Archive for September, 2006

Lets have a deep and meaningful look at how we make changes to the page layout in Microsoft Office Word 2007.

Where do you find all the Page Layout buttons?

Simply click on the “Page Layout” tab in the new Ribbon menu system.  By clicking on the Page Layout tab, the Ribbon displays all the functionality you need to be able to change the key page layout and formatting aspects of your document!

What can I do with the Page Layout?

Good question!  By default (in Word 2007 Beta 2, although it will be similar in the final retail release) there are five groups of features which you can use to change the look and feel of your document… They are:

• Themes
• Page Setup
• Page Background
• Paragraph
• Arrange

Lets have a closer look at each one.

Themes

Themes enable you to very quickly and easily change the look and feel of the entire document to a specific theme style.  There are many different themes included in Word 2007 (and PowerPoint 2007 as well), and in fact by default when you create a new document, you are actually using a theme (the ‘Office’ theme).  If you are tired of the look of the themes that come with Word 2007, you can download more from Microsoft Office Online!

A theme specifies the fonts to be used, the colour palette, and the styling of graphics.  If you only want to use one aspect of the theme, you can!  Just select the palette, font or styling from one of the three galleries in the Themes group.

Page Setup

Page setup includes all the features you need to change your margins, the orientation of the paper (portrait or landscape), the size of the paper, the number of columns on the page, as well as breaks, line numbers and hyphenation!  To change all those features, simply click on the button associated with what you want to change, and select your preferred option from the gallery.

If you want more granular control over the page setup, click on the small icon in the bottom right hand corner of the page setup group, which looks like a small square with an arrow pointing out of it.

Page Background

In the Page Background group, you can add a watermark to your document, change the page color, or make your document look great with a page border.  A watermark is a grayed out image or text which appears in the background of your document.  For example, you could have the word ‘draft’ in the background of your document, so everyone reading knew that it was still a draft.

Again, simply select your watermark or colour from the gallery when you click on the button.

Paragraph

The paragraph group is where you can modify all the aspects of the paragraphs that appear in your document.  Indent essentially changes the margins for the paragraph.  You can set the left indent, or the right indent, and the distance is measured in inches.

Spacing is similar to indent, however you are changing the spacing before, or after a paragraph.  Spacing is measured in points (just like font size).

Again, for more granular control, click on the button in the bottom right hand corner of the group for more functionality.

Arrange

The arrange group allows you to control how objects interact with the text in your document.  For example, if you have a text box in your document, you can use the arrange group to:

• Set the position of the text box
• Bring it to the front (in front of other objects)
• Send it to the back (behind other objects)
• Set the text wrapping around the text box
• Set the alignment of the text box
• Group the text box with other text boxes
• Rotate the text box.

Again, more granular control is available via the button in the bottom right hand corner of the arrange group.

Want to learn more?

So there you have it, a deep dive tutorial into the Page Layout tab in Microsoft Office Word 2007.  For more Word 2007 tutorials, tips and techniques, check out the Word 2007 category on www.thenewpaperclip.com 

[tags]Word 2007, Tutorial, Page Layout[/tags]

A number of people have asked me…

The New Paperclip… I made a big mistake, now how do I undo my changes in Word 2007?

Thanks for the questions… yes the Undo command has moved a little from previous versions of Word.  You can now find Undo (as well as Redo and Repeat) in the Quick Access Toolbar.  The Quick Access Toolbar lives in the top left hand corner of the screen.  Have a look at the image below, I have circled Undo so you know where it is for next time.

Note that you will also find Undo in the same spot (in the Quick Access Toolbar) in PowerPoint 2007, and Excel 2007

[tags]Word 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Excel 2007, Undo, Tutorial[/tags]

Does the Word 2007 Splash Screen distract you too much when you are waiting for Word to load?  There is a solution.

1. Create a shortcut on your desktop (right click on the desktop, go to new, and select shortcut).
2. Type the full path of Word 2007 on your computer (the default is probably “c:\program files\microsoft office\office 12\winword.exe”
3. After the full path, add a space, and then /q (so it looks like “c:\program files\microsoft office\office 12\winword.exe /q”
4. Click finish.

Now, double click on the shortcut to load Word 2007, minus the splash screen

’till next time

TNP

[tags]Word 2007, Tutorial, Splash Screen[/tags]

Do you find that the Ribbon is gets in the way every now and then, and steals valuable screen realestate?  Here is a simple solution.

To minimise the Ribbon, simply double click on the tabs above the ribbon.  This will minimize the ribbon to just the tabs.  Instead of double clicking, you can use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+F1.

To restore the Ribbon to its glory, simply double click on the tabs again, or use CTRL+F1

[tags]Word 2007, Tutorial, Ribbon[/tags]

To insert a page number into your Word 2007 document, you have two options

1) Double click where the header, or footer is on your document.  This will activate the Header & Footer Tools Design tab in the Ribbon.  Then, Page Number should appear as one of the features available.  Click on the Page Number drop down menu and you have a number of options.  At this stage you need to decide whether you want the page numbers to appear in the header of the document, in the footer of the document, or in the margin of the document.  Once you decide that, select you preferred page number style and formatting.

or…

2) Click on the Insert tab in the Ribbon, and then the Header & Footer group.  You will find the Page Number drop down here.  Again, select the location that you wish the page numbers to appear, and the style and formatting.

