Document Properties

I've been thinking a lot lately about document management--that is, how to keep better track of all those Microsoft Word files I have floating around my computer. One tool I've neglected is Word's Properties feature. If you work in a law office, you probably know all about it. But if you work in a publishing house, like me, you may not even know this tool exists.

To see the Properties feature in action, open a Word document (or create a new one). Then click File > Properties. The Properties dialog will open, and you'll see five tabs:

General

Summary

Statistics

Contents

Custom

I'm not going to cover all of these tabs or their contents, but I would like to call your attention to the one that looks most useful for document management--the Summary tab.

Most of the items on the Summary tab are self-explanatory, but the important thing to note is that you can enter or modify any of them. In particular, I'm interested in the Subject, Category, and Keywords boxes. Why? Because if I type information into these boxes, I can do two very cool things. One of them is to search for files with a particular subject, category, or keyword.

Here's how:

1. Click File > Open.

2. Locate the "Tools" button on the upper right of the dialog. Did you know that was there?

3. Click "Find." Wow, is that a nifty dialog or what?

4. In the "Property" dropdown list, find the item you want to search, such as "Subject."

5. In the "Condition" list, find the conditions that fit the search you want to do, such as "Includes words" or "Begins with phrase."

6. In the "Value" box, type the words or phrase that you want to find in the property you selected from the "Property" list.

Here's an example. If I wanted to find all my files on the subject of elephants, I'd choose "Subject," "Includes words," and "elephant." Note that this won't find the *word* "elephants" in the text of a document. Rather, it will find all of the files whose Subject *property* includes the word "elephants."

7. Click the "Add to List" button. The search element you just defined will appear in the big box at the top of the dialog.

8. Click the "Find Now" button.

Word will search through your files and display those that match your search. Then you can open the files you want to work on. Note that you can narrow your searches by adding more than one item, that you can save your searches to use again later, and that there are various other features to help you refine your searches. You can learn more about each feature by clicking the Help button (labeled with a question mark) and then clicking the feature you want to know more about.

I mentioned that there were two cool things that can be done with document properties. One of them is searching. The other one is to sort by document properties in Windows Explorer. I'll reveal the details next week.

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READERS WRITE

After reading last week's newsletter on using styles in Word 2002 while avoiding the Task Pane, Jim Cronin wrote:

Prior to Word 2002, you could redefine a style by making direct formatting alterations in a paragraph then clicking on the style name in the toolbar's Style drop-down list and pressing Enter twice. This was a lot easier and quicker than using Word 2002's Task Pane. The solution is to click Tools > Options from the toolbar, select the Edit tab and ensure the "Prompt to update style" checkbox is selected.

Romke Soldaat sent some other useful style commands to add to your custom Styles toolbar as mentioned in last week's newsletter:

Apply Heading 1

Apply Heading 2

Apply Heading 3

Style by Example

Modify Style

Redefine Style

Rename Style

Delete Style

Style

Style Gallery

Romke also sent a nifty little macro that you can add to your toolbar. The macro displays Word's Organizer feature, all set so you can organize styles:

Sub OrganizeStyles
With Dialogs(wdDialogOrganizer)
.DefaultTab = wdDialogOrganizerTabStyles
.Show
End With
End Sub

If you don't know how to use macros like that one, you can find out here.

Thanks to Jim and Romke for these great tips.

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RESOURCES

I have been sick, sick, sick of my computer running so slow. Then it dawned on me: spyware! I quickly downloaded, installed, and ran Spybot Search & Destroy, from PepiMK Software. Now my computer is back under my control. If you've got similar problems, you might want to check this out:

http://security.kolla.de/index.php?lang=en&page=start

There's no charge for the program, and on my computer it worked well. Your mileage may vary. If you want to try it, be *sure* to read the documentation before proceeding.