Word’s Track Changes feature is great for receiving comments and edits on a piece of writing, but what if you have two or more critiques to review? It’s quite easy to merge all your critiques into one document with each editor’s changes, suggestions, and comments highlighted in a different colour and labelled with their name or initials. Always make backup copies of your documents, though, just in case. Select one critiqued manuscript to be your base document and save it with a filename that reflects this status. In Word 2007/10: Click Review, Compare, Combine In Word 2003: Tools, Compare and Merge Documents... Select your base document in the first box and the next critique in the second box. You can either use your name, or a term like “Auto” to assign to the unmarked changes. This simply means that anything that Word needs to change, such as reinserting a word that one reviewer has deleted, will be labelled with this term. Combine or merge documents - Word 2007 Wor...

Working with a dash can be a little tricky. The dash is meant to be longer than the hyphen, but standard keyboards usually only provide the option for a hyphen. British and European publications have traditionally used hyphens with a space either side to signify a pair of bracketing or parenthetical dashes that indicate an aside comment (part sentence - interruption - continued sentence). American publications sometimes use a double hyphen with a space before and after (part sentence -- interruption -- continued sentence), but double hyphens “typeset closed” (with no spaces) are also popular (part sentence--interruption--continued sentence). This closed style is used almost exclusively in Canadian publications. As with bracketing commas , the second dash falls away if the interruption ends the sentence. The dash used in dialogue to indicate an abrupt interruption or stop to a character’s speech is also traditionally typeset closed and either a true em-dash or a double hyphen is re...

It’s a new year and an excellent time to put new routines in place. One habit that sometimes gets overlooked is regularly backing up your manuscript in progress. At least some of your back-ups of your documents should be done “off site”; i.e., off your main computer and away from the building that houses your main computer. You need to cover yourself for any possibility from viruses to fire to theft. There are many options for backing up, and the more variations you use the safer you are likely to be. Some quick and easy options are to: Save copies onto an external hard drive that you or someone else keeps at their home or office. You may want to rotate two or more hard drives this way so that one is always off site and you have a drive available for backing up when you need to. Save your current most important files onto a flash drive and take it with you if you leave the house. Pay an Online Data Backup Company for storage for your most important files. (Please do plenty...

With the increasing availability and acceptance of e-readers, electronic self-publishing of fiction is a growing avenue for writers to pursue. If you would like to offer your readers the option of downloading a PDF of your novel (or just an excerpt) you may want to format a version to suit e-readers. The most common screen display size is 6 inches diagonal (152mm). This equates to roughly 3 inches by 5 inches (82mm by 120mm). Most e-readers are able to adjust, though, to suit a variety of page sizes and font and spacing options, so keep it straightforward and uncluttered. Word 2007: Page Layout Tab, Size, More Page Sizes...  Enter new width and height values under “ Paper Size ” in the Page Setup Dialog Box (Paper tab). Word 2003: File, Page Setup, Paper Tab Margins With such a small page area you will need to adjust the margins to allow more room for the text. Word 2007: An easy option is to select Narrow Margins from the Margins drop-down menu. Or sele...

This month we’ll go through some of the questions and comments you’ve submitted recently. But firstly a useful piece of information submitted by Cold As Heaven following a discussion on the doc and docx file extensions in Are You Missing Something? : Cold As Heaven said... The reason why they created the new docx [extension] (and pptx for Powerpoint) was to reduce file sizes (it's based on xml). Elle's response: To try that out, I re-saved an old 15MB document in .docx and it crunched it down to 150KB. That's 1% of its original size. Inspired by that I tried a bigger experiment and my 204MB megalith has crunched down to 6.5MB! Thanks CAH. In How to Stop Word Messing with Your Manuscript , Anonymous said... I type my book manuscript into Word 2010, save, then close. Then I open it to discover the font and spacings have changed in various places. So I fix it, save and close. Next day, same problem spacings and fonts have changed in several places. Elle's...

