In our Coffee Break Training Grant shared 15 tips in 15 minutes to help us work smarter, not harder.
He didn’t quite make it inside the 15 minute deadline :), but here are the 15 things he covered. You can watch the Video here:
- Do it the Microsoft way. Figure out how Microsoft works and use the tools they have provided in the way they have designed them to work. Otherwise you’ll be forever fighting MS Word and getting incredibly frustrated for no reason. Believe me I’ve tried 🙂
- Learn Keyboard Shortcuts. Here are some basic ones to get you started – and these work across many software applications. There are lots of others you can learn too. And right clicking is always worth trying.
Formatting text
Bold Ctrl + BItalics Ctrl + IUnderline Ctrl + UActions
Cut Ctrl + XCopy Ctrl + CPaste Ctrl + VUndo Ctrl + ZRedo Ctrl + YPrint Ctrl + PSave Ctrl + SSpell Check F7Find Ctrl + FReplace Ctrl + HSelect All Ctrl + A - Paste Options. when you paste text there is a little options Icon like this
that appears. This allows you to choose whether to paste with the copied styles (formatting), use your document styles (formatting) or just paste the text as plain text. This third option is the one I’ve set as my default. - Clean your text: If you are copying text from another document or web page use a (free) program like Notepad ++ to clean out all the invisible tags and things that will come through and stuff up the formatting if you leave them in.
- Use the Built-in Styles. In the Home version of the Ribbon there are some Styles. The little arrow in the bottom right opens up more options.
- Adjust the STYLE to suit you. Right clicking on any style gives you the option to modify it. If you use these styles then if you later modify a style, it will instantly update all the text in your document using that style.
- Spell Checking. Use it! You can add words to your customs dictionary by right clicking on any red underlined word.
Use the power of AutoCorrect. It can be a whole lot more than just correct misspelling. You can add your commonly used phrases to Auto Correct. Click on File/Options/Proofing to open up the menu. There are lots of other things you can do in this dialogue box.
For example you can use this feature to have ‘LB3‘ autocorrect to ‘Locked Bag 3 Springwood, 4127 QLD Australia.’- Headers and Footers. This can enable you to have “Page 1 of 7”, “prepaerd by GKennedy” or other text at the foot of each page. Using the Header is what I use to put the letterhead image behind all the text on our letterhead templates.
Text Wrap. You have many options with how you’d like text to wrap around an image. You can access the options 3 ways. Look for the text wrap option in the Layout Tab or Picture Format tab (if you’ve clicked on the picture).
Getting images to stay put. Right click on the image and choose Size and Position. click on the Position Tab and choose Absolute position and select Page in the option. That way the image will stay exactly where you placed it on that page regardless of text edits.- New Lines
- Enter gives you a new Paragraph
- Sift + Enter gives you a new line but in the same paragraph
- Ctrl + Enter gives you a new Page
- Review in the menu:Track Changes is a great option if you are working on a document with other people. You can make changes to the document and the next person can see what you’ve changed. They can see the original as well as what you’ve suggested as an alteration.
- Margins: set the Page Margins you want in Layout/Margins. Custom allows you to set your own values.
- Tables: These are very handy if you want columns of words or numbers to line up. You can add a table in the Insert menu. Once you insert a table a Table Design menu option will appear. You can control the colour of the table and the lines (even make the lines disappear) in the Table Design menu.
- Tabs. Increase or decrease your ‘level’ using the tab key. Tab increases Shift + tab decreases
