Chapter 6 -- Putting Text Tools to Work

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Chapter 6

Part of the challenge of working with a word processing program that's as full-featured and powerful as Word is getting to the tools you need quickly. Some tasks are very simple—entering text, running the spelling checker, printing a quick page. Others are more complicated and require an investment of time and effort. Applying a format to a heading, for example, requires you to think about the overall design of your document (or the standards for publication in your department) and to choose the text font, size, style, and spacing settings you want in order to create just the right effect. But to cut down on the time you spend making those choices, Word includes an automated tool called AutoFormat that enables you to quickly apply and change formats in your documents. And if you want to reuse formats from other documents or sections of your work, you can use another feature—Reveal Formatting—to view the formats applied to selected text sections.

You also spend time going back and netting out the bugs that sneak into your documents. Word includes tools to help you cut down on error-correction time. AutoText is a feature that inserts words or phrases you use often in your work (you can train AutoText to use terms native to your business or industry). AutoCorrect also corrects typos as you go, giving you a cleaner document right from the start. This explores all of these tools as well as the new, improved Word 2002 Office Clipboard, which now holds up to 24 different items and offers a "smart" paste feature that helps you easily repeat routine tasks.