. Perhaps you're sending an e-mail telling someone to meet you at Tony Packo's Cafe on Front Street in Toledo, Ohio. Go to their website (www.tonypackos.com) and check it out. Their "cafe" does not contain an é. For that matter, neither does Hard Times Cafe.

Type cafe in the Replace box. In the list, the word café magically appears in the With column, but not in the With box. Click Delete. At this point, some users get confused because clicking Delete causes café to appear in the With box. Make sure you don't accidentally click Add. Otherwise, Word adds the correction again. Instead, click Close, or type another offensive AutoCorrect word in the Replace box and continue the purge. When you're done, you can celebrate with a bowl of Tony's chili and some apple strudel.

In addition to zapping entries that give you indigestion, you can add your own. You aren't limited to correcting errors. You can create shortcut entries that automatically make your writing life easier. For example, I sometimes masquerade as an economist. We have some words and phrases that I don't like typing. For example, instead of typing "econometrically" when I need a juicy adverb, I type ecly, and it automatically changes to econometrically. When I type ui, it changes to unemployment insurance. Unfortunately, when writing computer books, I want it to change to user interface. I guess I need to change hats!

Note in Figure 4.5 that you have the option of inserting the replacement either as plain text or as formatted text. You can create plain text entries directly from the dialog box. To create formatted text entries, however, you must first select the prospective "With" text in a Word document. For example, perhaps you have a long corporate name that always has to be bold, or suppose you have a table shell that you want to reuse in other documents. Select the target text and then summon the AutoCorrect dialog box (Word Options

As shown in Figure 4.6, when a selection contains formatting, Word automatically enables the Formatted text option. Type your shortcut (make sure it's not a real word) into the Replace box and click Add

Figure 4.6. When selected text contains formatting that can't be fully displayed as plain text, AutoCorrect automatically selects the Formatted text option.

Tip

You can also add AutoCorrect entries on the fly, both for words you accidentally mistype and abbreviations you type on purpose. If "Check spelling as you type" is enabled (Word Options

For example, suppose you get tired of typing "For example," all the time. Type fex, right-click it when it gets flagged, and choose AutoCorrect

RedefineStyle is a built-in Word command that was introduced several versions ago. This command gives you a way to quickly enshrine direct formatting changes as part of the current style's definition.

For example, suppose you make a quick change to a Heading 1 style so that it has a negative indent of .25″. That's something you can do easily using the ruler. However, now you'd like to propagate that change to the style definition, not only the current paragraph. You apply Heading 1 to see what happens. Usually, it just gets reset back to the default, undoing your formatting efforts. If you have Prompt to Update Styles enabled (in Word Options

Figure 4.7. You'll see this dialog box only if Prompt to Update Styles is enabled in Word Options

Advanced

Editing Options.

Usually, users must resort to using the Modify Style dialog box (press Ctrl+Shift+S, and then click Modify) and making the change there. This involves a number of steps, even if it's just one simple change to the style definition.

With the RedefineStyle command assigned to a keystroke or to the QAT, it's just one simple action, and the current style is instantly redefined. Best of all, if you goof, Undo will fix it for you.

To assign this to a keystroke, use Word Options

To put RedefineStyle onto the QAT, look in the All Commands list for Redefine Style (with a space between the words). Highlight it and click Add.

Now, the next time you want to modify a style, make your changes using direct formatting techniques. When it looks the way you want it to look, click your Redefine Style QAT tool, or press your shortcut keystroke.

GoBack, which is assigned to Shift+F5, toggles between the current insertion point (text cursor location) and the last three places where editing occurred. If multiple documents are open and editing last occurred in a document that's not onscreen, Shift+F5 will take you there!

If only one file is open, and if it was just opened, then Shift+F5 will take you to the last place where editing occurred the last time that file was opened. This can be a good way to find where you last left off.

One of the most frequently used features in prior versions of Word was Edit

You might have noticed that there is no Edit menu in Word 2007. The "discoverable" keystroke method is now Alt followed by HVSU<Enter>. While the earlier method was hardly an ergonomic masterpiece, the new method would be worse.

The good news is that thanks to Microsoft's implementation of legacy keystrokes, the old keystrokes work, even though there are no menus! That means Alt+ESU<Enter> will still work for you. The better news is that Microsoft realized that users use Paste Special a lot, and so they added a special keystroke just for it: Ctrl+Alt+V, so Ctrl+Alt+VU<Enter> now does the trick!

The best news, however, is that if you're willing to spend 30 seconds recording a macro, you can get it down to just one keystroke! Pick a keystroke. Personally, I use Ctrl+Shift+V. It defaults to PasteFormat, which I never use (but which I describe how to use in Chapter 7). Of course, you don't have to pick that one. First, copy some text to the Clipboard so that the Paste command is available. Next, right-click the status bar and make sure that Macro Recording is checked. Now click the Macro Recording button (red dot) on the status bar, shown in Figure 4.8. In the Record Macro dialog box, type a name for the macro, such as PasteUnformatted. Click Keyboard, and assign the keystroke you chose. Click OK.

Figure 4.8. Simple macros are easy to record and can save you a lot of time.

Note that the red dot on the status bar is now a blue square, indicating that macro recording is in progress. Without doing anything else, press Ctrl+Shift+V, tap the U key once, and press Enter. Click the Stop Recording button (the blue square on the status bar), and you're done! Try your keystroke to verify that it works. If not, then lather, rinse, and repeat.

I don't like having to scroll horizontally to see what's onscreen. I keep Word zoomed way above 150% most of the time, so scrolling is a potential problem but it's not—because of two settings I use for most of my writing.

