Microsoft Word Tips and Tricks to Increase Productivity

Microsoft Word tips and tricks for your daily “how to” problems. These time saving tricks
will increase your productivity in office as you’ll spend less time working on MS Word
documents. Work better, faster and smarter.
I understand the small and big problems you face in your daily work when using Microsoft
Word. Here I am presenting solutions for these day-to-day MS Word problems in simple and
illustrated fashion. If you don’t find solution to your problem in the articles listed below,
please feel free to ask me a question. These Microsoft Word tips and tricks are important as
they increase your productivity in office. Also, in my experience, these tips save you time to
easily grab a cup of coffee! :-)
Oh yes, one more thing!, this list of tips keeps growing as I add more and more tips on how
to work better, faster and smarter with Microsoft Word. Subscribe to my newsletter and keep
getting all the new beautiful tips by email! Now let’s take the plunge!
Quick Tips
 To select an entire paragraph make three rapid clicks anywhere in the paragraph
 Ctrl + click selects sentence. Click anywhere in a sentence while holding Ctrl key down
will select the sentence
 To create a horizontal line type 3 hyphens and then press Enter
 Ctrl+ makes a word subscript and Ctrl Shift + makes a word superscript
 Pressing backspace while holding Ctrl key down deletes the preceding word
 USe Format Painter feature to quickly apply a particular format to a new area.
 Typing =rand(8,10) and then pressing Enter will automatically generate random text you
can use for testing the page formatting, fonts, etc.
  To move cursor to the location where it was when you last save the document press
Shift + F5
 Select some text -now if you will press Ctrl + Shift + > the font size of the selected text
will increase. To decrease the font size use Ctrl + Shift + < combination
 To quickly create a table type a plus sign (+) then press Tab key; again type a plus and
again press Tab key; do this as many times as the number of cells you want in your
table. Then press Enter. And table shall appear!

These tips on Microsoft Word make your life easier and increase your productivity at work.
How to Save Images from MS Word Document
Learn how to save images from MS Word document. If document has a lot of image inserted
in it and you need them as separate files, you can easily save them all with this method.
Find and Replace All Images in MS-Word
Learn how to find and replace images in an MS-Word document. With this method you can
select and replace all the images in a document in one go.
Trademark Symbol ™: Legal Use and How to Type in MS Word
Registered trademark symbol (®) is distinct from trademark sign ™ and service mark ℠.
There are several methods to type it in computer.
Registered Symbol ®: How to Type in MS Word and HTML
Legal use of various Trademark Symbols, differences among trademark, registered
trademark and copyright symbols. Also know how to type trademark sign in MS Word.
How to Type Copyright Symbol in MS Word
Copyright symbol © can be easily typed and inserted in MS Word, MS Excel, Windows
Notepad, Apple Mac, HTML, JavaScript and plain text etc. Learn how to type it this symbol
of legal importance to protect your intellectual property. Press Alt key and then type 0169 on
NumPad of your computer. Alt + 0169 is the shortcut for typing © symbol.
Type ° Degree Symbol in MS Word
Learn how to type degree symbol in MS Word, Excel, HTML and Unicode. Inserting degree
sign in documents is often required while typing temperatures, angles, coordinates etc. The
easiest method of typing degree symbol in MS Word is to use the key combination of
Ctrl+Shift+@ and then press space bar.
Strikethrough Shortcut Key for MS Word
Learn to create strikethrough shortcut key for MS Word, MS Excel, MS Outlook etc.
Microsoft doesn’t provide any built-in key combination for the strike through command.
How to Change Default Font in MS Word
It is easy to change default font style, size, color etc. in all the MS Word documents. You
can edit normal.dot template file with the click of a button.
“When you open a new document, its style is based on a template called normal.dot.
Whatever styles and formatting are set in normal.dot template —the same gets applied on all
the new documents. Earlier, it was possible to open normal.dot template and make changes.
But now, even better, you can edit this template without even opening it.”
MS Word: How to Split a Document in Two Windows
An MS Word document can be split so as to display two copies with independent scroll bars.
It is useful in tasks like editing and tallying in large documents.
“Remember, once the document is split, some of your actions will apply to the copy which is
active at that moment. To activate a copy, just click anywhere inside it. However, any editing
or formatting will affect both the copies. For example, if you make some text bold in the
upper copy –the same text will become bold in the lower copy as well”

An MS-Word document split into two copies.

