21 November 2019

Header and Footer Keyboard Shortcut

Dear Ms. Bytes, Word

Dear Ms. Bytes

I would like to know if there is a Header and Footer Keyboard Shortcut which would allow me to jump into the Header of my MS Word document?

Sincerely – Maureen W.

Dear Maureen W.,

Yes, there is! It’s a very good question because oftentimes, as we are editing documents, it would be so convenient to be able to move quickly to the Header and/or Footer area. This can be easily done using a keyboard shortcut. While in the body of your document, press ALT+V, then press H. Once you are in the Header, if you want to move to the Footer, press the down arrow (the navigation arrows on the keyboard). Pressing the up arrow will move you to the Header. To close out of the Header or Footer area, you can press the ESC key.

Sincerely – Ms. Bytes

Happy Formatting!

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6 May 2019

Remove Blank Pages in MSWord

Dear Ms. Bytes, Word

Dear Ms. Bytes

When I print my document, it always prints a blank page at the end. How can I remove blank pages in MSWord?

Sincerely – Arthur M.

Dear Arthur M.,

Dear Arthur,

This should be an easy fix. The blank page(s) printing at the end of your document simply means that you have several hard returns, or empty paragraphs, at the end of your document. To remove blank pages in MSWord, you will need to find and delete the extraneous hard returns at the bottom of the document.

You may not see the hard returns unless you turn on the Show/Hide feature which will display the non-printing characters in your document.

Turn on the Show/Hide feature

Find the Show/Hide button on the Home ribbon and click it to turn on and to turn off the non-printing characters in your document.

The non-printing characters will appear in the document – these marks are very helpful when editing a document and will display characters such when you press the TAB key, or when you press the SPACEBAR, or when you press ENTER, and others. You will need to see these non-printing characters to remove blank pages in MSWord.

Find Empty Paragraphs

One easy way to get to the end of the document is to press CTRL+End. Now that you can see the non-printing characters, you will probably see several empty paragraphs, or hard returns. You can delete them by pressing the BACKSPACE key until you have removed them or you can select them all at once and press DELETE.

Blank Page Following a Table

MSWord requires that there is a paragraph mark (hard return) at the end of every document, so you may run into an issue when using tables. You will not be able to remove or delete the paragraph mark that appears after a table. An option that you can try would be to decrease the font size of that last paragraph mark (hard return) so that you can remove the blank pages in MSWord.

Happy Deleting!

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18 March 2019

Extended Clipboard in MSWord

Dear Ms. Bytes, Word

Dear Ms. Bytes

Is it possible to CUT more than one selection at a time?

Sincerely – Sheri T.

Dear Sheri T.,

MSWord has a very cool tool called “Spike.” This feature is an extended clipboard in MSWord documents. I’m sure you are familiar with the CUT/COPY/PASTE function, right? Well, the Spike feature allows you to CUT text from several places in a document and PASTE them in a new location, all at once. So instead of performing CUT/PASTE several times, you can gather up several selections and then go to the location in your document where you want the items placed and drop them in.

To Use Spike

Start by selecting some text, then press CTRL+F3. Select another piece of text, then press CTRL+F3. Continue this process of “spiking” selections to the extended clipboard in MSWord. You can select and append several entries this the active Spike.

To PASTE the spiked entries, click in your document where you would like the entries to appear and press CTRL+SHIFT+F3 and the contents of the Spike will appear in that location.

Happy Spiking!

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3 April 2018

Automatic Border Lines in MSWord

Dear Ms. Bytes, Word

Dear Ms. Byte,

When I type 3 or 4 dashes and then press ENTER, an automatic border line appears in my document. I know I can press CTRL+Z to undo it right after it happens, but how can I stop this from happening in the first place? It is seriously frustrating!

Sincerely – Mary L.

Dear Mary L.,

MSWord has several automatic formatting options that can be very frustrating – this is one of them! MSWord will drop in automatic border lines when you type 3 or more dashes, equal signs, and underscores. Watch this short video to see how to turn off automatic border lines.

Sincerely – Ms. Bytes

Word Options

Here is some additional advice: spend some time looking at Word Options. There are many features that can be customized – turned on or off. There are many more just in the Proofing section! But don’t stop there… explore all of them. Happy Learning!

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28 March 2018

Deleting Footnotes in MSWord

Dear Ms. Bytes, Word

Dear Ms. Byte,

I opened a document that had all the information I needed and saved it with a new name. I’ve been working on it today and just realized that it has several footnotes. I would like to delete all of the footnotes in this document, is that possible?

Sincerely – Isaac R.

Dear Isaac R.,

It sure is! And pretty simple, too. Read on…

Sincerely – Ms. Bytes

Footnotes

Many documents can benefit from a footnote – they allow you to provide a source for a cited piece of text or add helpful information. But deleting footnotes is also important. The first thing we like to try is utilizing the power of MSWord’s Find and Replace feature. There are so many useful things you can look for in your document (i.e. a specific style, a symbol, etc.) and many things with which you can replace them.

Split Screen

Here is an example of a few footnotes – notice the active Split Screen? If you would like to get more information on how to use a Split Screen, click here . For the purpose of this example, the Split Screen makes it easy to see the top and bottom of the page at the same time. In your document, Isaac, you won’t need to split the screen as you search for footnotes.

Deleting Footnotes

Pressing Ctrl+H will display the Replace tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.

In the Find What box, enter the following: ^f. This means you want to search for footnotes.
Make sure the Replace With box is empty.
You can click on Find Next to find the footnotes one at a time. When a footnote is found, you can click Replace and it will remove the footnote and find the next footnote in your document.
Or you can click on Replace All – all of the footnotes will be deleted. Or to be specific, all of the footnotes will be replaced with nothing.
Close the Find and Replace dialog box.

