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  Sunday, July 13, 2008 – Permalink –

AutoNumber Invoices

Creating sequentially numbered documents


Use an Autonew macro to add a sequential number to a document and save it with that number.


In the template from which you create the document, insert a bookmark named Order in the location where you want the sequential number to appear and create an AutoNew macro, as follows:


Sub AutoNew()
Order = System.PrivateProfileString("C:\Settings.Txt", "MacroSettings", "Order")
If Order = "" Then
Order = 1
Else
Order = Order + 1
End If
System.PrivateProfileString("C:\Settings.txt", "MacroSettings", "Order") = Order
ActiveDocument.Bookmarks("Order").Range.InsertBefore Format(Order, "00#")
ActiveDocument.SaveAs FileName:="path" & Format(Order, "00#")
End Sub



If you do not need to display the number in the document, but just want to save it with a sequential number, there is no need to create the bookmark in the template and you should then delete the second last line of the code.

Article contributed by Doug Robbins
Word MVP Site


Microsoft Knowledgebase:
Macro to Increment Invoice Number to New Form Document


WordTips:
Sequentially numbered Labels


Here's a further discussion including methods to create sequential ticket numbers:

Here's the PDF version:
Word Field Codes Revealed



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<Doug Klippert@ 2:09 AM

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  Wednesday, June 25, 2008 – Permalink –

Kearning

More typography


At larger point sizes, it is esthetically pleasing to move some letters closer together than they would normally appear. For instance, the word "To". The letter "o" can be nudged under the arm of the "T":


Kerning
Adjusting (increasing or decreasing) the space between adjoining type characters.

Kearning pair
Two adjoining type characters to which a particular kearning value is applied.

Kearning value
The space between two adjoining type characters. This value is usually measured in em.

From the Word Help file:
  1. Select the text you want to change.
  2. On the Format menu, click Font, and then click the Character Spacing tab.
  3. Do one of the following:
    • Expand or condense space evenly between all the selected characters

      Click Expanded or Condensed in the Spacing box, and then specify how much space you want in the By box.

    • Kern characters that are above a particular point size

      Select the Kerning for fonts check box, and then enter the point size in the Points and above box.


Note: Selecting Expanded or Condensed alters the spacing between all selected letters by the same amount. Kerning alters the spacing between particular pairs of letters.


Microsoft Typography:
A Disagreeably Facetious Type Glossary


WebStyleGuide.com:
Webstyle Guide - Typography


About.com:
Typography Tutorials


Typographica
a journal of typography featuring news, observations, and open commentary on fonts and typographic design.
Here's the RSS connection:
Typographica Feed



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<Doug Klippert@ 3:17 AM

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  Sunday, June 01, 2008 – Permalink –

Formatting/Layout Suggestions

Publisher/Word


From the Word MVPS.org site:
Typographical Tips from Microsoft Publisher

..."Word is ubiquitous. If you buy a new computer, chances are good that it will come with some version of Office or Works Suite (which includes Word) installed. Word is a powerful word processing program that incorporates many of the features of a page layout application, but there are times when a page layout or desktop publishing application is what is needed. If you are using the Small Business Edition of Office 97 or Office 2007, Professional, or Ultimate, you have such a program: Microsoft Publisher.

...even if you use only Word, Publisher can be useful to you. Because once upon a time, at least, it came with an excellent manual. The Microsoft Publisher 97 Companion is a 328-page book (compare this to the 19 pages devoted to Publisher in Discovering Microsoft Office 2000 Premium and Professional), and it contains much material that can be equally helpful to Word users.

For example, the chapter "The Look of Words" discusses what fonts are, how to choose them, and how to get the most from them. The following tips, guidelines, and rules of thumb are excerpted from that chapter [with some comments interspersed]. We have not attempted to reproduce all the illustrations that appear in the actual manual, but even the text alone is helpful."




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<Doug Klippert@ 6:59 AM

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  Thursday, May 15, 2008 – Permalink –

Make a Dash

M-N-Hyphen



From the Word MVP Forum:
Dashes

There are three kinds of dashes, each a bit longer than the other.
You don't need to put spaces before or after dashes (in the US).

Use the hyphen (-) for hyphenating words.

Use the en dash (–) where you would use "to," as in "business hours are 10 A.M. – 5 P.M.," in a range of numbers (pages 17–25), or to link certain compound adjectives like "the Tokyo–Hong Kong flight" or "anti–blood clotting serum."

Use the em dash (—) instead of parentheses—as is done here—to set off a parenthetical phrase. On the typewriter, two hyphens stood in for this dash.