Type In the Middle or Anywhere in a Document
Now you can type anywhere in an MS Word document. No need to keep pressing space bar
to position typing cursor. This feature is available in Office XP and above.
“With this feature, Microsoft intended to imitate a paper sheet in MS-Word. You can write
on a paper sheet wherever you want. Now you can do the same in your computer as well.
Say good bye to position text with the help of spaces!”
Remove All Red and Green Underlines from Word Document
Learn how to remove red / green underlines showing spelling and grammar mistakes in an
MS Word document. These zigzag lines show errors. You can remove all the error indicating
lines in one go for a particular document.
“This method is useful because it hides spelling / grammar errors only in a particular
document. It does not completely switch off the spell checker. Spell checker will duly show
errors in all other existing and new documents that you’ll create.”
Insert Dummy Sample or Lorem Ipsum Text in MS-Word
Filling dummy sample text as placeholder in an MS-Word document is a very common
requirement. Learn how to use rand & lorem functions to insert text easily.
“As soon as you’ll type this and hit space or enter –three paragraphs of sample text (with
four lines in each para) will appear in place of this command. You can even control the
number of paragraphs to be inserted and number of lines in each paragraph.”
MS-Word: Automatically Open Most Recent Document
For many people it is useful if open the most recently used document automatically opens
when they launch MS-Word. It’s easy enough to do, let’s see how.
“A box will pop-up and it will ask you to browse or type the location of the file to be opened.
In this case we want to open winword.exe (this is the file that launches MS-Word). Click on
Browse button and go to the location where this file is located. Once you find it, select this
file and click OK button. Usually this file is located in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office
folder.”
Go Back to Last Editing Point (SHIFT + F5)
Learn how to quickly move to the most recent (last) location in an MS-Word document
where you were editing. SHIFT+F5 key combination can help you.
“for example, lets say, at present you are on page number 14 in your document and need to
paste a paragraph here. The paragraph to be copied is present in the same document on page
number 347. You will move to page 347 and copy the paragraph. But is there is a way for
returning back to the page where you were working (i.e. page 14)? Yes, there is a way!.”
Easily Do Multiple Cut Paste Using Spike
MS-Word has a feature that enables you to hold more than one data pieces in clipboard and
then paste all of them in one go. This is cut paste extended!
“Regular clipboard can hold only one piece of text or image at any given time. When you
copy another piece of data –it overwrites the data that was already there in clipboard. This is
where Spike comes into the picture. It is an extended clipboard which can hold multiple
pieces of data. Therefore, in case of Spike, incoming data pieces do not overwrite the
existing data.”
Type Indian Rupee Symbol in HTML and MS-Word
Learn how to type, insert or add the Indian Rupee (indicated as INR or Rs) symbol in
HTML, MS Word, Excel or text document using Unicode. You can add Indian currency
Unicode symbol on computers with Indic language support.
“Indian government launched new symbol for the Indian currency on 15 July 2010. Earlier, a
more general Rs. Symbol was used to indicate Indian Rupee (INR). From the word
processing point of view it was much easier to type it because both the constituent characters
(i.e. R and s) were available on English keyboard.”
Select Vertical Rectangular Area
Learn to select free form rectangular arbitrary block in MS Word. You can select a vertical
area and also begin selection in the middle of a line.
“Selection of text is one of the most basic task in MS-Word. You can issue a lot of
commands that work only on a selected piece of text. Such commands range from simple
copy or cut to doing calculations among a number of other things.”

