Navigation Tips and Tricks

Bible readers already know the basics of using the Windows interface, so this book skips the stuff that I think every Windows user already knows about, and instead covers aspects of Word you might not know about. In our great hurry to get things done, ironically, we often overlook simple tricks and tips that might otherwise make our computing lives easier and less harried, or, at the very least, more entertaining.

Tricks with clicks

We all know about double-clicking, but not everyone knows the benefits of triple-clicking, Ctrl+clicking, and Alt+clicking.

Triple-clicking

When you triple-click inside a paragraph, Word selects the entire paragraph. However, where you click makes a difference. If you triple-click in the left margin, rather than in a paragraph, and the mouse pointer’s shape is the arrow shown in Figure 4-17, the entire document is selected.

Is triple-clicking in the left margin faster and easier than pressing Ctrl+A? Not necessarily, but it might be if your hand is already on the mouse. In addition, if you want the MiniBar to appear, the mouse method will summon it, whereas Ctrl+A won’t.

Ctrl+clicking

Want something faster than triple-clicking? If you just happen to have one hand on the mouse and another on the keyboard, Ctrl+click in the left margin. That also selects the entire document, and displays the MiniBar.

If you Ctrl+click in a paragraph, the current sentence is selected. This can be handy when you want to move, delete, or highlight a sentence. As someone who sometimes highlights as I read, this can also help focus on a particular passage when you’re simply reading, rather than editing.

Alt+clicking

If you Alt+click a word or a selected passage, that looks up the word or selection using Office 2007’s Research pane. Do you ever accidentally invoke the Research pane? Want a good way to turn it off? Well . . . stop looking, because it doesn’t exist.

Alt+dragging

You can use Alt+drag to select a vertical column of text—even if the text is not column oriented. This can be useful when working with monospaced fonts and there is a de facto columnar setup. Once selected, any character- or font-oriented formatting can be applied to the selection, as shown in Figure 4-18. The selection can also be deleted. Note that if the text is proportionally spaced, then anything that affects the size and therefore the ostensible columnar orientation will undo the selection. The effect can be rather bizarre.

Shift+click

Click where you want a selection to start, and then Shift+click where you want it to end. You can continue Shift+clicking to expand or reduce the selection. This technique can be really useful if you have difficulty dragging exactly the selection you want.

Multi-selecting

A few versions of Word ago, it became possible to make multiple noncontiguous selections in a document. While many know this, many more don’t. To do it, make your first selection. Then, hold down the Ctrl key to make additional selections. Once you’ve made as many selections as you want, you can then apply the desired formatting to the selections.

Seldom screen

I’ve already reviewed a number of new features that you’ll see on the Word screen. Word 2007’s new interface is so overwhelming, however, that you might never notice a few features—new and old. In this section, I point out features that are either new or often overlooked (even by long-time users), and which you might find useful.

Split box

Shown in Figure 4-19, the split box is used to divide the current document into two horizontal views of the same document. Move the mouse over the top of the vertical scroll bar so that the pointer changes (refer to Figure 4-19). At that point, you can drag down to divide the window into two panes. Alternatively, you can double-click the split box to divide the window into two equal panes.

Why would you want to do that? Well, you might not have two monitors but you need to look at a table or a figure while you write about it. In a single pane, this can be challenging, especially if what you type keeps causing the figure to move out of view.

As another example, you might want to have an Outline view of your document in one pane while maintaining a Print Layout view in the other, as shown in Figure 4-20. When viewing a document in two split panes, note that the status bar reflects the status of the currently active pane. Not only can you display different views in multiple panes, but at different zoom levels as well.

You can remove the split by dragging it up or down, leaving the desired view in place, or double-click anywhere on the split line. Alternatively, if the ribbon’s View tab is displayed, click Remove Split in the Window group.

View rulers

New in Word 2007 is the rulers toggle control, also shown in Figure 4-20. This control toggles the horizontal and vertical (if it’s on) rulers on and off. It cannot control them separately.

The presence of the ruler toggle on both panes of a split document window might lead you to assume that the upper and lower rulers can be toggled independently. They cannot.

Select Browse Object

While we’re visiting over there on that side of the Word screen, let’s take a look at another sometimes overlooked control—Select Browse Object. Shown in Figure 4-21, this control determines what happens when you click the Previous or Next buttons that are immediately above and below the Select Browse Object control. It also determines what happens when you press Ctrl+Page Up or Ctrl+Page Down.

By default, the browse object is set to Page. Clicking the Previous or Next button performs Page Up or Page Down actions. When the default object type is active, the browse buttons (Up and Down) are black. When a non-default object type is active, the browse buttons change to blue.

