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A good format is worth its weight in gold. A format that is inviting, professional, and easy to read can make the difference between your document's getting a second look or a toss in the trash. Because of a clean format, your grant proposal might get closer scrutiny; your book might catch an editor's attention; and your report could get passed up the line of command to the CEO's desk.
Word makes formatting easier by anticipating what you need and automating format changes with AutoFormat. You can work with AutoFormat as you type or you can apply AutoFormat to an existing document. AutoFormat is activated by default, so as soon as you begin using Word 2003, AutoFormat will kick in and help you.
Inside Out: What can you do with AutoFormat?
AutoFormat can jump in and quickly format items you use often in your documents. You might use AutoFormat to do the following:
Format numbered lists.
Assign a particular bullet style to a bulleted list.
Take care of typographical issues, such as inserting open and close quotation marks.
Format fractions.
Make font style changes as needed.
When you open an existing document in Word, you can have AutoFormat go through and correct any inconsistencies or errors in the format. You can choose both the form of the document you want Word to check (select General Document, Letter, or Email) and the way that Word alerts you about the changes that need to be made.
Start the process by choosing Format, AutoFormat. The AutoFormat dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 7-3.
Figure 7-3: You can choose the document type and set AutoFormat options in the AutoFormat dialog box.
Your first major decision is whether you want to review each AutoFormat suggestion as it arises or give AutoFormat carte blanche to make changes. If you want to apply AutoFormat to the entire document right now, click AutoFormat Now. Word goes through the document and makes changes according to the AutoFormat options selected by default.
If you want to see the changes AutoFormat wants to make before they're made, click the AutoFormat And Review Each Change option. After you click OK, Word begins to AutoFormat the document and displays the AutoFormat dialog box so that you can accept or reject the changes it proposes, as shown in Figure 7-4.
Figure 7-4: When you elect to have accept-and-reject privileges with AutoFormat, you're asked to make decisions about each change as it's proposed.
Tip | If you want to apply AutoFormat to a selected portion of your document, select it before you display the AutoFormat dialog box. |
You control the types of items you want AutoFormat to format for you. Display the choices by clicking the Options button in the AutoFormat dialog box. The AutoFormat tab in the AutoCorrect dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 7-5, and you can review all the AutoFormat options set by default for your document. Table 7-1 provides a quick description of the various AutoFormat options and gives examples of when they might affect your work.
Figure 7-5: The check boxes in the AutoFormat tab control the items Word looks for when it AutoFormats your document.
AutoFormat Check Box | Description | Use |
---|---|---|
Built-in Heading Styles | Formats the headings in your document | You have a particular style sheet you want to apply to a long document. |
List Styles | Uses the default list style to automatically indent and number your lists. | You have a multistep process that you want to format in a consistent way. |
Automatic Bulleted Lists | Takes its cue from the first bullet you enter and formats subsequent lines accordingly | You want to use standardized bulleted lists throughout your document. |
Other Paragraph Styles | Anticipates the styles of your paragraphs, adding spacing and indent levels according to paragraph styles in your document, letter, or e-mail message | You want to use spacing consistent with that already used in your document and existing styles. |
"Straight Quotes" With "Smart Quotes" | Replaces straight quotation marks with open and close quotation marks | You want to create a document that is typographically accurate with correct punctuation. |
Ordinals (1st) With Superscript | Inserts ordinals (such as 1st, 2nd, 3rd) when you type full-sized ordinals | You want to increase the professional look of your document and make ordinals easier to read. |
Fractions (1/2) With Fraction Character (½) | Replaces full-sized fractions (1/2) with reduced fractions (½) | Again, you want to increase the professional look of your publication and make the fraction easier to read. |
Hyphens (--) With Dash (—) | Replaces two hyphens (--) with a dash character (—) | You want to add to the professional look of your document. |
*Bold* And _Italic_ With Real Formatting | Applies text styles Bold and Italic to words as you type | You want to type quickly without interrupting your process to choose bold and italic styles. |
Internet And Network Paths With Hyperlinks | Adds hyperlinks automatically to text strings that Word recognizes as URLs and network paths | You want to create hyperlinks to other documents online. |
Preserve Styles | Keeps any styles you create in the existing document and does not replace them with named styles | You want to keep custom styles in the current document and don't want other formatting applied automatically. |
Always AutoFormat Plain Text WordMail Documents | Enables you to use automatic formatting in e-mail messages | You want to include formatting in your e-mail messages and you've selected Word as your e-mail editor. |
Note | If you try to use dashes in your current document and AutoFormat doesn't automatically change them for you, make sure that you don't include spaces before and after the hyphens. Word will format the hyphens as dashes only if you type the hyphens between two text characters. |
No big surprise here—if you want to disable AutoFormat features, clear the check box to the right of the option you want to leave out. Which options might you want to disable in AutoFormat? Here are a few possibilities:
List Styles If you have customized lists or need to enter project-specific codes as you type, clear the List Styles check box so Word doesn't apply its own format.
Automatic Bulleted Lists If you have a specific style you want to apply to your document, or you want to use the dashes or asterisks commonly used to denote bullets, clear the Automatic Bulleted Lists check box.
Preserve Styles If you want Word to automatically update styles in a document to fit the styles in the applied style sheet, clear the Styles check box. Word will then automatically format modified paragraphs to fit accepted styles.
Word also gives you the option of automatically formatting your text as you type, allowing you to improve the consistency of your document as you create it. Because AutoFormat is enabled by default, the feature will already be turned on when you begin to type. If you want to change the formatting options, however, you can change the settings in the AutoFormat As You Type tab in the AutoCorrect dialog box. To set AutoFormat As You Type options, choose Format, AutoFormat. Click the Options button in the AutoCorrect dialog box, and then click the AutoFormat As You Type tab. The options are similar to the options you've just set in the AutoFormat tab, but there are a few differences, as you can see in Figure 7-6.
Figure 7-6: Catching formatting problems while you type is the function of the AutoFormat As You Type options.
The only options that are not enabled by default are the ones that replace words enclosed in asterisks and underscores with bold and italic, respectively, and the Built-in Heading Styles option. The Set Left- And First-Indent With Tabs And Backspaces item, available in the Automatically As You Type section, picks up the indents you set as you type, repeating them in subsequent similar paragraphs.
After you've finished setting the options for AutoFormat As You Type, click OK to close the AutoCorrect dialog box.
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