Monthly Archives: July 2013

Different ways to protect a Word document from unintended modification?

1)     Mark a document as Final (soft protection)

You can mark a final version of a document as Final to protect it from unintentional changes to the content.

To mark a document as Final

  1. Click the Office button
  2. Point to Prepare.
  3. Click Mark as Final.

This feature disables all the tabs in the Ribbon. Typing in the document is disabled as well.

Mark as Final is not a strong security feature to protect a document, as the restriction can be removed easily by clicking again on Mark as Final.

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2)     Make a document read-only (soft protection)

You can make a document read-only to prevent accidental modification of the content.

To make a document read-only

  1. Right-click the document. The Properties dialog box appears.
  2. In the dialog box, under the tab General, click the check box Read-only.

OR

You can double-click the document by holding the ALT key to the open the Properties dialog box.

Now, if you open the document, you can view Read-only marked along with the document name in the title bar. All the tabs in the Ribbon are disabled.

Again, this is not a strong security feature, as anyone can remove restrictions by deselecting the Read-only check box from the right-click menu.

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3)     Protect Document (strong protection)

The Protect Document feature available under the Developer tab enables you to hard protect a document.

To protect a document

  1. Under the tab Developer, within the group Protect, click Protect Document.
  2. From the drop-down menu, click Restrict Formatting and Editing. The Restrict Formatting and Editing task pane appears on the right hand side.

Note: In case, the Developer tab is not available in the Ribbon, you can enable it from Word Options. Click the Office button. From the bottom of the menu, click the Word Options button. The Word Options dialog box appears. Click Popular from the menu list on the left. On the right hand pane, click the check box Show Developer Tab in the Ribbon.

  1. Now in the Restrict Formatting and Editing task pane, under the section Editing Restriction, select the check box Allow only this type of editing in the document and the restriction type drop down gets enabled. Select the option No changes (Read only) option.
  2. Click the button Yes, Start Enforcing Protection. Start Enforcing Protection dialog box appears.
  3. Under the options Password, enter a new password to protect the document. One will have to provide this password to modify the document.

This does not ensure full proof protection as the document is not encrypted.

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4)     Encrypt a Document (full proof protection of a document)

The Encrypt Document option provides full proof protection to a document.

To encrypt a document

  1. Click the Office button
  2. Point to Prepare in the drop-down list
  3. Click Encrypt Document. The encrypt document dialog box appears.
  4. Enter a password in the Password field. Click OK.
  5. Reenter the password. Click OK.

Remember the password, as there is no way to recover a document if you forget the password.

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Copying content from Excel/PowerPoint to Word

Let us explore a few interesting options which would help you greatly while copying content from Excel, PowerPoint, or content from any other sources to a Word document

Copying content from Excel to Word

Left-click and then drag the mouse pointer to select the content in the Excel worksheet. Right-click and select Copy (or simply press Ctrl+C) from the right-click menu. Content is copied to the Clipboard. See below.

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Copying content from PowerPoint to Word

You can copy a complete slide by right clicking the slide from the slide thumbnails on the left hand side pane, and select Copy from the right-click menu. The slide is copied to the clipboard.

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You can also copy text boxes, graphics, charts, etc. from within a PowerPoint slide and then paste in Word. You can copy and paste multiple objects at a time. To select multiple objects at the same time, press the CTRL button and click the objects one by one. Right-click and select Copy from the menu. See below.

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Pasting content in Word

In the Word document, click at the point of insertion of the copied content and then right click.  Select Paste (Ctrl+V) from the right-click menu.

At the end of the pasted content, you can view the Paste Options icon.

Click this icon to view the following paste options:

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1)     Keep Source Formatting: With this option, Word formats the copied content according to the source (Worksheet/PowerPoint) style

2)     Match destination table style: Word formats the copied content according to the formatting style of the destination document.

3)     Paste as picture: Word creates a picture of the copied content. You cannot edit the content in picture format. But, an image is always easy to move from one place to another within the document.

4)     Keep text only: With this option, Word strips the content off any source formatting style, images, etc. and keeps only pure text. If you are copying from an Excel sheet, each cell content is separated from the other by a tab space and each row of record becomes a new line in the Word document. This option does not appear when you copy objects from a PowerPoint slide.

Following two are the most important options while copying content from Excel Worksheet:

5)     Keep source formatting and link to Excel: Word formats the content according to the worksheet formatting style and establishes a link with the worksheet. Thus, if the copied content in the Excel worksheet is updated the same will be reflected in the Word document.