For example, click the Select Browse Object button, and choose Browse by Table. If you hear an error beep, that means the current document does not contain any tables between the insertion point and the end of the document. Nonetheless, the browse buttons turn blue, and they now “mean” previous table and next table.

If you ever click a browse button and don’t get the expected default Page Up/Page Down behavior, take a look at the color. If it’s blue, then that’s the problem. To reset the browse behavior to the default, click the Select Browse Object button and choose Page.

What makes this a little tricky is that there are ways other than clicking that button to change browse behavior. For example, if you perform a search, the browse buttons now become Find Previous and Find Next. If you perform a Go To and go to the next field, then Previous Field/Next Field become the browse actions. Hover your mouse pointer over each of the twelve object types to explore the possibilities. If you keep these objects in mind, then this feature can become a tool, rather than just an annoyance.

Keyboard

With a new version of Word comes some new keystrokes and new keyboard behavior. At the same time, some old keystrokes now work differently. Surprisingly, as you’ll see, a number of old keystrokes still work, even though Word’s menus are gone.

What works differently? One of my favorite keystrokes is Ctrl+Shift+S, which in Word 2003 and earlier moves the focus to the Style control on the Formatting toolbar. Given that there is no Formatting toolbar in Word 2007 and that there is no comparable Style control on the Ribbon, Ctrl+Shift+S pretty much has to be at least a little different. If you still have Word 2003, open it, press Ctrl+Shift+S, tap the first letter of a style that’s not currently selected, and then use the down-arrow key to go to the style you had in mind. Press Enter to apply the style.

Now, try the same thing in Word 2007. Pressing Ctrl+Shift+S activates the Apply Styles task pane, and the keystrokes otherwise seem to work the same way. However, the Apply Styles task pane doesn’t go away. Well, neither did the Style control in Word 2003, but pressing Ctrl+Shift+S doesn’t activate a task pane either.

How do you dismiss the Apply Styles task pane? Well, you could click its X. Unfortunately, pressing the Esc key simply returns the focus to the document without dismissing Apply Styles. To dismiss it (as well as any other task pane) using the keyboard, press Ctrl+spacebar, C. Note that for this to work, the task pane must have the focus, so you might need to press Ctrl+Shift+S and then Ctrl+spacebar, C to get it to work.

Other built-in keystrokes

Word boasts a broad array of keystrokes to make writing faster. If you’re a fast touch typist, you might not care to have to reach for the mouse to make a word bold or italic. You might not want to reach for the mouse to create a hyperlink. If you’ve been using Word for a long time, you very likely have memorized a number of keystrokes (some of them that apply only to Word, and others not) that make your typing life easier. You’ll be happy to know that most of those keystrokes still work in Word 2007.

Rather than provide a list of all of the key assignments in Word, I’m going to show you how to make one yourself. Start by pressing Alt+F8. In Macro name: type listcommands and press Enter. In the List Commands dialog box, choose Current Keyboard Settings, and press Enter.

Presto! You now have a table showing all of Word’s current keyboard settings. If you’ve reassigned any built-in keystrokes to other commands or macros, your own assignments are shown in place of Word’s built-in assignments. If you’ve redundantly assigned any keystrokes, all assignments will be shown. For example, Word assigns Alt+F8 to ToolsMacro. I also assigned Ctrl+Shift+O to it. Therefore, my ListCommands table shows both assignments. The table also shows those assignments and commands you haven’t customized.

Office 2003 menu keystrokes

One of Microsoft’s aims was to assign as many legacy menu keystrokes as possible to the equivalent commands in Word 2007, so if you’re used to pressing Alt+IB to choose Insert Break in Word 2003, you’ll be glad to know it still works. So does Alt+OP, for Format Paragraph. Liking this so far, are you? Great!

Now try Alt+HA for Help About. It doesn’t work. In fact, none of the Help shortcuts work, because that Alt+H shortcut is reserved for the Ribbon’s Home tab. Some others don’t work either, but at least Microsoft tried.

Some key combinations can’t be assigned because the corresponding commands have been eliminated. There are very few in that category. Some other legacy menu assignments haven’t been made in Word 2007 because Microsoft is grappling with some conflicts between how the new and old keyboard models work. There are, for example, some problems with Alt+F because that keystroke is used to select the Office button. For now at least, Microsoft has resolved to use a different approach for the Alt+F assignments. Press Alt+I and then press Alt+F to compare the different approaches.

Custom keystrokes

You can also make your own keyboard assignments. To give you a sneak peak, choose Office Button Word Options Customize, and then click the Customize button to open the Customize Keyboard dialog box and make the desired changes.