Q&A
These pages present some questions and answers that may interest you. Most of the answers include a link to more detailed information that supplements the short answer and often contains step-by-step instructions for performing a relevant task. Switch between pages to see all the questions.
Page 1
Q.Is it possible to change the number of files in the list of recent documents? How can I change it?
A.Yes, the number of recent documents in the list can be changed. For detailed instructions, see Opening Recent Documents.
Q.What is the easiest way to add a row wherever I want in a table?
A.There are several ways to add rows to a table in Word. It is up to you to decide which one is the easiest. Some users prefer doing things like this straight from the keyboard, as in the technique described in Adding Rows.
Q.Sometimes when I've tried to completely erase a table, only the text in the table was erased, but the table itself remained. How can I erase a table completely?
A.The trick that you need to know to delete a table is that you must select something outside of the table along with the table before pressing Delete. If there is nothing immediately before or after the table that you want to delete, you can add a blank line immediately after the table to delete along with the table. For more information about how to select a table and delete it, see Deleting Cells, Rows, Columns, or an Entire Table.
Q.I have tables in my document that extend onto a second page, and the first row of these table contains column headers with special formatting. For each of these tables, I would like this first row to appear automatically with its special formatting at the top of the continuation of the table on the next page. Can this be done in Word?
A.Yes, you can have Word repeat the header row on the all pages on which a table extends. For detailed instructions, see Repeating the Header Row.
Q.I have already written a certain phrase many times in my document. Now I would like this phrase to be bold everywhere where it appears. Is there a simple way to do this?
A.You can use Word's Find and Replace feature to apply bold formatting. For detailed instructions, see Using Find and Replace to Format.
Q.I need to check all the numbers in a long document against my sources. Is there an easy way to search for numbers?
A.Open the Navigation pane (Word 2010) or the Find and Replace dialog box (Word 2007 or Word 2003) by pressing Ctrl+F. In the Search Document (Word 2010) or Find what (Word 2007 or Word 2003) text box, type ^# and press Enter and then Esc. To find the next number, press Shift+F4. Note that ^# is a code for any digit and is not regarded by Word as a wildcard. For a list of other similar codes, see Including Special Characters and Nonprinting Characters.
Q.I have a document in which many words were capitalized for emphasis. How can I systematically search for every uppercase letter and change each one to a lowercase letter when necessary?
A.Open the Find and Replace dialog box. In the Find what text box, type [A-Z], click More, select the Use wildcards check box, and press Enter and then Esc. To make the selected letter lowercase, press Shift+F3. To find the next uppercase letter, press Shift+F4. For more information about wildcard searches, see Using Wildcards.
Q.I often need to select the entire paragraph where my cursor is located. Is there a shortcut key that does this?
A.You can do this in two quick steps. First press Ctrl+Up, which moves your cursor to the beginning of the paragraph. Then press Ctrl+Shift+Down, which selects the entire paragraph. You can now continue to press Ctrl+Shift+Down to include additional consecutive paragraphs in the selection.
Q.I know how to change the color of any selected text using the Font dialog box, but how can I add a background color and a border around my text?
A.You are right! The Font dialog box provides a way to change the color of text, but it doesn't offer any options for adding a background color (which is called shading in Word) or a border. For detailed instructions on adding a background color (shading) and a border to selected text, see Adding a Colored Background and Borders.
Q.I have a block of text that contains text with several different fonts and font sizes. Certain words are in italics, and some are bold. Is there a simple way to clean up this text?
A.Yes, there is. Select the entire block of text and press Ctrl+Space (the Ctrl key together with the spacebar).
Page 2
Q.I have a block of text consisting of several paragraphs. All the paragraphs have the same style (Body Text), but they appear to have different amounts of space between them. Is there a simple way to restore the original spacing for the style without losing the bold and italic text in them?
A.Yes, there is. Select the entire block of text and press Ctrl+Q (the Ctrl key together with the Q key).
Q.On this website I noticed that the paragraph following a major heading always begins with a large green letter like in a classic story book. That's so cool. Can I do the same thing in a Word document?
A.Yes, Word has this feature. Such letters are called dropped initial capital letters or simply dropped initial caps, and detailed instructions for creating them are presented in Dropped Initial Capital Letter.
Q.When I type the first and last name of a person, sometimes the first name is at the end of a line, and the last name is at the beginning of the next line. How can I make Word keep the first and last name together on the same line?
A.Replace the ordinary space between the first and last name by a hard space (also called a nonbreaking space). You can type a hard space by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Space.
Q.When I type a word that contains a hyphen, sometimes the part of the word before the hyphen is at the end of a line, and the part of the word after the hyphen is at the beginning of the next line. How can I make Word keep the two pieces together on the same line?
A.Replace the ordinary hyphen by a hard hyphen (also called a nonbreaking hyphen). You can type a hard hyphen by pressing Ctrl+Shift+- (Ctrl and Shift together with the hyphen key).
Q.My document has a title page, a table of contents, and four chapters. I want to add page numbers, but I want the first page in Chapter 1 to be page 1. How can I do this?
A.For detailed instructions, see Displaying Page Numbers after an Introductory Section.
Q.I want to number the pages in a booklet so that side-by-side pages (left-hand and right-hand pages) would have the same page number. Can this be done in Word?
