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From: WordTips [mailto:awyatt@dcomp.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 2:20 PM
To: samaruna@omantel.net.om
Subject: WordTips for 25 January 2003
WordTips for 25 January 2003 Copyright 2003 by DCI
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In This Issue...
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Publisher's Notes
Tips
* Finding Changes, by Editor
* Speeding Up Mail Merges
* Understanding Justification
* Multi-Page Print Preview
Help Wanted
* Using Text Boxes over Tables
* Misbehaving Rulers
Publisher and Copyright Information
Important Links
Subscription Information
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PUBLISHER'S NOTES * PUBLISHER'S NOTES * PUBLISHER'S NOTES
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There are some days that I honestly long for the time I lived in an
apartment. I know that owning a house has its advantages, particularly when
it comes to tax time, but there is a certain satisfaction that comes from
being able to call your landlord and have something fixed by someone else,
without the hassles of managing the process yourself.
This was one of those weeks. We live in a hot, arid area of the country. It
is not unusual for people to have swimming pools here, and we are no
exception. We enjoy our pool tremendously. However, they require upkeep. We
had a need to empty the pool this week, in order to start with "fresh" water
for the upcoming swimming season. Figuring out how to empty it was not the
problem; figuring out where to empty it was a big headache.
It seems that our city won't allow you to just empty your pool into the
street. I guess they don't like 25,000 gallons of water running down the
street, searching for a storm drain that is two blocks away. In fact, if
they catch you emptying the pool into the street, you can get a hefty fine.
I, being the practical citizen that I am, didn't feel the need to fill the
coffers of the city with fine payments, so I asked the people at city hall
where I should empty the water. They indicated that I needed to find the
main sewer connection cleanout, in front of our house, and pump the water
into there. It would go straight into the sewer system, and all would be
well.
I went and started looking around the front yard for the cleanout cover, but
could not find it. The people at the pool shop indicated that it could be
covered by landscaping, and the only way to find it was to dig. Great! Not
knowing where to dig, I went to city hall and had them pull the original
plans for our house, hoping to figure out a general vicinity for the
cleanout. No luck; the only thing they could tell me was which side of the
house the main sewer line came out of.
The next step was to call a plumber and have them come figure it out.
They ran a small radio transmitter down the sewer line, and figured out
where the sewer line was. After digging with a shovel for about an hour at
the location where the sewer line was, it was uncovered (about 5 feet
underground), but no cleanout was to be found. Still wanting to avoid a fine
from the city for emptying the pool into the street, I gave the plumber the
go-ahead to add a cleanout to the line.
Now the backhoe was brought in. Adding a cleanout to a sewer line five feet
underground is not a small task. After digging for about five minutes, the
plumber reported that he found the cleanout, about six inches outside the
boundaries of the original dig, and definitely where it should not be. It
was also about four inches below the grade of our original, pre-backhoe
yard. He was able to extend the cleanout so it came to the surface, and
restore the yard pretty much to its original condition.
Well, now we have the cleanout in place, the pool is emptying properly (as I
write this), and my checkbook is less flush. Ahhh, the joys of home
ownership!
Enough with my week, however. I hope yours has gone well, and that you enjoy
this week's issue of WordTips.
-Allen
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TIPS * TIPS * TIPS * TIPS * TIPS * TIPS * TIPS * TIPS * TIPS
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If you have an idea for a tip, send it our way. You can e-mail the
suggestion to awyatt@dcomp.com. Any tips contributed will be credited in the
issue in which they appear.
------------------------------
Finding Changes, by Editor
------------------------------
Subscriber Doris Bell asked if there was a way, in Word 2000, to locate all
the changes made by a particular editor in a document that has Track Changes
turned on. The quick answer, of course, would be to upgrade to Word 2002,
since this capability is available right from the Reviewing toolbar.
Word 97 and Word 2000, however, are a different story--there you only have
the capability to view or not view all tracked changes. If desired, you can
address the deficiency by creating macros that allow you to search for
changes by a specific editor. Start by creating a user form in the VBA
Editor, by following these general steps:
1. Display the VBA Editor by pressing Alt+F11.
2. Choose UserForm from the Insert menu. A blank user form is
displayed in the editor.
