Word for Windows Tips, Registry Hacks, and Macros

Tips

Add Word's Work Menu (Word 97, Word 2000, & Word 1)

If you have Word 1 download WD1025 application note from http://support.microsoft.com/support.

Word 97 has an inbuilt feature called the Work Menu. It is disabled by default.

To add a file to the Work Menu, click the Work Menu and click Add To Work Menu. To remove a file press Ctrl + Alt + minus (between the zero key and equal sign) and click the filename to be removed or open the Tools - Customise dialog box, click the File Menu, click the Work Menu, then right click the filename and chose Delete.

To enable the Work Menu follow these steps.

1. On the Tools Menu click Customise
2. Then click the Commands Tab
3. In the list box titled Catergories on the left hand side scroll down to the second last item called Built-In Menus and select it
4. In the list box titled Commands on the right hand side scroll down to the last item called Work and select it by clicking
5. (This menu can go on any toolbar or anywhere on any menu. I put it above the recently used file list on the File Menu)
6. Holding the left mouse button down over the Work Menu, drag it and without releasing the mouse button hold it above the File Menu on the menu bar, the File Menu will now drop down.
7. Still dragging without releasing the left mouse button move down the File Menu, a horizontal bar will appear showing where the Work Menu would be added if the left mouse button was released
8. When the horizontal bar is between the menu separator and the list of recently used files directly underneath the separator release the mouse button.
9. Close the Tools - Customise dialog box, (but come back an explore it, Word has many hidden commands).

Adding Autoscroll Without a Wheelie Mouse (Word 97 & Word 2000)

People with a Microsoft mouse with a wheel know that Word 97 can automatically scroll a page at a fixed speed by clicking the wheel. This can also be achieved with the keyboard (On Australian, NZ, & US keyboards press Ctrl + Shift + \) and any mouse. Then move the mouse up and down to control speed and direction.

Howerer using a keyboard and mouse to AutoScroll is a bit of a hassle. This shows you how to put it on a toolbar so automatic scrolling is one mouse click away.

1. On the Tools Menu click Customise
2. Then click the Commands Tab
3. In the list box titled Catergories on the left hand side scroll down to the second last item called All Commands and select it
4. In the list box titled Commands on the right hand side scroll down to the item called AutoScroll and select it by clicking
5. (This menu can go on any toolbar or anywhere on any menu.)
6. Holding the left mouse button down over the AutoScroll Command, drag it and without releasing the mouse button hold it above the toolbar that you want it on.
7. Still dragging without releasing the left mouse button a vertical bar will appear showing where the AutoScroll Command would be added if the left mouse button was released
8. When the horizontal bar is where you want it release the mouse button.
9. Right click the button you just added, and choose Text Only (In Menus), right click it again and choose Change Button Image. Select a new button image.
10. Close the Tools - Customise dialog box.

Adding Random Text (Word 97 & Word 2000)

Type =rand() and press the Enter key. You'll get three paragraphs of five sentences of "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

=rand(p,s)

p	the number of paragraphs
s	the number of sentences in each paragraph.

Replace text as you type must be turned on in Tools Autocorrect

Finding How to Spell a Word (Word 1, 2, 6, & 97)

In Word 1 - 95 entering of wildcards was supported in the Spelling dialog box (Tools - Spelling).

Enter a misspelt word (I use aaa) and press F7, if there is no misspelt word then the dialog box doesn't display and Word displays a message that the spelling is correct.

In the change to box enter the string you want to find using the following table then click suggest.

?	a single letter
*	any number of letters.

Some examples.

Dav?d	David
?nt	ant
dav*	dave, dave's, davenport, ect.
*id	First twenty words ending with "id"

In Word 97 there is no suggest button in the dialog box. Enter the string into the Not In Dictionary textbox and click change. Word will prompt that it can't find the word, click cancel. The list will appear.

This is a fustrating feature in Word 97 as Word insists on checking the sentence, if it doesn't work at first keep trying.

Download Spelling Helper from the downloads page for a macro that will work in Word 97.

Word 2000 no longer supports this feature for English languages. This is because of the English dictionaries supplied with Word. The Word application still supports wildcard searching. I'm unaware of which languages or third party dictionaries support wildcard searching.

Repairing Word's Files and Registry Settings (Word 97 only)

Word's setup program can be used to repair Word's registry settings.

Use Start Menu, then Run and browse to Word's Startup program (usually C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Setup) and add /r or /r /y to the end of the line.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Setup\Setup.exe /r /y

Switch	Meaning
/r	Reinstalls Word using the options of the last installation.
/y	[Used with /r] Reinstalls Word using the options of the last installation without coping the files.

In Word 2000 choose Repair Word from the Help menu.

Registry Hacks

Scroll Through Document While Dragging the Scrollbar (Word 97 only)

In Word 97 dragging the bar in the scrollbar doesn't scroll the page until the mouse button is released. This is different from earlier versions of Word, which showed the page as it was being scrolled. This registry settings will allow Word 97 to work the same as previous versions.

If You Know How to Edit the Registry

Goto this key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Options

and add a new string setting called LiveScrolling and set it to 1

If You are not Familar with Editing the Registry

1. Right click the desktop and choose New from the menu.
2. Then chose Text Document
3. Open the New Text Document that was just created
4. Paste the following lines in REGEDIT4 [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\8.0\Word\Options] "LiveScrolling"="1"
5. Make sure its right and that it wasn't changed in the browser or while pasting. Check that you have three lines.
6. Click the File Menu in Notepad, and chose Save As...
7. Save the file with this name including the inverted commas - "LiveScroll.reg"
8. Close Notepad
9. Double Click LiveScroll.reg
10. To turn live scrolling off again repeat these steps and change the "LiveScrolling"="1" to "LiveScrolling"="0"

HTML Tables as a Percentage of the Browser's Page Width (Word 97 only)

Word 97 in HTML mode saves tables as a fixed width in pixels. This registry change makes word saves tables in HTML documents as a percentage of the browser window. This means the table is the same width relative to the browser window, ie a 100 percent table will always fill the browser window regardless of the size of the browser window.