Watch the video to see how deleting footnotes is super easy!

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21 March 2018

Can I Delete Fonts in MS Word?

Dear Ms. Bytes, Windows, Word

Dear Ms. Byte,

When I display the font list in MSWord, it is very long and contains many fonts that I never use. Is there a way to delete fonts I find useless ?

Sincerely – Tracy G.

Dear Tracy G.,

I know what you’re talking about! At work, I only need a handful of professional fonts, too. Follow the steps below to delete fonts from the font list in MSWord.

Sincerely – Ms. Bytes

Windows System

The fonts you see when you are working on an MSWord document are actually stored on your Windows system. The fonts are stored there so that other programs have access to them too, like MSPowerPoint and MSExcel. While you cannot delete fonts from within MSWord, it is a simple process to access the Windows Font folder and make changes within the Control Panel.

Depending on your Operating System, the steps to access the Control Panel may be different. Essentially, you will need to either search for the Control Panel (my favorite method), or click on it in your Start Menu.

Control Panel

To see the fonts that come with Windows, open the Control Panel and then click on Fonts.

From there you can do all sorts of fun things with your fonts: organize, preview, add and delete fonts. Also, if you are using a later version of Windows (7 or later), you can “hide” individual fonts. This allows them to stay installed in Windows, but they won’t display in the applications you use. Just remember to click on – or select – the font you want to mange first!

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14 March 2018

Insert a Cross-Reference in MSWord

Dear Ms. Bytes, Word

Dear Ms. Byte,

I am working on a document that contains several charts. I would like to refer to a chart within my document by indicating the page number the chart is on. If I type the page number, but then later on the chart is moved to a different location, I have to remember to go back and manually change the page number reference. I’ve heard about the possibility of inserting a field to help me with this – am I on the right track?

Sincerely – Susie M.

Dear Susie M.,

You are on the right track! Yes, you will insert a cross-reference field. This field will update, so no matter where the chart is in the document, the reference will always reflect its current location. Following the steps below will help you insert a cross-reference.

Sincerely – Ms. Bytes

Insert a Cross-Reference in MSWord

Insert a cross-reference if you want to refer to another part of your document, i.e. a chart or specific paragraph. Clicking the reference link will take you to that location. If you need to link to a different document you would need to create a hyperlink.

Creating a Bookmark

Select the text you want to be cross-referenced. In Susie’s situation, she would select the chart.
Assign this text/object a Bookmark name.
First, click on the Insert Tab.

Then, click on Bookmark.

Next, type a name for the bookmark. It is not case sensitive, and spaces are not allowed. You may use an underscore character.
Last, click Add. The bookmark will be named, and the dialog box will close.

Insert the Cross-Reference

The next step is to position the insertion point where you want the cross-reference to appear. In Susie’s situation, she would place her insertion point in the paragraph she wants the page number to appear (i.e. “Please see the graph on page _“).

Insert the Bookmark.
- If necessary, click on the Insert tab.
- Then, click on Cross-Reference (it is to the right of Bookmark on the Insert ribbon).
- The Reference Type = Bookmark.
- The Insert Reference To = Page Number.
- Select the Bookmark, then click Insert.
- Finally, click Close.

At this point, you will see the page number of the chart! If you point near or on the cross-reference, you will see the tip telling you to Ctrl+Click to follow the link.

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7 March 2018

Remove Extra Spaces Between Words

Dear Ms. Bytes, Word

Dear Ms. Byte,

After copying text from a web source, I pasted the text into my Word document. Now, there are a lot of extra spaces between words. I can delete the spaces manually, but there has to be a faster way to remove extra spaces between words.

Sincerely – Frustrated Fran

Dear Frustrated Fran,

I’m so glad you asked – yes! There is a faster way to remove the extra spaces between words. Following these steps will save you a bunch of time.

Sincerely – Ms. Bytes

Remove Extra Spaces Between Words

Obviously, you would like to have one space between words, right? Since you don’t want to remove all the spaces in your document, the secret will be using Word’s powerful Find & Replace feature. You are going to “Find” all of the extra spaces and “Replace” them with only 1 space.

In the steps below, step #4 indicates that you should enter 2 numbers in brackets. The first number is the minimum number of sequential spaces to find, and the second represents the maximum number of sequential spaces to find — in the example below, {3,20} is asking Word to find a minimum of three and a maximum of 20 consecutive spaces.

Pressing Ctrl+H will open the Find and Replace dialog box.
In the lower section, click on the More button. This will display the search options.
Select the Use wildcards check box.
In the Find what field, press the spacebar once followed by {3,20}.
In the Replace with field, press the spacebar once.
Click Replace All.

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5 May 2016

My View is Upside Down!

Dear Ms. Bytes, Windows

Dear Ms. Bytes,

HELP! I somehow rotated my screen and can’t figure out how to rotate back so it’s right side up.

Sincerely,
Aching Neck Nelly

Dear Aching Neck Nelly,

This is a common mistake. Press Ctrl+Alt+ arrow up to rotate the screen and cure your aching neck.
Pressing Ctrl+Alt+arrow down rotates the screen upside down. Try that on your co-workers on April Fool’s Day.

Sincerely,
Ms. Bytes

15 April 2016

Duplicating an Event in CompuLaw

CompuLaw, Dear Ms. Bytes, Docketing

Dear Ms. Bytes,

Today I received ten “Notices of Deposition”. Is there any way to duplicate the last entry so I’m not having to re-enter the same information repeatedly?

Sincerely,
Drowning in Depositions

Dear Drowning in Depositions,

Fret not! Enter your first deposition and save. When the new Event Entry dialog box displays, press F4 to paste from the last event. You will need to modify the date and description, but the rest of the information is automatically populated for you.

Sincerely,
Ms. Bytes