Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with microsoftword

TOC Blues

mateuslee — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:06:51 -0800

How can i implement a good TOC for my dissertation? I'm looking for a functional (and ideally aesthetic) table of contents ... I'm using the one in Word07 now, but it only goes three titles deep (I suppose this can probably be changed).

Are there better options, or is it best to stick with Word07?

Thanks.

Would using a Heading1 here help?

chocolate_butch — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 06:54:07 -0800

Aside from ease of editing and maintaining individual documents, are there arguments for the use of styles in Microsoft Word? Specifically, I was thinking about this from a semantic markup perspective and company-wide document search and retrieval. Would using a stylesheet make finding documents easier / more relevant / more accurate than if the stylesheet was not employed?

My Google-fu is failing on a search that tells me either way. Lots of info about semantic HTML out there, not having much luck on semantics in Word docs.

Microsoft Word 2007: Inserting a footnote makes a page number mysteriously appear at the top of the page.

Jacqueline — Thu, 14 May 2009 05:58:16 -0800

Microsoft Word ninjas needed: Inserting a footnote makes a page number mysteriously appear at the top of the page. I want these page numbers to go away. Background: I am helping someone format a couple of large, book-length documents into a consistent look/design. These two documents were originally several different documents, which she has combined and edited into one. The original source document authors seem to have had varying degrees of skill in Word -- some knew how to use Styles, References, etc., whereas others apparently just used Word as a typewriter (hitting "Enter" a lot to start a new page, etc.). The person I am helping is using 2003 and I am using 2007, and I do not know which version(s) the original source documents were created in (or if they were created in Word at all).

(These are the same troubled documents from my AskMe question a few weeks ago: http://ask.metafilter.com/120358/Quick-and-easy-solution-for-reformatting-Word-documents-from-manual-formatting-to-Styles)

Today's problem: Some of the pages have mysterious, dynamically-updated page numbers at the very top edge of the page, about one inch left from the upper right corner. These page numbers are not part of the header.

After much trial and error I finally traced this problem back to the inclusion of Footnotes on those pages. When I delete the Footnote Reference number from the body of the page, the page number disappears, if I (re)insert a Footnote, the page number reappears.

I have been through every footnote-related setting I can find, searched Help, and Googled to no avail. How can I make these page numbers disappear, short of deleting all the Footnotes and re-creating/formatting them manually (not using the Footnote function from the Reference tab)? This is driving me absolutely crazy!!!

Thanks in advance for your help.

What happened to this data?

kbanas — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:26:11 -0800

A professor royally screwed up a MS Word 2003 DOC file. Is there any hope? I work in IT. A professor here just came to me with an emergency. He was working on a massive Word document (in Office 03 - no backups, of course!). According to his rather vague description, "What I was doing: renumbering equation fields via CTRL A F9"

The end result is that the document is, more or less, completely blank. I can't really make sense of how those key strokes could remove everything. I know CTRL + A selects all, but F9 seems to not do anything. Also, obviously he did the worst possible thing by saving the document and then apparently closing down Word.

Here's where things get weird - although the file is empty, it's still about 1.1MB in size, which suggests *something* is there. Also, if you inspect the document properties in Windows, you see that there are ~ 44,000 characters and ~7,000 words. When you open the document (I've tried Word 08 for Mac and Word 07 for Windows) it momentarily lists the "correct" number of characters at the bottom of the page. Then it thinks for a moment and the character count reverts to 0.

I'm trying to figure out what he did by pouring over Word 03 shortcut manuals, and also trying to figure out if the data is recoverable. Any clues, hivemind?

Give me your widows and orphans, your stray lines and stranded words from paragraphs yearning to breathe free.

MasonDixon — Sat, 02 May 2009 10:22:39 -0800

MS Word insists on keeping lines of paragraphs together even after I turn off Widow/Orphan control. How can I stop this? Formatting a thesis with specific formatting rules, and the rules care more about excess spaces than Widow/Orphan problems. There is clearly plenty of space at the bottom of some of my pages, as the reviewer noted, for another line or two and I cannot force Microsoft Word to let this happen.

It is double spaced, Palatino Linotype 12 point font, Office 2003 not Vista.

Microsoft Word crashing shortly after start-up. Tried common solutions with no success - other ideas?

