Microsoft Word: Essential Formatting Tips

Make your documents and company look a million.

Steve Bass

You're designing a Word document that gives your small home-office business the oomph of a multinational corporation. (Sorry, "Bass International, LLC" is already taken.) But there's one problem: A couple of paragraphs look screwy.

It's idiotic, I know, but if you mess up formatting in Word, you're mostly outta luck. That's because Uncle Bill, bless his heart, decided to hide essential formatting info. (And die-hard WordPerfect users--with their magnificent "Reveal Codes"--won't let us forget it.)

Bill may be clueless, but don't worry. I've got a handful of tips and strategies for dealing with common Word formatting headaches. And later, I'll give you news about Microsoft's new version of Word.

First, a surprise: Microsoft offers a white paper with enough valuable information about Word formatting to make it a worthwhile download.

Next, Bill Butler, a user-group buddy of mine (to whom I now owe a beer), doggedly pursued the Reveal Codes issue and came up with a neat site and terrific article.

Let's Go Formatting

PC World's word processing maven, George Campbell, provided me with a few underutilized yet documented shortcuts that work wonders with Word's formatting problems.

Let's say you've royally honked up a bunch of characters. Maybe you've inadvertently applied bold or italics, or some strange font. Start by pressing Shift-F1, and watch the cursor change into an arrow and question mark. Stick the cursor on top of some text. When you click, Word's paltry versions of Reveal Codes appears. It's better than nothing, folks. See what it looks like.

Now if you need to dump a bunch of formatting, highlight all the characters and press Ctrl-Space. Zap--you're back to the default. Microsoft calls it "Remove manual character formatting."

Dig this: Bembo's Zoo is a must-see site for formatting fanatics. (Besides, you were ready for a break.)

More Formatting Tips

Sharing your beautifully formatted Word documents with friends who use other word processing programs is traumatizing. George's quick tip for formatting documents to look the same in other programs has been a boon to my sanity.

George can also help you get a better idea of how to deal with Word's Styles. Check out "Get a Sense of Style."

A Word About Embedded URLs

Does your boss ever hand you a Word document filled with embedded URLs? They look like plain text except they're blue and underlined. I hate that--I really do--because when I inadvertently click on one, Word turns into a quasi-browser and heads for the site.

There's an easy way to remove a hyperlink. Move the cursor over it, right-click it (careful, don't left-click), and select Hyperlink, then Remove Hyperlink. If you have the skills, create a macro for these steps and assign the macro to a keystroke. If you're using Word 97, this tip might not work.

By the way, if you need to see the embedded URL first--maybe because you want to visit the site--use Alt-F9, a handy shortcut to see all of the hyperlinks in the document.

If you're grabbing text or a URL from a Web page and copying it into a Word document, save yourself some formatting time and check out my tip "Cut, Paste, and Soothe Cranky Friends."

Dig this: Want to learn how to write snappy sentences that make you sound e-commerce savvy? Or maybe a meaningless press release packed with New Economy nonsense? Sure you do. Just use The Web Economy BS Generator.

Ready to Upgrade?

There's a new version of Word just around the corner. Word's new "Reveal Formatting" and "Styles and Formatting" features show details about the formatting of any section of a document you specify. You'll access it through the Task Pane (no, I got the spelling right), and while it's not an exact counterpart to WordPerfect's Reveal Codes, Microsoft claims it provides similar benefits. Read the section on Reveal Codes from Microsoft's Office XP Product Guide.

By the way, don't call it "Word XP." A Microsoft rep earnestly explained that the suite is called Office XP, but that I should refer to the word processor as Word 2002. Thanks for clearing that up.

You can also get lots of info about Office XP in Harry McCracken's "The Suite Hereafter: Sneak Peek at the Next Microsoft Office" and in "Microsoft Readies Office XP."

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