Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear readers,

Best wishes to all of you for an exceptionally relaxing and savory holiday!

At Thanksgiving, I am particularly aware of my good fortune. There are myriad things for which I am thankful, including the wonderful people who follow my blog and who buy my book(s) and my calendar, as well as my terrific clients, students, colleagues, friends, family members, and other acquaintances — physical and virtual — who have provided support and encouragement throughout the past year. Know that I appreciate each and every one of you.

Over the long weekend, I will post a couple of new substantive articles. I’m thinking, too, of allowing comments at some point in the future, although responding to comments might take a fairly substantial amount of time, which already is in short supply. In any case, I will do my best to continue to offer tips that help you to get your daily work done more quickly, efficiently, and easily.

Meanwhile, happy holidays, everybody!

Amazon listing back to normal

As of 3:10 p.m. PST, the book is listed once again as being “Available.” So anyone who wants to order a copy should be able to do so through Amazon (as well as through Lulu).

Thanks to all the folks at Lulu and Amazon who jumped in and got things fixed. That was pretty fast!

Another Amazon glitch…

Once again, Amazon is indicating this evening — incorrectly — that my Word 2007 book is “Currently unavailable.” There is some glitch that causes Amazon to display that message from time to time, which is problematic because when it happens the “Add to Cart” button vanishes.

I’ve fired off a note to Lulu Support (it was Lulu that placed the book on Amazon in the first place), so with luck the problem will be fixed soon. In the meantime, you still can order the book through Lulu (via the link in the column at the right side of the blog). The main reason I normally steer potential buyers to Amazon, apart from its familiar interface, is that Amazon’s shipping tends to be less expensive than Lulu’s.

My apologies for this problem — and thanks for your patience.

Tiplet: Quick access to the header/footer screen in Word 2007

Some weeks, I don’t have time for a lengthy article; on those occasions I’ll try to provide brief “tiplets” instead.

Here’s one: In Word 2007, the conventional way of creating (or editing) a header and/or a footer is to click the Insert tab, navigate to the Header & Footer group and click the Header or Footer drop-down, then use one of the templates in the gallery or click the “Edit Header” (or “Edit Footer”) command. After setting up or modifying the header and/or footer, people ordinarily click the “Close Header and Footer” button (the big red X) in the Header and Footer Tools tab.

That’s a lot of steps just to get into and out of the header and/or footer editing screen. And closing out of a header or footer and returning to the document text can be tricky because if you click a different tab in order to gain access to some other command while working on the header or footer, the “Close” button disappears.

Happily, there are easier ways to go back and forth between the body of the document and the header or footer editing screen. To go into the header editing screen — even before you’ve set up a header — just position the mouse pointer toward the top of any page (in the area where a header would appear) and double-click. The same method works for entering the footer editing screen, except that you need to position the mouse pointer toward the bottom of the page (in the footer area) before double-clicking.

To exit from a header or footer and resume working on the document itself, you can either double-click in the area between the header and footer screens or, if you prefer, double-click on the “label” or tab at the left side of the screen that says “Header” (or the one that says “Footer”). Either method should take you right back into the main document editing screen. Very convenient, especially when you can’t see the “Close” button.

Note that these methods might not work exactly the same way (if at all) in earlier versions of Word.

Primer on tables in WordPerfect, Part I: Divide Row Across Pages

One of the most common questions I get from clients who work with WordPerfect concerns the formatting of text in tables, such as in a Statement of Disputed and Undisputed Facts. Often, the text gets bumped to the next page, leaving a large and unattractive gap between numbered paragraphs. A recent incarnation of the problem involved an added twist: Text in one row did reach the bottom of the page (that is, the paragraph wasn’t moved to the next page), but the text was truncated — and in Reveal Codes, the truncated portion was marked as hidden. It wasn’t possible to “unhide” the text by unchecking the Hidden attribute in the Font dialog, however.

First, I asked the client to check to see whether a setting in WordPerfect was preventing the entirety of the paragraph from displaying. In particular, I had her insert the cursor into the offending row and click the Table menu, Format, then click the Row tab and make note of the Lines of Text Per Row setting. Was the “Single line only (hide extra text)” option enabled? If so, that could have been the cause of the problem. She investigated, but “Multiple lines (expand row to fit)” was enabled. I believe that configuration option is the default, which certainly makes sense.

Next, I suggested that the client go back into the Table Format dialog, Row tab, and click to check (enable) the “Divide row across pages” option. When she did so, the issue resolved itself. The text that had been truncated flowed onto the next page and the entire paragraph was visible — no “hidden” text. Nor was there a large gap between that paragraph and the previous one (the paragraph in the prior row).

