Getting Control of Word 2000

Tips for Tables and Graphics

Word 2000 offers some new tools for tables and graphics, some of them much-needed and longed-for by users. (Getting your tables to look just right has become especially easy in the latest incarnation of Word.) Here's a guide to some of these new features.

Move and Resize Tables the New Way

As you could with graphics in previous versions of Word, you can now move tables simply by dragging and dropping them. Start by selecting View, Print Layout. Now hover your mouse pointer over the table. A box with a four-pointed arrow will appear at the upper left corner. Click this and drag the table to the desired location. To quickly resize a table (while keeping the cells proportional), again, first move the mouse pointer over the table. A small rectangular box will appear at the bottom right of the table. When you move the mouse pointer over this box, it will change to a large double-pointed arrow. Click and drag to make the table the size you want.

Extra tip: If you hold down Alt while resizing a row or column, you can see the exact dimensions of the row or column on the ruler.

Making Tables Fit

Word 2000 has some new features that make sizing tables a lot easier. To use them, click anywhere in the table, select Table, Autofit, and choose one of the submenu options.

• AutoFit to Contents adjusts the rows and columns in your table to fit around what's in the cells, relieving you of the task of manually dragging cell borders around.
  
  
• AutoFit to Window automatically adjusts the table to extend between the margins of a Word document and, in HTML documents, to fit the browser window.
  
  
• Fix Column Width locks the column borders in place, preventing accidental changes while you're mousing around.
  
  
• Distribute Rows Evenly makes all rows in the table the same height, and Distribute Columns Evenly equalizes column widths with one command.
  
  

Pretty Pictures in Word 2000

The Clip Art Gallery is a lot handier in Word 2000 than it was in previous versions. Display it by selecting Insert, Picture, Clip Art. Choose a category to see what's available, or type a keyword into the "Search for clips" text box and press Enter. If you get lost, click the All Categories button on the toolbar or press Alt-Home to return to the Category display.

When you find the image you want, simply drag it onto your document and drop it where you want it to appear. If you can't see your document because the dialog box is in the way, click the image and then click the top icon in the resulting context palette to insert the image at the cursor's current location in your document. You can drag the graphic wherever you want later.

Control Brightness and Contrast of Graphics

After importing a piece of clip art or a scanned image into your document, you may find that you need to brighten the image or change its contrast. In Word 97 and 2000, this is a snap. Click the image to select it; if the Picture toolbar doesn't appear, right-click any toolbar and select Picture. In the second section of the Picture toolbar are four icons with up and down arrows. The first two (which look like half-moons) control contrast; the second two (which look like suns) control the brightness. Each click moves the setting up or down a notch. You can see the results right on the screen. When you're satisfied with your changes, click elsewhere in the document to return to editing. Note that on-screen appearance isn't a reliable guide to what the image will look like when you print it, so be sure to check the results on paper.