Primer on tables in WordPerfect, Part II: Creating a header row

Creating a Header Row

It’s easy to create a header row in a table — i.e., a row containing text that repeats at the top of every page that the table is on — in recent versions of WordPerfect.

To begin, position your cursor in the first row of a table in your document. (You don’t need to select the entire row.) Next, if your version of WP has a Table menu, click the Table menu and then click Format. If your version of WP doesn’t have a Table menu, right-click within the first row of the table and then click Format. [1]

When the Table Properties dialog appears, click the Row tab. At the top, under “Row Attributes,” click to place a checkmark in the box labeled “Header row (repeats on each page).” Be sure to click “OK” to save your settings, rather than closing the dialog by clicking the red “X” in the upper right-hand corner, clicking the “Cancel” button, or pressing Esc (since those methods will discard your settings).

After you have added enough rows so that the table spills onto a second page, you should see the header row at the top of the new page. Note that if you want to edit the header row, you must click in the very first row of the table — you can’t actually put the cursor in the header row on any subsequent pages. It’s almost as if those iterations are copies or images.

If for some reason you split the table into two or more separate tables, the header row will not be copied into any of the additional tables. You’ll have to create it again in the new tables from scratch.

Also, it is possible to have two (and perhaps more) header rows with different text in each of the rows. To set up multiple header rows, you have to select the rows first, then go to Table, Format, Row and click “Header row (repeats on each page),” then OK out of the dialog. The rows must be contiguous. If you change your mind later on and decide you don’t want the second row to appear on every page, put the cursor in that row, go back into the Table Properties dialog, Row tab, uncheck the “Header row (repeats on each page)” box, and click OK.

Some people like to distinguish the header row from the rest of the table by adding gray shading. That, too, is a simple task. Select the row (by clicking and dragging; alternatively, place the mouse pointer inside the first cell near the left border and move it slightly until it turns into a large white left-pointing arrow, then left-click twice) and then do one of the following:

1. Click the Table menu, Borders/Fill, then click the “Fill” button under “Cell Fill”; or

2. Right-click within the selected row, click Borders/Fill, then click the “Fill” button under “Cell Fill”; or

3. Click the “Cell Fill” button in the Property Bar.

Next, choose from among the images in the gallery (my own preference is for 10% or 20% gray fill). WordPerfect provides a preview of what the fill will look like. When you find something that appeals to you, click the image and then click OK to apply the shading or pattern you’ve selected. If you don’t like the way the fill looks, you can go back into Borders/Fill and change the cell fill to none (click the big “X” in the gallery, then OK out).

NOTE: On some computers, borders, fill, and guidelines don’t display properly. If you have applied borders or fill to a table cell or row and you can’t see it on the screen, try test-printing a page. I will address this issue in more detail in the near future in a post about WordPerfect table borders, guidelines, and gridlines.

Tabbing Within a Table Cell

Here’s another tip that answers one of the most frequently asked questions I get about tables (in both WordPerfect and Word): How do you tab within a table cell?

In both WordPerfect and Word, pressing the Tab key when your cursor is within a table moves the cursor to the next cell in the table (if the cursor already is within the last cell, pressing the Tab key creates a new row and positions the cursor in the first cell of that row). But what if you want to indent text in the cell by a certain amount — say, half an inch?

The answer is the same for both programs: Press Ctrl Tab. Ctrl Tab inserts a so-called “hard tab,” rather than moving the cursor to the next cell. When you press that key combination, the cursor will move to the next tab stop within the current cell. (You can, of course, set tabs within table cells in much the same way that you set tabs in regular documents.)

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[1] If the Property Bar has been enabled, you might see a Table-drop-down in the Property Bar when your cursor is within the table. To display the Property Bar, click the View menu, Toolbars, click to put a checkmark next to Property Bar (if it isn’t already checked), then click OK.

Word 2010 (beta): First impressions

The public beta of Microsoft Office 2010 was released last week. I was traveling then, so I didn’t have a chance to download the software until a couple of days ago, but I have been playing with Word 2010 since then. Although I’ve spent only a few hours experimenting, I thought it might be useful to share my early impressions. Do keep in mind that the current release is a beta version, which means it could change significantly between now and the official release, tentatively scheduled for the second quarter of next year.

