Tracking Changes

This is also called "red lining" the document. As you make changes they appear in the document as a strike through and are written in a different color.

1. Open the Word document
2. Double-click the TRK command in the lower right side of the screen

If you receive a document with these changes tracked you can use a dialog box to accept all changes or selected changes

1. From the Tools menu choose Accept or Reject Changes...
2. Use the Accept or Reject Changes dialog box to review the changes

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Format Painter  

The format painter has been on the toolbar for many versions of Word but most people don't know how it works. It's designed to simplify formatting documents, here's how to use it.

1. Format text in your document (make it bold, larger font, change font color, etc.)
2. Double-click the formatted text to select it
3. Click the format painter tool
4. Select text elsewhere in your document that needs the same format

NOTE: If you double-click the format painter you'll be able to use it multiple times. Click the format painter button once to turn it off.

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Right Mouse Clicking to Spell Check and Grammar Check

I'm sure you've seen the red underline to identify words not in the dictionary and the green underline that identifies "grammar" mistakes. While you can click the spell check button, the easy way to correct both of these problems is to use the right mouse button. 

1. Position your mouse on a red underline or green underline and click the right mouse button.
2. A menu of changes appears.
3. Left click on the menu to make your choice.

NOTE: Don't forget to use the Add feature to add frequently used words that don't appear in the dictionary, such as company names.

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Border Art on a Page

You can make quick and attractive flyers by adding border art to the page. 

1. From the Format menu choose Borders and Shading
2. Select the Page Border tab
3. At the bottom of the dialog box select the border art you would like from the Art drop down menu
4. You can make the art border thicker or thinner by increasing or decreasing the width -- 31 points is the maximum

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Selecting Text -- The Easy Way

Most people learn to select text by positioning the mouse at the beginning of the text, holding down the mouse button and dragging. This is probably the least efficient method of selecting text. Try some of these techniques.

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Paste Special

When copying from one Office program to another you might consider using Paste Special. You have an opportunity to paste a link between the two programs. This will make it possible to change the original program (such as an Excel chart) and have that change made automatically in the receiving application (such as Word).

1. Copy the object

2. Switch to the receiving program

3. Choose Paste Special from the Edit menu

4. Make sure Paste link is selected

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Saving and Closing Multiple Documents

Often you have many documents open at the same time. You can save each document and close each document by clicking the close box and saving each document...but if you hold down the Shift key before going to the File menu the Save command becomes Save All and the Close command becomes Close All...very sweet.

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