Selecting arbitrary rectangular block in MS-Word

Password Protect a Document
Setting a password on a file is a good way to keep the content safe from unauthorized access.
Learn how to protect your MS-Word files with password
“Placing a password on MS-Word document provides a simple way to keep secret data
secret. When a user will try to open a secured file –password will be asked for. It is as simple
as that. This is so easy that one does not need to be a power user to set password and open
secured files.”
Easily Insert Rows/Columns in a Table
Insertion of more rows and columns is an action often taken while working on a document.
Learn how to do it easily and quickly.
“Tables are among the most often used features of Microsoft Word. MS-Word offers a great
deal of options to design and manage the tables in a document. In order to create a new table,
you need to go to the Insert tab and use Table button. Then you can drag your mouse over a
grid presented in the resulting menu to select the number of rows and columns you need for
your table.”
Quickly Fill Serial Numbers in a Table Column
This method can save you time as you can quickly fill the entire column of an MS-Word
table with serial numbers or serial alphabets. It works in similar fashion to Fill Handle
feature of MS-Excel.
“There is a way to fill a column with sequential numbers in MS-Excel –but there is no
similar way available for MS-Word tables. So, I lazily began to enter serial numbers one by
one manually but then I thought there must be a way to do this tiny task in a more efficient
manner. And I found one. And it turned out to be extremely simple and intuitive too! Here is
how you can do this on click of a mouse and save yourself time for a coffee break!”
Mail Merge: Format Date Field in Microsoft Word
Learn how to format a date field while doing Mail Merge. You can easily have the date
formatted as you wish using field codes and switches.
“When you do Mail Merge and if you are using a date field, sometimes MS-Word picks date
field from source and prints it in a unwanted format. But, thankfully, we can change the
format of date to suit your purpose.”

MS-Word: Field Codes button

Reverse a List (Order/Sequence Reversal)
Learn an easy trick to reverse the order of content of a list in MS-Word. This trick does not
use any script or code. It is plain and neat solution that could save you a lot of time.
“The other day, a friend of mine asked me an interesting question. He had a Microsoft Word
document which contained a long numbered list of about 200 items. And he wanted the same
list in reversed order. That is, the last item in the list should become the first, second-last
should become second and so and so forth.”

Select text > Click on Insert tab > Table > Convert Text to Table
Change Order of Words by Swapping Sequence
Learn how to change order (sequence) of a set of words by swapping them around in
Microsoft Word. This is done using regular expressions (wildcards).
“Sometimes, we need to swap the order of two (or more) words and change their sequence.
Depending upon the size of the document, this task could turn out to be nightmarish. But
with proper use of regular expressions, you can perform it in a jiffy!”
Find and Replace Numbers, Digits, Numerals
Learn how to find and replace numbers, digits, numerals in a given MS Word document.
You can find certain numbers or range of numbers and replace them with nothing or
anything.
“At times we find ourselves in a situation wherein we need to find and replace only numbers
(numerical digits) in a given document. It is quite easy to accomplish using Find and Replace
facility given in MS-Word. Here is how we can accomplish this.”
Create Shorter Column in Two Column Layout
Learn how to insert a column break in MS-Word to make columns of different sizes. With
this, you can make a column shorter than the other.
“As per the normal behavior of columns in MS-Word, you have to fill the first column with
content before moving onto the next column. MS-Word users sometimes, however, want to
only partially fill the first column and move onto the next one. Let’s learn how we can
accomplish this.”

