Line Spacing in Word 2007

In a previous post, we outlined a method for achieving single line spacing in Word 2007, but here’s another method.

One of the changes made to Word in Microsoft Office 2007 was to the default line spacing (single-spacing, double-spacing, etc.). In simple terms, there is now automatically more space between lines and paragraphs in Word documents. In my experience at the CADL Computer Center, this isn’t what our patrons want to use. Many people I have worked with ask for assistance in changing the line and paragraph spacing to single spacing. You may begin by either following these steps before entering any text into your document, or you many highlight all of the text in your document (also known as “select all”) if you are formatting line spacing after writing your document.

• Select the “line spacing” icon in the “paragraphs” area of the Home tab in Word 2007.

 (a closeup of the line spacing icon)

• Left-click on the line spacing icon. Select “line spacing options” from the menu that appears.

• A new window appears on your screen. Click the downward-facing arrow under “Line Spacing:”.  Select “Single” from the options provided. Then, click the downward-facing arrow next to “After:” until the number in the box reads “0 pt.” In the image below, the “After:” box reads 10 pt, which is the Word 2007 default setting.

• Your window should look like this if you made the correct changes.

 

• Now your document is formatted with single line and paragraph spacing.

For further information on Word 2007 line spacing, see the Microsoft Support artice on this subject: “Default line spacing and default paragraph spacing in Word 2007 differ from the default spacing in earlier versions of Word“

Pasting Unformatted Text in Word 2007

When copying and pasting text into Word, particularly from the Internet, you often do not want the formatting that comes along with it. The greatest trick I’ve found in dealing with “weird” formatting from the web is pasting unformatted text. Here’s how:

1. Highlight the text you want to copy.
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2. Right click on the highlighted text. Select “copy.”
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3. Go to the Word document you wish to paste your text in.
4. Under the “Home” tab click the downward-facing arrow under “Paste.”
5. Select “Paste Special.”
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6. Select “Unformatted Text.”
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7. Voila!
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Easy-Breezy Bibliographies

Enter source data and let Word 2007 make the bibliography.

Dressing Up Your Word 2007 Document: Borders and Page Numbers

See the post on Word 2007 Headers & Footers for instructions on how to insert and edit headers and footers in Word 2007.

Borders

• Open a Word 2007 document you’d like to add a border to.

• On the Page Layout tab, click Page Borders. A window will pop up (see below) called the “Borders and Shading” window.

1. Make sure you’re in the “Page Border” tab of the Borders and Shading window that opened.
2. Select the border settings you desire.
3. Select the style, color, width, and any desired art.
4. If you want to the border to only appear on certain parts of the page, you can control this by clicking on the buttons indicated in the image below. If you look closely, you can see that the two buttons on the left control whether or not the border will appear at the top and bottom of the document. The two buttons at the bottom control whether or not the border will appear on either side of the document. Play around with different settings until you find the style of border you like best.  As you can see, you can also manipulate where borders appear by simply clicking on the diagram provided in the Borders and Shading window.

A little caveat about using borders in professional situations: subtley is key. The palm tree border may seem cute on a given document, but if this document is a resume, cover letter, or anything to be used professionally, don’t do it! Your document will appear very amateur to most potential employers, even if you feel that it’s cute. Palm tree, push pin, or dancing teddy bear borders are great for things like school dance fliers, but use caution when adding a border to anything professional.

Page Numbers

By now, our document is looking all dressed up. We’ve got headers, footers and a border. Now I want page numbers as well.

1. Go to the Insert tab.
2. Click the “Page Number” button. A drop-down menu will open. Select the location in which you would like your page numbers to appear.
3. I’m choosing the bottom-right corner. To do so, as you can see above, I click the “Bottom of Page” option, and another menu appears.
4. On that menu, I can see a number of different options for the location of my page number. I’m choosing the one that I can see will place my page numbers in the bottom right.

An Important Note on Using Headers/Footers and Page Numbers at the Same Time

When you already have either a footer or page number in place, adding the other will automatically remove what you had there in the first place. Word 2003 did not have this problem. It’s a new, weird feature of Word 2007. Confusing? Here’s what I mean:

• This is what my document looked like before I inserted a page number in the bottom right corner. Notice my footer “CADL.”
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• When I inserted my page numbers using the process above, I did get my page numbers to appear, but my footer disappeared.
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• Obviously, I wanted my Footer text to stay where I put it. How can I have both?

When you’ve got your footer all formatted, double click on the location in the footer where you’d like your page number to appear. In my case, that’s the bottom right.

Follow the same steps outlined above for adding page numbers, but click “current position” under Page Number on the Insert tab.

Choose a page numbering style, and voila! Page numbers AND footer text. The same process can be used for having page numbers at the top of a page in addition to a header.

Dressing Up Your Word 2007 Document: Word 2003 Compatibility

CADL has updated to Microsoft Word 2007, which means that files you create in Office 2007’s suite of products (Word, Excel, Power Point, etc.) may not be compatible with files you’ve made in older versions of Microsoft Office… unless you save them in a Word 97-03 compatibility format. For example, a lot of patrons who come to CADL’s Computer Center have questions about how to save Office 2007 files in a format they can open at work in Office 2003 or on a friend’s computer that’s running even older software. Here’s how to format a Word 2007 file so it’s compatible with older versions of Word.

In Word 2007, you’ll notice a few changes. Instead of the toolbar (see above image) we’re used to, Microsoft is now using “the ribbon”:

The red arrow in the picture is pointing to the new “Office Button” that does a lot of what the “File” menu did on the old toolbar system. When you click on it, you’ll see the following.

The options to select from are: New, Open, Save, Save As, Print, Prepare, Publish, and Close. To save your file in any format, you’re going to click “Save As.”

You can choose from a number of options. To save your file in the format that is compatible with older versions of Microsoft Word, you’re going to select “Word 97-2003 Document.” If you’re not looking at these instructions when saving a file and can’t remember “Word 97-2003 Document,” just read the description below each “Save As” option’s title. The one for “Word 97-2003 Document” reads: Save a copy of the document that is fully compatible with Word 97-2003. Just remember that you’re saving for compatibility, and you’ll be able to remember which option to click.

That’s it! All that’s left to do is to select where to save your file and title your document as you wish. Super easy.

Knowing how to save files compatible with older versions of Word is a very important skill to have, especially if you’re applying for jobs. I personally have helped several patrons applying for jobs who have sent resumes to potential bosses in the Office 2007 format. Often, the potential boss emails the patron back saying he or she can’t open their resume on their computer. All you have to do is follow the above steps, and you can save it in a file that a potential boss’s computer can read.

Word 2007 help!!

Having some trouble finding that button! Where are my toolbars! Where are the menus!!

Well, try this site from Computerworld: Word 2007 Quick Reference Chart. This article is long, but oh so useful in learning the ribbon. 

All you need to do is click on the Word 2007 Quick Reference Charts in the Word 2007 Cheat Sheet section above. The link takes you to a page listing the drop down menues of Word 2003. Click on the menu choice you want and you will see a chart like this:

Word 2007 Chart

Each chart will show you the 2003 function and its location and its corresponding 2007 location. You also get the shortcut key in both the 2003 and 2007 versions. Very handy! The same type of quick reference charts are available for Excel and PowerPoint.