April Showers and May Flowers

There's an old saying that "April showers bring May flowers." That may be true in some areas of the world, but definitely not in all areas. (Do those in the Southern Hemisphere even know what this old saying means?) It certainly isn't immediately true in our area, and at our altitude. Yes, we've been having some Spring showers for the past week, but we are still a good ways off from having flowers. The grass is just starting to grow, and the trees have yet to leaf yet.

Even so, it is nice that we are finally past most of the snow and that we can look forward to warmer days ahead. I hope that your corner of the world is cozy and comfortable and that you enjoy the tips in this week's newsletter.

—Allen

WordTips (ribbon) for 27 April 2024

Finding and Replacing when Only a Portion of the Text is Superscripted

Finding and replacing text when the text being searched for has mixed formatting can be a challenge. You may, however, want to look for other attributes of the text that can aid your search, as discussed in this tip.

Read this tip »

(Thanks to Tomek Dluznewski for contributing to this tip.)

Removing Confusion When Using AutoCorrect

AutoCorrect is a great help when writing, as it can allow you to create regular blocks of text easily. This can cause problems, however, if the text being replaced is used for other purposes in the document. Here's an easy way to avoid confusion and only replace what you want replaced.

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(Thanks to Scott Davis and Nadine Ireland for contributing to this tip.)

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Turning Track Changes Off for Selected Areas

Track Changes is a great tool to use so that you can, well, "track" what changes are made during the development of a document. In some parts of your document, however, you don't particularly care if Word keeps track of what is changing. In those instances it would be nice to turn off the feature for selected areas of the document. While Word doesn't allow you to do this, there are some workarounds you can try to achieve the same desired result.

Read this tip »

Changing Existing Captions

Word allows you to automatically create captions for various elements of your document, such as figures and tables. These captions are added automatically when you add the element. If you want to later make changes to the captions, you'll need to apply the techniques described in this tip.

Read this tip »

Changing the Bullet Type

When you apply bullet formatting to paragraphs, Word allows you to choose from a variety of different bullets. If you want, you can switch between those different bullet types, or you can define your own bullets. This tip shows you how.

Read this tip »

Automatically Formatting Text within Quotes

Some people use quote marks around text to make it stand out. At some point you may want to treat the quoted text differently, perhaps by making it bold. This tip presents two ways you can make the conversion.

Read this tip »

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: Always Start with a Blank Document
When you start Word, you are presented with a bunch of choices that aren't always helpful. Wouldn't it be awesome if you could skip all of that and just open a blank document? In this Quick Tip I show how to force Word to do just that.

New video: Numbering Things in Your Document
Word provides a variety of ways you can number items in your document. In this video I reveal what I consider to be the most flexible way of numbering things.

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.

Why Does the Footer Expand?

I have set my footer to be a half inch. As I add more text to the footer, it keeps expanding beyond the half inch I specified. Wy doesn't the footer stay fixed at a half inch and simply hide the text that cannot fit in that space?
—Rosalie Roa (provide an answer for this Help Wanted question)

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