Doc_Babad's Macintosh Tips - A Macintosh Tip or Three… June 2007 Edition By Harry {doc} Babad - Original Material © 2007
Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies. The software related tips were tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM; running under Macintosh OS X OS X 10.4.9.

As part of this month’s contribution to macC, I have reviewed MS Word 2007-The Missing Manual book by Chris Groover. Yes, we’ll wait a bit more for the Macintosh version Office (Word) 2008 since it’s not due out, perhaps, until later this year. In keeping with my continues search for tools and shortcuts to make wording a bit easier, I’m sharing, with permission, some of Alan Wyatt’s Macwordtips. One thing that pleases me about learning how to use Alan’s tips is that, based on reader the Groover book, the tip will likely apply in Word 2008.

This month I continue sharing my occasional tip-related finds with you. Many, but not all of the Tips I share come from — Paul Taylor's Hints & Tips column and are used with his permission. Where I use any one else’s tips for this column, I acknowledge both their source and their contributors. As a mater of routine I ask for permission to use these items unless they’ve already been widely distributed on the Internet.

Oh, I almost forgot! Unless otherwise noted, all the tips and tidbits I share, where appropriate, work on my computer. If I don't own the software but if the tip sounds interesting, I'll so note at the end of that specific write-up.

Tips I’ve provided this month, as always in a random order, include:

• A Solution to my Ongoing Nemesis — Removing Automatic Lines from MS Word
• Jumping To a Comment in MS Word
• Understanding MS Word’s Click and Type Features
• Set Office 2004 Zoom Levels Via Mouse
• Using Acrobat to Turn A Scanned Blank Form {Graphic} Into One You Can Fill Out.
• My Missing Capital C – Murphy Strikes Again

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A Solution to my Nemesis — Removing Automatic Lines

Have you ever noticed how if you type a few equal signs on a new line in your document, and then press ENTER, Word for the Mac replaces what you typed with a double line that extends the whole width of your document? Actually, this works if you enter as few as three equal signs, dashes, or underscores. In each case, Word replaces your characters with a different type of line.

In some instances, this Word feature can be a great timesaver. In other instances, you might have really wanted the characters in your document, not the line that Word thought you wanted. In these instances there are three ways you can handle the situation.

First, you can press Cmd+Z, choose Undo from the Edit menu, or click on the Undo tool right after you pressed Enter > and Word added the line. In this case, the line is removed and your characters remain. Using the Undo feature may not be practical if you don’t use it right away.

This leads to the second method of dealing with the line. If you later want to remove the line, it helps to understand how Word added it in the first place. When you pressed Enter at the end of your characters (the ones Word replaced with its line), Word removed the characters and added a border to the paragraph just before where you typed the characters. You can verify this in the following manner:

1. Position the insertion point in the paragraph just before where the line appears. 2. Choose Borders and Shading from the Format menu. Word displays the Borders and Shading dialog box. 3. Make sure the Borders tab is selected. Notice that the line should appear at the bottom of the paragraph in the preview area of the dialog box. 4. To remove the border, click on the None option. 5. Click on OK to close the dialog box. The line (border) previously applied by Word now disappears.

The Borders tab of the Borders and Shading dialog box.

The third method of dealing with the line is to simply turn off the feature that causes Word to replace your equal signs, dashes, and underscores with its own line. Follow these steps:

1. Choose AutoCorrect from the Tools menu. Word displays the AutoCorrect dialog box. 2. Make sure the AutoFormat As You Type tab is displayed. 3. Clear the Borders checkbox. 4. Click on OK.
	The AutoFormat As You Type tab of the AutoCorrect dialog box.

Alan Wyatt’s Macwordtips     2007-04-25 13:39:35-04

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Jumping To a Comment in MS Word

Word includes a powerful tool that allows you to add comments to your document. You can use the Go To function of Word to jump to a specific comment in your document. You do this in two different ways.

The first way to jump to a comment is as follows:

1. Choose Go To from the Edit menu, press Cmd+G, or press F5. Word displays the Go To tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
2. In the left side of the dialog box, click on Comment. This informs Word what you want to go to. The Enter Page Number box is relabeled as the Enter Reviewer’s Name box
3. In the Enter Reviewer’s Name box, enter the name of the person responsible for the comment. You can also use the pull-down list to select the name of a reviewer. If you want to go to the next comment, leave the box blank or select the name Any Reviewer.
4. Click on the Next button.