3. Using the Toolbox, place a Label control in the form, near the
left side of the form.
4. In the Properties for the newly placed Label control, change the
Caption property to "Author" (without the quotes).
5. Using the Toolbox, place a ComboBox control just to the right of
the label you placed in step 3.
6. In the Properties for the ComboBox control, change the Name
property to "cboAuthor" (without the quotes).
7. Using the Toolbox, place a CommandButton control on the form.
This can be along the bottom edge of the form, or on the right
edge; it is up to you.
8. In the Properties for the CommandButton control, change the Name
property to "cmdFindNext" (without the quotes).
9. In the Properties for the CommandButton control, change the
Caption property to "Find" (without the quotes).
10. Using the Toolbox, place another CommandButton control on the
form. This should be either just to the right of the other
CommandButton control, or just below it.
11. In the Properties for the CommandButton control, change the Name
property to "cmdExit" (without the quotes).
12. In the Properties for the CommandButton control, change the
Caption property to "Exit" (without the quotes).
13. Resize your overall form for the desired appearance.
Your form is now complete, and all you need to do is add the programming
code that will take advantage of these controls. Make sure you select the
entire form, and then press F7 to display the Code window. If there is any
code already there (VBA may provide some default code for you), feel free to
delete it. Then, place the following code in the Code window:
Private Sub UserForm1_Initialize()
Dim oRevision As Revision
Dim bExists As Boolean
bExists = False
' Go to beginning of document
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
' Loop through revisions and add authors
For Each oRevision In ActiveDocument.Revisions
If Me.cboAuthor.ListCount > 0 Then
For i = 1 To Me.cboAuthor.ListCount
If Me.cboAuthor.List(i - 1) = oRevision.Author Then
bExists = True
End If
Next i
' If it doesn't already exist, add the author to list
If Not bExists Then
Me.cboAuthor.AddItem oRevision.Author
End If
bExists = False
Else
' Add first Author to the list
Me.cboAuthor.AddItem oRevision.Author
End If
Next oRevision
End Sub
Private Sub cmdExit_Click()
Unload Me
End Sub
Private Sub cmdFindNext_Click()
Dim iStart As Integer
Dim iEnd As Integer
Dim myRange As Range
Dim iRevisions As Integer
Dim iResponse As Integer
Dim bAuthorFound As Boolean
' Collapse the Selection so that we don't include selected text
Selection.Collapse wdCollapseEnd
Selection.MoveRight wdCharacter, 2
' Get the Range start and end positions
iStart = Selection.Range.Start
iEnd = ActiveDocument.Content.End
Set myRange = ActiveDocument.Range(Start:=iStart, End:=iEnd)
' Count total number of revisions within range
iRevisions = myRange.Revisions.Count
If iRevisions > 0 Then
' Loop through all revisions in the range
' selecting first one found
For i = 1 To iRevisions
If myRange.Revisions(i).Author = Me.cboAuthor.Text Then
myRange.Revisions(i).Range.Select
bAuthorFound = True
Exit For
Else
bAuthorFound = False
End If
Next i
End If
If Not bAuthorFound Then
' Ask if they would like to start from the beginning
iResponse = MsgBox("Search from beginning?", vbYesNo, "Find
Author")
If iResponse = vbYes Then
' Go to top of document
Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
cmdFindNext_Click
Else
' Exit
Unload Me
End If
End If
End Sub
When you later run your new user form, you are presented with a way to
select editors and find the next edit made by that editor. This allows you
to find one edit at a time, not to view all the edits by a particular editor
(as you can in Word 2002).
There is a different approach you can take. You could use a macro to "pull"
all the edits done in a document, and arrange them by editor in a new
document. The following macro shows how you can do this sort of thing. The
resulting table even indicates the type of edit done in the original
document.
