Modifying Built-in Buttons in "My Places"

[Editor's note: This week's feature article comes from Dan A. Wilson, a true gentleman and an editor's editor. Dan explains how to modify even the *built-in* buttons on Word's "My Places" toolbar. Don't want a "Desktop" button getting in your way? Dan explains how to remove it--and much more. I really appreciate Dan's generosity in supplying this information. If you're not already familiar with Dan's work, you'll definitely want to visit his Web site, the Editor's DeskTop, where he has still more useful information that every editor should read:

http://www.editorsdesktop.com/index.html

While you're there, check out Dan's editing services. Then, when you really need a professional, you'll know where to find one.]

This information applies to Word 2002 (Word XP). The My Places bar was not fully customizable prior to the appearance of the 2002 (XP) version. It is easy to add new icons to the My Places bar in Word 2002, to re-order the icons, and to remove any icon(s) you have added, as Jack pointed out in the Editorium Update of July 9, 2003. But a small amount of registry tweaking will give you complete control over the My Places bar icons, and let you consign the standard, default icons to distant memory.

Entries on the My Places bar are contained in the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice10.0CommonOpen FindPlaces

The Places key contains the following two subkeys: StandardPlaces and UserDefinedPlaces. These subkeys contain the following keys:

StandardPlaces. This subkey contains five keys that correspond to the five default items that appear on the My Places bar.

KEY NAME MY PLACES ITEM

Desktop Desktop

Favorites Favorites

MyDocuments My Documents

Publishing My Network Places

Recent History

UserDefinedPlaces. This subkey contains keys that correspond to items you have added to the My Places bar.

Example:

KEY NAME MY PLACES ITEM

Place0 firstplaceadded

Place1 secondplaceadded

Place2 thirdplaceadded

The following values can be used for keys contained in the StandardPlaces key and the UserDefinedPlaces key:

NAME TYPE DATA OPTIONS

View DWORD {1=List, 2=Details, 3=Summary, 4=Preview}

ArrangeBy DWORD {1=Name, 2=Type, 3=Size, 4=Date}

SortAscending DWORD Boolean to sort ascending/descending

Index DWORD Relative position on the My Places bar

Show DWORD Zero to hide a Standard place

Okay, now, here's the trick: If you locate a DWORD "Show" in one of the StandardPlaces keys (or create a new DWORD "Show" in one of the StandardPlaces keys) and modify its value to "0", that folder will not appear in your Word MyPlaces bar in the Open and SaveAs dialogs. I'll explain this step-by-step below.

There must be at least one icon in the MyPlaces bar. If nothing else is there, Desktop will remain. But if there are other icons showing, you can get rid of the (essentially useless for most users) Desktop icon, the MyDocs icon, or any (or all) of the other default icons.

The standard, low-tech way to access the registry is:

1. Click the Windows Start button.

2. Click "Run..."

3. Type "regedit" (don't include the quotation marks).

4. Press Enter or click OK.

The Registry Editor opens.

To hide the Desktop item on the My Places bar, open this registry key (click the plus to the left of a key's name to expand it, then scroll down to the next subkey listed here and click the plus to its left ...):

HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice10.0CommonOpen FindPlacesStandardPlaces

Now, before you do anything else, save a copy of the registry key you are about to change. If anything goes wrong when you close the Registry Editor, all you have to do is locate your saved copy of the key (it has a name you assigned to it, and the extension .reg), double-click it, say Yes when you are asked whether you want to add this to the registry, and all will be the way it was.

Here's how you save a copy of a key: First, click the name of the key. In the example below, that would be the Desktop key. Click File in the Menu Bar at the top of the window, and click Export. Type a name of your choice in the blank, and navigate to a folder you choose to use as a storage folder for the saved-key file you are about to make. Now just click Save, and the key's entire image is saved as it is before you change anything. If you ever had to restore the key to its prior state, all you would have to do is double-click the name of the file you saved, answer Yes, and the changed key would be restored.

Now that the Desktop key is saved, let's change it. [Editor's note: Be careful not to change anything else or go merrily messing around while you're in there. If you do, you could foul up your computer fairly seriously. Also, don't continue unless you've followed Dan's instructions for saving a copy of the registry key.]

