 |
The Small and Home Office Association of Southeastern Connecticut
| :: | Members |
| :: | Meetings |
| :: | Articles |
| :: | Links |
| :: | Newsletter |
| :: | Join Us |
| :: | Contact Us |
| :: | Home |
 |
|
 |
|||
|
|||||
 |
 |
Renew
Online
You may now renew your annual membership dues online. Annual dues are $45.00.
Word Document Formatting Tips
by Kathy Pooler,
Publications Plus
It feels like I am on my computer 24/7. It just comes so fast,
and so naturally to me, I don’t even think about what I am
typing, or how I am formatting it. I just DO IT. I could do this
in my sleep.
In my profession of sending out monthly newsletters for several
different companies, associations, etc., various clients are
always sending me articles of interest. It is often very
interesting to see the different types of formatting they use. I
would like to share a few with you, and also share with you the
correct way to format documents.
An easy formatting tool is the correct way to CENTER a title on
a page. I often receive documents with several ‘spaces’ placed
before each word until they can eye-ball that something is
centered correctly on the page. It is so much easier, to use the
‘formatting palette on the toolbar.’ Select the text you would
like centered, and click on the picture of words aligned
centered on the palette, or click ‘center’ under alignment and
spacing. This same procedure is used for justifying, left or
right aligning your text. I often have to tell clients, please
don’t use the space bar, and sometimes they are even amazed at
how I can even tell they used the space bar. Once you are really
familiar with what you are doing, you can use key commands to
make formatting move along much faster. On a MAC, use the
‘command,’ ‘shift,’ and ‘c’ to center your text. ‘Command’
‘shift’ ‘l’ for left aligning or ‘command’ ‘shift’ ‘r’ for right
aligning. Once you get in the habit of using key commands, it
will come so natural to you, you just don’t even have to think
about it, “just do it.”
Another big mistake clients make is when using tabs. Again, they
prefer to use the space bar, and put 5 spaces before a word to
indent a paragraph. That’s not such a big deal for me to try and
correct the formatting on that one, the big deal does come in
when clients have a table of text or figures and they put
several spaces in between these figures to try and make lists.
If the table is quite long, this could turn into a nightmare. It
is much more precise to use ‘tab stops.’ First, select the text
in which you want to set a tab stop, and click the tab button at
the far left of the horizontal ruler, and then select the type
of tab you want: You can use a right, left, or centered tab
stop, or you could use a decimal tab stop if using a list of
dollar figures. Once you have these tab stops in place in your
document, it is so much easier to see lists of text and figures
on your page and they won’t get mixed up by inappropriately
using the space bar to align your lists.
Remember to select only the text you want to change (by
highlighting it). If you select an entire paragraph, the changes
you make affect all text in the paragraph.
These tips are very basic and very easy to learn, if you just
take the time to view the ‘Standard’ and ‘Formatting’ Toolbars
which can be found along the top of most word processing
programs.