Get to know your toolbars.
If you’re a writer and haven’t done this, you should: Go through all the Toolbars in your computer and learn about the ones that might come in handy. It’ll take a few minutes, but it’s worth it in the long run because there are things in there you may not be aware of that can save you lots of time, hassles and steps later on. For example:
Clipboard. One of my favorite tools, Office Clipboard (under Edit in Word) will hold up to 24 chunks of copy that you can then move individually – or altogether – wherever you want them. So let’s say you’re working on a long story with lots of quotes and you want to change the quotes around, moving one to the front, one to the end, a couple into the middle, etc. You just copy and paste each chunk into Clipboard and it’ll hold it for you till you tell it where to put it. Then position your cursor in the right spot and click on the box holding that chunk of copy, and in it goes. Or if you want to move the entire batch, click on “Paste All” and it’ll dump in all the chunks at once.
Clipboard is great when you want to move items around on a list, too. It also works between documents, so you can move items from one to the other. When you do go from one doc to another, Clipboard may hide, but the icon will be in the lower right hand corner, sitting quietly like a faithful servant, waiting for you to bring it back to life and put it to work.
One word of caution: Be careful that you don’t hit “Clear Clipboard” by mistake because it erases everything in there and you have to start the process all over again. (That’s why I always use "copy" instead of “cut” so if I ever do that, I won’t lose anything.)
Customizing your toolbar menu is another good idea. For example, I have the "Insert" icon on my menu board, which saves me tons of time. Instead of having to click on the “Insert" button and scrolling down to "File" every time I want to insert a file someplace, which I often do, I just click on the icon and it’ll automatically ask me what file I want to put in. (Just make sure when you use it that your cursor is where you want the file to go.)
Word Count is something else I have on my menu bar and use frequently because so many of my jobs are dictated by maximum length: 500 words, 1500 words, whatever. So as I’m rolling along, I’ll click on “Word Count” every once in awhile just to see how I’m doing. Only 100 more words to go? Great! 500 words over? Dang!
I also have the “Save As” button on my menu because I use that function a lot, too. Mostly because I often work with templates and need to save files under different names every time. I also get a lot of edited documents via email and if I make the wretched mistake of hitting “Save” instead of “Save As” after making or accepting the changes, it’ll put the document into some obscure folder that I can never in a million years find again. Has that ever happened to you? It is such a pain!*
So perhaps these tips will make your life a little easier in the future. God knows you’re going need all the help you can get.
*My son-in-law John gave me a great hint for finding files like that if you do lose them that way: Go back to the original email that had the doc attached, open the document, and hit “Save As” and it’ll open the folder where it saved it originally, so you can see where it is. After that, you’re on your own because I can’t remember what you do next!
Clipboard. One of my favorite tools, Office Clipboard (under Edit in Word) will hold up to 24 chunks of copy that you can then move individually – or altogether – wherever you want them. So let’s say you’re working on a long story with lots of quotes and you want to change the quotes around, moving one to the front, one to the end, a couple into the middle, etc. You just copy and paste each chunk into Clipboard and it’ll hold it for you till you tell it where to put it. Then position your cursor in the right spot and click on the box holding that chunk of copy, and in it goes. Or if you want to move the entire batch, click on “Paste All” and it’ll dump in all the chunks at once.
Clipboard is great when you want to move items around on a list, too. It also works between documents, so you can move items from one to the other. When you do go from one doc to another, Clipboard may hide, but the icon will be in the lower right hand corner, sitting quietly like a faithful servant, waiting for you to bring it back to life and put it to work.
One word of caution: Be careful that you don’t hit “Clear Clipboard” by mistake because it erases everything in there and you have to start the process all over again. (That’s why I always use "copy" instead of “cut” so if I ever do that, I won’t lose anything.)
Customizing your toolbar menu is another good idea. For example, I have the "Insert" icon on my menu board, which saves me tons of time. Instead of having to click on the “Insert" button and scrolling down to "File" every time I want to insert a file someplace, which I often do, I just click on the icon and it’ll automatically ask me what file I want to put in. (Just make sure when you use it that your cursor is where you want the file to go.)
Word Count is something else I have on my menu bar and use frequently because so many of my jobs are dictated by maximum length: 500 words, 1500 words, whatever. So as I’m rolling along, I’ll click on “Word Count” every once in awhile just to see how I’m doing. Only 100 more words to go? Great! 500 words over? Dang!
I also have the “Save As” button on my menu because I use that function a lot, too. Mostly because I often work with templates and need to save files under different names every time. I also get a lot of edited documents via email and if I make the wretched mistake of hitting “Save” instead of “Save As” after making or accepting the changes, it’ll put the document into some obscure folder that I can never in a million years find again. Has that ever happened to you? It is such a pain!*
So perhaps these tips will make your life a little easier in the future. God knows you’re going need all the help you can get.
*My son-in-law John gave me a great hint for finding files like that if you do lose them that way: Go back to the original email that had the doc attached, open the document, and hit “Save As” and it’ll open the folder where it saved it originally, so you can see where it is. After that, you’re on your own because I can’t remember what you do next!
posted by Keash at 5:47 AM
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