1. Right-click Desktop.

2. On the Edit menu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

3. In the New Value#1 box, type Show, and then press ENTER.

4. Right-click Show, and then click Modify.

5. In the Edit DWORD Value dialog box, type 0 in the Value data box, and then click OK.

6. Close the Registry Editor.

That's it.

Reboot.

If the StandardPlaces key you want to hide already has a Show item in the right-hand panel of the Registry Editor window, simply right-click the word Show, click Modify in the pop-up that appears, and type the number (not the letter) 0 in the value box, where the number 1 will already be selected, waiting to be changed. Once you have made a change, click OK and close the Registry Editor.

If the StandardPlaces key you want to hide does not already have a Show item, create one as above. You simply right-click the key you want to create a Show DWORD value in, and go from there. It's a snap.

I added a Show DWORD with a value of 0 (zero, not "O," remember) to each of the StandardPlaces keys when I had added several of my own folders to the My Places bar. I now have five (large) folder-icons showing in Word's My Places bar with no arrowhead at the bottom or top to indicate that there are more icons offscreen. I have icons for my folders called Admin, Editing, Current, Archives, and Computing. They're the ones I use most often in Word, and it's really handy and efficient to have them readily available in the My Places bar, so that I don't have to click through other folders to reach them.

After all, *handy* and *efficient* are descriptors it would be wonderful to be able to use for everything Word. This information can move you a step closer to that goal.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

After reading today's article, you may want to know more about the registry and how to use it. If so, a great place to learn the basics is the WinGuides Web site, here:

http://www.winguides.com/article.php?id=1&guide=registry

Then you'll find more Word-specific stuff at the Word MVP site, here:

http://www.mvps.org/word/FAQs/Customization/DataKeySettings.htm

Editing in Full-Screen Mode

This week I've been editing a new project in Microsoft Word and decided to try something new--editing in Print Layout in Full-Screen mode. I didn't think I'd like it, but I do--a lot. If you want to try it, you can activate the feature by adjusting some items under the View menu, in this order:

1. Turn on Print Layout.

2. Set the Zoom level to "Whole page."

3. Click "Full Screen."

Whoa! Your Word menu bar has disappeared! That's okay; just move your mouse pointer to the top of your screen to bring the menu bar out of hiding. Move your mouse pointer back down, and the menu bar will vanish again, leaving a full page of your document floating over a gray background.

(To turn *off* Full-Screen mode, press the Escape key, or display the menu bar and again click View > Full Screen.)

What about your toolbars? They're probably still at the top of your screen, which keeps your document page from being displayed as large as possible. But who said toolbars have to stay at the top of the screen? You've now got lots of gray space at the sides of your page, and you can use that space to hold your toolbars. Just click and hold the vertical bar on the left of a toolbar, drag the toolbar to a new location, and release your mouse button. You can leave the toolbar "floating" in the gray space around your document (and resize it, if necessary), or you can "dock" it on either side of your screen.

With Full-Screen mode turned on, you'll immediately notice how tiny the type is in your document. "I can't work like this!" you'll say. And you'll be right. To overcome this problem, you'll need to attach a new template to the document--a template formatted especially for editing. I'd recommend making body type at least 18 points and headings even larger--whatever you need for nice, legible type, even if that means you no longer have as many words on a page. Don't worry; after you've finished editing, you can attach a template with the final formatting the document needs for publication. You can learn more about this here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1700934923

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1704544112

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1704628448

Also, to really make this work, you'll need a big monitor. I do most of my work on a 21-inch screen, but a 19-incher will do. On 17 inches, it's iffy. If you're still using a 13- or 15-inch monitor, it's time to upgrade, and I'd recommend getting the biggest monitor you can afford (the ideal would be an LCD that can pivot to a "portrait" orientation!). You can learn more about this here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1705314503

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1705425420

Some of the advantages of working in Full-Screen mode, are:

* You can see a full manuscript page on your screen.

* The information on your screen is "digital" rather than analog, resembling pages rather than scrolls. In other words, it's presented in discrete, self-contained batches, and hitting the Page Down key really does take you a full page down. (In our Editor's ToolKit program, it also places your cursor at the *top* of the next page; sweet!) You can more naturally perfect a page before moving on to the next one. You don't have that feeling of not knowing where you are or that you're in an unending, scrolling mass of words.

