Getting Control of Word 2000

Formatting the Word Way

Documents aren't just words. They're a complete package of words and formatting. A well-formatted document makes its point more effectively. (Remember: You don't get a second chance at a first impression, so make sure your documents look sharp!) These tips will help you get all your words into top form.

A Rainbow of Text Colors

Until Word 2000 came along, you were limited to just 16 colors for text. But now your text can be any color you can imagine. Select the text you want, and then select Format, Font. Click the arrow next to the "Font color" box in the Font dialog box. If none of the basic colors in the palette suits you, click More Colors. The Colors dialog box appears and presents what Word calls the Standard color palette.

If the color you want is in the Standard palette, double-click its octagonal button. If you need even more choices, click the Custom tab of the Colors dialog box. Click a hue in the left box, and then click the precise color you want in the luminosity bar to the right and click OK. As you select colors, watch the preview box to see a sample of your current and previous selections.

Create New Styles Easily

In Word 95 through 2000, you can create a new style by selecting Format, Style, typing a name for it, and then using the menus in the Style dialog box to define the formatting. But there's an easier, much more intuitive way to do this.

Begin by formatting some text, paying attention to font, point size, color, and paragraph format. When you're satisfied with it, select Format, Style. Click New in the Style dialog box and then type a name in the New Style dialog box. Check the "Add to template" box if you want the new style to be available in all documents. Click OK and you're done.

Extra tip: Use styles as much as possible when you format your documents. It saves time, and makes changing the look of your whole document easy--you can just head to the Style dialog box and make global changes there.

Tame Word's Autoformatting

Word thinks it knows what you want--but the program usually turns out to be a lousy mind reader. Take, for example, the AutoFormat As You Type feature. You type a number at the beginning of a line of text and press Enter, and Word automatically adds a number to the beginning of the next line. Type a URL for a Web site, and Word changes it to a hyperlink. Feel like stopping this madness? Select Format, AutoFormat, and then click the Options button in the AutoFormat dialog box. When the AutoCorrect dialog box pops up, click the AutoFormat As You Type tab and turn off the functions that annoy you. If you don't know what an option does, click the question-mark button in the upper-right corner of the dialog box, and then click the option for a description.

Make Documents Fit the Space You Have

Few things are more frustrating than carefully creating a document of a specific length, only to have it spill over onto an extra page. If you want to squeeze documents into a specific number of pages, select File, Print Preview, and click the "Shrink to Fit" button on the Print Preview toolbar. Each time you click the button, Word decreases the font size of all styles in the document just enough to reduce the number of pages by one. In most cases, clicking more than twice will render the text too small to read, so this tool works best for short documents. Caution: Once you've saved the document, the change is permanent, so undo it before saving if you don't like it.

Special Formatting for On-Screen Viewing

Word 97 and 2000 let you add flashy animation to your boring old text. Of course, that only matters if the document is viewed on screen instead of on paper. While you can use animated characters anywhere, they work best in headings and other large bits of text. To choose and apply character animation, select the text, and then select Format, Font. In the Font dialog box, click the Text Effects (in Word 2000) or Animation (in Word 97) tab, and then select the desired effect.