Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

Word: Inserting a line Between Columns

Word - how to add lines between columns in a Word document

One of the features of Microsoft Word is the ability to insert a line between columns in a Word document.

In Word 2003 and earlier choose Format > Columns and there is an option for Line Between in the dialog. Select it and click Ok and a line will appear between the columns.

In Word 2007 and 2010 the option is harder to find. You need to select the Page Layout > Columns > More Columns Option. This opens the Columns dialog, which gives you the opportunity to select the Line Between checkbox.

If you want to disable this feature, go back to the columns dialog and disable the checkbox.

Helen Bradley

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posted by Helen Bradley @ 9:06 am4 Comments links to this post

Saturday, January 15th, 2011

Create and Undo Columns in Word

Create two columns in Word and remove columns

Continuing the short series on working with columns in Word, here’s how to create a column layout in Word.

Create two columns

To turn an entire document into columns in Word 2007 and 2010 click the Page Layout tab and select Columns > Two. This immediately formats all the text in your document into two columns.

In Word 2003 you’ll choose Format > Columns, select Two (or Three etc.,) and click Ok.

Remove two columns

To undo the change and set your document back to one column in effectively undoing the two columns, repeat the process. In Word 2007 or Word 2010, choose Page Layout > Columns > One. The default for any document is one column so all you’re doing is going back to the default. In Word 2003 choose Format > Columns > One.

Make only part of the document into columns

If you want only part of a document to be in columns then select that part of the document first. For example, you may select all the content after the heading, leaving the heading unselected so it will be full width of the page. With that content selected, choose Page Layout > Columns and then select the number of columns.

This will make just the selected text into columns, leaving everything else full width of the page.

Again, if that piece of text ever needs to be returned to a single column just click inside it, choose Page Layout > Columns > One and it will be restore to the way it used to look.

So, that’s how to make text in columns in Word, how to delete columns and how to make only part of a document into columns.

Helen Bradley

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posted by Helen Bradley @ 9:43 am2 Comments links to this post

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

Moving between columns in Word

jump move and switch between columns in Word
One of the most difficult things that people find with working with columns in Word is moving between the columns.

The reason is that the process itself is anything but easy.

The Tab key, which will move you between cells in columns in a table, doesn’t work inside newspaper style columns in Word so that key is out.

Instead, to move or jump from one column to the next you’ll press Alt + Page Down to go to the column on the right (the second column) or Alt + Page Up to move to the first column.

When you click Alt + Page Down, if you are in column 1 you’ll go to the very top of column 2. If you keep pressing the key you’ll flip between the top character in each column.

If you’re somewhere in column 2, when you press Alt + Page Up you’ll go to the top of column 1.

These are the only specialist keys for moving or switching between columns – we could use more – like jumping from a line in one column to the same line in the one next to it – but nada! Sorry!

Helen Bradley

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posted by Helen Bradley @ 8:03 am6 Comments links to this post

Tuesday, January 11th, 2011

Typing in the second column in Word

Ok, so you’ve formatted your text to be two columns in Word and you’ve typed something in the first column. You haven’t filled the first column because you don’t want to. Fair enough – it’s your document – your choice.

But you do want to type something in the next or second column but however hard you try – Word won’t play nice. It wants you to fill column one before you get to fill column two – you don’t want to – so you’re at a stalemate.

The solution is to force Word to the top of the second column and you do this by inserting a break. In Word 2002/2003 choose Insert> Break > Column Break.

In Word 2007 & 2010 choose Page Layout tab> Breaks > Column.

Now you can type at the top of the second column. Yeah!

Helen Bradley

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posted by Helen Bradley @ 7:40 am14 Comments links to this post

Sunday, January 9th, 2011

Picture between columns in Word

I get a lot of folks at projectwoman.com who come looking for help with columns and Word – anything from Word 2002 through 2003 to 2007 and now 2010. I have to think the reason is that Microsoft doesn’t make it as easy as it thinks to work with columns.

In the next few posts I’ll show you some things to do with columns that I think most folk have trouble with.

First up, how to put a picture in between columns in Word. Start by formatting your text in columns and then add your picture.

Chances are it won’t move and sit between columns. The issue is that Word inserts images as In Line With Text by default which is the setting MOST OF US WOULDN’T USE IN 1,000 YEARS – but Microsoft doesn’t really understand most users and so that’s what we get – images that are stuck – they won’t move where we want them to go and they won’t rotate.

