Getting Control of Word 2000

Editing Tips

We all waste a lot of time clicking around while editing documents. Old habits die hard, but learning a few tricks will pay off handsomely in saved time and stress.

Type It Here, Word!

Let's say you want your text to start a few inches from the top margin on the right side of the page. In Word 97, that meant pressing Enter and tabbing until you reached the right spot. Word 2000 lets you type anywhere on the page without the hassle--simply move your mouse pointer to where you want your words to appear and double-click. Word automatically adjusts the paragraphs and tabs to put the text insertion point right there. There's a catch, though: Your text may not stay there. If you enter text above that point, your perfectly positioned prose will move, so this click-and-type trick is best for headings and titles.

Extra tip: If you want to see the paragraph marks and tabs Word inserts, click the paragraph-mark button on the default main toolbar, next to the zoom-percentage box. And if you want to disable click-and-type, select Tools, Options and clear the "Enable click and type" box on the Edit tab.

Quick Keyboard Editing

Mice are nice, but there are a few things you can do using the keyboard that save tons of time and cut down on repetitive motion. These capabilities aren't new (they've been around for a while, actually), but few people use them. Try these keystrokes in any Word version.

To delete the word to the leftCtrl-Backspace

To delete the word to the rightCtrl-Del

To select textHold down Shift and use arrow keys

To move selected textPress F2, and then move the cursor and press Enter

Bonus tip: To see a list of Word's many other shortcut keystrokes, click the Office Assistant or press F1, type keyboard shortcuts in the search window, and click Search.

Quick Selection With the Mouse

I frequently watch people work with Word, and the one mistake almost everyone makes when selecting text is dragging the mouse over the text until the selection is complete. That's inefficient, to say the least, and it usually results in selecting too much or too little text. Don't do it! Use these simple mouse-click methods to select blocks of text in any version of Word.

To select a wordDouble-click

To select a sentence Ctrl-click

To select a paragraphTriple-click (or double-click in the margin)

To select many words, sentences, or paragraphsSelect the first item as described above, then drag

To select the entire documentTriple-click in the margin

To select large blocks of textClick at the beginning, scroll, and Shift-click at the end of the selection

Make Text Selection More Accurate

Word is smart, especially when it comes to selecting text. As you drag your mouse, it automatically selects whole words. That's fine--if that's what you need. But there are times when you need more control. To select one character at a time while you drag, hold down Alt before you click the mouse button and then drag as usual. (You don't have to hold the Alt key down as you drag--just before you start.) If Word's selection of whole words bothers you too much, you can turn the function off: Select Tools, Options, and clear the box labeled "When selecting, automatically select entire word" within the Edit section of the Options dialog box.

Create Your Own Shorthand

Let's face it: We all type the same phrases over and over again as we create documents. Maybe it's the name of a company, or even our own names. Why not create shorthand for these things and avoid the keystrokes? Word's AutoCorrect feature makes it easy.

A phrase like Amalgamated Fish Packing Industries, Inc., can be reduced to an abbreviation, like afp, that automatically expands when you type it. To set this up, type afp in Word, select it, and then select Tools, AutoCorrect. Type the expanded version in the "With" field of the AutoCorrect dialog box; click Add and then OK. Now whenever you type afp in a document, the expanded version will appear when you press the spacebar or any punctuation character. This tip works in all versions of Word, from 6.0 to 2000.

Caution: Be sure your abbreviation isn't a real word; if it is, Word will always overwrite it. This might seem like common sense, but it's actually a common mistake.