First, I use Draft view whenever possible. To use Draft view, click the Draft tool at the right end of the status bar or at the right end of the Document Views group in the View ribbon.

Second, I use Wrap to Fit. Choose Word Options

Apply Styles replaces the Formatting toolbar's Style tool (in Word 2003 and earlier)—sort of. As noted earlier, Apply Styles works differently, but at least it works.

When you want to change styles, press Ctrl+Shift+S, type the first few characters of the style name until it appears in the Style Name box, and press Enter (you can also press the up or down arrow once you're in the neighborhood, if that gets you to the desired style more quickly). This way, your hands never have to leave the keyboard. You'll save at least four seconds every time you do this rather than futz around with the style tools on the ribbon. Over the course of a year, this could actually add hours and days of free time you never had before. Time to write that novel! And, look! It's so easy to apply different styles!

If there's anything that rankles me, it's seeing each and every file that someone has ever created stored in the My Documents folder. First, I'm sure they don't all belong there. Second, it makes it really hard to find a needle in that huge haystack. And third, it's so easy to change, even if it's a bit harder to find out how than it was in Word 2003.

To change the default location where files are stored in Word, choose Word Options

The Places Bar is one of those items that magically appeared several Word versions ago. If you press Ctrl+O (File

When first introduced, the Places Bar could be changed only by editing the registry, so a lot of users gave up with it. In Word 2007, it's easy to change. To add your own places to the Places Bar, in either the Open or Save dialog box, navigate to a location you typically might need to access. It might be a project folder, a network folder, or even a SharePoint location. Once that folder or location is displayed, right-click in the Places Bar area itself, and choose Add [folder], where folder is the current location. That folder is now added to the bottom of the Places Bar list.

To make room for more of your own places, right-click in the Places Bar and choose Small Icons. To move your place up on the list, right-click it and choose Move Up. If you've a long way to go, you might find it faster to right-click and tap the U key instead of clicking Move Up.

Each time you have to navigate to an "I'll need to come here again" location, add that location to the Places Bar. If the list gets too long, it will "grow" scroll arrows at the top and bottom of the Places Bar. You also can widen and lengthen the entire dialog box by dragging the lower-right corner.

The Places Bar is common to most (but not all) Office 2007 applications. Note, however, that if you still have any Office 2003 applications, the two sets of Places Bars (Office 2007's and Office 2003's) are independent. Moreover, the method for adding folders is different in Office 2003 (Add to My Places is on the Tools menu inside Word 2003's file-oriented dialog boxes).

Hate losing work? I do. That's why I keep a very short leash on AutoRecover. I also tell Word to always make a backup copy. At this point in my life, I have more disk space than I have time to recreate lost work.

To set the AutoRecover interval, in Word Options click the Save tab. Under Save AutoRecover Information Every, choose an interval that reflects your work habits. If you're a fast worker, you might want to set it as low as every minute or two. For most users, the default 10 minutes seems a bit too infrequent.

Note, however, that AutoRecover is not the same thing as automatic save. AutoRecover comes to the rescue only if Word crashes. It does not automatically do a normal save of your document. Saving your document is up to you.

To enable backup copies, select Word Options

Even with both of these settings enabled, I still do frequent saves—every time I press the Enter key and certainly anytime the phone rings. It's extremely frustrating to see Word crash while you're on the telephone. I have been known to utter some rather colorful comments on such occasions.

One of the most common causes of corrupted documents in Microsoft Word is removable media. Because of the way Word creates and uses temporary files, many end up in the same folder where the original file is being edited. As you edit, temporary files are constantly being opened. In some cases, they can be many times larger than the original file. This makes it exceedingly easy for a small disk, such as a 3.5″ floppy diskette, to fill up. Once Word runs out of space on that disk, you can kiss your file goodbye.

Another corruption scenario occurs when a removable disk is removed while Word still has the file open. Usually, Word doesn't reassemble the file until it has been fully closed. A recent Save isn't sufficient. If you remove the disk before it's closed, pucker up and get ready to kiss it goodbye.

Something similar can happen, although less often, if a file being edited resides on a server and you lose connection with the server before the file is properly closed. Think of the server the same way you think of removable media.

So, if you shouldn't edit directly on removable media, what should you do? Use Windows Explorer to copy the file to your own local hard drive. Edit it there, save it, and close it. Then use Windows Explorer to copy the changed file back to the location or disk where you want it.

Note that the jury is still out on whether Word's new file format will have an effect on this problem. In any case, there's certainly no reason to expect any improvement with respect to files that are edited in compatibility mode. Forewarned is forearmed!

Did you know that Word has an Open and Repair command? A lot of people overlook the existence of this option, but in each of the past few releases of Word, it's gotten better and better.

Whenever Word is unable to open a file the normal way, Open and Repair might be your best hope of recovering as much as possible to avoid losing difficult-to-redo editing. When you encounter a file that Word says it can't open, press Ctrl+O and select the file. Rather than click Open, click the drop-down arrow next to the Open button, and choose Open and Repair. In recent Word versions, this has been fixing more and more documents (although it's not a miracle worker).

If Open and Repair fails, your last resort might be to attempt to use Recover Text from Any File, which you access by setting Files of Type to Recover Text from Any File in the Open dialog box. Note, however, that this recovery feature should not be used on files saved in any of Word's new .docx or .docm formats. That's because those files are actually compressed ZIP files, and you will not recover any useful text from them. Instead, rename the damaged file so that it has a .zip extension. Then, open the ZIP file and look for a folder named Word. Inside that folder there should be a file named document.xml. That file will contain the text of your document amid a lot of XML commands.