Because I’m a trainer (and because I’m working on my Formatting Legal Documents With Microsoft Office Word 2010 book), I downloaded the Professional version. That edition includes Word, Access, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Publisher. Most people probably will download the Home and Business edition, which consists of Word, Excel, OneNote, Outlook, and PowerPoint (i.e., you don’t get Access or Publisher). For now, I’m interested primarily in Word, so that’s what I’ll write about today.

Just a few highlights (and lowlights), given that I’ve just started working with the beta.

First, the good news:

A Smooth Transition: Word 2010 Maintains Your Customized Settings From Word 2007

NOTE: This section has been revised / corrected as of 12/2/2009.

Apparently Word 2010, like Word 2007, automatically chooses Calibri as the default font and 1.15 as the default line spacing. The good news is that if you have created a customized NORMAL template in Word 2007 (normal.dotm) that uses a different default font and different default line spacing — say, Times New Roman and single spacing — your modified settings from Word 2007 will be retained in Word 2010.

If your NORMAL template (normal.dotm) becomes corrupted, Word will create a new one from scratch. That new template will use the standard Word 2010 / Word 2007 settings. It’s relatively easy to change the defaults — there is a “Default” button at the bottom of the Font dialog and one at the bottom of the Paragraph dialog; once you select the settings you want, click that button and click “Yes” to apply those settings to all future documents based on the NORMAL template. However, it’s always a good idea to make a backup copy of the NORMAL template soon after you’ve customized it. That way, if the first modified normal.dotm is damaged, you can simply close Word and then go into Windows Explorer or My Computer, delete or rename the original normal.dotm, and rename the backup copy (i.e., change the name to “normal.dotm,” without quotation marks). When you re-launch Word, it should use the backup copy, obviating the need to change the default settings again manually.

Added Customizability: An Improved Ribbon

Evidently Microsoft paid attention to the many customers who complained about the near-total lack of customizability of the Ribbon in Word 2007. In Word 2010, it is possible to add custom tabs (and place them in any order you like). You can divide your new tabs into groups if you wish.

Note that you can’t add icons to or delete icons from built-in tabs / groups. That capability is available only for custom (user-created) tabs and groups. However, it is possible to add one or more custom groups to built-in tabs.

Additionally, you actually have the option of removing existing groups from the Ribbon altogether — for example, you can eliminate the Themes group from the Page Layout tab. (If you change your mind later on, you can add it back in.) You can’t get rid of tabs permanently, but you do have the option of hiding tabs, which effectively is the same thing. Plus, you can rename tabs (as well as groups) or move them to a different position in the Ribbon.

The ability to create new tabs provides much-needed flexibility to this version of Word. People who rue the loss of user-customizable toolbars in Word 2007 will be cheered by this added functionality in the new version.

That said, there are a few changes that users might find less heartening, especially if they plan to upgrade from Word 2007. For one thing, you still can’t add a second row to the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT); buttons that won’t fit on a single row get added to a drop-down, which simply isn’t as convenient as a second row. That’s a relatively minor disappointment, however, and far less problematic (in my view) than the newly designed File tab.

Read on.

The File Tab (Also Known as the “Backstage” View)

Microsoft has done away with the Office Button (or “orb”) in all of the Office 2010 programs, ostensibly because some users found it confusing. In its stead, there is a sort of File tab, which MS also refers to as the “Backstage” View. I say a “sort of” tab because it doesn’t work the same way as the rest of the tabs; indeed, it isn’t really part of the Ribbon. Like the Office Button, it drops down at the left side of the screen. And in similar fashion, it provides most of the commands that people are accustomed to finding on the File menu in older versions of the program (and in most other Windows applications): New, Open, Save, Save As, Print, and Close (among others), as well as an Exit icon to close out of the program and an Options icon to configure Word.

However, that’s where the similarity to previous versions of the software ends.

First, in Word 2010, these commands are not in the standard order. Rather, the File tab displays Save and Save As at the top, followed by Open and Close. And then, somewhat confusingly, there is a new category labeled “Info,” which is comparable in some respects to “Properties.”

The File tab drop-down opens by default to the “Info” command, which displays information about whether the file on screen (if any) is a native Word (.docx) file or uses Compatibility Mode (.doc) and lets you change the permissions on the document, prepare it to share with others, and/or manage the document versions. Specific document properties — size, number of pages, word count, date created, date last modified, author, etc. — appear at the right side of the Info. screen.