Alternatively, if there are no comments in the document, you will jump to the beginning of the document. If you modify the technique a bit, you can jump to a comment relative to the comment at which you are currently located. This is done as follows:

1. Choose Go To from the Edit menu, press Cmd+G, or press F5. Word displays the Go To tab of the Find and Replace dialog box.
2. In the left side of the dialog box, choose Comment. This informs Word what you want to go to. The Enter Page Number box is relabeled as the Enter Reviewer’s Name box.
3. In the Enter Reviewer’s Name box, enter a plus or minus sign followed by the number of comments you want to jump. Plus is forward; minus is backward. For instance, you could jump forward two comments by entering +2. Word changes the Next button to a Go To button.
4. Click on the Go To button.

Alan Wyatt’s Macwordtips     2007-03-24 19:20:11-04

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Understanding MS Word’s Click and Type Features

Word for the Mac includes a feature known simply as Click and Type. This feature means that when you are working in Page Layout view, Online Layout view, or print preview you can double-click your mouse in any open area of your document (where there is not text), and begin typing right away.

Normally, you begin typing at the left side of the screen. If you later want to adjust your text to the right margin or center it on the screen, you do so by using the toolbars or menus. Click and Type, however, allows you to quickly format and enter text at the same time. The result is faster editing and formatting.

You can tell if Click and Type is active by how the mouse pointer behaves on screen. If the mouse pointer, when moving within the document window, looks like a simple I-beam insertion pointer, then Click and Type is not turned on. If, instead, it looks like an I-beam with some horizontal lines near by, then Click and Type is active and ready. These lines indicate the formatting of the text that you can insert. There are four possibilities:

• Left aligned. If the horizontal lines are near the upper-right side of the I-beam, then it indicates that double-clicking your mouse will result in a left-aligned paragraph where you click.
• Left aligned, first line indent. If the horizontal lines are near the upper-right side of the I-beam, but there is also a very small arrow at the left side of the first horizontal line, then double-clicking will result in a left-aligned paragraph where you click, with the first line of the paragraph indented.
• Centered. If the horizontal lines are directly beneath the I-beam, then you can enter a centered paragraph by double-clicking your mouse.
• Right aligned. If the horizontal lines are near the upper-left side of the I-beam, then it indicates that double-clicking will add a right-aligned paragraph where you click.

Remember that Click and Type only works if you are viewing your document in Page Layout view, Web Layout view, or print preview. The lines near the insertion pointer I-beam appear only as you are moving your mouse pointer left and right within the document window.

If you don't like or don’t use the Click and Type, you may want to turn it off. You can do this by following these steps:

1. Choose Preferences from the Word menu. Word displays the Preferences dialog box. 2. Make sure the Edit tab is selected at the left side of the dialog box. 3. Make sure the Enable Click and Type check box is cleared. 4. Click on OK.
	The Edit tab of the Preferences dialog box

Alan Wyatt’s Macwordtips     2007-04-19 11:18:14-04

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Set Office 2004 Zoom Levels Via Mouse

Sometimes, you just want to change the zoom level within an application. Many applications have a Zoom menu option somewhere to control just that -- increase the zoom level, and everything on the screen gets larger, making it easier to see small text, or manipulate tiny objects.

Microsoft's Office 2004 suite is no exception -- Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (but not Entourage) all feature a View -> Zoom menu item. But using it is a bit time consuming. First you choose the menu, and then you pick a pre-set zoom level, or enter your own value, and then click OK. You can also put a button on the toolbar, which does something similar. Still, it's hardly a fast and fluid operation.

Enter the mouse. In all three of the above applications, if you hold down Command and Control and then move the scroll wheel on your mouse (or drag your fingers on a scrolling-enabled trackpad), you can rapidly increase or decrease the zoom level. Move the wheel up, and you'll zoom in; move it down, and you'll zoom out. The amount the zoom changes with each tick of the scroll wheel will vary between the applications. Word seems to go in 10-percent steps; Excel uses 15-percent increments; and PowerPoint steps through the fixed zoom levels (including 'fit,' which means I had a stop at 152 percent) in its Zoom menu. Excel and PowerPoint are also limited to 400-percent maximum zoom, while Word will go up to 500 percent.

Although prefer the keyboard for many tasks, there's no doubt that using the keyboard and a scroll wheel mouse is the quickest and easiest way to set a zoom level in the various Office 2004 applications. Doc sez, I’ve added the zoom features to my customized toolbar so don’t use this tip, buy you may find it useful.

By Rob Griffiths http://www.macworld.com/

rgriffiths@macworld.com

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Using Acrobat to Turn A Scanned Blank Form {Graphic} Into One You Can Fill Out.