Many former typists find it difficult to break certain habits, such as pressing Enter at the end of each line (hard return) instead of allowing Word to automatically wrap the lines of the document, and typing a double space after a period or semi-colon. Word’s Find and Replace feature can be used to fix this habit retrospectively so that you can get on with writing (typing) the way you are used to. Find and Replace can be accessed with the shortcut Ctrl-f . Double Space After Punctuation Replacing a double space after punctuation is easy: simply type two spaces into the Find What box and one space into the Replace With box, and click Replace All. Hard Return To get rid of a hard return or Paragraph Mark, click “More” in the bottom left of the Find and Replace dialog box. The dialog box will expand to include further options. Click Special▼ and select “Paragraph Mark”. The code “^p” should appear in the Find What box. In the Replace With box, type a space. This will fill in ...

One of the biggest problems with technology is that it becomes obsolete frighteningly quickly. Stall as you might, there comes a day when you simply have to face the dreaded Upgrade. And thereafter comes the head-scratching and hair-pulling questions: “Where’s the button that used to be here? I used to be able to do X,Y, and Z, and now I can’t figure it out. Some of my menu options aren’t even available anymore.” I’ve just run into a snag myself on Word 2010 while writing one of the modules for Word 4 Writers. One of the tools I talk about is Word’s AutoSummarize feature for pruning a document , but Microsoft have removed this feature from Word 2010. I’m now really glad I’m using 2007 on my laptop, which is where I do most of my writing. But I’m annoyed on behalf of my Word 2010 students who have lost a handy tool simply by being the most up-to-date technology-wise. This month we’re introducing an “Ask the Word Experts” slot on the first Thursday of each month. If you’ve upgraded W...

Standard manuscript formatting requires that the first line of every paragraph be indented (except for the first paragraph of a chapter or following a scene break, where it should be flush left). One way to create this indent is to use your tab key for every new paragraph. Another way is to set up a First Line Indent style so that you only need to press Enter at the end of a paragraph and your next paragraph will automatically be indented for you. Word 2007/2010: On the Office Ribbon, Home Tab , Click the little arrow in the bottom right-hand corner of the Paragraph segment to open the Paragraph Dialog Box On the Indents and Spacing Tab , under Indentation , Click the down-arrow under " Special " and select " First Line " Set the width of your indentation under "By:" and click OK Right-click again on your indented paragraph and select " Styles " and " Save Selection as a New Quick Style " Name your style something you’ll...

Recently Helen Ginger talked about How to Remove Section Breaks in your Word document. Another annoying issue that can arise with section breaks (whether you’ve inserted them yourself or Word has done it for you) is trouble with your Headers and Footers. How to Turn On Headers and Footers Word 2007/2010: Insert >> Header / Footer / Page Number Word 2003: View >> Header and Footer An easy way to exit Header and Footer mode is to double-click anywhere in the greyed-out text of your main document. Double-click on a greyed-out Header or Footer to access it for editing. De-Linking Previous Sections “Link to Previous” (Word 2007) / “Same As Previous” (Word 2003) When you turn on Headers and Footers, Word also turns on the “Link to Previous” command. This can cause a problem if you decide to remove headers, footers, and page numbers from the front matter of your manuscript (the title page, table of contents, etc.) even if these pages are in a separate secti...

It’s enough to make you want to tear your hair out. One moment you’re typing away happily and the next Word has interpreted your typing as some sort of command to launch a space probe to Pluto. Or something just as confusing. Undoing AutoFormatting One easy way to temporarily reverse what Word has done is to watch out for the lightning bolt sign that will appear next to the text that Word has AutoFormatted. If you click that icon you will see options to Undo the action just this time, or to stop Word doing the action altogether. If you miss the lightning bolt icon (it disappears if you keep typing), hover your mouse pointer over the text that was changed and it might reappear (if Word is not on a tea break). If not, click Undo (or press Ctrl and z). This will undo Word’s “AutoFormat” step. If you click the down-arrow next to the Undo button you will see how often Word has been AutoFormatting behind the scenes. How to Turn Off AutoFormat The lightning bolt icon has an option t...