Insert Column Break in MS-Word

Insert Two Columns in a Page
Learn how to insert two column or multiple columns in MS Word document. This layout
gives your pages a more professional look like that of a magazine.
“Often times, we want to write text in two (or more columns) just the way they publish text
in newspapers, magazines and books. Two column text is easier to read because readers’
eyes don’t have to move across the full width of the page.”
Find and Replace Formatting
Learn how to find certain type of formatting and replace it with another format in MS Word
document. For example, you can find all the bold words and make them italic in one shot.
“People are used to with find and replace facility in MS-Word know how to find text and
replace it with some other text. But it is indeed possible to find formatting and replace it with
other formatting!”
How to Record, Write and Run a Macro
Basic steps for recording, writing and running a macro in MS Word. The same steps apply
for other applications in MS-Office package.
“In order to write a Visual Basic program to run in MS-Office packages (like Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, Access etc) you need an editor. Microsoft has provided you with one. To bring
this editor to the fore take the following steps.”
Do Multiple Find and Replace
Learn how to write a macro to do multiple find and replace operations in MS Word in one
go. You can change multiple words with this VBA macro.
“Nowadays, I am working with a lot of Unicode text in MS-Word. All the pieces of the text
invariably need editing. There are some commonly occurring mistakes which I have to keep
correcting in various documents. So, I thought it would be great if I could run several find
and replace commands in one go.”
Different Page Numbers for TOC or Preface
Give your document a professional look by using Roman numerals for Table of Content
(TOC) and introduction etc. The rest of the documents will have separate page numbering.
“To get around this problem, you need to given TOC a section of its own. Insert a section
break at the beginning of the document and then insert TOC in that section. The main
document will remain in second section. Now you can give different page numbers to both
the sections.”
Make Portrait and Landscape Pages in the Same Document
Learn how to convert just a few pages to landscape orientation in MS Word document using
section break. Rest of the pages will remain in portrait layout.
“Big tables, graphs and images sometimes don’t fit into the portrait layout –but when we try
to change the layout to landscape, MS-Word applies changes to the the entire document.
Here is the solution to this problem”
Make Table of Content
MS-Word can easily create table of content. This is very useful feature especially you are
working on large amount of text, like a book. Learn how to insert a table of content in MS
Word document.
“Such a table is often used by the readers to get an overall idea about the content of the
document as well as a navigation means. In MS-Word, it is quite easy to create Table of
Content (TOC). Many people who do not know about this feature try to manually create
TOC –but you can imagine how tough such manual process would be.”
Replace Line, Paragraph, Carriage Break in MS Word
Step-by-step guide on how to remove or replace paragraph breaks. There is no need to do it
manually. MS Word can do it for you!
“the paragraph break or line break is represented by invisible character (¶) which looks like a
flipped P. You can toggle the visibility of this character by clicking a button given on the
Home tab in M Word. The button bears the same symbol.”
Change Smart Curly Quotes to Simple Ones
Smart curly quotes provided by MS Word look pretty but can be a real nuisance sometimes.
Learn how to replace them with simple straight quotes.
“When caught in such a situation, for the life of you, you just somehow want to get back to
straight quotes (it happened with me a week ago –and that it why this post!). MS Word does
not provide a simple way to toggle between smart and plain quotes.”
Microsoft Word Shortcut Key Combinations
Learn these MS Word shortcuts. You can work faster with the help of keys like CTRL+C
(copy), CTRL+V (paste), CTRL+A (Select all) etc. Be a keyboard warrior!
shortcut keys work faster than doing the same thing with mouse. When you are typing in MS
Word, pressing shortcuts is easier because you don’t have to leave your keyboard and get
hold of mouse.
Remove Leading and Trailing Spaces
A simple method to remove unnecessary spaces before and after lines in an MS-Word
document.
“More often than not I get MS-Word files in which a lot of lines either begin with
unnecessary spaces or they have lots of trailing spaces –and if it is a really bad case –lines
will have both leading and trailing spaces. Not-so-tech-savvy people use leading spaces to
align lines.”
How to Invert, Reverse, Transpose a Table in MS-Word
Sometimes we need to transpose (invert or reverse) a table in MS Word. Learn how to
change columns into rows and rows into columns of Microsoft Word table. It can be done
with the help of MS Excel.

Transpose function of a table in Excel.

Delete a Document Word File From Your Computer
Learn how to delete a document or file from your computer. The steps are same for deleting
any kind of file including Microsoft Word document. Process is almost same for both PCs
(Windows) and Mac.
Delete a document from your computer.
Remove Automatic Horizontal Line in Ms-Word
Get rid of horizontal line that automatically appears when you type dashes (hyphens) and
press enter key. Learn to remove it and permanently deactivate it.
The first thing that you need to understand about this line is that it is NOT a line. It is
actually a border. This is why you can not select it with a mouse click and because it is
unselectable —you can not press delete button to remove it.

This is how you can remove automatic horizontal line in MS-Word.

Insert Code Snippets with Syntax Highlight in MS Word
Learn how to insert code snippets with syntax highlights in an MS Word document. This
method will preserve the color coding and inserted code blocks will be much easier to
maintain.
go to Insert tab and then click on the Object option. A new box will appear with a list of
objects that you can insert in your MS Word document. Select OpenDocument Text from the
list and click OK to insert the object…
I hope these MS Word tips and trick helped you save some good time in office. Should you
have any questions, please feel free to ask. I will try my best to assist you. Also, please send
me more useful MS Word tips, if you have any. Thank you for using TechWelkin!