Do you have to be a programmer to use Word's automated features?

Question

I'm going to have to start using MS Word more, but it's so slow to have to format text the way I want it each time. I've heard that there are ways to automate some things, but I'm not a programmer, and I don't have money to buy third-party programs. Is there an easier way?

Answer 1

You don't have to be a programmer to take advantage of Word's automated features. You can, for example, select multiple groups of text and apply the same formatting. With Word's find and replace feature, you can make universal changes to text and formatting. My favorite is fixing line spacing after I copy and paste text into Word. (It's control-F, ^p; replace with ^p^p.)

Whatever you need to do, Word likely has either a keyboard or GUI command to do it. Hire me as a tutor, and I'll show you lots more features.

Answer 2

Yes! Word has all sorts of built-in features that don't require programming knowledge. Whether you choose Word's pre-designed Themes or would rather create your own look, you can easily learn quick ways to accomplish what you want so that you can concentrate on the content of your documents.

I am not even a great typist, but I earned a reputation for exceptionally fast work in my profession as a Word desktop publisher, because I taught myself how the essentials of the relevant commands work and how to use the keyboard to execute commands. Sounds intimidating, right? Don't let it. Instead of losing time and accumulating frustration, you can start using just one keyboard shortcut a week, beginning with ones that are most useful to you. Once you're familiar with using a few of them, you'll discover how easy it is, and can add more at a faster rate.

Here are two examples.

1. You want headings in your document. One way is to individually select the text with your mouse, go up to the Ribbon, find the text formatting tools on the Home tab, and individually increase the font size, maybe add Bold, maybe change the font, maybe the color. The other way is to simply put your cursor anywhere in the line you want to become a heading, hold down the Alt and Ctrl keys at the bottom of your keyboard, and press the number 1 on the number row above the letters. Done, much faster than it took to describe it! (And you didn't even have to take your hand off the keyboard.) You now have the first-level heading style that Word has built-in. If you don't like way it looks, you can change what's called it's Style (not hard; it's right at you fingertips) so that every time you press this key combination, your new heading will have exactly the same formatting.
2. This one is not for formatting but indicates how you can save you plenty of time. Let's say you're reviewing a 20-page paper. You're reading on page 17 and see that you need to check what you wrote on page 3 or 4. So, you grab the mouse and start scrolling and scrolling back to to look for it, or you use the mouse to go over to the right side of the document to use the scroll bar. But the fast way is to hold down the Ctrl key and press G, then the number 3, then Enter, instantly taking you to page 3.

Imagine speedily navigating through your document, applying consistent formatting, have long words or phrases automatically typed -- and much, much more -- just by pressing a couple of keys, all by learning to use Word's built-in automation with a few keys you probably never paid much attention to. Again, you choose what actions are most important to what you have to do. compared with the way you're probably working now, it will seem like magic.