If You Know How to Edit the Registry

Goto this key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Text Converters\ Export\HTML

and add a new string setting called PercentageTableWidth and set it to 1

If You are not Familar with Editing the Registry

1. Right click the desktop and choose New from the menu.
2. Then chose Text Document
3. Open the New Text Document that was just created
4. Paste the following lines in REGEDIT4 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Text Converters\ Export\HTML] "PercentageTableWidth"="1"
5. Make sure its right and that it wasn't changed in the browser or while pasting. Check that you have three lines.
6. Click the File Menu in Notepad, and chose Save As...
7. Save the file with this name including the inverted commas - "HTMLTableWidth.reg"
8. Close Notepad
9. Double Click HTMLTableWidth.reg
10. To turn table width as a percentage off again repeat these steps and change the "PercentageTableWidth"="1" to "PercentageTableWidth"="0"

Further Registry Edits (Word 97 & Word 2000)

Word comes with a registry edit program. This is in a dot file called Support8.dot (type macro in the Office Assistant, then choose Use a macro supplied with Word). This has descriptions on what other registry edits Word supports.

Macros

Find Selected Text (Word 95, 97, & 2000. Should Work With Word 1, 2, 6)

When searching in documents its often handy to search for the next occurence. Word has a shorcut key for this Shf + F4. Its also handy to search for a word that is in front of you, but that you haven't searched for before.

This macro will search downwards for the currently selected text.

Word 97

1. Click the Tools Menu, then the Macro Menu, then the Macros... Menu.
2. In the Macro Name edit box type FindSelectedText
3. Click in the edit box called Description, press the End key, then the Enter key
4. Type (and you should be typing underneath your name) Find the next occurance of the currently selected text.
5. Click Create
6. The Visual Basic Editor will now start and you'll see something like this with the cursor underneath the 'M in Macro Sub FindSelectedText() ' ' FindSelectedText Macro ' Macro created 20/01/98 by David Candy ' ' End Sub
7. Everthing that is to be typed in is to be between the line where the cursor is and the line before End Sub
8. Type or cut and paste the following lines into the VBA editor

   Dim A$
   Dim Dlg As Object: Set Dlg =
   WordBasic.DialogRecord.EditFind(False)
   WordBasic.CurValues.EditFind Dlg
   If WordBasic.SelType() <> 2 Then
   	WordBasic.Beep
   	WordBasic.MsgBox "No text is selected. Cannot copy to Find buffer", -8
   Else
   	A$ = WordBasic.[Selection$]()
   	If Len(A$) < 255 Then
   		Dlg.Find = A$
   		Dlg.PatternMatch = 0
   		Dlg.SoundsLike = 0
   		Dlg.Format = 0
   		Dlg.Wrap = 0
   		WordBasic.EditFind Dlg
   		If Not WordBasic.EditFindFound() Then
   			WordBasic.Beep
   			WordBasic.MsgBox "Search string not found. Try starting at the top of the document.", -8
   		End If
   	Else
   		WordBasic.Beep
   		WordBasic.MsgBox "Find string is too long. Maximum length is 255 characters.", -8
   	End If
   End If
   

9. Chose Close And Return to Microsoft Word from the File Menu
10. Using the directions in the Tips section of this page on how to add commands to Words menus or toolbars, add this macro. Tools - Customise, Commands, in Catergories choose Macros, in Commands choose FindSelectedString, drag it to the toolbar or menu where you want it
11. Shift + Click the File Menu and choose Save All.

Word 1, 2, 6, 95

1. Click the Tools Menu, then the Macro... Menu
2. In the Macro Name edit box type FindSelectedText
3. Click in the edit box called Description, and type Find the next occurance of the currently selected text. (C) 1996 David Candy (This macro is copyright to me)
4. Click Create
5. Type or cut and paste the following lines in between the Sub Main and End Sub lines

   Sub MAIN
   Dim Dlg As EditFind
   GetCurValues Dlg
   If SelType() <> 2 Then
   	Beep
   	MsgBox "No text is selected. Cannot copy to Find buffer", - 8
   Else
   	A$ = Selection$()
   	If Len(A$) < 255 Then
   		Dlg.Find = A$
   		Dlg.PatternMatch = 0
   		Dlg.SoundsLike = 0
   		Dlg.Format = 0
   		Dlg.Wrap = 0
   		EditFind Dlg
   		If Not EditFindFound() Then
   			Beep
   			MsgBox "Search string not found. Try starting at the top of the document.", - 8
   		EndIf
   	Else
   		Beep
   		MsgBox "Find string is too long. Maximum length is 255 characters.", - 8
   	EndIf
   EndIf
   End Sub
   

6. Click File Menu then Close
7. For Word 1 & 2 see your help file on how to add commands to menus or toolbars as these two versions didn't drag and drop. Word 6 and 95 are similar. These directions are for adding it to a menu in Word 95. Follow the Word 97 directions for adding to a toolbar
8. Click the Tools Menu, then Customise. Click the tab called Menu. Scroll down the listbox called Catergories and select the item called Macros. In the listbox called Commands scroll down until you select the command FindSelectedText. Word will default to putting it on the Tools Menu in a default position, which in this case will be last. Click Add
9. Click Close in the dialog box, Shf + Click the File Menu and choose Save All. Close the document.