Getting Control of Word 2000

Getting the Word Out

Unless you're using Word solely to maintain your diary, the whole point of using it is to create documents you'll share with others. Word offers all sorts of ways to output your documents, as well as a cluster of tools designed to make them look their best, no matter who's reading them.

Adapting Documents for Different Word Versions

Not everyone has upgraded to Word 2000, so if you're distributing a document as a .doc file, be sure everyone can read it. To save it in a format compatible with older versions of Word, select File, Save As, and enter a new file name in the Save As dialog box. Open the "Save as type" list, and scroll down until you find the "Word 97-2000 & 6.0/95 - RTF" option. Select it, and then click Save. While this dual-format option will let everyone open your document, recipients using earlier versions of Word may not be able to see some advanced formatting.

Extra tip: If you know your recipients are using Word 97 to view your Word 2000 documents, select Tools, Options, and then click the Save tab in the Options dialog box. Check the box labeled "Disable features not supported by Word 97" and click OK.

Use Print Preview to Check Documents Before Printing

By now, you probably know about using File, Print Preview to be sure your document looks the way it's supposed to--that your page border prints at the bottom of the page, that tables don't break in the wrong place, and that your headers aren't cut off.

But you may not know about all the options available from the Print Preview screen. For example, to display more than one page at a time, click the Multiple Pages icon (fourth from the left) and select the number of pages you want to see. Click the One Page icon to go back to the original view. Need a closer look? Click the document to blow it up to a readable size. Click again to shrink it to preview size.

Here's a Print Preview function you probably aren't aware of: If you find an error, you can correct it without leaving the Preview window--click the Magnify button on the toolbar to turn off the magnifying glass and give yourself a normal pointer. Now you can position the cursor and edit away. (Note that editing will be pretty slow in this view.)

Converting Documents to HTML

If your company does any business online (and if it doesn't, maybe you should quit), your documents may end up on a Web site. Fortunately, Word 2000 makes it easy to convert any document to HTML format. Select File, Save as Web Page. But first, take these hints to convert your document smoothly.

• If you need your document to exist in both Word and HTML formats, be sure to provide a new name for the HTML version (to avoid losing native Word formatting) and continue doing the bulk of your work on the Word file, using Save As Web Page each time to convert when saving.
  
  
• Always use Heading Styles for formatting titles, subtitles, and so on. These convert smoothly from Word, keeping your document uniform.
  
  
• To see how your document will look on the Web, select View, Web Layout. Switching back and forth between the Web Layout view and the Normal or Page Layout views will help you avoid using formatting that won't transfer well.
  
  
• For an even more precise view of your HTML document, select File, Web Page Preview. This command loads the document into your default Web browser and may help you catch problems you won't see in Word's Web Layout view.
  
  

Contributing Editor George Campbell writes the monthly Word Processing Tips column for PC World magazine.