Now if your handwriting is a bad as mine, your really want to avoid fill out forms manually. Since I no longer have a typewriter, this alternative, one I used for many years, no longer works. No I don’t wan to buy you cast off IBM Selectric typewriter, I’ve no space for it in my office. So what to do? It’s all very simple, at least as long has you have a scanned copy of the form in PDF format. Oh yes, and have a copy of Acrobat 8.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, open your scanned PDF, it a graphics file, in Acrobat. You will Use the Typewriter tool to type text anywhere on a PDF page. Organizations sometimes provide PDF versions of their paper forms without interactive form fields making them harder to use, unless printed. The Typewriter tool provides a simple solution for filling out such forms.

• Choose Tools > Typewriter > Show Typewriter Toolbar, and then click the Typewriter button.
• Click where you want to type, and then begin typing. Press Enter to add a second line.
• To change the text size, select the text, and click the Decrease Text Size button or the Increase Text Size button in the Typewriter toolbar.
• To change the line spacing (leading), select the text, and click the Decrease Line Spacing button or the Increase Line Spacing button.
• To move or resize Typewriter text block, select the Select tool, click a Typewriter text block, and drag the text block or one of its corners.
• To edit the text again, select the Typewriter tool, and then double-click in the Typewriter text.

Note: To let Adobe Reader users type text in a PDF by using the Typewriter tool, open the PDF in Acrobat Professional, choose Tools > Typewriter > Enable Typewriter Tool In Adobe Reader, and save the PDF. See the image above.

PS: I no longer have a version of Acrobat 7 Pro on my computer so do not know whether this hint works for that version. If AA7 had a typewriter tool, then this works, but AA7 could not activate files opened in Acrobat Reader to allow the completion of forms.

Modified from Adobe Acrobat 8 Help Files

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My Missing Capital C – Murphy Strikes Again

The Problem — Right in the middle of typing an article in MS Word [MSW], I lost the ability to use a capital c. This was true whether I used my Logitech or Apple keyboard. It did not matter which shift key I used. It was so in the finder and in every application I tried.

As part of the detailed testing describe below, I tossed all new utilities. All the other utilities I use have been on my drive for at least six months. I did not uninstall updates such as migrating to Toast 8 or Acrobat 8 Pro.

An Awkward Workaround — I could still get a capital “c” in PopChar but had to select it from the ASCII chart.

More oddities — When I type a word like changing with the shift key depressed for the first letter that letter gets lost. Typing CHANGING drops the first letter to HANGING.

Meanwhile — Alternate Workaround: Using change case in MSW on the word Acta or any lower case “c” allows me to capitalize the whole word retaining the capital “c”.

Status Caps Lock Key — I’ve disconnected right after I got my Macintosh and it has been off despite many OS System changes and Updates. I then fooled with the cap locks key. In my trouble shooting clicking it or holding it down with trying to type a capital c didn’t have any affect, so that is not part of the problem.

I fixed it but don’t know whether it was dumb luck or pure cussedness. So I’m not going to tell you how, but share what I tried. You figure it!

Tests Run

1. Startup in Safe Reboot Mode by keeping the sift key down when restarting	Restart -Capital “c” returned. – Okay, it’s something I added or a system component that glitched.
2. Repair Permissions – Normal Startup	Restart -No effect – capital “c” still gone
3. Restore Directory – Disk Warrior 4.0	Restart -No effect – capital “c” still gone
4. Toss all recently installed utilities, things that added system and finder functionality via the menu bar.	Restart - No effect – capital “c” still gone.
5. Do Extra Testing with Text Extender and Universal Access [The later was the last thing I’d added and reviewed.]	No effect – capital “c” still gone Restart - capital “c” still gone
6. Deleting the finder.plist	No effect –capital “c” still gone Restart Finder - No effect
7. Deleting the Fontbook.plist	No effect – capital “c” still gone; then Restart - capital “c” still gone
8. Changing fonts or default Font	No effect – capital “c” still gone
9. Repair Permissions – Using Apple OS Install Systems DVD Startup disc	No effect – capital “c” still gone
10. Repair Hard Drive– Using Apple OS Install Systems DVD Startup disc	No effect – capital “c” still gone
11. Once AGAIN Startup in Safe Reboot Mode by keeping the sift key down when restarting	Capital “c” returned. – Okay, it’s something I added or a system component that glitched. But which?
12. Normal Restart - A Small Miracle	Capital “c” returned. Now many weeks later, I still have a capital “C”
What I would have tried next	Cleared the Font Caches

Feedback is welcome – this one I could not find when googling for an answer.

Harry {doc} Babad

That’s all folks…