6)     Keep destination formatting and link to Excel: Word formats the content according to the current formatting style of the document and creates a link as explained above.

Word also provides additional paste options in the form of Paste Special. The additional paste options are: paste content as Formatted Text (RTF), Unformatted Text, Picture (Windows Metafile), Bitmap, Picture (Enhanced Metafile), HTML text, and Unformatted Unicode Text.

To use Paste Special, copy the content from the source Worksheet to clipboard. In the Word document, from Ribbon, under the Home tab, within the group Clipboard, click Paste. In the drop-down, you find the following three options:

  1. Paste (already discussed in the article)
  2. Paste Special
  3. Paste as Hyperlink

Click Paste Special. The Paste Special dialog box appears. By default, Paste option button is selected and you can paste content in the following formats:

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  1. Microsoft Office Worksheet Object

This enables you create an object of the source application. By clicking the object, you can open the content in Excel to view or edit content.

  1. Formatted Text (RTF)
  2. Unformatted Text
  3. Picture (Windows Metafile)
  4. Bitmap
  5. Picture (Enhanced Metafile)
  6. HTML text
  7. Unformatted Unicode Text

If you are copying content from a PowerPoint, Paste special will show the following paste formats:

  1. Microsoft Office PowerPoint Slide Object

This enables you create an object of the source application. By clicking the object, you can open the content in PowerPoint to view or edit content.

Important: This above option appears only when you are copying a complete slide instead of individual objects in a slide.

  1. Picture (Windows Metafile)
  2. Bitmap
  3. Picture (Enhanced Metafile)
  4. Picture (GIF)
  5. Picture (PNG)
  6. Picture (JPEG)

Paste as Link

In the Paste Special dialog box, select the option button Paste Link. Using this option, you can use all the above paste formats and create hyperlinks to the source of the content.

If you select the Display as icon check box, Word creates an icon of the object. You can click the icon to open the source application of the content to view/edit content.

How to use symbols as new bullet points

If you would like to try out some of the new bullet styles for lists in your document, here is what you have to do.

As you know to insert bullets,

1.    Select the list in the document.

2.    Click the Home tab from the Ribbon.

3.    Under the Home tab within the group Paragraph, click the down arrow button adjacent to the bullet icon.

4.    Word displays a library of bullet style in a drop-down list. From the bottom of the list, click Define New Bullet. The Define New Bullet dialog box appears.

5.   The dialog box contains the following three buttons,

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A.     Symbol (To add symbols as bullet style)

            i.   Click this button to view the gallery of symbols.

           ii.   From the gallery, select a style and then click OK.

          iii.  You can view the symbol being added to the bullet library.

B.        Picture:         (Similar to above, click this button to select pictures to use as bullets)

C.        Font:               (Similar to above, click this button to modify font, font style, and font size of bullets

Removing a bullet style

You can remove a bullet style from the bullet library. To remove, right-click the bullet from the library. From the right-click menu, click Remove.

Learn all about the text boxes (Word 2007)

There are two ways you can insert a text into a Word document

First method:

From the Ribbon, under the tab Insert, within the group Text, click the Text Box icon. You can view a gallery of built-in text boxes in a drop-down list. From the ribbon under the tab insert within the group text click the text box icon you can view a gallery of built in text boxes in a drop-down list

  1. Click to insert one of these into your document. Depending on the Text Wrapping property of the selected text box, it may sit on top of text, behind the text, in line with text, surrounded by text, etc.
  2. Now, to reveal the text wrapping property of the inserted text box, click the text box on the borders. Text Box Tools tab appears on the Ribbon.
  3. Click the Format tab under this. Under the Format tab, within the group Arrange, click the Text Wrapping icon. From the drop-down menu, you can view various text-wrapping styles and the one highlighted is the default style. You can change this property as required.

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You can also create a new empty text box from the gallery drop-down. Click Draw Text Box from the bottom of the drop-down. The mouse pointer changes to a plus symbol and you can draw a text box.

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Note: Text wrapping styles are: In Line with Text, Square, Tight, Behind Text, In Front of Text, Top and Bottom, and Through. All these style are self-explanatory.

Difference between Square and Tight

You may wonder about the difference between Square and Tight styles, as in both case text surrounds the box. Difference lies in the manner that text surrounds. With Square, text takes the shape of a square around the box (irrespective box shape). With Tight, surrounding text takes the shape of the box (e.g. star shaped box, trapezoid, hexagon, etc.)