Yesterday we looked at how to create a simple bookplate , either for your own library or to use as a promotional keepsake that your readers can download and print from your website. Today we're looking at printing on adhesive labels. Bookplate Setup You will need a box of labels of a size that will fit the smallest books for which you intend them. Check the website of the label manufacturer for pre-made Word templates for the specific labels you’ve purchased. (Avery is a brand available in many countries and their website features a range of templates.) Another option is to check Microsoft’s website by connecting through New Document, Templates, Templates on Office Online. Here is an example of a Microsoft pre-designed bookplate template . (Word 2007 users will probably find templates for most labels already available under the File, New... menu.) Using Tables to Set Up Your Labels If you’re unable to find a suitable blank template you can construct your own using tables ...

If you use word processing software, such as MS Word or Writer for Open Office, you may want to make use of some features that are excellent resources for writers. No matter which software you use, you should be able to use your Help file to find the following features, or something similar. Automatically typing your characters' names One of my favourite features is AutoText. AutoText matches the first three or four letters of common words, phrases, or paragraphs contained in its databank, and suggests them as you type. Pressing Enter when the word you require flashes above your insertion point will fill in the rest of that word for you. You can add to or edit the words and phrases in the AutoText databank. In Word 2003, the AutoText feature is found under the Insert menu on your Menu Bar. To turn AutoText on or off, check or uncheck the box next to "Show AutoComplete suggestions". To add words or phrases to AutoText, type them into the available box. You can a...

This post was previously published here at the Blood-Red Pencil, but it, along with many of our earliest posts, is so useful for writers that we are featuring the best "oldies but goodies" during the month of December. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Track Changes and Comments features of a word processing program are very useful for editing or critiquing either your own or another writer's manuscript. Here is a guide to using these features. Using Track Changes in MS Word Tools, Track Changes Or Double click TRK on the Status Bar Track Changes can be used to keep a note of changes you make to a document, particularly if you are not certain you want to keep the changes. It is very useful if you’ve asked another person to edit or comment on your work, and you wish to review their changes before accepting them. Comments The Insert Comment option is available on the Reviewing Toolbar that pops up when you select Tools, Track Changes . To hide the comments in a...

You know what it’s like: you’ve taken 400 pages to write your novel and it’s bad enough that you had to summarise that into a 10-page synopsis. But now your agent wants a single page synopsis from you! Believe it or not, good old Word can help you with this dreadful task. Automatically summarising a document MS Word’s AutoSummarise tool picks out the keywords, or most frequently used words, in your text and ranks sentences according to how many of the keywords they contain. Word then uses the higher ranked sentences to create a summary. Unfortunately this means that a summary of fiction will be mainly “he said”, “he said” and the main character’s name repeated several times, but AutoSummarise is ideal for shortening non-fiction, articles, or a synopsis. Click on Tools , AutoSummarise … You will note that there are four options for the summary: 1. Highlight key points 2. Executive summary or abstract 3. Summary in a new document 4. Summary only in original document Of ...

Here are some tips for using features of MS Word to make it easier to co-ordinate the documents you use for your manuscript and your notes by viewing them at the same time. Compare Side by Side feature Window, Compare Side by Side with… Select your second document from the list (both documents must be open) Use this feature to open a document containing your notes, so that you can refer to them as you work on your manuscript. Turn off the Synchronous Scrolling function on the Compare Side by Side Toolbar so that you can reference each document independently. You can also adjust the width of each window by clicking and dragging it, giving more of your screen space to the document you’re working on and a small pane to allow you to refer to your notes. With your notes document open in a side by side pane, you can make notes while you are working, simply by clicking in your notes document and typing. The Compare feature is also a great editing tool for copying sections from one do...

The time has come for you to print off a copy of your manuscript to send out to an editor, but something's gone screwy with Word. Surprise, surprise. Your quick glance through the document found a word that should have been in italics, but wasn't. So you corrected that, only to have your entire document converted into italicised text. Then there's those pesky curly quotes that won't go away. You know your editor wants them straight up, no twist. Here's how to troubleshoot some of the trickier formatting woes. Automatically Updating Styles MS Word's formatting tools have a feature for automatically updating the formatting as you work. This can be very handy if you're using it for a specific style that has a single function (like making notes), but it can also be a right pain if you forget that it is turned on and you start fiddling with the formatting. This is the feature you need to turn off if you find your whole document changing formatting when yo...