I work a lot with styles in Microsoft Word, and I like being able to look up at the drop-down style list on the formatting toolbar to see the name of the current paragraph style. I also like giving my styles long, descriptive names, such as Normal Text 2, Normal Text 2 No Indent, Normal Text 2 Block Quotation, and so on. The problem is, Word's drop-down style list isn't wide enough to display the entire name of the style, so I usually end up looking at something like this:<\/p>\n
Normal Text 2<\/p>\n
--even when the name of the style should be displayed like this:<\/p>\n
Normal Text 2 Block Quotation<\/p>\n
I have the same problem with Word's drop-down font list, especially with font families that have long names and lots of members (Franklin Gothic Book, Franklin Gothic Demi, Franklin Gothic Demi Cond, and so on). Yes, I can click the arrow on the right of the list to see the full name, but I hate reaching for the mouse, especially when all I want to do is display something.<\/p>\n
If you, too, have this problem, there's an easy way to fix it. You can resize the drop-down list to show the full name of a style or font:<\/p>\n
1. Click the \"Tools\" menu.<\/p>\n
2. Click \"Customize.\" The Customize dialog box will appear.<\/p>\n
3. Click inside of the drop-down list you want to resize. A black border will appear around the list window.<\/p>\n
4. Move your mouse pointer to the right edge of the list window. Your cursor will change into a vertical bar with arrows sticking out of the sides (indicating that you can resize the window).<\/p>\n
5. Click and hold your left mouse button.<\/p>\n
6. Move the edge of the list window to the right until the window is the size you'd like it to be. Don't be shy--give yourself plenty of room.<\/p>\n
7. Release the mouse button.<\/p>\n
8. Click the \"Close\" button in the Customize dialog box.<\/p>\n
Now, isn't that better? You may be surprised at how much frustration this saves from day to day. I know I was.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
_________________________________________<\/p>\n
READERS WRITE<\/p>\n
After reading our article on creating an exclude dictionary, here--<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.topica.com\/lists\/editorium\/read\/message.html?mid=1709082320<\/p>\n
--April Karys wrote:<\/p>\n
In creating an exclude dictionary, as I did following your excellent directions, I found out that those of us running on a Mac platform using Word 2001 must save the document not in \"text only\" or \"plain text,\" but in \"speller exclude dictionary.\" Saving in plain text won't work. [This is also true in Word 98.]<\/p>\n
In an article on searching with wildcards--<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.topica.com\/lists\/editorium\/read\/message.html?mid=1705963026<\/p>\n
--I mentioned the fact that wildcard searches can't be set to find whole words only. Callie Jordan wrote with a workaround for this problem:<\/p>\n
It's true that Word doesn't have \"whole word\" as an option, but if you include a space before and after the word(s) you're looking for, it won't find butter when you're looking for b?t--it also won't find \"bat\" [in quotation marks] though, because that word isn't followed by a space. So there's still a limit. But there aren't as many words in quotes as there are just plain whole words. . . . It also won't find words at the end of a sentence, or with any punctuation. You could just run the Find\/Replace a second time and don't do a global replace, verifying each find. There wouldn't be as many words to check after most of them had been replaced.<\/p>\n
Thanks to April and to Callie for their useful tips.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
_________________________________________<\/p>\n
RESOURCES<\/p>\n
If you're interested in learning the nitty-gritty details of using Microsoft Word, you can't afford to miss the MVP Word site, which includes tutorials and a great FAQ put together by various people associated with Microsoft's Most Valuable Professional program:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.mvps.org\/word<\/p>\n