Microsoft Word Tips: Increased Productivity at Work

1. Get comfortable with the Track Changes feature


Tools > Track Changes


Lawyers, publishers, and other word-processing pros use Track Changes. That’s because there’s no better way to edit or proofread a document for a co-worker or client. With Track Changes enabled, all of your edits are obviously marked for the original author to review and accept or reject. You can also add margin comments to recommend tweaks, ask questions, or offer words of support.


WARNING: Make sure to accept all changes and save your document before submitting it to a client or prospect—you don’t want them to see all of the edits which were made to the document. (They don’t need to know how the sausage is made…)


2. Use Find and Replace for efficient editing and formatting


Edit > Find > Advanced Find and Replace


Let’s say you’re editing an extensive document for a colleague who has this frustrating habit of spelling words the British way (e.g. colour for color, programme for program). You could either A) comb through the entire document and replace each word by hand (going cross-eyed in the process) or B) use the Find and Replace function to instantly take out all misspellings. In the same way, if you need to format a document’s typography to match your business’s branding, you can utilize the Find and Replace function to, let’s say, find all instances of Times New Roman font and replace them with Helvetica font (or whatever typeface your company uses).


3. Customize your toolbars to suit your daily needs and routines


View > Toolbars > Customize Toolbars and Menus


Most of us don't use all of the buttons and functions that are defaulted to appear in the toolbar of Microsoft Word. By spending a little time customizing your toolbar to have the functions you use with greater frequency, you can same yourself time in the long run.


4. Eliminate formatting frustration: Add the “Show all nonprinting characters” button to your toolbar


If you've ever had a annoying formatting problem in word, you can use this button to see all of the formatting elements at work in your document. It’s very easy to use; just click the “Show all nonprinting characters” you may then effortlessly correct any strange formatting that’s happening.

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