• Working with Toolbar Buttons
• Finding Footnotes Fast
• Using the Format Painter to Quickly Copy Formatting
• Adding a Calculate Button to a Toolbar or Menu
• Shortcut Keys for Selecting a Table
• Using Autocorrect to Correct Commonly Misspelled Words
• Shrinking a Document to Fit on a Page
• Removing Formatting from a Portion of Text
• Selectively Undoing Previous Actions
• Centering a Page Vertically

Toolbars can be customized to display only the buttons that you use on a regular basis by adding, removing, or copying buttons from one toolbar to another.

To delete a button, hold down the Alt key and drag the button off the toolbar. To move a button, hold down Alt and drag the button to it's new location-either on the same toolbar or another toolbar. To copy a button, hold down Alt+Ctrl while dragging the button.

Toolbars can be moved from the top of the window to the left, right or bottom of the screen. They can also "float" on the screen like small windows. To move a toolbar, click and hold down the mouse button anywhere in the gray background area of the toolbar, then drag the bar to the new location on screen and release the mouse button. To move it back to the top of the screen, click-and-drag it to the top of the window until the gray outline changes to a long box, then release the mouse button.

To quickly jump to the text of a particular footnote or endnote, double click on the note's reference mark (the superscripted number).

The Format Painter icon can be used to copy character or paragraph formatting from one portion of text to another.

1. Click in the paragraph (or word) that is formatted the way you want. Then click on the Format Painter icon.

2. Click on the word you want to copy the formatting to, or for multiple words, drag to select the portion of text.

To copy the formatting multiple times, click in a portion of text with the formatting to be copied, double-click on the Format Painter icon, and copy the formatting as many times as you want. When you've finished, click the format painter icon once again to de-select it.

One feature missing from a button or menu in Word is the ability to calculate a string of numbers and paste the total at the end, for example you might have the sequence 49+88= in the text and want Word to calculate the sum for you.

This feature is available as a WordBasic command which can be added to a menu, toolbar, or shortcut key combination. To add the item to a menu, choose Tools, Customize, Menus. In the Categories list box, select All Commands, then highlight the ToolsCalculate command in the Commands list box. Select a menu for it in the Change What Menu box and select a position in the Position on Menu box. Designate a menu item name in the Name on Menu box, then click the Add Button.

To quickly select an entire table, click anywhere inside the table, then with the Num Lock key off, press Alt+5 on the numeric keypad.

Word's AutoCorrect feature is useful for correcting words that you might routinely mistype. Some of the more common typing errors, such as typing "teh" instead of "the", are already included in the list of words it corrects. To see the built-in list of corrections select Tools, AutoCorrect. You can add other words to the list by typing the mistyped word in the "Replace" box and the correct spelling in the "With" box.

Another not so well known feature of AutoCorrect is the ability to add abbreviations for short phrases, chemical formulas, medical terms, and department or people's names. For example, you can create an entry called "js" for the name "Mr. John Smith" or one called "cl" for the closing of a letter.

To create an AutoCorrect entry for a portion of text such as the closing portion of a letter.

1. Type and format the closing of the letter, including the blank lines for the signature.
2. Select the entire portion of text.
3. Choose Tools, AutoCorrect. The selected text will automatically be placed in the "With" box. The "Formatted Text" button should be highlighted, if not, click to select it.
4. Type an abbreviation, such as "cl" in the "Replace" box. Don't use a real word or that word will always be replaced by the letter closing! Click on Add.
5. To use this shortcut, just type the abbreviation in your document and press the spacebar-the entire portion of text will be inserted.

If you've created a document and one or two lines spill over unto a new page, you can use the "Shrink to Fit" feature to fit everything on the page. Choose File, Print Preview and click on the Shrink to Fit button.

To quickly remove character formatting, such as bold, italic, or underline, and reset text back to the normal style, select the text and press Ctrl+Spacebar (Ctrl+Shift+Z also works). To reset paragraph formatting, such as tabs and indents, back to the normal style press Ctrl+Q.

Selecting Edit, Undo will undo your last action. Word, however, stores a list of your last one hundred edits and you can selectively undo any one of these. To see the list click on the down arrow beside the undo button and select the one you want to undo from the list.

A page of text, such as a title page of a document, can be centered vertically. If the document consists of more than one page and only the first page is to be centered vertically, a section break must be inserted at the end of the page by selecting Insert, Break, then Next Page. To center the page, position the cursor on the first page, select File, Page Setup, Layout, and select Center from the Vertical Alignment box. The Apply to box should indicate the formatting will be applied to This Section.