Word For Mac - Make Selected Text More Visible

Click to select the watermark (you’ll see colored selection handles around the watermark text when it’s selected). Press the Delete key to remove the watermark. Repeat for all other sections that have a stubborn watermark that you can’t remove. For images, there are similar options. By default, all tables and images follow the same alignment as the text that preceded it. Additionally, the text wrapping is always set to in-line which means no element will overlap the other one. Insert an image and right-click it. From the context menu, select Wrap Text>More Layout Options.

The company I work for relies on Microsoft Word templates to create all sorts of documents, from one-page letters to reports several hundred pages long. The templates allow us to ensure all the documents we send to clients and partners share a similar look and feel.

One of the most-used templates in our collection is a multipage letter that shows the date on the top of the first page, just under the company logo, as well as in the header of subsequent pages. Unfortunately, the letters are usually composed several days before they're sent, and the send date often shifts. In addition, the letters are sometimes sent on dates other than the official 'sent' date. That's why we can't add a field to the letters that displays the current date.

While authors usually remember to change the date on the letter's first page, they almost always forget to make the same change to the date in the header of following pages. The solution was to add a text form field to the first page of the letter that authors use to enter the letter's send date and then to place a cross-reference to the text field in the header of subsequent pages.

Word form fields make it easy to repeat text
It's actually easier to enter text once and have it repeat elsewhere in Word 2003 documents than it is to do the same thing in Word 2007 and 2010. That's because Microsoft made it more difficult to access the text form field button in the more-recent versions of Word. All in the name of ergonomics, I'm sure.

In Word 2003, open the template you want to add the repeating text to. Make sure the Forms toolbar is visible by clicking View > Toolbars > Forms. Next, place the cursor where you want the repeating text to appear and choose the text form field button on the Forms toolbar. (It's the 'ab' button on the far left of the toolbar.)

A gray box appears with five small circles side-by-side. Click in the box to add short, descriptive text, such as 'Enter send date.' Double-click the box to open the Text Form Field Options dialog box. The people using the template will enter the text they want to repeat in the 'Default text' box. For now, keep that field blank, but enter a short, descriptive text string in the Bookmarks field at the bottom left of the dialog box (no spaces or punctuation allowed). When you're done, click OK to close the dialog and return to the template.

To have whatever text the authors enter in the text form field appear elsewhere in the document, add a cross-reference to the field wherever you want the repeated text to show up. As I explained above, the company I work for needs the date that the authors enter on the first page to appear in the header of the second and all following pages of the document.

Word For Mac - Make Selected Text More Visible Phone

The first step in adding such a cross-reference is to create a section break to prevent the header information from appearing on the first page of the document. Place the cursor at the end of the first page, click Insert > Break, and choose Next Page under Section Breaks. Double-click in the header of the second page and uncheck Link to Previous. The Same as Previous tag will disappear.

Next, click in the header where you want the repeating text to appear and choose Insert > Reference > Cross-reference. In the Cross-reference dialog box, choose Bookmark in the Reference Type drop-down menu and select the bookmark you just created from the list of bookmarks that appears near the bottom of the window.

When they use the template to create a document, whatever text authors enter in the text form field on the first page will appear in the header of the second and subsequent pages (or wherever you place the cross-reference). Authors simply double-click the text field to open the Text Form Field Options dialog, enter the text they want to repeat in the 'Default text' box, and click OK.

After they save and reopen the document, that text will appear in the text box as well as all bookmarked locations in the document. To see what the text looks like right away, use the Print Preview option without actually printing the file.

Repeating text automatically is trickier in Word 2007 and 2010
I fully expected the process of adding such cross-references to be easier in the newer versions of Word, but doing so actually requires several added steps in Word 2007 and 2010. First, you have to make sure the Developer ribbon is visible; it's hidden by default. To unhide it, click File > Options > Customize Ribbon, and check Developer under Main Tabs on the right side of the Word Options window.

Once the Developer ribbon is enabled, choose it and select the Legacy Tools button in the Controls section of the ribbon. In the drop-down box that appears, select the Text Form Field icon on the far left of the top row. From this point, the steps for adding the bookmarked text field and cross-references are nearly identical to those described above for Word 2003.

