Here’s the situation: You’re working on a document for work, and suddenly you realize that you’re using the same terms over and over again. However, you can’t think of a different way to describe what you’re writing about. What can you do? You can either whip out the dead weight that is a standard printed thesaurus, or you can simply use the one that is included in Microsoft Word.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you haven’t yet experienced the sublime joy of reviewing other peoples documents, you don’t know what you’re missing (and you should probably keep it that way). However, it’s pretty much unavoidable that in some point in your career you’ll have to do this. Once you go through this process a few times, you’ll realize that there are a few things that you keep seeing over and over again. No matter how many times you make a comment about it, these issues just won’t go away. With that in mind, I’ve listed two of the most common mistakes that I’ve come across below. Despite my best efforts, I see them in almost every document I review.

Read the rest of this entry »

I thought I’d mention this site, as it’s a great resource for Microsoft Office articles. Basically, it aggregates these articles from multiple sources (with the author’s permission) and provides a little synopsis for each one and a link to the original article. I like this site because it’s quick loading and it provides an easy to use interface. Another good feature is that it’s not littered with ads like a lot of the other aggregation sites out there.

It’s definitely worth perusing if you have a chance, as there articles on a ton of different Microsoft Office related topics. Here’s the link:

Microsoft Office Reporter.

Most of the time, your installation of Microsoft Office will come with a decent size collection of Clip Art. However, there are some occasions where your default collection won’t do, and you need something specific. While you can find other images online to suit your needs, this can sometimes be a hassle (searching for a specific picture, being able to download it for free, etc). That’s why your online search for Clip Art should start with….Microsoft (I know, it’s shocking)!

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the key pieces of any major document is the Table of Contents. Not only does it provide the audience with a way to navigate a document when you’re done with it, but it gives you a way to quickly move from section to section while creating it. Since it’s such a common element of many documents, you would think that most people would know how to create one quickly. However, this is not the case. That’s why I decided to put together this quick guide to creating one.

Read the rest of this entry »

For those of us that review and edit documents on a daily basis, using the Track Changes feature of Microsoft Word has become second nature. If you’re not familiar with it, this feature keeps a history of all of your comments, changes to the document, etc. and allows you to ultimately accept or reject each change to your document. It’s an extremely useful tool, especially when you have a document that is going through multiple people before it’s finished.

Because of the popularity of this tool in many offices, I’ve decided to share three tips that should make your life easier when using the Track Changes functionality:

Read the rest of this entry »

One of the easiest ways to make sure that your tables are consistent throughout your Microsoft Word documents is to create one, and then use that as the template for the others. Basically, once you create your template table you cut and paste it to other parts of your document to use it as a base. Sounds simple right? It is, however sometimes it can be difficult to select all the rows and columns in your table by highlighting them. This can especially be true if your table is large and spans multiple pages and/or the rows of your table break across multiple pages.

Read the rest of this entry »

Everybody likes to add pictures to their documents (sometimes to their detriment, but that’s a different article). However, the file sizes on these pictures can add up, and before you know it your 10 page document is 10 MB (megabytes). This causes problems not only for you, but for your audience as well. One example of this occurs with emailing the documents. Many times documents are emailed to their intended audience. Unfortunately, a document of that size could cause problems with their email systems.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes, it’s Monday. Think of it this way: We only have four more days until the weekend (wait, that’s depressing, grab yourself a Pepsi instead).

Here are the updates:

• Thinking about seeing the Da Vinci Code? Check out today’s Tip of the Day before you spend the money at the theater.
• Make sure to give the fresh new article on embedding Visio objects in Word documents a read.

One of the more common things I’ve seen done with Microsoft Visio is to create something in it (such as a flowchart, graph, or diagram) and then embed this creation into a Microsoft Word document. A good example of this occurs when creating a software design document. It’s pretty standard to include both a written description of how the software should work, as well as a visual flowchart of how software should work. Visio is the tool of choice for creating this flowchart. However, once this flowchart is created in Visio, what is the best way to include it in your document?

There are multiple ways to include your Visio object into a document. I’m going to go over two of the ones I’ve seen most commonly used:

• Copying the Visio contents into the document.
• Inserting the Visio contents as an object icon.

Copying the Visio contents

This is the method that I use the most, as it is both quick and easy. To do this, simply select the parts of your Visio project that you want to include in your document and then paste your selection into the document. Need a simple way to select everything on a Visio page? Simply use CTRL+A. This will select everything in the current window.

Once you have pasted your selection into the document, you can size the Visio object to fit your needs using the sizing handles. I like to use this method because it’s easy to perform inline edits. For example, say that you are revising a design document that was created a long time ago. It’s more than likely that you don’t have access to the original Visio object. However, you can edit the embedded object. To do so, follow the steps below:

1. Right click on the object.
2. Select Visio Object.
3. Select Open.

Visio will then open, and you’ll be able to perform any changes you want to the object. To save your changes, select Update from the File menu. Also, if you want to save the object from your document into a separate Visio file, you can go to the File menu and select Save Copy As….

*Note: Instead of selecting Open from the Visio Object menu, you can select Edit. This will open the embedded object for inline editing in Word. However, I find this hard to use, so I recommend that you use the method described above.

Inserting the Visio contents as an object icon

This is a good option if you need to attach your Visio object to the document as a reference or appendix. Including an icon instead of the entire diagram can cut multiple pages from your document.

All you have to do to insert your Visio object this way is follow these steps:

1. Go to theInsert menu.
2. Select Object.

A dialog box will then appear. For our purposes, we will be using the Create from File tab. Browse to the location of your Visio file to select it. Then, click on the Display as icon checkbox. This will enable the Change Icon button. You can use this to change the caption and picture for your icon. Once you’ve finished, click Ok and your object will show up as an icon in your document.

*Note: If you enable the Link to file checkbox, any changes made to your source file will cause the object in the document to be updated.

Important drawback to this method: If you choose this route, your audience will need to have Visio installed on their computer to be able to read it. It’s for this reason that I don’t use this method very much. Visio is not a common Microsoft Office install, so you’ll have to make the call on whether or not your audience will have access to it.

Embedding Visio objects is relatively simple, you should decide which way to do it based on who your audience is and what you are trying to accomplish by using your Visio object.