* The discreteness of the pages allows for positional memory and a better sense of proportion--editing seems more natural, like working on paper. You can learn more about this here:

http://www.topica.com/lists/editorium/read/message.html?mid=1700396609

* All the distraction of toolbars and menus is gone, leaving you free to concentrate on your editing.

As mentioned earlier, you can still access Word's menu bar by moving your mouse pointer to the top of the screen, but you can also access it by pressing the ALT key. Then you can activate menu items by pressing the key for the letters that are underlined on those items. For example, the File menu has an underline under the F, so you can press F to access the File menu. If you already know what those underlined items are (without looking), you can press both keys at once to access the menu: ALT + F.

Here are some additional tips for editing in Full-Screen mode:

1. Click Tools > Options > View and turn off the following items (to maximize the space on your screen):

* Status bar.

* Horizontal scroll bar.

* Vertical scroll bar.

2. Click View and turn off the ruler.

3. Get more text on a page by reducing the size of your margins under File > Page Setup.

4. If your pages aren't already numbered, insert page numbers. With the status bar gone, you'll need them to gauge your progress as you work through that manuscript.

5. Use Word's "Go To" feature (CTRL + G) to move around in your document.

All of this makes it possible to have a clean screen and see each page as a unit--a pretty nice way to edit! If you've never used Full-Screen mode, why not give it a try?

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

Juanita Hilkin wrote:

One last tip on document preview. If you have a wheel mouse, hold down the control key while you roll the wheel, and the view of your document will become larger or smaller depending on which way you roll the wheel. This makes it easy to quickly adjust the view on the screen but still lets you type in the document.

After reading last week's article on modifying the "My Places" toolbar, Claes Gauffin wrote:

As you said, there are no ways to modify the toolbar in earlier versions. But what you can do, is to modify the contents of, for example, the "My documents" folder to something useful. If you normally organize your different projects in separate folders, you simply create shortcuts of all these project folders and put the shortcuts into the "My documents folder." And presto! You suddenly have a swift way of reaching all your current work.

Nan Bush wrote:

An add-on I couldn't live without on Word 2000 is Woody Leonhard's WOPR Places Bar Customizer. With it, you can customize up to ten directory links on the Places bar. It's very easy to install and has worked flawlessly for me for two+ years. As a technical writer juggling many documents, I can't imagine (well . . . yes, I can) trying to navigate without it. HIGHLY recommended. I just looked it up to be sure of its availability and found the WOPR Places Bar Customizer and other WOPR products from:

http://www.wopr.com/html/order.shtml

Thanks to all for their great suggestions.

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

High on the mountaintop, the wizard waves his wand, intoning the words of power. "OLEFormat.DoVerb wdOLEVerbShow!" he cries. "Application.OnTime Now!"

Trembling, you approach. "O mighty one," you plead, "I am weary and frustrated. I seek to make Word do my bidding rather than follow its own will, as it is so cursedly wont to do. Will you not teach me your wondrous spells?"

The wizard eyes you carefully, measuring your sincerity. Satisfied, he nods his assent. "We will begin with the spellbooks," he says, drawing a large, dark volume from his voluminous sleeve. The teaching has begun.

Steve Hudson, the Wizard of Word, really has published his spellbooks, which contain the power to bring Word under your control. The spellbooks are three:

1. Word VBA Beginner's Spellbook. This is the perfect reference for any Word user who has ever had to think about recording a macro or automating templates. Whether novice or expert, there are few Word users who won't benefit from the unique topics covered in this book.

2. Word Spellbook. A book for the experienced novice or intermediate user who is ready to move to a more advanced level. It does not cover writing techniques or other secondary information; it is dedicated to the functionality behind Microsoft Word--and nobody understands that better than Steve.

3. Word VBA Spellbook. This more advanced book assumes that the reader already has some programming knowledge. Then it explains how to get results from the inside out. The book is not so much for professional Word developers but rather for Word users who need to develop solutions for their own use.