[tags]Word 2007, Tutorial, Page Numbers[/tags]

The first of hopefully many screencasts is now live on The New Paperclip.  This Screencast is an introduction to the new menu system in Word 2007, called the Ribbon UI.

The Screencast, An Introduction to the New User Interface in Word 2007, covers the basics of what the Ribbon is, what the tabs are and why they are there, and how to find your favourite Word commands (for example, how to change the font, its size or colour, as well as where the File menu is)

This is a Word 2007 tutorial for beginners.  Future screencasts will dive into deeper topics, but this is a nice starting point!  Enjoy

[tags]Word 2007, Tutorial, Screencast[/tags]

In my last post on Word Count in Word 2007, we saw how we can quickly find out how many words are in a document, how many words are in a selection of text, and how we can find some general statistics about the document.  But what if that isn’t enough?  Well, there are a few more statistics hidden away behind the status bar which you can easily bring to the light of day.

To configure the status bar to show these deeper statistics (as well as some other aspects of the status bar), simply right click on the word count (or if it does not appear for some reason, right click anywhere on the status bar).

From this menu we can see a number of different statistics that we can place on the status bar.  They are: Formatted Page Number, Section Number, Page Number, Vertical Page Position, Line Number, and Column.  In the status bar configuration menu, you can see the current value of each of those statistics.  However, if you want to place those statistics on the status bar, so you can quickly scan to see what the current figures are, simply click (and tick) the relevant statistic in the status bar configuration menu.

The final result is a status bar that illustrates exactly what statistics you need to know about the document you are currently working on.

[tags]Office 2007, Word 2007, Statistics, Tutorial[/tags]

For many, students particularly, word count is a very important feature in Word.  I remember the good old days when back at Paperclip school.  When completing school assignments, for some reason it not the quality of your writing that counted, but your ability to write as close as possible to 3000 words on a topic!

For those of you who feel the pain of word-limit assessment, or are simply interested in knowing how many words are in a document, Word 2007 makes it easier for you.

Firstly, you do not have to go looking for the word count feature.  In Word 2003 and previous versions, word count was hidden in the menu structure.  That is no more.

Word count now appears in the bottom left hand corner of the Word 2007 interface.  As you type, it will automatically update with the current word count.

But what if you want to know how many words are in a selection of text that you just made?  Simple.  Just select your text, and look back at the bottom left hand corner of the screen.  Word displays both the number of words in the selected text, and the total number of words in the document.

Finally if you want detailed statistics on the number of pages, words, paragraphs, characters (with and without spaces), and the number of lines in your document, simply click on the word count box which we have been talking about during this article.  A word count dialog box will appear with all the statistics you need.

Until next time!

TNP

[tags]Word 2007, Microsoft Office 2007, Word Count, Tutorial[/tags]

Looking to download the latest bits for Office 2007?  You can download the patch for Office 2007 Beta 2 from Microsoft right now.  The download is about 495MB, so you might have to grab a coffee or two whilst you wait (especially on 56K, it will take just over 20 hours to download).

Hopefully I will be bringing you a visual tour of Office 2007 Beta 2 TR in the near future.  In the mean time… get downloading!

[tags]Office 2007, Beta, Download[/tags]

There comes a time in everyone’s life when you don’t really have the inspiration to write pages and pages of content.  Whether you have spent hours working on a fantastic document layout, or are just plain lazy, there are options to make it look like you have put extra work in

Word 2007

In Word 2007 you have two options for filler text.  The first is the traditional ‘Lorem Ipsum’ pig Latin.  Lorem Ipsum has been the standard filler text for centuries, and is used when you want viewers to focus on layout and presentation, instead of just content.  To get a few paragraphs of Lorem Ipsum, simply type the following and press enter

=lorem()

The result is the following…

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Maecenas porttitor congue massa. Fusce posuere, magna sed pulvinar ultricies, purus lectus malesuada libero, sit amet commodo magna eros quis urna.

Nunc viverra imperdiet enim. Fusce est. Vivamus a tellus.

Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Proin pharetra nonummy pede. Mauris et orci.

The second option for filler text in Word 2007 is just some random text from one of the Office 2007 help files.  To get some random, yet English looking text, type…

=rand()

The end result is the following…

On the Insert tab, the galleries include items that are designed to coordinate with the overall look of your document. You can use these galleries to insert tables, headers, footers, lists, cover pages, and other document building blocks. When you create pictures, charts, or diagrams, they also coordinate with your current document look.

You can easily change the formatting of selected text in the document text by choosing a look for the selected text from the Quick Styles gallery on the Home tab. You can also format text directly by using the other controls on the Home tab. Most controls offer a choice of using the look from the current theme or using a format that you specify directly.

To change the overall look of your document, choose new Theme elements on the Page Layout tab. To change the looks available in the Quick Style gallery, use the Change Current Quick Style Set command. Both the Themes gallery and the Quick Styles gallery provide reset commands so that you can always restore the look of your document to the original contained in your current template.

PowerPoint 2007

Only one option in PowerPoint 2007… and it is a classic.  Again like the random text in Word, type =rand() followed by enter.  The resulting text is…

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Excel 2007

Again only one option in Excel, however this time you are generating a random number.  =rand() in a cell produces a random number.

[tags]Word 2007, PowerPoint 2007, Excel 2007, Random, Filler, Lorem Ipsum[/tags]