Note that the text field and cross-references look different in the Word 2007 and 2010 template than they do in the Word 2003 template. Also, you create a section break in the two newer versions of Word (to prevent the repeated text from appearing in the header of the document's first page) by clicking the Page Layout ribbon, choosing Breaks, and selecting Next Page under Section Breaks.

Most of us know that formatting a table’s data, cells, and borders can potentially help readers grasp what a table is trying to say. But that doesn’t mean we know the best way to make it happen. When you need to create tables that contain essentially text, or when you want to customize a table’s formatting in many ways, Microsoft Word(; $400 as part of Office 2008) is often easier to use than a spreadsheet program such as Microsoft Excel. Here are some tricks for using Word's table options.

Make

Word table basics

If you have the Standard toolbar visible (View -> Toolbars -> Standard), you can use the Tables button to create a table in Word. Click on it and then drag across the palette that appears to choose the number of cells your table will have. You’re not limited to the 4x5 palette that displays initially; if you keep dragging, the palette gets bigger. Just click on the bottom right when you get to the correct size.

Another option is to select Table -> Insert -> Table. In the Insert Table window that appears, you can type in the number of columns and rows, as well as choose AutoFit behaviors (for example, whether your table cells have a specific width, or whether they adjust to fit to their contents or your window). You’ll also see the AutoFormat button (which we’ll talk about below). When you’ve made your selections, click on OK, and Word generates your table. Click in a cell and start typing to add data.

Formatting options

A basic Word table is pretty boring. It matches your current style (so, for example, the font will be Cambria if you’re using Word’s default Normal style). You’ll see no bold or italic type. Slim black borders lacking color or texture frame the cells. It’s easy to make simple formatting changes. For instance, you can select some cells (such as a header row) by clicking in a cell and then dragging; then click on the Bold, Italic, Underline, or Font Color button in the Formatting toolbar (View -> Toolbars -> Formatting).

Table AutoFormat options: But there’s much more you can do to make your tables stand out. Start by checking out Word’s AutoFormat options for tables. These AutoFormat designs are varied, and are good if you don’t know how you want your table to look and could use some hints. Select the cells of your table, then choose Table -> Table AutoFormat. The window that appears gives you a number of preset formatting options, such as Simple, Classic, Color, Grid, List, and so on. Scroll through the list in the Table AutoFormat window to see the previews. If you find a format you like, select it and click on OK to apply it.

You can use these formats as starting points too. If you only want to use some of a format’s options (borders, shading, font, color, and so on), uncheck those you don’t want to use before clicking OK.

The Formatting palette: If you want more power over every detail of your table, use Word’s Formatting Palette. Choose View -> Formatting Palette, and then expand the Borders and Shading section of the palette. From here you can change borders, as well apply colors to individual cells.

To work with your table borders, select the cells you want to change, and then click on the Type button. Word shows you graphical examples of how borders will be applied: on all sides of a cell, on just one side, or between selected cells. Click on the square in the palette you want to apply border changes. You can also change the colors of your borders, their weight (thickness), and style (solid or dashed lines, and more) by changing the options in other sections of the Borders and Shading section.

One useful way to make data stand out is to change the color of key cells, for example to show losses, in a profit and loss table, in red, or to highlight dates, names or other data. To do this, select a cell or cells that you want to fill with a color, and then choose a color from the Formatting palette’s Fill Color button. Click on that button to see a number of common colors, or click on More Colors to access the standard Apple color picker and choose any color you want.

If you want to create a pattern and mix two colors together, choose one color from the Color button and another from the Fill Color button. Click the Pattern menu and you’ll see the patterns available at different percentages as these two colors combined. These patterns look pretty much like dots of one color on another, and aren’t necessarily attractive, but provide a good way to highlight certain rows, columns or cells when you’re using the colors you combine for the pattern in other cells.

Using Word’s table formatting gives you extra options for highlighting data in tables. There’s a risk of over using it, and making tables with too many colors and other effects, but used parsimoniously it can make your data much easier to read.

[Senior contributor Kirk McElhearn writes about more than just Macs on his blog Kirkville.]

Word For Mac - Make Selected Text More Visible

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