The price for these collections of powerful knowledge? Just $20 each. For what you'll get, that is ridiculously cheap. The information would be a bargain at twice the price. Better get 'em now before Steve changes his mind. Then you too can be a Word wizard. The way to the mountaintop is here:

http://www.geocities.com/word_heretic/spellbooks.html

My Places

In the Open, Save, and Save As dialogs in recent versions of Word, there's a large vertical toolbar on the left-hand side of the dialog. The toolbar has buttons on it that make it easy to get to such places as My Documents and Desktop. Appropriately enough, the name of the toolbar is "My Places." Or maybe that's not so appropriate, since in any version of Word before 2002, there's no way to modify this toolbar--at least no way I've been able to find.

But in Word 2002 there is a way to add places (folders) to the toolbar. Why should you care? Because doing so will give you quick and easy access to your latest editing projects without having to navigate all over the place. Here's how to add a folder you want to use:

1. Click the "File" menu and then click "Open," "Save," or "Save As."

2. In the dialog that opens, navigate to the folder you want to add to the My Places toolbar.

3. Click the folder so it's active.

4. Click the "Tools" menu at the top of the Save As dialog.

5. Click "Add to My Places."

That will add the folder to the My Places bar. You may need to click the down arrow at the bottom of the bar to see the folder you added. However, you can move the folder up in the list by right-clicking it and then clicking "Move Up." (You can also move it down by clicking "Move Down.") If you want to remove the folder from the bar, right-click it and then click "Remove." You'll notice that you can't remove the existing folders, such as My Documents. They're there to stay.

If you eventually accumulate too many folders to handle, you can better manage them by reducing the size of their icons (which, by default, are *huge*). To do so, right-click one of the folders and then click "Small Icons."

Thanks to Michael C. Coleman for suggesting this article.

_________________________________________

READERS WRITE

I've received so many great tips from readers that there's just not room to include them all in a single newsletter. So if your tip isn't here, please be patient. I'll be including it soon.

The previous newsletter included a tip for editing in Print Preview. A number of readers wrote to say there's an easier way: click the Magnifier button (it looks like a magnifying glass over a piece of paper) on the Print Preview toolbar. You'll then be able to edit away. The Magnifier button is a toggle, so after you're through editing, you can click it again to return to Print Preview. Many thanks to all who sent this tip and the others below. Keep those email messages coming!

Bill Rubidge sent some additional tips for working in Print Preview:

You can invoke print preview with a macro, and set yourself to edit mode, with this bit of VBA:

ActiveDocument.PrintPreview

ActiveDocument.ActiveWindow.View.Magnifier = False

You might also use this bit of VBA to set a page-width zoom:

ActiveWindow.ActivePane.View.Zoom.PageFit = wdPageFitBestFit

I also believe you can enter full-screen view with this:

ActiveWindow.View.FullScreen = True

Full screen view is nice if you want to edit in a true WYSIWYG mode, without distraction from any tools, and if your computer is powerful enough or your document simple enough that editing in this mode works fast.

You also have access to all the standard Word commands in print preview mode, even if you can't see the icons and the menus. I avoid using the mouse and icons as much as possible, and just invoke the commands I want using the keyboard shortcuts for the menu bar.

One final suggestion--if you have a document set up to print on both sides of the page, so that you will have facing pages in the final bound document, you can set print preview to show you two pages side by side. If you use full screen view, you can usually read the documents, if you have a big enough display and set the resolution to a good size like 1024 x 768. This view in edit mode is especially useful if you are trying to do nice layout in Word. You can adjust your page breaks to balance your layout across pages. (I recommend fixing page breaks with keep-with-next paragraph commands and start-new-page paragraph commands, rather than page breaks. That way, you won't have as much to undo if you make text edits and the content gets pushed around.)

___________________________

Phil Rabichow wrote:

Just thought I'd mention something in follow-up to your article on Document Preview. You would think that if you open a document, go to File > Properties, and check the "Save preview picture," then you would have a picture as you describe in your article--one that you can see, read, and scroll through.

However, it's just the opposite! If you check that box, two things happen:

1. The file size grows.

2. You only see a snapshot in preview mode in the File > Open dialog box--and you can't scroll. The snapshot is so small (in Word 2000, anyhow), you can't read anything. Moral: never check that box.