Option Explicit
Private Sub ShowAuthorAndRevisions()
Dim sRevision As String
Dim oRev As Revision
Dim oDoc As Document
Dim oRng As Range
For Each oRev In ActiveDocument.Revisions
With oRev
sRevision = sRevision & .Author & vbTab _
& .Type & vbTab & .Range.Text & vbCrLf
End With
Next oRev
' Open a new document
Set oDoc = Documents.Add
With oDoc
.Range.InsertAfter sRevision
' Convert the revisions to a table
.Range.ConvertToTable Separator:=wdSeparateByTabs
With .Tables(1)
' Sort the table by the author (i.e., the first column)
.Range.Sort
' Add a new row to the beginning of the table
.Range.Rows.Add BeforeRow:=.Range.Rows(1)
With .Rows(1)
' insert column descriptions
.Cells(1).Range.Text = "Author"
.Cells(2).Range.Text = "Revision Type"
.Cells(3).Range.Text = "Revision"
End With
End With
' insert a paragraph mark above the table
Selection.SplitTable
' Insert a legend to make reading the revision type easier
.Range.InsertBefore "Revision Type Legend:" & vbCrLf & _
"No Revision = 0 " & vbCrLf & _
"Revision Insert = 1 " & vbCrLf & _
"Revision Delete = 2 " & vbCrLf & _
"Revision Property = 3 " & vbCrLf & _
"Revision Paragraph Number = 4 " & vbCrLf & _
"Revision Display Field = 5 " & vbCrLf & _
"Revision Reconcile = 6 " & vbCrLf & _
"Revision Conflict = 7 " & vbCrLf & _
"Revision Style = 8 " & vbCrLf & _
"Revision Replace = 9 " & vbCrLf
End With
End Sub
For each revision in a document, this macro will find the revision's author,
type, and text (if any). The macro will then place all the revisions in a
table, sort the table by the name of the author, and insert a small legend
that describes each revision type.
(Thanks to Kathleen McGrath, Esther Schavemaker, and David G. Lett for
contributing to this tip.)
------------------------------
Speeding Up Mail Merges
------------------------------
The Mail Merge tool in Word can be very helpful in combining information
from a data source (such as names or addresses) with information in a
standard document (such as letters or labels). If you have many, many
records in your data source, though, then the mail merge might not run as
quickly as you like.
For example, let's say you are merging a large amount of data (10,000 or
20,000 records) with a single-page document to create a form letter. The
most common method of doing a merge is to create a new document that
contains the merged information. As each record is fetched and processed, a
new page is added to the merged document. If you have 20,000 records in your
data source, this means you are attempting to create a 20,000 page document!
Word won't theoretically choke on such a huge document, but it will slow to
a crawl.
There are a few things you can do to help speed things up. First of all,
make sure you are using Normal view before you do the merge, and that you
turn off background repagination (Tools | Options | General tab). This
should stop Word from trying to repaginate the document during the merge
process. You will also want to turn off any anti-virus software you use, or
at least configure it so that it won't scan Word documents for viruses.
Another obvious thing to try is to not merge to a new document, but merge
directly to the printer. Since mail merging is still a memory-intensive
operation, you may still notice slowdowns while merging. In this case, you
should apply any or all of the following items, which can generally conserve
memory use on a PC:
* Reboot PC just before doing the mail merge, so all memory
resources are available.
* Turn off any screen saver on your system. The screen saver timer
and display routines use up memory. Also you don't want it
cutting in during the merge.
* Turn off any wallpaper on your system. You can also reduce screen
colors and screen resolution.
* Since any huge memory use by Windows results in information being
written to the hard drive, regularly run Scan Disk and Defrag.
* Don't do anything else on the computer while it is doing the mail
merge; don't have any other applications open.
* Remove software from the Startup folder, or close them. Close
what you can from the System Tray.
* Reduce the number of shortcut icons on the desktop. Put them in
folders if you need them to stay on the desktop.
After trying all these things, if you still can't get a mail merge to finish
quickly, you will need to either add more memory (it is still fairly
inexpensive right now) or merge fewer records. In other words, instead of
doing a single mail merge of 20,000 records, do ten mail merges of 2,000
records each.
