This time we’ll look at securing Microsoft Word Documents with a password so that the only pair of eyes that read the protected documents is yours.

Having a password protected document is useful in case something happens to the device the documents are stored on such as a USB memory stick or Laptop. Now, let’s secure our documents:

1. Open Microsoft Word and click the Office button in the top left corner.

2. Scroll down to Prepare and select Encrypt Document.

3. Enter the password you want into the dialog box and click Ok.

4. Enter the password again for verification and click Ok again and now from now on, whenever somebody tries to open that document, it’ll ask for you to input the password.

This way, if the device is misplaced or stolen, you wouldn’t have to worry too much about people looking through the documents and finding out any information from the secure documents because if the person can’t access the file, they’ll most likely just delete them.

Therefore, it is also crucial to keep a separate back-up of your entire device just in case something like that happens.

Would you like more Word tips? Then visit our Microsoft Word Hints & Tips page.

If you’d like to learn more about Microsoft Word, attend one of our Microsoft Word Training Courses.

Bold text: Ctrl + B

Italic text: Ctrl + i

Underlined text: Ctrl + U

To bring up the thesaurus: Shift + F7

To undo any action such as typing etc: Ctrl + Z

Select all the text in the document: Ctrl + A

There are more available for viewing through the Microsoft Office Help Menu which can be accessed by pressing the F1 button and typing in the search bar: Keyboard Shortcuts and then selecting: Keyboard Shortcuts for Microsoft Word. 

I was asked this week to see if there was a way to get Microsoft Excel to act like Microsoft Word in the way that it recognizes spelling mistakes automatically and highlights them to bring them to your attention. After looking into this I found that unfortunately there isn’t a way to get Excel to recognize and highlight any mistakes you make whilst filling in the spreadsheet. However to correct any mistakes that you have made in Word, you can either press the F7 key on your keyboard or right click over the mistake and Word will offer you suggestions for the correct spelling.

To turn on/off this feature, follow these steps:

Click the Microsoft Office Button in the top left corner, and then click Word Options and select Proofing.

If you want to just turn the checker on for the document you are working on, do the following:

Under Exceptions for, click Name of currently open file and select or clear the Hide spelling errors in this document only and Hide grammar errors in this document only check boxes.

If you want to turn the checker on/off for all documents you create from now, do the following:

Under Exceptions for, click All New Documents and select or clear the Hide spelling errors in this document only and Hide grammar errors in this document only check boxes.

The only tool that comes close to doing this job in Excel is the Auto-correct option which can identify and correct common mistakes and typos such as replacing teh with the.

Want more tips? Click on Microsoft Word and Excel Tips.

You can save time by copying the format you’ve already applied to text using Format Painter. To do so follow these steps:

1. Select the text that has the formatting that you want to duplicate.
2. On the ribbon from Home tab, in Clipboard, click the Format Painter button. When you move from the Ribbon back to the document, the mouse pointer now appears as I-beam with a paint brush.
3. Select the text you want to reformat by dragging the mouse to highlight the text.
4. As soon as you release the mouse button, the text receives the format of the other text. The feature is turned off and the mouse pointer returns to the original default pointer.

If you have several pieces of the text throughout the document that you want to reformat, then follow steps 1 to 3, however in step 2, double click the Format Painter button and select text to format those pieces of text. When you’re finished, click the Format Painter button to turn it off.

Want more tips? Click on Microsoft Word Tips & Tricks

{ HYPERLINK “http://www.inferotraining.com/info.html” } instead of Info?

You try to make these hyperlinks display properly with correct links. You check different view options and they all work fine. However, you cannot get rid of this display. What can you do?

To solve the hyperlink problem here are a few options:

• use Alt+F9 to toggle between the Hyperlink display and Normal view.

• Alternatively,

1. Click on the Office button
2. At the bottom of the displayed menu, select Word Options
3. From the Word Options dialog box, on the right hand side, select Advanced
4. Scroll down until you see Show document content and turn off the Show field codes instead of their values setting

Want more tips? Click on Microsoft Word Tips & Tricks

Microsoft Office Diagnostic is a tool included in Microsoft Office 2007 pack, allowing you to run a series of diagnostic tests that can help you discover why your computer is crashing. These tests will either solve problems directly or may help you with the ways to solve them.

These are the diagnostics that are run:

Setup Diagnostic – Files and registry are checked for errors occurring due to viruses or by hardware that is faulty or incorrectly configured. While running for about 15 minutes, the test may require the original installation source.

Disk Diagnostic – Hard disk is examined for errors logged by the Windows system and SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) feature of your hard disk (if provided by disk drive manufacturers) to notice potential hard disk failure.

Memory Diagnostic – Random Access Memory (RAM) is verified for integrity.

Update Diagnostic – Your computer is tested as to whether it has the latest updates installed to make Microsoft Office more stable. You can install updates from Microsoft Office Online.

Compatibility Diagnostic – Different versions of Microsoft Office are checked for conflicts, as two different versions of Office installed on your computer can cause instability.

Check for Known Solutions – The crash report is tested and checked against the database of Microsoft’s crash cases for available solutions.

To find out how to run diagnostics, read How to Fix Errors Using Microsoft Office Diagnostics.

• On the Home tab, in the Paragraph section, click Show/Hide

• Or from keyboard press a combination of <Ctrl>, <Shift>, <8> keys simultaneously.

This will display tab characters, spaces, paragraph marks, hidden text etc. Clicking again on the Show/Hide icon or a combination of keys will hide the characters.

You cannot delete or replace the Ribbon with the toolbars and menus from the previous versions of Microsoft Office. However, to make more space available on your screen, you can minimise the Ribbon.

1. From the Quick Access Toolbar, click Customize Quick Access Toolbar .
2. From the drop down list, select Minimize the Ribbon.  

To use the Ribbon while it is minimised, click the tab you want to use, and then click the option or command you want to use. After your request has been performed, the Ribbon reverts to being minimised.

1. Indicate where you want to divide the text into columns by inserting separator characters (such as commas or tabs or choose your own). To indicate where you want to begin a new row use paragraph marks.
2. Select the text that you want to convert.
3. On the Insert tab, click Table, and then choose Convert Text to Table.
4. Under Separate text at, choose the option for the separator character that you used to separate your text.
5. Make sure in the Number of columns box, the correct number of columns is displayed. If not, you may be missing a separator character in the text.
6. Click OK.

It will certainly take a while to adjust to a new Menu. So what you can do to locate where your favourite Office 2003 commands are in the new Office 2007 interface?

Microsoft developed visual, interactive reference guides to help you quickly learn where things are. You can download and install them on your computer.

The only downside to it is that you have to download these guides for each of the Office 2007 Applications.

If you are not sure if it will help it, try an online demonstration from one of those listed at Microsoft Office Online.

If you are happy to proceed, use the following links to download command reference guides for each of the Office applications:

Word 2003 to Word 2007 interactive command reference guide

Excel 2003 to Excel 2007 interactive command reference guide

PowerPoint 2003 to PowerPoint 2007 interactive command reference guide

Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2007 Interactive Command Reference Guide

Access 2003 to Access 2007 interactive command reference guide