Context Menu
Anywhere at anytime, a simple right-click with your mouse will reveal a context menu. The context menu, as its name suggests, provides you with a variety of options that suit what you are doing at the time…basically you get options that are in context with what you are doing.
Go ahead, give it a try – right now – if you right-click with your mouse on these very words you are reading you will see a menu appear that gives you options that are appropriate, super handy.
Oh, and by the way, if you are like me and often prefer keystrokes take a look at the key on your keyboard located in between alt and ctrl to the right of the spacebar; it should kind of look like a menu…guess what, this also opens the context menu and all without touching your mouse!
Windows Key +
Let’s pretend you are at work, now let’s pretend you are reading this post at work…or checking Facebook, not like anyone would do anything that is not work related while at work! You hear your boss walking toward your desk and think “crap”, well the best tip anyone can ever give you is “Windows key + M“. Pressing and holding the Windows key on your keyboard and then depressing M (think minimize) will quickly minimize all of your applications to the task bar.
Voila, Facebook hidden and crisis averted 
Once your boss returns to wherever it was they came from, “Windows key + Shift + M” will return you to the same spot you were at before you were interrupted.
There is, however, a catch…if you minimize all (windows key +m) and then do anything else with your computer then restore (windows key + shift + m) doesn’t work, restore only works if the absolute last thing you did was minimize all.
Powerful PC or Pricey Paperweight? The choice is up to you!
If you work in the legal industry the e-Legal Technology website is now live, visit http://www.e-legaltechnology.org/ to find legal tech webinars, conferences, jobs, white papers, articles, applications and more.
The article I wrote entitled Powerful PC or Pricey Paperweight? The choice is up to you! is located in the members article area.
Hope you enjoy!
Printing a List of Available Styles
You can print a list of the available styles in a Microsoft Word 2003 document quickly and easily, here is how:
- Click on the File menu then choose Print;
- Next to Print what, select Styles; and
- Click Ok.
Once you have a printed copy of the styles available in your document, grab a highlighter to mark your favourites and hang them nearby for easy reference!
Take Note: When you print a list of your styles you are only going to receive a list of the styles available in the document you have open at the time you printed the list. If you have unique styles available based upon specific templates you may want to print a list based upon each template.
Style Area Width
When formatting a Word 2003 document, it can be helpful to turn on the Style Area Width, which shows you the name of the style currently applied to each paragraph. The Style Area Width only appears in the Normal view and will not appear on the printed document.
- Click on the Tools menu, then select Options;
- Click on the View tab;
- Type 1.0″ in the field next to Style area width; and
- Click OK.
Take Note: Once you have any value greater than zero entered next to your style area width the feature will be visible. Once your style area width is visible you can use mouse to resize the area by clicking and dragging on the line that appears between the style name and your document text.
Why Use Styles?
Use of styles is encouraged, dare I say expected, by Microsoft Word. In fact, styles are such an integral part of the Word program that many features of Word are much more efficient and easier to use when you have a properly styled document.
In my opinion, Styles are one of the single most powerful tools in MS Word.
Example: Let’s pretend you have a document that consists of numbered paragraphs, like an agreement. Now let’s assume that you have used direct formatting to format the document and now you need to make several of the paragraphs, like the headings, look different. If you are using direct (also known as, manual) formatting you now need to go through the document one paragraph at a time, select each paragraph and then remove/add the desired formatting – once per paragraph – now let us assume that document is twenty or thirty pages long…pretty time consuming.
However, if you had formatted the document using styles all you need to do is modify one heading to look the way you want and poof, all the others headings will follow along!
Further reading: What is a Style?
What is a Style?
A style is a collection of formatting that defines the look and feel of a document automatically. For example, if this paragraph was formatted with a paragraph style called Body Text and I wanted all the paragraphs that currently use Body Text to be left aligned, then all I need to do is edit the Body Text paragraph style to have the attribute of left align and I’m done, much quicker then editing one paragraph at a time!
Although there are more, the two most commonly used types of styles are Paragraph and Character. A paragraph style applies formatting to entire paragraphs and can consist of font, paragraph, tabs, border, language, frame and numbering attributes. A character style applies formatting to specific characters within a paragraph and can only consist of font, border or language attributes.
Document Map
To turn on the Document Map in Word 2003, click on the icon located on the Standard toolbar. The Document Map allows you to navigate between sections of your document using the headings without having to scroll though all the text.
With the Document Map turned on, you will see an area to the left of your document that displays the first few words of each heading within your document.
Click to select the heading you want to move to within the document and your cursor moves to the beginning of that paragraph.
When using the Document Map, you can choose to display a menu by right clicking on some empty space in the document map area
With the Document Map menu displayed, you can choose to Expand or Collapse the entries, Show only specific Headings or display All the headings.
Select Browse Object
When I say “Select Browse Object” people often look at me with confusion and claim they are unfamiliar with the feature, when in reality they use it all the time – they just don’t realize it!
Anytime you use Find (Ctrl+F), Find & Replace (Ctrl+H) or GoTo (Ctrl+G) you are actually use features built into Select Browse Object. Within Microsoft Word 2003, the Select Browse Object icons are in the bottom right corner below the vertical scroll bar and to the right of the horizontal scroll bar.
(Ctrl+PageUp/Down)You can choose which object you wish to browse by clicking on the round circle in between the double arrows that point up and down or press Ctrl+Alt+Home on your keyboard.
Select which type of object you want to browse by clicking on its related icon.
Select Browse Object remembers the last object you navigated using the GoTo feature. If your last request was to move to page 3 then next time you use GoTo you will automatically be taken to page 3 until you choose to go somewhere else.
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