The “Divide row across pages” choice has fixed many of my clients’ table formatting problems. If text in one of your WordPerfect tables is moving to the next page, take a look at that setting first. For some reason, the option is disabled by default, but it’s easy to remedy. And keep in mind that you can select the entire table and apply the option to the table in one fell swoop rather than doing it one row at a time. To select the table, just position the cursor somewhere within the table and click the Edit menu, Select, Table or place the cursor near any inside border (so that you see a fat arrow) and click three times. Then click the Table menu, Format, Row, and check “Divide row across pages.” That’s all there is to it!

I’ll post more on WordPerfect tables (including the difference between gridlines and guidelines and how to use each) soon.

Price reduction!

If you’ll pardon a little more shameless self-promotion (or even if you won’t), I’ve just reduced the price of my Lyon, France 2010 calendar. The 12-month wall calendar, which features photos from my recent trips to that stunning and vibrant city, makes a great holiday gift. It’s also a painless way to contribute to a worthy cause: I’m donating fifty percent (50%) of the net proceeds to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). LLS does valiant work toward developing treatments — and perhaps, with luck, eventually a cure — for those deadly blood diseases. It’s a cause that’s dear to my heart because my father, who contracted lymphoma while in his 70s, died in 2006 of complications after an adverse reaction to chemotherapy. Although I can’t bring my dad back, maybe my small contributions will help to prevent someone else’s parent from meeting the same fate.

The calendar is available via this link or from my storefront on Lulu.com. You can buy my book or my Word 2007 labels/mail merge tutorial from my storefront, too.

Thanks so much for your support!

Where important Word 2007 files are stored

Note: This post first appeared—in a slightly different form—in my book, Formatting Legal Documents With Microsoft Office Word 2007.

It can be helpful to know where key Word 2007 files—such as the NORMAL template and the template where Building Blocks / QuickParts (formerly called AutoText)—are stored in the computer. Because some of these files contain your customizations, you might want to create backup copies from time to time (and perhaps save them to a CD, a USB drive, an external hard drive, or a different computer). That way, if something happens to your computer and one of the files is damaged or is inaccessible, you don’t have to re-create all of your customizations from scratch.

What follows is a list of some of the most important files and their typical locations. This list isn’t necessarily exhaustive, and it doesn’t include information about Windows 7, which I haven’t used yet.

NORMAL Template (Normal.dotm)

The NORMAL template (normal.dotm) is the basis for all new documents in Word. Each user has one. Many customizations are stored in the user’s NORMAL template, including his or her default Normal Paragraph style, other styles he or she has created or modified, AutoCorrect entries, and macros (but not the user’s personalized Quick Access Toolbar or Quick Parts / Building Blocks, which are located in separate files).

Ordinarily you will find the NORMAL template in the following locations:

In Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

In Windows Vista:
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates

Custom Templates

Each user’s customized templates typically are stored in the same place as the NORMAL template:

In Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

In Windows Vista:
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates

Building Blocks

The building blocks template is called BuildingBlocks.dotx. Word 2007 comes with two instances of the Building Blocks.dotx template. One is an original that should never be edited directly; the other is a working copy that contains your own custom Quick Parts / Building Blocks.

The original (generic) template is located here in both Windows XP and Vista:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\Document Parts\1033

The user-specific copy is located here in Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033

The user copy is located here in Windows Vista:
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033

If something happens and the user-customized file becomes corrupted, Word creates a new customizable file based on the original template. (You likely will lose your Quick Parts if that happens, which is why it makes sense to make a copy of the customized file every so often.)

List Styles Gallery

The ListGal.dat file contains the user’s customized gallery of numbered lists (i.e., it includes the lists that came with the program as well as any list styles you’ve created).

In Windows XP:
C:Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft \Word

In Windows Vista:
C:\Users\User Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word

Heading Styles

Heading styles ordinarily are stored either in the NORMAL template (normal.dotm) or in the document in which they were created, although you can copy styles to (or create them in) your own custom templates. In fact, most built-in styles typically are saved in normal.dotm.

Note that whenever you create a new style or modify a built-in style, the default setting in the Modify Style dialog is to store the style in the current document. (WordPerfect works the same way). The only other choice available in the dialog box is to save to the NORMAL template, but you can use the Organizer to copy styles to other templates. (And you can copy styles between documents; see page 118 above.)

