Word Annoyances: How to Fix the Most ANNOYING Things about Your Favorite Word Processor
NAVIGATING THROUGH DOCUMENTS

Master Navigation Keyboard Shortcuts

The Annoyance:

I'm sick and tired of navigating with the mouseevery time I move my hand over to it, it wastes a couple of seconds. But moving around with the arrow keys sucks even more.

The Fix:

Use the keyboard shortcuts shown in Table 3-3 to navigate quickly around your documents. If you want to select text, hold down the Shift key while you press the keyboard shortcut.

Table 3-3. Keyboard shortcuts for navigating in documents

Keyboard shortcut

Moves (or, with Shift, selects)

Ctrl+

One word to the left, or to the start of the current word

Ctrl+

One word to the right, or to the end of the current word

Ctrl+

To the beginning of the current paragraph (if the insertion point is in it) or the beginning of the previous paragraph

Ctrl+

To the beginning of the next paragraph

Ctrl+Home

To the beginning of the document, text box, or other story (for example, a header)

Ctrl+End

To the end of the document, text box, or other story

Tip: Word calls the separate components of a documentthe main document, text boxes, and other such items stories .

Navigate with Bookmarks

The Annoyance:

I need a way to move quickly from one part of a document to another. Hasn't Word got one?

The Fix:

Word offers several ways of moving quickly about a document: bookmarks, browse objects (discussed in "Navigate with Browse Objects," later in this chapter), and Go To (discussed in "Navigate with Go To," later still in this chapter).

A bookmark is a marker in a document. A bookmark can either mark a particular point (between characters or objects) or enclose one or more objects: a character, a word, a graphic, and so on. Bookmarks are hidden by default, but you can display them if you choose (see the next Annoyance).

Pretty much everything you do with bookmarks involves the Insert Bookmark command:

Make Bookmarks Visible

The Annoyance:

I'm using bookmarks to navigate among the different parts of my documents. The trouble is, I keep deleting the bookmarks while I'm working, because I can't see where they are.

The Fix:

Choose Tools Options, click the View tab, check the Bookmarks box, and click the OK button. Bookmarks that have contents appear with brackets around them (see Figure 3-15). Bookmarks that are just points appear as heavy I-beams.

Figure 3-15. Turn on bookmarks if you're in danger of deleting them accidentally .

Place the Insertion Point Outside a Bookmark

The Annoyance:

Okay, explain this. I select a paragraph, choose Insert Bookmark, and create a bookmark around the paragraph. I turn on the display of bookmarks so I can see where the bookmark starts and ends. I need to add a paragraph before the one containing the bookmark, so I put the insertion point at the beginning of that paragraph and press Enter... and Word puts the new paragraph inside the bookmark rather than moving the bookmark down a paragraph. Arrgh!

The Fix:

If you look closely, you may see that Word displays the insertion point within the bookmark brackets around the paragraph, in a brave attempt to show you what's happening. Anyway, the problem is that you've set the bookmark's range to encompass the whole paragraph, and when you place the insertion point at the beginning of the paragraph, Word considers it to be within the bookmark. To add a paragraph, you must place the insertion point at the end of the previous paragraph so that it's outside the bookmark.

If you've put the bookmark at the start of the document, you can't place the insertion point before it. Type the paragraph, select the paragraph that's supposed to contain the bookmark, choose Insert Bookmark, and create the bookmark again.

Navigate with Browse Objects

The Annoyance:

Why isn't there a way to find the next table or heading?

The Fix:

Click the Select Browse Object button at the bottom of the vertical scrollbar (see Figure 3-16), select the appropriate browse object, and then use the Find Next and Find Previous buttons (or press Ctrl+Page Down or Ctrl+Page Up). You can also use Go To (discussed next). "Browse object" seems like a forbidding term , but it simply means "the thing you've told Word to look for." The possible browse objects are Go To, Find, Edits, Heading, Graphic, Field, Table, Endnote, Footnote, Comment, Section, and Page. Page is the default until you activate another browse object.

Figure 3-16. The Select Browse Object button and its panel provide quick navigation among 12 types of document objects.

Navigate with Go To

The Annoyance:

I need to move quickly forward or back over a large number of pages in my documents.

The Fix:

Choose Edit Go To (or double-click an open space in the status barnot one of the many readouts or items that clutter it). On the Go To tab of the Find and Replace dialog box (see Figure 3-17), click Page in the "Go to what list, and either type the page number or enter a positive number (for example, +25) to move forward or a negative number (for example, -25) to move backward. Click the Go To button to make the jump.

Figure 3-17. You can use the Go To tab to jump forward or back by a large number of pages.