The keyboard shortcuts are:
Alt+0150 for an N dash
Alt+0151 for an M dash or two hyphens in a row

Here's an article from the Editorium.com:
Making dashes easy
By Jack M. Lyon

Meleanie Spiller has an articles on:
Colons, Semicolons, and Em-dashes

Hyphen Hysteria

And:

Interruptive Punctuation




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<Doug Klippert@ 6:13 AM

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  Saturday, May 10, 2008 – Permalink –

Tables

Without reservations


Word is more versatile than Excel or PowerPoint when it comes to manipulating how a table will appear. Go to View>Toolbars Tables and Borders, and also see the Table menu especially, "Table Properties" .
(In 2007 go to Insert Table, or Right click the Table)

Often, you will insert a table at the top of a document, and then later realize that you need to enter text above the table.

A keyboard shortcut to fix this is to place the insertion point in the first cell in the top left corner of the table.

Hit Ctrl+Shift+Enter and Word will move the table down and place the insertion point at the top.

This is also the combination used to split an existing table in two.
(If there are no entries in the cell, the Enter key will move the insertion point. If there is text in the cell or a paragraph above the table, then the Enter key will just start a new paragraph inside the cell.)

Here are some more suggestions from the Word MVPS web site:
Maximising the performance of Word tables

Rutgers University:
Word 2003: tables




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<Doug Klippert@ 8:58 AM

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  Wednesday, May 07, 2008 – Permalink –

Change Case

CAPS - No - caps



Sometimes mistakes are made in setting the case for sentences.
There are four general categories of capitalization:

Sentence Case - The first letter of a sentence is capitalized

Lowercase - all words are in lowercase

Uppercase - ALL CAPITALS

Title Case - All Words Are Capitalized
(This is, really, "Proper case". Title case would be "All Important Words are Capitalized".
Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs should be uppercase. Common articles, prepositions, and conjunctions should be lowercase
.)

You can make changes to selected text by going to
Format>Change Case
and choosing the correct style. (Including tOGGLE cASE)

You could also use a keyboard shortcut.
Select the text and then hold down the SHIFT key and tap the F3 key to toggle through three of the main cases – All Cap, Lowercase, and Title.

SAP Design Guild:
Quick Guide to Capitalization in English


Technical Communicators' Forum:
Capitalization of Headings and Titles


From The Editorium.com:
Here's a macro to change Heading styles to true Title case:
TITLE CASE MACRO, VERSION 2
By Jack M. Lyon

Word Tips:
Capital after colon

Automatically correct capitalization in most any MS 2007 App.



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:05 AM

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  Monday, May 05, 2008 – Permalink –

Word is Full of HTML

Clean up tools


From the Help file:

"When you save Web pages format with Microsoft Word, additional tags are added so that you can continue to use the full functionality of Word to edit your content.

To reduce the size of Web pages, you can save them in filtered HTML. Filtered format removes Microsoft Office-specific tags. If you save in filtered HTML and then reopen the file in Office programs, text and general appearance will be preserved, but some features may work differently.

If you reopen a Web page in Word that you saved in filtered HTML, your text and general appearance are preserved, but you may not be able to use certain Word features in the usual way to edit your files. For example, the appearance of bulleted or numbered lists is preserved; however, some of the Word functionality associated with lists will not be preserved.

If you will need to edit the file later, you can maintain two files: one in Word format and one in filtered HTML format. You can edit the content in the Word document, save it in Word format for future editing, and then save a copy in filtered HTML format."


Using filtered HTML save may not clean everything up. If you need more help see Informit.com:
Clean HTML from Word: Can It Be Done?
By Laurie Rowell.

Also:

HTML Tidy Library Project



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<Doug Klippert@ 7:13 AM

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  Wednesday, April 23, 2008 – Permalink –

Identify Formatting Inconsistencies

A suggestion I don't suggest



Microsoft Word can detect formatting inconsistencies as you type and then mark them with a blue, wavy underline.You may want to have all the headings in a document formatted the exact same way, but you inadvertently formatted some of them differently. Word can detect these inconsistencies as you are typing and underline them with a blue wavy line to alert you.

Lockergnome:
Check your formatting inconsistencies in Word

Microsoft Word Help:

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Edit tab.
  2. Under Editing options, select the Keep track of formatting check box, if it is not already selected.
  3. Under Editing options, select the Mark formatting inconsistencies check box.
    Formatting inconsistencies will be marked with blue, wavy underlines.
  4. Click OK.
  5. In your document, right-click the blue, wavy underline where a formatting inconsistency has occurred.
  6. Do one of the following:
    To correct the inconsistency, click the command that describes the inconsistency.
    To have Word remove the blue, wavy underline and not correct this inconsistency, click Ignore Once.
    To skip all occurrences of the inconsistency in the document, click Ignore Rule.


PC World:
Word 2002 adds fast formatting for stylin' documents.