Pontius Pilate — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:47:02 -0800

Microsoft Word crashing shortly after start-up. Tried common solutions with no success - other ideas? A few days ago, my Microsoft Word 2003 started crashing. It starts up fine, and if I just leave it running and do nothing, it will not crash. However, when I start editing a document, it will typically crash from anywhere between 30 seconds and 5 minutes into it. The crashing is not very consistent, but it seems like I can bring it about by: typing in basic symbols like parentheses, etc.; changing font to bold / italic; and using numbered lists. Doing those things does not consistently cause Word to crash, and sometimes it will crash seemingly at random.

Things I've tried so far (without success):

- Bypassing normal.dot at start-up
- Deleting add-ins
- Deleting Data registry key
- Running ScanDisk

I know that the best thing would be just to reinstall it, but, of course, I can't find my installation CD. Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks, all!

Help with autonumbering in Word2007, please!

mateuslee — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:49:06 -0800

How do I number individual tables in Word2007? (I don't mean numbering cells, or inserting captions). The numbering on my dissertation is now all screw up! So, I'm writing a long chapter for my dissertation which involves lots of examples like this:

1) Aka is__ harsta.m
this clothing AC wash I
‘Wash this clothing!’ (imperative)

Whenever I switch from Word07 to other versions of Word the formatting gets all screwed up and, since I already have over 100 examples and growing, I thought best to put these examples into tables (with invisible borders) to stabalize them and avoid a mess like this:

1) Aka is__ harsta.m
this clothing AC wash I
‘Wash this clothing!’ (imperative)

The tables work great, however, they are hard to number using the autonumbering in Word. It seems impossible to have a table exist on the same level as a number, and since some examples are tables and others are not, I would like the numbering to be consistent.

Does anyone know of a solution for this? Thanks!

Help me delete America!

the latin mouse — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 02:42:59 -0800

No matter what I do, the US-ENGLISH setting on my spellcheck keeps returning from the dead like a bad guy in a horror movie. Is there any way to delete American English permanently and irrevocably from Microsoft Word 2007?

Suggestions I've found via Google which haven't fixed the problem...

Change your language in Control Panel
According to my settings in Control Panel I'm in the UK and speak British English. Word doesn't seem to care.

Go to the Office 07 Language Settings application on the Start Menu and change the default to British English.
I've done this countless times. When I go back, American English has somehow become the default again.

Change your Normal Template.
This only affects docs I create myself from scratch. Most of the docs I work with are being emailed to me by other people.

Start doing a spellcheck and change it from within there. / Change it from Word Options in the ribbon. / Use the little language tab at the bottom of the screen.
This only fixes things for the document I am currently working on. Any subsequent docs I open default back to American English.

Any other ideas? This is seriously eating into my productivity.

Good Microsoft Word / Office resources for a designer

puffmoike — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 05:08:07 -0800

What's a good online resource for a graphic designer who needs to help a client consistently produce decent-looking output from the Microsoft Office suite? The client has asked me to set up a Word template for a proposal document, but I'm thinking it would be helpful to spend a little longer to create something (a 'theme'?) that gave greater consistency across all their output (for instance if they embed an Excel chart into a Word document, ensuring that the fonts and colours in the chart are consistent with those used in the Word document).

So I think I'm trying to get my head around themes and templates (I have a pretty good understanding of styles, although some of the more obscure idiosyncrasies have tripped me up at times). And usually I'm pretty good at wading through obtuse documentation to find the nuggets I'm after (I was a law graduate in a previous life). But half an hour with the help documentation has left me less than impressed, and my Googlefu is failing me as well.

Green text/background on Office 2008 for Mac

mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 10:50:12 -0800

I have a Mac user whose Word documents are suddenly opening as lime green text on lime green background. This is only on her machine, anyone else can open the same documents and have them show as black text on a white background. Office 2008, OS X 10.5

Capslock, Let's Make It Useful

demagogue — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:29:53 -0800

Can I make (remap?) my capslock key to be two keys? Specifically, I want to make it hit Ctrl+B. If your recommendation is Word-specific, that's fine too.

How to format a list in a specific way in Microsoft Word 2007?

paleyellowwithorange — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 23:06:46 -0800

How can I create a justified list in Microsoft Word 2007, as seen here? I would like to know how to format a list in Microsoft Word 2007, to look like the lists (except the first one) on this page of Adobe Illustrator keyboard shortcuts.

The list needs to be left and right justified, and to have 'dots' in the space between the text at the left and the text at the right.

Is there any way to achieve this with automatic formatting?

How do you cut and paste HTML?

