That tiny clipboard icon that pops up whenever you paste something into a Word file can get pretty annoying. It obscures the text and gets clicked inadvertently. It’s usually just technology getting in the way.
Here is how to turn it off in Word 365/2019. Windows instructions follow the Mac instructions. The process hasn’t changed much since 2003.
Continue reading Stop the Annoying Formatting Pop-Up When Pasting in WordInto every Word file, a few squiggles must fall.
In the 2019 release that is a snapshot of Word 365, the grammar and spelling tools are grouped together in a feature Microsoft has called the Editor. On screen, Word flags errors by underlining them. The underlining it uses mean the following:
The flagging of homonyms has improved, as you can see in the left-hand figure, but Word still misses a lot of grammar errors and some of the formatting errors — even when it has flagged those exact errors elsewhere. The errors shown in the screen grabs below are particularly bad, but Word even misses errors they used as illustrations in Word’s own help files.
You can turn off grammar checking, and you can deselect a lot of the checks, but even if you turn off the display of spelling errors, homonyms will still be flagged. (Right figure, top.)
While many editors turn off the grammar checker because Word’s advice is misguided more often than not, the blue “wrong word” checker cannot be turned off.
To get rid of the flags, select “Check Document” or “Recheck Document” in the spelling & grammar settings after deselecting “Mark grammar errors as you type” and “Check grammar with spelling.”
Some developmental edits require heavy lifting. If you’ve got to move sections of text, whole chapters even, you’ll love the convenience of the Navigation pane. Just click on a heading and you can move that whole section anywhere. Trick is, the document has to use Styles to set headings first.
Continue reading Developmental Editing Tool: Navigation Pane
Keeping your hands on the keyboard is a prime way to speed up work. The less you are hunting around ribbons and menus for the tool you need, the more efficient (and less frustrated) you’ll be. Learning existing shortcuts for navigating a document, cutting and pasting, etc. is an obvious way to keep your hands away from the mouse. Adding shortcuts for the things you do most is the productivity hack.
You can add a keyboard shortcut for almost any command, without creating a macro. Below you’ll find instructions for Windows users and Mac users. The core of the method is customizing the keyboard, and finding the command you want within the huge list of commands that are available.
*Note the text beneath the Press new keyboard shortcut field; it shows whether that key combination is already assigned. There are several dozen existing shortcuts and no online list seems to be thorough. You just have to try one. You can overwrite an existing shortcut just by doing the last two steps above. You might decide to “reassign” the shortcut for Close File since you always use Close Window, for example.
Remembering shortcuts can be challenging. If you go back into that keyboard dialog (Step 1 above), you can always look up a command (Step 2 and 3) and see what shortcut you assigned to it. It will be listed in the Current Shortcut field. Even better, keep a list in your work area. Periodically print out a list:
In any document, click Print to open the Print dialog. Select Word settings, and in the Print What drop-down, select Key assignments (Fig. 3 shows the Mac interface, Fig. 4 shows Windows, though these dialog boxes vary slightly on any computer, depending on your OS and your printer).
This only prints a list of the shortcuts you created, not those built into the system, such as those for Select All or Save.
[updated for Modern Comments, Nov 2022]
Tired eyes, tiny type? Bump up the font size in the Reviewing pane to read Comments and tracked changes in MS Word with less strain.
The easiest fix is to change the zoom setting in the Reviewing pane. This doesn’t change the actual font size, but it makes it easier to read! Scroll down for video demos using classic Comments in Word 365 for Mac and for Windows. (See Troubleshooting, below.)
These fast and accurate ways to select text can revolutionize the way you work. Keyboard shortcuts are especially good when precision is required to cut, copy, or style content, or when a very large chunk is concerned. These shortcuts won’t jump unexpectedly like a mouse can.
Not only do these methods work in Word, they work in most other software including WordPress, Adobe Acrobat, and other content management systems. (Instructions for Windows users appear in brackets if they’re different from the Mac instructions.)
*The fn key lets you access the root functions of the F keys that are now usually mapped to shortcuts like screen brightness and volume controls. If your F keys don’t operate computer functions, you may not have to press the fn key.
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