A.Yes. For detailed instructions, see Displaying the Same Page Number on Side-by-Side Pages.
Q.I often insert the current date into my documents by pressing Alt+Shift+D at the place where I want the date to appear. The problem is that the original date changes whenever I open a document on another day. Is there a way to freeze the date so that it won't change after I insert it?
A.Yes, you can lock the date by placing your cursor within the date and pressing Ctrl+3. For more information about inserting the current date and another way to prevent automatic updating, see Inserting the Current Date and Time.
Q.I know how to format a date that I inserted by inserting a DATE field to include the day of the week. Is there a way to format any date to include the day of the week? This can be especially useful to me for dates from the near and distant past.
A.Yes, this can be done using a QUOTE field. For further details and an example of how to show the day of the week for 9/11, see Inserting an Expression That Word Treats as a Date or Time.
Q.I often bookmark a piece of text in a document in order to repeat the same piece of text in several other places in the document. Sometimes, when I need to modify the bookmarked text, the bookmark is deleted. How can I modify bookmarked text without losing the bookmark?
A.The bookmark would be deleted, for example, if you would select the entire piece of bookmarked text and overwrite it. For more details and techniques for avoiding this problem, see Changing the Text Associated with a Bookmark.
Q.I have a list of about 50 e-mail addresses, and I want to send the same e-mail message to all of them, but I don't want all of these e-mail addresses to appear in the message that everyone receives. Is there a way to automatically create a large number of messages with different addresses from a single message?
A.You can do this and even add personalized text for each recipient with the Word mail merge feature. For complete instructions, see Sending E-Mail Messages.
Page 3
Q.I keep hearing that macros are like viruses. Are macros really dangerous, and if they are dangerous, why does Word support them?
A.Macros are supported in Word to let you automate tasks and save you lots of time. However, macros can be coded to do almost anything, including to modify or delete files on your computer. A macro can also run automatically, for example, when a file containing it is opened. To enable you to use macros safely, Word provides security levels that control which macros will be allowed to run on your computer. Thus, it is possible for you to safely use macros to help you do your work with greater speed and ease. For more information about why macros can be dangerous and how Word can minimize the risk, see Word Macros: The Risk.
Q.I found a macro that I would like to use on a website that I trust. How can I install it?
A.See Installing Macros from Listings by Graham Mayor.
Q.As I'm typing a document in Word, strange symbols sometimes appear between words and at the end of lines. I can only get rid of them by restarting Word. How can I stop this from happening?
A.These are the non-printing characters that indicate spaces between words, the end of paragraphs, etc. You can make them vanish without restarting Word by pressing Ctrl+Shift+8. For an explanation of why they may suddenly appear and how to avoid their uninvited appearance, see Strange Symbols between Words and at the End of Lines.
Q.One day, while I was typing a document in Word, a thick line stretching across the page appeared. I couldn't get rid of it, and I had to recreate my document in a new file. Why does Word do such things?
A.Word has a feature that creates such lines automatically. This feature can be useful when you want to create such a line, but it can be annoying when you don't know what you might have done to create the line. For the whole story, including instructions for deleting such lines, see Lines of Various Shape and Thickness That Stretch Across Your Pages.
Q.Yesterday, Word was working fine, and today I can't open any document. Should I reinstall Word?
A.Reinstalling Word rarely helps in such cases. Instead, follow the steps described in Problems That Seem to Appear Overnight to fix the problem.
Q.The top margin in my document was set at 1 inch, and I could see this 1 inch margin in Print Layout view. Then my margin suddenly disappeared even though it is still set at 1 inch. I'm taking this one personally. Why is Word doing this to me?
A.Look again. Your bottom margin probably also disappeared. This is just another one of those Word features that are helpful if you know about them and distressing if you don't. For a full explanation and a solution to your problem, see An Infinitesimally Small Top Margin.
Q.I used to have Office 2003, and I knew how to do everything that I needed to do in Word. Now I have Office 2010 with the Ribbon, and I have to relearn even some very simple tasks. It's frustrating. Is there a way to get back the menus from Word 2003?
A.No, you can't have the old menus in Word 2010, but you are not alone. Many users have expressed the same feelings of frustration, and there is a lot of information on the Web that can help you make this transition much easier and less painful. See Moving to the Ribbon.
Q.I sometimes need to add accent marks on a few words in a document, and I found that I can insert the accented letters as symbols, but finding the accented letters in the long chart of symbols seems very tedious to me. Is there another way to do this?
A.Any of the accented characters that you can find in the Symbols dialog box can also be inserted by pressing the corresponding shortcut key before typing the base letter. Word has shortcut keys for the acute (´), grave (`), dieresis (¨), circumflex (), tilde (), cedilla (¸), ring (°), and stroke (/). For details, see the last 12 rows in the table in the Shortcut Key Reference.
Q.What is the best way to automatically save and back up Word documents?
A.See How can I make Word save or back up my document automatically? by Suzanne S. Barnhill.
Q.Word offers several nicely formatted fractions, such as ¼, ½, ¾, and ⅜, which I use to write recipes. How can I create other fractions with the same format in a Word document?
A.See How to Create Fractions in Word by Suzanne S. Barnhill.