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Microsoft Word Productivity Tips

This page contains several tips and tricks for using Microsoft Word more effectively. If you would like to share your favorite Microsoft Word productivity tip, please do so in our discussion forums. We will then transfer the best ones here.

Productivity Tip # 1 - Use Macros

One quick and easy way to increase your productivity when using Microsoft Word is to combine macros and keyboard shortcuts. You can use this technique to reduce repetitive tasks such as changing the formatting style of a paragraph.

For example, if you use the various Heading styles (Heading 1, Heading 2, etc.) throughout your document, you can use a macro to set the formatting style and then assign the macro to a shortcut key.

I personally have a macro for each of the heading styles (1 to 5) assigned to the following shortcut keys:

Heading 1 - Ctrl+Alt+Shift+1

Heading 2 - Ctrl+Alt+Shift+2

Heading 3 - Ctrl+Alt+Shift+3

...

When I get to a point that I need to start a new section of the document, I can just use the shortcut key to change the formatting style of the current paragraph and just type the title.

While this trick may only save you at most 15 to 20 seconds per use, your hands can remain on the keyboard and you can continue without loosing your train of thought.

Here are some other useful shortcuts that I use:

These three shortcuts come in handy if you use formatting styles for your bulleted or numbered lists.

Creating these macros using Microsoft Word is very easy. Just follow these steps:

1) Move to a new paragraph in your document

2) Invoke the Tools | Macro | Record New Macro... command, provide a descriptive name for the macro (like Heading1Style) and click on the Keyboard button to assign a keyboard shortcut to the macro.

Microsoft Word will now be in macro recording mode.

3) Select the style you want to associate with your macro. For example, for Heading2, you would select Heading2 from the style dropdown.

4) Invoke the Tools | Macro | Stop Recording command to stop the macro recording and complete the macro.

Your macro should now be associated with the keyboard shortcut you selected.

You can change the shortcut for your macro at any time using the Tools | Customize... command, clicking on the Keyboard button, selecting "Macros" from the command categories, and choosing your macro from the list.

Discuss in the Forum.

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