School is Starting

Our move into our new home has been recent enough that we are still discovering the way that things work in the town. One thing we discovered this last week is that school goes back into session on Monday, the day after tomorrow. That's just a bit earlier than has been the case in other areas in which we lived, but each area is different.

School starting is a sure sign that summer is drawing to a close. At least, the summer that is marked by vacations and outdoor activities all day every day. So, starting Monday we'll see the school bus going through our neighborhood twice a day, picking up and dropping of the kids we see around us.

I hope that whatever summer you have available in your area is enjoyable and that you are able to spend time with friends and family.

—Allen

WordTips (ribbon) for 8 August 2026

Finding Tables that are Too Narrow or Too Wide

Tables are a great help in displaying organized information in a document. If you have a document with many tables, it can be error-prone to check each table. This tip shows how you can use a macro to check the width of every table within a document and report on those tables that are outside of a desired width range.

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(Thanks to Michael Avidan (MVP) and BJ Witkin for contributing to this tip.)

Applying a Character Style to Bracketed Text

Word has a powerful Find and Replace capability. It is even more powerful if you turn on its wildcard capability. Here's an example that allows you to apply a style to bracketed text.

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Do You Need an Index?

Word includes dozens of tools that, if used properly, can make your documents easier for readers to use. Chief among these tools are those that allow you to create indexes and special tables. Here's how you can master these tools to benefit your documents and your readers.

Absolutely Positioning a Graphic

Want a graphic to appear at a precise place on the page? It's easy to gain control by following the steps in this tip.

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Controlling the Bold Text Attribute

When processing a document in a macro, you may need to make some of your text bold. It's easy to do using the Bold attribute, as described in this tip.

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WordTips YouTube Channel

Do you like to learn visually? Make sure you check out the WordTips YouTube channel. New videos are added weekly. (I typically try to add them on Tuesdays and Thursdays.)

New video: Jumping to a Relative Footnote
Footnotes can be a great addition to any document that needs detailed referencing of citations. You can navigate from one footnote to another by using the Find and Replace dialog box.

Help Wanted

This section is for those having problems making Word behave. If Word is giving you fits, feel free to submit your own Help Wanted question.

If you have a solution for the problems below, click the link after the problem to send us your answer. (All responses become the sole property of Sharon Parq Associates, Inc., and can be used in any way deemed appropriate.) If your response is used in a future issue, you will be credited for your contribution to the answer.

Unlocking a Subset of Fields

My document has quite a few fields in it. Most of the time I keep the fields locked so that they don't update. (There are enough fields that updating them all can cause a noticeable delay.) Is there a way to select a subset of fields, such as DATE or REF, and unlock just that subset in one go?
—Dennis Martin (provide an answer for this Help Wanted question)

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