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Second method:

  1. From the Ribbon, under the tab Insert, within the group Illustrations, click Shapes. From the gallery of Shapes, under Basic Shapes, click the Rectangle shape.
  2. The mouse pointer changes to a plus symbol and you can draw a rectangular shape in your document. What you can draw is a basic rectangular shape and you cannot enter text readily.
  3. Right-click the shape and from the right-click menu, select Add Text. The shape transforms to a text box and you can enter text.
  4. Change the text-wrapping property of the text boxes as explained above.

How to fix text boxes in one  line

If you select the text wrapping style of a text box to In Line with Text, the text box gets fixed  to that line. So, the text box will move only with the line.

Formatting text boxes

You can design a text box with fill color, gradient color, border color, shadow, 3D effects, and many more.

  1. Right-click on the borders of the text box and from the right-click menu, select Format Text Box. Format Text Box dialog box appears.
  2. From the Colors and Lines tab, apply fill color, change transparency of color, add border line color, change border line pattern, etc.
  3. From the Size tab, select height and width of the text box, lock aspect  ratio,
  4. In the Layout tab, you can select the text wrapping type as discussed above. You can also specify height and width of the text box relative to the page, page margin, etc.
  5. In the Text Box tab, set the left, right, bottom, and top margins the text inside the text box. Also, set the vertical alignments: Top, Center, or Bottom.

Use built in text box styles

You can select the built in text box styles from the Text Box Styles group under Text Box Tools tab >> Format tab >> Tex Box Styles

Change direction of text inside text box

If you want the text inside text box to appear vertically (from top or bottom), under the Format tab, within group Text, click Text Direction.

Flow text from one box to another

Select a text box and from the Format tab, within group Text, click Create Link. A coffee cup icon appears. Then click the next text box (should be a empty text box) to which you want the text to flow from the first text box. Done. It links the first text box to the second. Want to break the link, right-click on the first text box, then from the right click menu, select Break Forward Link.

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Cut, Copy, and Paste text boxes

Click on the borders of text box and then right-click. From the right-click menu, select Copy to copy text box, select Cut to delete text box, and select Paste to paste the check box at the point of insertion.

Changing the text box shape

Under Text Box Tools tab >> Format tab >> Tex Box Styles, click Change Shape. From the drop-down, select any of the shapes. Text box takes the selected shape.

Grouping text boxes

If you are using  multiple text boxes in one place to create a design, flow chart, etc., you can group all to manage them easily, move them all together. To group, press CTRL and click on the borderlines of all text boxes one by one. Release the CTRL button and right-click on the selected text boxes. From the right-click menu, select Group under Grouping.

Inserting a cover page into a Word 2007 document

Word comes with a gallery of cover pages, which you can insert easily to make your document look more professional.

To insert a cover page

From the Ribbon, under the tab Insert, within the group Pages, click the icon Cover Page.

Word displays a built in gallery of cover pages. Click a design to insert into your document.

After inserting  a cover page, you can view a few sample text fields such as document title, document subtitle, author name, date, etc. which you can replace with your own.

These fields are actually created within a table. You can delete entire block of text field by clicking the table handle, which selects the whole table. Then you can enter your own.

It is easy to get rid of a cover page that you don’t want. Click the Cover Page icon. From the gallery, click Remove Current Cover Page (see at the bottom)

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How to change default line and paragraph spacing in Word 2007?

When you click New (or CTRL + N) to open a new document in Word, it opens a copy of the default template Normal.dot saved in the Template folder. Word follows the naming convention Document1, Document2, etc. for a new document. The line and paragraph spacing in a new document is according to the Normal template. You can change these parameters though from the Styles gallery.

    1. On the Ribbon, under the tab Home, within the group Styles, click the dialog box launcher icon. Word opens the Styles dialog box. See below image.

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  1. On the Styles dialog box, point to Normal and then click the down arrow button on the right. A drop-down menu appears
  2. From the drop-down menu, click Modify. The Modify Styles dialog box appears.
  3. From the Modify Style window, click the Format button (at the left bottom corner) and then select Paragraph. The Paragraph dialog box appears.
  4. From the Paragraph dialog box, under the section Spacing, select values in the fields Before and After to set spacing before and after a paragraph respectively.
  5. For line spacing, select Single from the drop-down list Line Spacing for a single spacing. Select Exactly to specific a value in the field At. See below image

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