ShaunaKelly.com:
How the Styles and Formatting pane works in Microsoft Word 2002 and 2003

I would suggest that you don't use this feature. See:
Runaway Styles in 2003

If you are going to use it, just to track formatting, remember to turn it off for the majority of uses.

Also see Wopr lounge



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:32 AM

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  Wednesday, March 26, 2008 – Permalink –

Do you Like Like Type?

Or do you love it?


Fonts have traits, character, even spirit. Witchita University ran a psychological study on how people "feel" about typefaces.


" This study sought to determine if certain personalities and uses are associated with various fonts. Using an online survey, participants rated the personality of 20 fonts using 15 adjective pairs. In addition, participants viewed the same 20 fonts and selected which uses were most appropriate.

Results suggested that personality traits are indeed attributed to fonts based on their design family (Serif, Sans-Serif, Modern, Monospace, Script/Funny) and are associated with appropriate uses.

Implications of these results to the design of online materials and websites are discussed."


Personality of Fonts




For instance when it came to business documents, 78.2% chose Times New Roman, 75.6 thought Cambria was appropriate, while only 5.3% wanted their attorney to use Gigi.



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<Doug Klippert@ 7:28 AM

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  Tuesday, February 05, 2008 – Permalink –

Curly Quotes be Gone

Stop them up front


Word, by default, uses curly (“ ”) rather than straight quotes(" ").

Here's a video that shows how to go into Word options and turn this Auto feature off.

Next we need to turn off Moe and Larry




Curly quotes



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<Doug Klippert@ 7:27 AM

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  Sunday, January 13, 2008 – Permalink –

Match Format Paste

Copy/Paste formatting in Word, PowerPoint or Excel



When you copy information from a Web page or another document, the formatting will also be copied.

To match the formatting of the target document, copy the text and place the cursor where you want to insert the copy.

Then, go to Edit>Paste Special, and select the Unformatted Text option.
(Click the arrow under Paste in the Clipboard group on the Home tab in 2007)

The clipboard text will be pasted to match the target.

Another way when using Word 2002 + is to click on the "Smart icon" that appears at
the lower right corner of the pasted text. You can then choose to keep the original formatting, match the destination formatting, keep text only, or apply a new style.

An additional way to transfer just the formatting between documents is to highlight the text with the formatting you wish to copy and then hold down the Ctrl key and the Shift key and press the C key (Ctrl+Shift+C). Release the keys. Select the text you want to have formatted. Hold down the Ctrl key and the Shift key and press the V key (Ctrl+Shift+V). Only the formatting is copied, not the text.
In Excel use Edit>Paste Special and select the "Formats" option.

TechTrax:
What's So Special About "Paste Special"?
by Linda Johnson, MOS

Paste Special can also be used with graphics.

You can change Word's default behavior; choose whether to paste Inline or Floating.

Microsoft Word MVPS FAQ



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:42 AM

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  Wednesday, December 26, 2007 – Permalink –

Page Breaks

Demo tutorial


You can control when Word decides to break for a new page.

Ctrl+Enter is the keyboard shortcut, but there are a number of variations.


This MS link has both Demos and text tutorials.
Page breaks

BTW; a merged document is made up of Section breaks, not Page breaks.

For ease of printing, Replace ^b with ^m



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:35 AM

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  Wednesday, October 31, 2007 – Permalink –

Single spaced +

2007 gives you more than you ask for


This quote from The Microsoft Office Word Team's Blog explains their thinking behind making line spacing "looser" in 2007 than it was earlier.


"(A) lesson here for me is that lots of people seem to think of Word as a typewriter (remember typewriters?). There are many examples of this, in the way people construct a table of contents for their Word documents, use the TAB key to align columns, and the way they always hit ENTER twice after typing each paragraph (for those who are fans of extra space between paragraphs).

Many, many of the feedback comments on the line-spacing issue had to do with wanting "single spacing." But, of course the line spacing in the new template is single spacing. It's just that it's a little bit "more" than single spacing used to be: 1.15, instead of 1.0.

But what is 1.0? You might think that if you're using an 11-point font that line spacing of 1.0 would be 11 points. But if you lay out paragraphs that way - depending on the font you're using - the parts that stick below one line will crash into the parts that stick up from the line below. You need to allow some extra space between lines.

In a former life when I set type on a Compugraphic phototypesetting machine, the convention we used was about 20% extra space, so we'd set 10-point type on a 12-point line. Larger fonts demanded more breathing room. This was at a newspaper, so we spaced things a bit tighter than you'd expect to see in, say, a report or a brochure (or, dare I say a professional looking document).


What does single spacing really mean anyway?



How to fix it:
Default line spacing in Word 2007 differ from earlier versions of Word



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<Doug Klippert@ 6:52 AM

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