Bobby Bittman — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:55:00 -0800

How can I cut content out of a website and paste it cleanly into a word document? I've tried Googling this and am getting nothing.

I'm trying to create a word document (for eventual conversion to pdf) of all the web-based press clippings for a musician. I would ideally like these clippings to be in the format they appeared in when they were published on the web. My end goal is a .pdf of all these nicely laid-out press clippings, interviews and reviews with graphics, photos, etc. intact.

Is there a short-cut for this, some kind of print-screen equivalent for grabbing entire web pages? Or is the html just too messy to be cut and pasted that simply?

What typographical knowledge from LaTeX can I apply in Word?

philosophygeek — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:23:04 -0800

What typographical knowledge from LaTeX can I apply in Word? My professional field insists upon Word documents, so LaTeX is not an option, and results from LaTeX to Word converters have not been satisfactory. So, what can I teach Word, to make it a better typesetter? I'm already familiar with the basics of styles and logical formatting. What I want to know is what typographical principles LaTex (or just TeX) uses, so I can replicate that behavior when designing my styles. Some things that TeX knows can't be (easily) replicated in Word (e.g., Knuth-Plass linebreaking), but I'm sure there are other bits of typographical wisdom buried within Tex and LaTeX that would be helpful to know. How much space should one have after a heading, before body text? How much larger should headings be compared to body text? I'm curious how LaTeX decides on these kinds of formatting questions, so I can use that knowledge in my style design.

I realize that there are not unanimous conclusions on these issues; I mention LaTeX because it seems to consider these questions in a fairly intelligent way, and it seems like a good starting point for my own typographical education.

How to get Word 2007 to generate the date?

nickhb — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:09:56 -0800

How do I make Microsoft Word 2007 include the date a document was created within the document itself? I will be attending college in the fall, and in order to save time, I want to make Microsoft Word 2007 include my name and the date in a header in every document. I already have achieved something similar by altering the normal template to include my name and a dynamically updating date. Here is the problem: If the date does not dynamically update, every document contains the date that the original template was modified. If it does update, the documents contain the date of the day they were last opened. I want to make the documents generate the date they were created, and then make that date stay the same in the document forever. Any ideas?

Mac word processor for academic writing in the humanities?

synecdoche — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 19:13:39 -0800

I don't like Microsoft Word much; it feels really bloated to me, and has so many features I never use. I've been looking for an alternative for some time. What word processor does the hivemind recommend for academic writing? I am a graduate student, about to tackle the beast that is my dissertation, and am hoping to find one word processing program (that is hopefully not Word) that I can use for it as well as the other articles and such that I need to work on. I've been waiting on the official release for OpenOffice 3 (for the native Mac support), but in the current lull in the school year, I was hoping to test the waters and find what works best for me.

My writing is usually pretty straightforward. I have no need for elaborate figures, mathematical symbols, or anything like that. I'm in the humanities, and if it works with MLA format, with occasional forays into, say, Chicago, that's good enough for me. But, on the other hand, I'd like something that produces documents that are portable enough that, if need be, I can use Word or OpenOffice on the school's computers, and can easily send something off to a journal without having to re-format the entire document because it got garbled in translation. I also occasionally receive (and provide) feedback from professors and colleagues who use Word's "Track Changes" and "Insert Comment" features; support for these things would be nice, too.

Oh, and I also use spreadsheets as part of my research workflow.

Am I stuck with keeping Office on my computer? Or can I switch to something else completely? What about Mellel?

Cheap is good, too.

How can you set a background color in Word that can be viewed on screen and printed

willnot — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:03:15 -0800

Can you help me view and print background colors in Word? I'm trying to reproduce a form that has a purple background. This form will be completed on screen, but may also be printed. For reasons that we won't go into, it has to be in Word. I'm having trouble getting a purple background that shows up when viewing it on the screen and also when printing. Is there a way to get both? Setting the background to purple allows me to view it on screen, but it doesn't print. Putting a purple box in the header allows me to print it, but it appears to be a much lighter purple when viewed on screen. Putting a purple box in the main page sent to back covers up any text in the header or footer. Is there some other option that would make it show up when viewed on screen and also when printed?

Using Word2007/2003 to make a bibliography

mateuslee — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:01:44 -0800

Word 2007 vs. 2003: It's complicated to go back-and-forth! Help me write my dissertation, please! So, I'm a grad student working tirelessly on my dissertation. At home I work with Word 2007 and at the university I'm using 2003. I just started using the citation mechanism in 2007, inputted a few books, and really started to get the hang of this as a useful too. However, as you probably know, when I switch to 2003 (I have the converter installed), all those citations are converted to static text.

