It was a small thing, but I passed it on to my client who now thinks I’m a genius. Why, she may even have an altar up with my Facebook photo on it….
Okay, I exaggerate just a bit, but I did impress the socks off my client and in return got a thank-you note back. How? I told her how to simplify her work with one little click.
We’re proofing a large document. It will go first online, then into a print version – still electronic, but it requires formatting. To save her money, I’m saving one file to use in two places. That includes formatting that she doesn’t need for the online version. Unfortunately, a few of the documents were littered with formatting changes and the revisions were getting lost. I did a little exploring, and lo and behold! one can indeed hide formatting changes in the Track Changes function. I told her. She was thrilled. I’d just made her job easier. That’s always a good thing.
A few times my knowledge of Word functions has helped a client work better. That’s why I’m an advocate for learning at least 60 percent of the functionality of the programs you use. I’d say 100 percent, but considering most people work with about 30 percent of a program’s functions, 60 percent is enough to make you look like you invented the thing. It makes perfect sense to keep learning your tools, so I’m sure you’ll be 100-percent proficient within a few days of this post, right? Uh, me neither.
How much time and money should you invest in learning your applications? I say enough to appear dangerously smart with them. I don’t profess to be a genius in any application, but I’ve played with Word enough to be able to apply special formatting, to adjust spacing and lines, to merge things without the usual accompanying headache, and to understand and modify the most useful tools, such as the Track Changes and even the dictionary. I’m at about 60 percent. I have much more to learn. But for now, I’m still ahead of the curve with clients.
Word and most other applications have tutorials built in. When you find yourself with ten minutes to spare, click on one. Learn something new every week about your most valuable computer feature. Cruise forums to see how others are using Word features. Ask questions. Share revelations.
What Word tricks do you have?
Word Tricks — very few. However, when I switched to Mac, I took as many of the workshops as I could, and I was shocked at how much I could streamline my work and make thing s– yes, even in Word — work more smoothly for my clients.
I took 9 workshops in the course of a month, and it made a huge difference.
And, the retail stores offer them for free.
Now, if we can just get the computer's technical difficulties sorted, I'll be back to believing in their prodcuts!
I often serve as "tech support" for my clients, not because I necessarily am more tech savvy than they (although sometimes I am) but because I'm one of those people who uses the "help" feature if I run into a problem that stumps me.
One of my favorite tips, particularly useful when a client can't fix weird spacing, line or page breaks, is to turn on the formatting marks (that little paragraph symbol in the menu bar). You can then see–and delete–extra spacing, errant hard returns, random page breaks and the like.
Two things popped into my mind at your question:
First: Learning keystrokes. They are so much faster than always grabbing the mouse. The one I use most (besides Bold and Italics) is CTRL h for Find and Replace. The first thing I do when proofreading/copyediting is to replace all double spaces with single spaces.
Second: When the document hasn't been set up with appropriate styles, I use the format painter a lot. Format one paragraph just the way you want it, double click on the paintbrush icon, then click on every other paragraph where you want the same formatting. It's magic!
Just sharing one or two pointers is good enough to establish yourself as a Word expert. I also frequently use the "help" feature for finding shortcuts.
Agile software development is software development methodologies based on iterative and incremental development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams.
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