Tip: If you're not sure how many pages you need to move forward or back, drag the scroll box (the box in the scrollbar; it's also called the thumb , if you like nonintuitive technical terms) and watch the ScreenTip that shows the current heading.

Navigate with the Document Map

The Annoyance:

When I'm working on my thesis, I often have to jump to different headings to enter text, check references, and so on. I switch to Outline view to find the heading I need, back to Normal view to work in the text, then back to Outline view to get back to where I was before. Is there an easier way?

The Fix:

Choose View Document Map to display the Document Map (see Figure 3-18), which works like a miniature version of Outline view at the left side of the window. Click a heading in the Document Map to jump to that page. You can expand or collapse the selected heading, or change the heading levels displayed, by right-clicking and choosing the appropriate command from the shortcut menu.

Figure 3-18. The Document Map provides a quick means of jumping from heading to heading in your document.

Warning: Some Word experts advise you not to use the Document Map because it can sometimes cause corruption in documents (or possibly bring it on more quickly than it would otherwise have occurred). If you find the Document Map helpful, save your documents after making any changes that you don't want to have to repeat, and keep plenty of backups in case corruption occurs. Watch out for the font in the Document Map suddenly growing or shrinking of its own accordthat usually means that your document is starting to corrupt.

Customize the Document Map Style

The Annoyance:

The Document Map is greatexcept that its font is far too small. I'm going to go blind peering at it. I've tried to customize it, but it doesn't even appear in the "All styles" category in the Styles and Formatting task pane. My friend who has Word 2000 tells me the style is called (logically enough) "Document Map." I've tried creating a new style with that name, but Word tells me the name is reserved for a built-in style.

The Fix:

In Word 2000, you can simply choose Format Style to display the Style dialog box, choose "All styles in the List drop-down list, select Document Map in the Styles list, and click the Modify button to modify the style.

Word 2003 and Word XP hide the Document Map style and some other built-in styles from you. To force Word to display the Document Map style:

  1. Choose Format Styles and Formatting. In the Styles and Formatting task pane, choose Custom in the Show drop-down list to display the Format Settings dialog box.

  3. Back in the Styles and Formatting task pane, click the Document Map style, click its drop-down arrow, and choose Modify from the pop-up menu to display the Modify Style dialog box.

Once you've opened the Modify Style dialog box, use its controls to modify the style. (See Chapter 4 for details on modifying styles.) Check the "Add to template" box to make sure your changes are saved to the template.

Scroll Automatically Through a Document

The Annoyance:

I work on longno, make that looooooong documents and need to scroll through large chunks of text to get my bearings on what's where. I've tried using the Document Map, but it doesn't cut the mustard for me. And don't suggest Outline view, either: I need to see the headings and figures in the document as I go.

The Fix:

Try AutoScroll. Choose Tools Macro Macros (or press Alt+F8), type autoscroll in the "Macro name box, and press Enter or click the Run button. Word will display a "wait" cursor (the hourglass), but a shadowy double-headed vertical arrow will appear in the middle of the document window. Drag gently down (or up, if you want to scroll up) to start the scrolling. Drag further to scroll fasteryou may find the adjustment delicate if your computer has a fast processor and dual overhead camshaftsor drag back the other way to slow, stop, or reverse the scrolling. Click or press Escape to turn off AutoScroll.

If you like AutoScroll, put its command on a toolbar or menu. Choose Tools Customize, click the Commands tab, and verify that the correct template (for example, Normal.dot ) or document is selected in the "Save in" drop-down list. Choose All Commands in the Categories list; then drag the AutoScroll item to the desired toolbar or menu. Close the Customize dialog box, Shift-click the File menu, choose Save All, and save changes to the document or template if Word prompts you to.

Return to Your Last Three Edits

The Annoyance:

I'd like to be able to flip back to where I was last working.

The Fix:

Press Shift+F5 one, two, or three times. A fourth press takes you back to the position from which you started.

Tip: When you close a document, Word stores only the last editing location, not the last three; so when you reopen the document, you can use Shift+F5 only once to return to the last editing location. Because of the way that Word 2000 and later versions close files when you exit Word, Word may not save the last editing location in some files. However, if you close your files manually before exiting Word, it will always save the last editing location.

Work in Two Parts of a Document at Once

The Annoyance:

I often need to work in two parts of a document at the same time. I'm getting whiplash from flipping back and forth.

The Fix:

Split the window (choose Window Split) or open a second window (choose Window New Window). You may sometimes need to use both multiple windows and splitting when working with complex documents.

Tip: You can use the Virtual Desktop Manager PowerToy (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx) to run two or more virtual desktops.If you're generally underwhelmed by Word's navigation and editing features, check out WordToys (http://www.wordtoys.com). There's a free version that offers a wide variety of appealing enhancements, and a Professional version ($20) that provides even more.
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