Is there any way around this?
If not, what free software do you reccomend for standardizing citations and keeping them in a database?

Sure do appreciate any thoughts...
Thanks a lot!

Bibliography management for Macs

philosophygeek — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:46:50 -0800

I am beginning to write articles for publication as well as starting with my doctoral dissertation. I am looking for a bibliography manager that will be compatible with Microsoft Word for Mac or OpenOffice for Mac/NeoOffice (these document formats are necessary since many journals require .doc submissions, so no LaTeX recommendations). Specific features I need:
- Ability to generate in-line, footnote, and end-of-document reference info
- Ability to customize citation formats for odd sources within my field
- Ability to choose a different citation style (so I can alter the formatting to meet the requirements of multiple journals).
- Free is strongly preferred

My institution has a RefWorks subscription, but I don't think I will be able to access my account after I graduate, so I'd prefer another option.

While Google tells me that OpenOffice and the Windows version of Word have basic citation abilities, I have been unable to determine if they have all of these capabilities.

How to shuffle test items in random order in Microsoft Word?

esolo — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:03:21 -0800

how do i shuffle questions in a Word document in random order? I am writing an exam that consists of multiple choice questions. I write questions after reading each chapter. What happens as a result is that I have a test which has all the question items in order (by chapter). Is there a way to shuffle these test items so they appear in random order? (I guess it would be the same function that would help me generate multiple versions of the same test with same questions but different order).

Pasting Crappy Microsoft World Code Into Movable Type

kirkaracha — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:00:26 -0800

How can I clean up crappy Microsoft Word code in Movable Type 4? Microsoft Word includes crap code like this when pasted into Movable Type:

[p class="MsoNormal"][font face="Arial" size="2"][span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"]
(I replaced angled brackets with square ones for display purposes.)

Is there a plugin or something I can use to remove all the gunk?

Looking for a font for two mailing industry Barcodes...

TrueVox — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 09:30:38 -0800

Anyone know where one could find a free-to-use font for POSTNET barcodes and the new Intelligent Mail Barcodes? I can do my own encoding, but my supervisor wants the fonts installed for Microsoft Word. Any help is much appricated. :)

How to make regular expressions work with track changes?

Partial Law — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 09:42:09 -0800

How can I make Microsoft Word's Find-and-Replace feature work properly with regular expressions when Track Changes is on? I'm working on a document containing a significant number of citations with page ranges. Many of those page ranges are separated by hyphens, and I need them to be separated by en dashes instead.

So I'm using Find and Replace with regular expressions like so:
Find what: ([0-9]{1,5})-([0-9]{1,5})
Replace with: \1–\2

Here's the problem: If I run Replace All on the test sentence, "Read pages 35-66, 87-92, & 105-22," I get back "Read pages 35–66, 87–92, & 105–22." Perfect. But if I turn on Track Changes and run it, I get "Read pages 3566–, 8792–, & 10522–." I need these changes to be tracked. Am I doomed to doing them by hand?
I realize how this question looks to people who aren't grammar nerds or law students. Trust me when I say that there is a difference, that the difference matters, and that the changes have to be tracked.

Help Me Not Squint at Word

sjuhawk31 — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 07:26:56 -0800

MSWordFilter: Overriding "default" pageview options. My default view for Word (on a Mac) are Page Layout, zoomed to page width. Is there any setting I can use to make sure that whenever I open a Word file that is sent to me, it comes up in that view instead of whatever they used?

How can I print my notes onto 3x5 cards?

synecdoche — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 18:49:15 -0800

Is there any way to print onto 3x5 recipe/note cards? I have been taking a lot of notes on my computer for school. I'd like to take some of these and print them onto 3x5 recipe cards, for organizing when I write papers and such. I've tried doing this in Word, but it doesn't seem to work-- it is as though Word is expecting a larger piece of paper to go through the printer. The card slides through, it prints onto nothing, and then the next one comes through, and it prints onto nothing. I have adjusted the paper size but to no avail. I'm willing to go with a standalone program on this one, though if so, the cheaper (or free-er) the better.

I'm working on a Macbook, with an Epson R200 printer.

(By the way, I know there are programs that can arrange notes onto cards on the screen [Scrivener] but I want physical copies of these things.)