Category Archives: Macros

Add-Ins from Microsoft

By Jack Lyon, the Editorium I’ve created lots of Microsoft Word add-ins at the Editorium, but did you know that Microsoft also provides add-ins, many of them free? Here’s how to explore and use these add-ins right from within Microsoft Word. In the search bar at the top of your Word window, enter “add-in.” You’ll […]

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Converting Fields to Regular Text (and Why That Matters)

By Jack Lyon, the Editorium Microsoft Word documents often include fields that authors use to insert text that isn’t really text: dates, page references, author names, and much more. If you’re editing a document that includes text copied and pasted from a web page (quite frequent these days), the text probably includes hyperlink fields, perhaps […]

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Mucho Macros

By Jack Lyon, the Editorium You’re probably already familiar with Paul Beverley’s editing macros, but there are plenty of other places to find Microsoft Word macros that you might find useful. Here are some of the best: Allen Wyatt’s macros, with clear explanations of how they work. Be sure to sign up for his free […]

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Getting Help with Macros

By Jack Lyon, the Editorium While messing about with macros, I sometimes find myself up against a problem for which I have no solution. Time to get some help! My usual approach is to use Google to search for "microsoft word vba [whatever problem I’m having]". That turns up lots of interesting stuff, but the […]

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How to Add a Macro to Word and Its QAT (Quick Access Toolbar)

Microsoft Word’s macro features make it possible to turn Word into a lean, mean editing machine. You’ll find lots of free editing macros online (see below for some excellent sources). But how can you add a macro to Microsoft Word so it will be available when you need it? Here’s the procedure: Copy the text […]

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Listing Keyboard Shortcuts: Two Methods

By Jack Lyon, the Editorium As useful as custom keyboard shortcuts may be in using Microsoft Word, it’s sometimes difficult to remember which keys you’ve assigned to what function. Word itself includes one way to find out: Click File > Print. Under "Settings," select "Key Assignments: List of your custom shortcut keys": Select the printer […]

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Better word processing: The Chicago Manual of Style interview

The Chicago Manual of Style “Shop Talk” column recently noted: “When it comes to word processing, CMOS users probably represent every level of expertise (or nonexpertise), but regardless of skill level, we all experience frustration at times when we don’t know how to accomplish a task on our computers. Often we do something the way […]

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Removing Spaces at the End of Table Cells

Authors do funny things. Sometimes these things are inadvertent; sometimes they’re the result of trying to “prettify” documents for publication. In either case, editors have to clean up what the authors have done. One such problem is spaces at the ends of table cells. A table cell should end with the text it contains. If […]

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Deleting Extraneous Carriage Returns in Footnotes and Endnotes

During my editing career, I’ve often run into problems with footnotes and endnotes in Microsoft Word. Many authors have no clue about how notes are meant to work, and Microsoft certainly hasn’t made it obvious. In fact, they’ve made it easy to mess notes up beyond repair. One mistake authors make is to insert extraneous […]

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Button Bonanza

Stars, pencils, light bulbs, puppy dogs, faces, diamonds, and hearts. What am I talking about? Toolbar buttons! Lots and lots of toolbar buttons! If you like assigning macros to toolbar buttons, you’re probably tired of the paltry 42 images you can use on those buttons by default. But fear not! Word has hundreds of images […]

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