(Thanks to Knut Torgersen, Jon Hill, and Kim Brown for contributing to this
tip.)
Got a Word-related product or service you want to let others
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------------------------------
Understanding Justification
------------------------------
In typography, justification refers to the way in which text is changed in
relation to the margins in which it is placed. There are several types of
justification:
* Left-justification. All lines in the paragraph butt up against
the left text margin. No extra spaces are added to the line.
* Center-justification. All lines in a paragraph are centered
between the left and right text margins. No extra spaces are
added to the line.
* Right-justification. All lines in a paragraph butt up against the
right text margin. No extra spaces are added to the line.
* Fill-justification. All lines in a paragraph are expanded so they
butt up against both the left and right text margins. Space is
added, between words and characters, as necessary to fill out the
line.
In Word, these four justification types are referred to as paragraph
alignments. Thus, a paragraph can be left, center, or right aligned.
It can also be justified, which is the same as fill-justification.
------------------------------
Multi-Page Print Preview
------------------------------
Print Preview allows you to view exactly what your document will look like
before you print it. This saves both time and paper. When you select Print
Preview, you will notice two buttons at the top of the screen, one with a
single sheet of paper on it and the other with four sheets of paper on it.
If you hold the mouse pointer over the four-sheet button for a short time,
you will see a tool tip that says the tool is for Multiple Pages.
If you click on the Multiple Pages button, the display changes to show more
than one page from your document at a time. When you first click on the
tool, you can select multiple pages to be viewed. The more pages you choose
to view, the smaller each individual page appears on the screen.
If you want to select more than six pages in your preview, click on the
Multiple Pages button. Then click and hold on one of the pages shown in the
drop-down area. Drag the mouse toward the right, and down, and you can pick
a larger number of pages. As you drag the mouse, you can see the number of
pages (divided into rows and columns) enumerated at the bottom of the page
selector area. Depending on your version of Word, you can pick up to 7 x 13
pages (seven rows of thirteen pages per row), which is 91 pages on the
screen at once. When you have selected a number of pages you want, simply
release the mouse button.
If you again want to display only a single print-preview page, click on the
One Page button, which is just to the left of the Multiple Pages button.
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HELP WANTED * HELP WANTED * HELP WANTED * HELP WANTED
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This section is for those having problems making Word behave. Having a
problem you want to see addressed? Send it to WTHelp@VitalNews.com.
Do you have an answer to the problems below? Send your answer to
WTAnswers@VitalNews.com (all responses become the sole property of DCI and
can be used in any way deemed appropriate). If your response is used in a
future issue, you will be credited for your contribution to the answer.
------------------------------
Using Text Boxes over Tables
------------------------------
When I position a text box over existing text in a document, with the Text
Wrapping option set to 'In Front Of Text', the surrounding text behaves as
expected, i.e. it is unaffected by the text box and does not move.
However, when I try to position the same text box (still with Text Wrapping
set to 'In Front Of Text') over text within a table, the results are
unpredictable, with the text in the table cells moving out of position, and
the text box jumping to a different position from where it was placed. If I
repeatedly reposition the text box where I want it, then after three or four
attempts, the text in the cell and the text box eventually do as I want.
What is happening here? (Robin G. Sharman)
------------------------------
Misbehaving Rulers
------------------------------
I am using Word 2002. Every time I open a document, whether new or one
previously open, the rulers do not show. I dutifully click View and then
Ruler to make them visible. But that is only half of the problem.
The rulers show digits from 0 to 46 (or similar) and I want to see the ruler
in Inches. I go to Tools, Options, General, and set the Measurement Units to
Inches, but nothing changes--the rulers continue to show these digits. How
can I get Word to always open with the rulers visible, and to show Inches?
(David E. Smith)
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WordTips (ISSN 1522-3744) is published weekly by Discovery Computing Inc.
(DCI), PO Box 2145, Mesa, AZ 85214. WordTips is a trademark of DCI.
Copyright 2003 by DCI, All Rights Reserved. All broadcast, publication, or
retransmission is strictly prohibited without prior written permission from
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WordTips FAQ at the WordTips Web page.
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