Underneath “Info” there is a “Recent” command, which you need to click in order to see your list of recently used files. A checkbox at the bottom of the expanded “Recent Documents” screen does give you the ability to display a number of your most recent documents in the main portion of the File drop-down (without having to click “Recent” to create a fly-out). Also, you can add an “Open Recent File…” icon to the QAT. While I’m pleased that Microsoft has provide alternate methods of presenting the Recent Documents list, those workarounds strike me as kludgy and less than user-friendly.

The kludgy feeling is heightened by the fact that the File drop-down, unlike the drop-down from the Office Button in Word 2007, fills the entire screen. In other words, it extends all the way across, so that you can’t see any portion of the current document while the drop-down is open. And that fact is likely to frustrate users, who might have trouble figuring out how to close the drop-down. In Word 2007, clicking in the document effectively makes the drop-down go away. But you can’t click in the document if you can’t see it.

Users might think they are supposed to click the “Close” button. Doing so, unfortunately, not only closes the File drop-down but also closes the current document. Needless to say, clicking the “Exit” button would have even more unsettling results.

One solution is to press the Esc key (which also works to close the drop-down in Word 2007). Whether users will find that intuitive is an open question, but based on what I know about how most people use software, it concerns me. (People who use keyboard shortcuts to open the File drop-down and any of its commands might find that they have to press the Esc key more than once.)

Alternatively, you can click the label for any other tab, which will close the File drop-down and bring the tab you clicked to the forefront.

Besides the commands I’ve mentioned so far, the other commands on the File drop-down are New, Print, Share, and Help. Most of those commands appear similar in functionality to their counterparts in Word 2007 (except that Word 2010 makes extensive use of graphics and also includes step-by-step instructions for several of the tasks).

One command that has changed considerably is the Print command. In fact, Microsoft has replaced the familiar Print dialog with a new full-screen fly-out that offers not only the expected range of options — number of copies, active printer, portion of document to print, whether collated or not, portrait or landscape format, paper size, and margins — but also easy access to the Page Setup dialog and a highly manipulable preview of the instant document. The preview can zoom in or out, show one page or multiple pages, and so on.

Overall, the new Print page (I’m not sure at this point what term MS is using in place of “dialog box”) provides a great deal of functionality. However, because it — like the other options available from the File drop-down — takes up the entire screen, users once again face the issue of how to close the instructions.

Note that pressing Ctrl P opens the Print page, rather than the old Print dialog. (In Word 2010, some keyboard shortcuts open the old-style dialogs even where MS has developed alternate methods of using the commands, such as “panes” and these new full-screen instruction sheets.)

Other Changes

There are several other notable changes in the new version, including the replacement of the “Find” dialog with a Navigation pane (the Find dialog actually is still available via the key combination Ctrl H, though the Ctrl F keystroke opens the Nav pane), as well as some additions / modifications to the Ribbon.

Also, Microsoft is providing so-called Office Web Apps — web-enabled versions of Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote — that you will be able to use for light editing when you don’t have access to a computer with the full versions of those programs loaded on it. (You will have to upload your documents in order to work on them online.) Note that “personal” users (presumably that means those who buy the Home and Student edition; I’m not sure about the Home and Business edition) will see some advertisements when they use the Web Apps.

Time is scarce at the moment, so that’s all I’ll say for now about the other changes. I’ll write again when I’ve had an opportunity to do more experimentation.

How to Obtain the Office 2010 Beta

You can download the beta free of charge from this page or from this one.

Before downloading the software, you’ll need to create a Windows Live ID account and sign in. (The process doesn’t always go smoothly. If you really want the beta, be persistent.)

I strongly recommend reading as much information as possible about the beta before downloading it. In particular, take a look at the FAQ sheet, which you can find on this page. To expand the FAQs, click the “Show All” link at the top of the page. If the print is too small to read comfortably online, press Ctrl + (plus sign), which will magnify the text on your screen. You can press Ctrl + as many times as necessary to enlarge the text to a size that is easy to read. To reduce the size of the text, press Ctrl – (minus sign).

Before downloading, make sure that your computer meets the minimum system requirements. Note that Windows XP users must be patched to Service Pack 3 or the download won’t proceed. If you’re not at SP3, you’ll have to go to the Microsoft Automatic Updates web site and download all of the requisite patches prior to obtaining the Office 2010 beta. (Users of Internet Explorer can go straight to the site via this link; if you use another browser, you have to head over to the Microsoft Download Center and navigate to the Service Packs section at the right-hand side of the screen — or simply click this link to go directly to the SP3 download page.)