Quick Styles / Style Sets

Quick Styles and Style Sets are located in the following places:

In Windows XP:

The built-in QuickStyles and Style Sets are found here:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\1033\QuickStyles

User-customized QuickStyles and Style Sets are located here:
C:Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\QuickStyles

In Windows Vista:
C:\ Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Quickstyles

Themes

Theme files have the extension .thmx.

Built-in themes are located here in both Windows XP and Windows Vista:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Document Themes 12

Custom themes (i.e., themes that you create) are located here in Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\ Document Themes

Custom themes are located here in Windows Vista:
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates\Document Themes

AutoRecover Files

Files that Word automatically recovers in the event of a “crash” or other serious problem have the extension .asd. Normally you don’t have to look for them because Word opens them in a separate pane at the left side of the screen after a power outage or similar event. But in the event you might need to locate them, you can find them here:

In Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Microsoft\Word

In Windows Vista:
C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word

QAT (Quick Access Toolbar)

The QAT file, called Word.qat, is stored in the following locations:

In Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\ OFFICE\Word.qat

In Windows Vista:
C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\Word.qat

Note that you can create a customized QAT for a particular document. The settings for a document-specific QAT are stored in that document.

Using WordPerfect’s Word Count feature (WordPerfect X3 and X4)

There are several different ways to use the Word Count feature – something that can be particularly important if you are a lawyer who does a fair amount of appellate work – in recent versions of WordPerfect. For one thing, WordPerfect X3 and X4 include a very spiffy Word Count button on the Application Bar (WordPerfect’s terminology for the Status Bar that appears at the bottom of the program window). To get an updated count of all of the words in the document, click the button. The button also works to provide a word count for selected text. (If the button isn’t showing, right-click the Application Bar, then click Settings and,when the Application Bar Settings dialog opens, scroll down to Word Count, click to put a checkmark in the box, and click OK. If the Application Bar itself isn’t showing, click the View menu and click to check Application Bar.)

To get more information (and to configure the way the feature works), you can either click the Tools menu, Word Count or click the File menu, Properties, Word Count. Doing so will open the Properties dialog, which contains a Word Count tab. That tab keeps track of the number of characters, words, sentences, lines, paragraphs, pages, average word length, average number of words per sentence, and maximum words per sentence in your document as a whole. (The latter two indices can be used as rough measures of the complexity of your writing.) There is an “Update” button, but unlike the Word Count button on the Application Bar, it gives you current statistics for the entire document only, not for selected text. (Then again, the Word Count button on the Application Bar provides only a total word count, not the detailed statistics presented in the dialog.)

Below the “Statistics” section, you’ll see a second section labeled “Include the following.” That portion of the dialog allows you to pick and choose which items WordPerfect includes in the document word count. You can include or exclude headers, footers, comments, footnotes, endnotes, watermarks, text boxes, and/or box captions.

As far as I know, the ability to configure the items included in the word count was not available in versions of WordPerfect prior to X3. Also, in versions earlier than WP 11, the Word Count feature opened from the File menu, Properties but wasn’t listed on the Tools menu.

The Office Clipboard

Many people are unaware that when they cut or copy some text while using Microsoft Word (or any of the other MS Office programs, such as Excel, PowerPoint, or Access), the cut / copied text is stored both in the Windows clipboard and in a separate Office clipboard. Although it is similar to the regular Windows clipboard, the Office clipboard has additional functionality. It allows you to store up to 24 of your most recently copied or deleted items, and it also lets you paste one or more of those items into another Office program.

Word 2007

In Word 2007, you can open the Office clipboard in a couple of different ways: by clicking the dialog launcher in the Clipboard group at the very left side of the Home tab or by pressing and releasing the Alt key, then tapping the H, F, and O keys in sequence.

Alternatively, you can configure the Office clipboard to open when you press Ctrl C twice. I’ll explain how momentarily.

The clipboard opens in a separate pane at the left side of your screen. You can adjust the width of the pane by moving the mouse pointer across the right border until you see a double arrow, then pressing and holding the left mouse button and dragging to the right or to the left. If you like, you can reposition the pane by dragging it via its title bar.

As you copy or cut text from your open programs, each copied or cut item is stored in the clipboard in sequence, with the newest item at the top. (An interesting note: In my tests, text that I copied or cut from WordPerfect went into the MS Office clipboard alongside items I had copied or cut from Word and Excel.) If you go beyond the limit of 24 items, Word automatically removes entries, starting with the oldest one.

With the clipboard displayed, it’s easy to paste an item from the Office clipboard into Word (or another Office program). Simply position the cursor where you want the item to appear, locate the item in the clipboard, and click it. Or you can click the drop-down that appears when you hold the mouse pointer over an item and then click the Paste command. If you are working simultaneously in — and pasting between — different Office programs, note that the contents of the clipboard will be identical in each program.