To fix this, in Word 2002/2003 from the Picture toolbar find the Text Wrapping button, click it and choose practically anything except In Line With Text – I choose Square because it is the best all round setting.

In Word 2007/2010 click the Picture and from the Picture Tools > Format tab on the ribbon click the Text Wrapping button and choose Square.

Now your picture does what you expected it to do in the first place – it moves, it can be rotated and when you drag it over the space between two columns it sits where it is put and it pushes the text out of the way around it. Neat huh?

One day… maybe Microsoft will hear our cries of frustration and insert images so they behave like they should without us having to jump through hoops to make them.

Helen Bradley

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posted by Helen Bradley @ 8:23 pm4 Comments links to this post

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Units of measure in PowerPoint

Units of measure in PowerPoint tied to regional settings

Ok, so its easy to change units of measure in Word by setting the Word Options to measure in inches or cm – depending on where you live. However, if you’re using PowerPoint don’t waste your time looking in PowerPoint for the setting – it ain’t there.

Instead, the measurements in PowerPoint are tied to your geography. If you live in the US you get inches, if you fess up to living else where you get your local units of measure. To change where you live, launch the Control Panel and look for a Regional settings option and set your location there.

For those of us who live in the US but who think imperial measurements suck big time and who yearn for the metrics of our childhood in the far off land of Aus, thanks to Microsoft we are s*** out of luck. You see, if I set my region as Australia or the Uk to get metrics, everything else goes pear shaped and Google starts serving up UK or Australian pages in preference to US ones, or I get £ by default in Excel. It’s all round not a good choice. So, I’ll have to suck it up and learn to embrace feet and inches – but provided you still call the land of your birth home chances are you’ll be just fine.

Helen Bradley

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posted by Helen Bradley @ 9:48 am3 Comments links to this post

Sunday, June 20th, 2010

Word 2010 – print the current page

If you’re used to using Word you might remember that, when you want to print just the current page you need to click in the page and then choose to print it. The current page isn’t the one you are looking at – necessarily – it is the one where the insertion point is located.

Fast forward to Word 2010 – all of a sudden – all bets are off. When  you click File to move to the backstage view and click Print you see the print preview to your right. Whatever page shows there is the page that will be printed if you choose to print the current page. If that’s not the page you want to print, use the navigation tools to move to the  page to print and then click Print.

It’s smarter and it really is how it should work. It won’t cause problems for new users because they don’t know how Word used to work, it’s us old users who need to rethink the logic here. Lucky for us though the page where the insertion point was located is the  page that shows in Print preview by default.

Helen Bradley

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posted by Helen Bradley @ 7:08 pm9 Comments links to this post

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Word 2010 opens in compatibility mode

New version of Word 2010 – same old WordArt. Yep, if you’ve previously altered your Normal.dotm file for Word 2007, chances are it is affecting your brand new 2010 version and all you can see is documents created in Compatibility mode.

To solve the problem search for Normal.dotm and either delete it or rename it. Then restart Word 2010 – nice huh? No more compatibility mode and all the cool features of word are available to you.

Helen Bradley

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posted by Helen Bradley @ 3:55 pmNo Comments links to this post

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Controlling Images in Word 2010

For many years now Microsoft has made it hard for new users to control inserted images in their documents.

Unfortunately, Word 2010 is no exception and, by default, images are inserted into a new Word document as inline images. This means that they cannot be moved or easily positioned on the page without you needing to first change the image’s wrap settings.

This leaves hapless new users with absolutely no clue that this feature is available or needed much less where to find and set it.

To change the way that images are inserted into Microsoft Word documents to make it a one-step process that never needs to be tweaked, in Word 2010 choose File > Options and select the Advanced tab. Locate the Cut, Copy and Paste options and set the Insert/Paste Pictures As setting to Square, Tight, Behind Text, In Front Of Text, Through or Top And Bottom – in fact anything other than the default Inline With Text.

Once you’ve done this, when you insert an image into a document it will be inserted with the setting that you determined. This makes it easy to move the image around the screen and position it exactly where you want it to be.

If you have images in your document and if you need to change their wrapping so that you can work with them, click the image, click Picture Tools > Format and from the Wrap Text dropdown list, select Square or another setting (other than Inline with Text).

Microsoft, this default setting earns you a score of -10 it’s not the typically required setting and it doesn’t make good sense as a default.

For more tips and tricks and helpful Office columns, visit Projectwoman.com

Helen Bradley

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posted by Helen Bradley @ 8:10 pm44 Comments links to this post

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