Another caution: You ‘ll probably be given a chance to indicate whether you want Office 2010 to replace or co-exist with your current version(s) of Office, but you might want to download the beta onto a separate test machine in case there are any problems and/or incompatibilities. In fact, Microsoft warns not to put the beta onto your main personal or business computer, and I agree that it’s wise not to do so. That’s especially true if you use Word (or any other programs in the suite) for mission-critical work.

Be careful — slow and deliberate — when any screen appears that requires your input. In particular, pay attention so that you don’t accidentally click the option to have the beta to replace your existing version(s) of Office. (Thankfully, the default is to keep any older versions, but it’s easy to start clicking too fast and inadvertently make the wrong choice.)

Once you choose a product to download, you’ll probably see a screen containing a unique 25-character product code. Microsoft usually e-mails the product code to you, too, but it’s a good idea to print the page and/or jot down the code. You’ll need it in order to activate the beta during setup.

Depending on which edition of the beta you select, the time for the download can be fairly short or quite lengthy. The Home and Business version can be downloaded using “Click to Run” technology, which supposedly doesn’t take very long. The Professional edition requires more time; my download — using DSL — took more than five hours. Microsoft advises that it should be relatively simple to resume the download if it’s interrupted for any reason.

Once you’ve downloaded the software, close all open programs, then locate the executable file and double-click it to start the setup process. As long as you type the correct product key, setup should go smoothly.

You will be able to continue using the beta until October of 2010, after which time the software will no longer work. At that point you’ll be given the opportunity to obtain the trial version or purchase a full version of Office 2010.

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 and later)

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 (and later versions), 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.

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.  I’ve updated it as of 8/27/2011 and 8/28/2011.

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.  Do keep in mind that this list isn’t necessarily exhaustive.  Also, it applies specifically to Word 2007.  Although much of the information is similar to that for Word 2010, there are a few differences.  (For instance, in Word 2010 the generic Building Blocks template is called Built-In Building Blocks.dotx and is stored in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\Document Parts\1033\14 — in all three recent versions of Windows — and the user-specific copy, BuildingBlocks.dotx, is stored in C:\Documents and Settings\<User Name>\Application Data\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033\14 [note the “14” at the end of the path] in Windows XP and in C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033\14 in Vista and Windows 7.  In addition, whereas several key Word 2007 files are stored in an “Office12” folder, their Word 2010 counterparts are stored in an “Office14” folder.[1])

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, formatted AutoCorrect entries (unformatted AutoCorrect entries are stored elsewhere — see below), 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\[User Name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

In Windows Vista and Windows 7:
C:\Users\[User Name]\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\[User Name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates

In Windows Vista and Windows 7:
C:\Users\[User Name]\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\[User Name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Document Building Blocks\1033

The user copy is located here in Windows Vista and Windows 7:
C:\Users\[User Name]\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.)

Unformatted AutoCorrect Entries

As mentioned earlier, formatted AutoCorrect entries are storied in the user’s NORMAL template (normal.dotm).  Unformattted AutoCorrect entries are stored in *.acl (AutoCorrect List) files, located here:

In Windows XP:
C:\Documents and Settings\<User Name>\Application Data\Microsoft\Office

In Windows Vista and Windows 7:
C:\Users\<User Name>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Office

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\[User Name]\Application Data\Microsoft \Word

In Windows Vista and Windows 7:
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\[User Name]\Application Data\Microsoft\QuickStyles

In Windows Vista and Windows 7:
C:\ Users\[User Name]\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\[User Name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\ Document Themes

Custom themes are located here in Windows Vista and Windows 7:
C:\Users\[User Name]\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\[User Name]\Application Data\Microsoft\Word

In Windows Vista and Windows 7:
C:\Users\[User Name]\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\[User Name]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\ OFFICE\Word.qat

In Windows Vista and Windows 7:
C:\Users\[User Name]\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.

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[1]  Yes, Microsoft bowed to superstition and moved straight from Office 12 (2007) to Office 14 (2010).

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 that gives you current statistics for the entire document or for selected text. (Originally I thought the “Update” button did not provide information about selected text, but I have re-tested the feature since I first posted and have discovered that my initial understanding was incorrect.) Note that 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.