When you paste an item from one Office program into another, be aware that the item will retain the formatting you used in the source document / program, rather than automatically taking on the formatting of the destination document / program. So, for instance, when I pasted some text from Excel 2007 into Word 2007 using the Office clipboard, the pasted text displayed in Calibri (the default font in Excel), even though I’ve changed the default font in my copy of Word 2007 to Times New Roman. However, if your version of Word is configured so that the Paste Options icon appears when you paste text, it’s easy to apply the formatting of the destination document by clicking the Paste Options drop-down and then choosing Match Destination Formatting. To enable (or disable) the Paste Options button, click the Office button, Word Options, Advanced, scroll to “Cut, copy and paste,” then check (or uncheck) “Show Paste Options buttons.”

There is a “Paste All” button at the top of the clipboard pane. If you click it, all of the items in the clipboard will be pasted at once at the cursor position. Note that they will appear in reverse order — that is, from oldest to newest. I’m not sure how useful that option is, but it’s worth knowing about just in case.

There is also a “Clear All” button at the top of the pane that you can click if you want to remove all of the items currently stored in the clipboard. Doing so will empty the Windows clipboard, too. (Essentially, the Windows clipboard holds the most recently copied or cut item, which is replaced each time you copy or cut another item.) You can remove individual entries from the Office clipboard by clicking the drop-down for an entry — or by right-clicking the entry — and then clicking “Delete.”

At the bottom of the clipboard pane, there is an “Options” button. It offers the following choices:

• Show Office Clipboard Automatically
• Show Office Clipboard When Ctrl + C Pressed Twice
• Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard
• Show Office Clipboard Icon on Taskbar
• Show Status Near Taskbar When Copying

The first two options work in tandem. That is, when you check “Show Office Clipboard Automatically,” the “Show Office Clipboard When Ctrl + C Pressed Twice” option also becomes checked (enabled). You must select some text before pressing Ctrl C twice, or the clipboard pane won’t open.

The “Collect Without Showing Office Clipboard” choice worked as expected. It produced pop-up notifications near the clock in the Windows Taskbar indicating that items were being collected (“7 of 24 Clipboard Item Collected”), but the clipboard itself didn’t appear until / unless I opened it with the dialog launcher or the Alt H, F, O keyboard shortcut mentioned toward the beginning of this post.

Obviously, you should uncheck the first two options if you want Word to “Collect Without Showing.”

When “Show Office Clipboard Icon on Taskbar” is checked, a clipboard button appears in the Windows system tray. Double-clicking it opens the clipboard pane; single-clicking it closes the pane again.

If you’ve enabled the “Show Status Near Taskbar When Copying” option, you should see a pop-up confirming that an item has been “Collected” (along with its sequential number in the series of 24 items) whenever you copy or cut some characters. The pop-up appears regardless of whether the clipboard pane is open or closed. It doesn’t appear when you paste text, however.

Word 2003

In Word 2003, the Office clipboard functions the same way as in Word 2007. However, in that version — and presumably in earlier versions, though I haven’t tested anything prior to Word 2003 — you open the clipboard either (1) by clicking the Edit menu, then clicking the Office Clipboard command or (2) by selecting some text and pressing Ctrl C twice. Also, the clipboard pane appears at the right side of the screen by default. Otherwise, there are no notable differences between the way the feature works in Word 2003 and Word 2007.

Creating a sheet of labels using Mail Merge in Word 2007

I have just made available on Lulu.com for a modest price ($3.75 per copy) a downloadable tutorial about creating a sheet of different labels using Word 2007’s Mail Merge feature. This article is not available in my Word 2007 book, though I might include it in a forthcoming supplement.

The tutorial deals specifically with labels — a topic I decided to address because setting up a page of labels that aren’t identical isn’t straightforward in Word — but the general principles about using Mail Merge can be applied to form letters and other types of merge documents, as well.

Providing training materials in electronic form is something of an experiment for me. At this point, I’m not sure whether I will allow downloads for a limited time period (a month or so) or make the article available indefinitely. I’m also uncertain how to price individual articles, so the $3.75 introductory price could change at some point. In any case, you can purchase the labels / mail merge tutorial on Lulu via this link. It is in PDF format.

Because it is a download, there are no shipping / handling charges, and the article will be available to you immediately.

Please keep in mind that it is a copyrighted work and is not to be duplicated without my prior written permission.

I hope the article proves useful to you!