Busy, Busy!

This past week has been very, very hectic. After I got back from Texas last weekend, I needed to catch up on the work that invariably piles up while I am gone. Then, I found that I need to be out of town for two days during the week. That just made the "to do" list all that much longer.

I think I've made it through everything necessary this week, though. I'm looking forward to a normal level of busyness this next week.

I hope that your week has gone well and that you enjoy the tips in this week's newsletter.

—Allen

WordTips (ribbon) for 28 March 2026

Checking Hyperlinks

If you have a lot of hyperlinks in a document, you may need a way to check if the links are valid. This tip looks at a couple of ways you can complete the task.

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

Some Documents Open Slower than Others

It's great when your documents open quickly, particularly when you need to work with lots of documents at the same time. What do you do, however, when one document loads much slower than another? This tip looks at some possible causes.

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Journal Your Life

Journals go by many names--diaries, sketchbooks, or simply blank books. Regardless of the name, though, journals provide a way for you to record, track, create, dream, and illustrate your life. Journals make it not only possible, but easy. Check out our complete line of high-quality, convenient journals today!

Correctly Repeated Words

There are times when you need to repeat a word in a document, but doing so triggers an "error reaction" from Word's spelling checker. Here are some ways that you can force Word to accept your intentional repetitions.

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Moving the Insertion Point in a Macro

One of the common things done in macros is to somehow "process" documents, which often means moving the insertion point in some manner. This tip explains how this is most easily done.

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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: Preventing the Pasting of Non-Breaking Spaces
When you copy and paste information from the Internet, you may end up with a lot of non-breaking spaces in the pasted information. This Quick Tip looks at a couple of ways to get rid of them.

New video: Setting Grammar-Checking Options
When Word checks the grammar that it thinks you are using in your prose, it follows a set of rules. Fortunately, the program allows you to adjust how those rules are applied.

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.

Formatting Page Ranges Properly

I edit academic articles for a scholarly journal, and references to sources often list ranges of pages in the source article. Authors will invariably separate these ranges with a hyphen. I need to change all of these to en dashes. I cannot use Find and Replace because hyphens can be used in lots of valid places in the articles. Is there an automated approach that I can use to affect just the hyphens in page ranges?
—Courtney Grimes (provide an answer for this Help Wanted question)

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