5 Cool Microsoft Word Features You Don't Use

Posted 06/25/2009 at 5:00pm | by Florence Ion

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With the influx of Open Source applications flooding the web, it’s no wonder that people are scoping out alternatives to paying for word processing software. However, what those people don’t realize is the truth behind the phrase “More bang for your buck.” Paying for software means it comes with a multitude of features not included with a free clone, and in the case with popular programs like Microsoft Office, this is entirely true.

We’ve been using Office for years, whether it came bundled with our new machine or purchased at a brick and mortar store, only to take for granted the fact that it comes with a multitude of fully fledged features that makes, well, getting through life much easier. Whether it’s a school assignment, a dissertation, an expense report or a presentation on that idea you’re looking to pitch to your department, Microsoft Office has made our lives much more organized in the ways of word processing and delivering information.

So we took a bit of time to play around with the latest version of Microsoft Word to see if we could rekindle our relationship one more time. Needless to say, we’re still committed. For that reason, we’ve brought you five useful Microsoft Word tips you probably weren’t aware of before or didn’t know how to enable.

Password Protect Your Documents

If you’ve got any top secret documents floating around your Documents folder, you might want to secure those from prying eyes. Thankfully, Word has a feature that allows you to password protect your documents, whether it’s an expense report, an academic paper, or a personal diary entry.

Just fire up Word, go to the Tools menu located to the left of the Save button, select General Options and then enable password encryption by selecting Password to Open box. Or, if you’re sharing a document and you only want certain people to have access to it, select the Password to Modify box so that they may be allowed to save their changes in the document.

Passwords in Word are case sensitive and there is no way to retrieve the password if you forget it, so make sure you keep track of which documents you do secure.

Customize the Ribbon

The most wonderful thing about Microsoft Office 2007 is its Custom UI Editor, which allows users to tweak each program to their liking. This is incredibly useful for users who do not appreciate the Ribbon in Office 2007. It was supposed to provide improved context menus, enhanced screen tips and enable keyboard shortcuts, but for some users, it breeds contempt and confusion.

Which is why, the Custom UI Editor is such an integral feature to making Office your own. If you know a thing or two about XML, you can fire up the Custom UI Editor and type in XML to define the buttons that you’d like to show up in your Word Ribbon. The editor includes a validation function to ensure that the XML code is well written before accepting changes and potentially ruining the Ribbon. Microsoft’s Office Developer Center contains a thorough how-to on customizing the Word 2007 Ribbon.

If you’re satisfied with the Ribbon, and feel like adding on to it with your own personally coded macro, you can code it so that it is controlled via shortcuts or keystrokes and is designated to its own tab, for easy access. 

 Image Credit: Tim Anderson

Post a Blog

If you post a blog directly from a web based text editor, you know that it can be a little frustrating to customize your font style and text alignment, as well as add photos and tables without any real knowledge of HTML or Cascading Stylesheets. The Word 2007 blogging tool allows you to blog efficiently and quickly on many popular sites, including Blogger and WordPress, without any working knowledge of a web language or the crutch of a Content Management System.

Open Microsoft word and select New, Blog Post. Office will then ask you to setup an account, or you can also edit your account preferences using Manage Account. The blog accounts box will allow you to add, delete and set password and picture options or your accounts. If your blog allows you to upload pictures, you can set it to do so, otherwise keep it at none. As soon as you’ve set it up to do so, Word will give you a Blog Post and Insert tab to work with. These two tabs simplify the Ribbon so you’re only using the essential features for your blogging, and they’ll write out the web code for you when you publish so you don’t have to.

One of the many upsides to using Word to blog includes the built in grammar police that will be sure to keep you legitimate to the rest of the blogosphere—after all, no one likes an inarticulate blogger. Additionally, you’ll be able to incorporate Word unique features like Word Art, shapes, charts and tables, which Word automatically generates and converts to PNG while uploading your blog.

There are a few drawbacks to blogging with Word, however. The lack of tagging and preview tags make it a bit difficult for the serious web master, but for the new comer who simply wants to dip his feet in the world of blogging, Word will help him become affiliated.

Take Virtual Sticky Notes

Navigating through a lengthy document can be quite the endeavor, especially if you need to pinpoint an exact location to change one minor thing. But Word 2007 allows you to bookmark specific parts of your document so you can return them later—think of it as the virtual sticky note.

To insert a placeholder, select the portion of your document you’d like to bookmark and point your cursor to the Ribbon, then click on the Insert Tab. Select Bookmark in the fourth column titled Links. A dialogue window will pop up asking you to type in a Bookmark name. Type in a name beginning with a letter and no spaces and then click Add.

When it comes time to sift through specific paragraphs, all you have to do is open up Bookmarks and select the keyword you want to jump to. After you’re finished with your document, you can delete each bookmark so as to keep the list concise.

Convert Word Docs into PPT slides

Whether you’re a new user or have been using Office since version 4.0, you know that using PowerPoint can be quite a task. If typing up your slides directly into PowerPoint seems like too much of a feat—because you’re rather spend your time working on transitions and inserting Clip Art—you can easily insert text from a Word document into its own PowerPoint presentation. On the Home tab, located in the Ribbon, point your cursor to the second column dubbed Slides. Click on the arrow under New Slides and select the second option at the bottom of the dialogue window, Slides from Outline.

A browser window will pop up, asking you to locate the file which you would like to convert into a presentation. Once you select the file, it will run through PowerPoint and you’ll notice that each paragraph break will initiate a new slide. The trick is to type our your Word file as if it were a main point and then bullet points to follow, that way you keep your presentation cohesive. Also, keep in mind that pictures and font do not translate over to PowerPoint; you’ll have to customize your presentation to your liking.

Have any cool Microsoft Word tips you can't live without? Share them in the comments below!