___________________________

Eric Fletcher wrote:

I've been away for a bit and just caught up on the last few newsletters. I see you've been delving into one of my favorite features of Word: the document properties dialog.

Several years ago we had a huge job coordinating publication of ~300 publications in three languages from numerous authors. Each publication would be in any of several different phases at any time so I knew document management was going to be critical. To deal with it, I set up a template with a "cover page" consisting of styled fields to show information from the document properties, then very fastidiously followed a rigorous naming convention with the "Show document properties when saving" option set on.

I've attached a sample document so you can see what I mean. [Editor's note: To maintain privacy, I have not made this document available, but you should still be able to get an idea of what Eric is talking about from his comments.] Here are a few of the features:

1. The cover page has fielded info from the Summary part of the properties dialog. Title, subject, keywords, and comments are styled to display. The "comments" field has a running history of where the file has been. Our procedure copies the subject each time the file is saved with a new name (actually, it migrates through sets of folders; in our case, CHP-A through CHP-D as it moves through various set stages) and appends it to the end of the comments field so I keep the history with the file.

2. Some of the other fields are in the statistics tab: pages, words, creation date--and even some math to show things like average number of words per page (for our client's purposes originally but now very useful for quoting on similar work).

3. I set up a custom field "Default language" to identify the default spelling dictionary and display it on the cover page. We often do work in English, French, and Spanish, so it is helpful to be able to see at a glance what language is set as the default. The value and the setting is managed by a custom macro. (Custom fields can be very useful but the feature is poorly documented.)

4. Since we include the cover page for the client, we type any notes they need to see here so they can send the document off to their author without the notes if they choose. The page number references are fields referring to bookmarks, so we can be quite specific without having to worry about pagination differences. (Sometimes the files are sent electronically and printed at their site.)

5. Although this is a bit removed from the properties dialog, I've included sample portions of the proforma table of contents for the styled headings (we provide all levels at the interim stages so they can see the structure of their work--often handy for reducing confusion without having to be a heavy!) and the ToC for figures. The latter is seldom used in finals but we've found it helps a lot in author reviews since many of them are most keen to see that aspect of the text rather than re-reading the entire content.

I've cadged together various macros to generate summary documents using the properties fields: for example, I can list all files in the CHP-B stage in French and show the number of words. Such macros usually end up being job-specific, but they can be real lifesavers if there are large numbers of files. Of course, a well-thought-out naming convention is critical as well--but if you use the properties, you can greatly extend the number of variables to uniquely identify a particular file.

Oh, and a final tip: since I never use the Insert key, I map the File > Properties command to it. So, to see my properties dialog, I just hit Insert. (And if your finger slips going for Delete or Home, having a dialog pop up is pretty harmless--and reminds one of the usefulness of the feature!

_________________________________________

RESOURCES

MyInfo is an outlining and organizational tool I've been using for the past few weeks to keep track of all kinds of ideas, notes, and projects. The program's Web site describes it as a "tool for individuals who need a better way for storing and working with their personal and business information," noting, "It was designed to help you organize documents, ideas and projects easily."

The program certainly does that, and it has a number of features that I think sets it apart from other such organizers:

* Customizable, sortable columns. For me, this is the big one. It means I can sort my many notes by category or deadline or status or just about anything else I can dream up. I can even create my own drop-down list of items to choose from. This is a *nice* feature that I've seen nowhere else.

* Item cloning. If I have a note in one folder, I can have a duplicate in another folder, and whenever I make a change in either one of them, that change is also made automatically in the other. In effect, I can file a note under many different category folders at the same time. If I have a note about creativity, for example, I can store it (cloned) under "Thinking," "Writing," and "Inventing" without worrying about keeping the clones in synch.

* Save options. You can save all or selected items in RTF format using all kinds of slick options, such as automatic item numbering, custom dividers, and comments.

* Fast, intuitive navigation.

* Usability. MyInfo has one of the cleanest program interfaces I've seen, making even its most advanced features simple to use.

If you're looking for an easy, effective way to organize your projects and your life, you'll definitely want to look at this program. You can learn more (and try it!) here:

http://www.milenix.com/myinfo.php