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

Scan and OCR a Document

The Annoyance:

Well, you can congratulate me on my new job, for a start. I'm the Senior Archivist at ACME, Inc. Not bad, huh? But here's what I've got to do: transfer three storage rooms full of boxed documents into an electronic library that everyone can access through their PCs using Word 2003. I've got plenty of time, but I think my patience will wear through before too long if I spend all day copy-typing documents. Still, I need the money.

The Fix:

Quell any thoughts of arson that have strayed through your mind. First, you need a clear policy on which documents to keep and which to shred immediately. This book can't help you on that, but anything more than a few years old is unlikely to be of much use. Did you know that Microsoft encourages its employees to clear out their email when it reaches the ripe old age of three months? Heck, even some cheeses are older than that.

Second, you need to get to work with a decent scanner and the Microsoft Office Document Scanning feature that lurks, frequently unnoticed, on the Office Tools menu for Office 2003 and Office XP. In the Scan New Document dialog box (Figure 6-4), choose the preset to usetry "Black and white" to startand then click the Scan button. When the scan is completed, the Microsoft Office Document Imaging window opens. From here, you can choose File Save to save the scanned picture under either the default name that Microsoft Office Document Scanning has assigned (note that the document isnt saved yet, even though it appears to have a filename) or a name of your choosing, or choose Tools Send Text to Word to send the text to a document in a new Word session. Youll probably need to clean up the text in Word before saving it. Arrange the windows so that you can see both the scan of the document and the OCRed text, and make the text match the original.

Use a Scanned Picture in a Word Document

The Annoyance:

I'm creating our company's latest brochureactually, probably the last before we get bought by one of our shark-nosed competitors . Anyway, we've got this dusty old photo on the wall of the Founder shaking hands with some dusty old politician, and I need to put that front and center in the brochure to show how old and worthy we are.

The Fix:

Microsoft Office Document Scanning can help you out here too. Get the photo off the wall and out of its frame, and wipe off as much of the dust as possible. Lay it flat and square on your scanner, choose Start All Programs Microsoft Office Microsoft Office Tools Microsoft Office Document Scanning, choose the Color option in the "Select a preset for scanning list, and click the Scan button.

When the Microsoft Office Document Imaging window opens, click the Select button, drag to select the area of the picture you want, and choose Edit Copy Image. Right-click in the thumbnails column on the lefthand side, and choose Paste Page to create a new page with just your selection. Right-click the thumbnail for the original page, and choose Delete Page to delete it. Then choose File Save, save the picture, and exit Microsoft Office Document Imaging.

Switch back to Word, position the insertion point at the appropriate place, choose Insert Picture From File, and insert the picture in the document.