Document Formatting

Sometimes formatting a document does not work as we would expect. We select text and apply formatting and the whole paragraph and sometimes the whole document goes nuts! There's always a possibility that it's a corrupt document. What it comes down to is a very complex set of formatting rules which are more cumbersome than the U.S. tax code.

There are many levels of formatting that you can put on text: character, paragraph, style and CSS. And, there is a precedent in formatting - character trumps paragraph which trumps style. Furthermore, the rules of formatting are complex (there's a rule, the 50-50 rule that says that generally if you apply formatting to more than 50% of a paragraph that it will take over the formatting of the rest of the paragraph).

Let me give an example with shading. So, if you just apply the shading to text, you're applying character formatting to the text which supercedes the paragraph level formatting which has no shading.


If you will select the entire line (including the pilcrow) and apply shading, you'll see that the shading extends beyond the text to the right margin. That's because it's for the paragraph which is valid for the entire margin width. Shading just the text only applies to the text itself. That last pilcrow (the little backwards paragraph mark) actually represents a formatting marker and storage facility for paragraph level formatting. If you'll look through other articles here, you'll see that the last pilcrow in a document also has special significance.



So, when you select the entire paragraph, you're trying to format the entire paragraph and when you select "No Color", you're telling the paragraph to have no color - which it already has (or doesn't have). In fact, if you select the entire line (paragraph) and pull down the color dropdown, you'll first see that the shading color is selected, but that is because Word recognizes that that color is in use in the paragraph. If you select "No Color", you're explicitly telling Word that this paragraph should not have color and if you hit the dropdown again, you'll see that "No Color" is selected.

If you just select the shaded text and pull down the color dropdown, you'll see that the shading color is selected. That's because character formatting supercedes paragraph formatting. If you selected just the text and hit "No Color" then it would turn off.

Hopefully that demystifies document formatting a little bit. It's probably also worth looking at my recommendations on putting documents together. It's hard to make a stable document and these tips should go a long way towards curbing some of your frustration.

Fonts missing in Word

So you go to change fonts in Word and suddenly they're missing! You get a box that looks like this:

What happened?! What do you do? Well, this is because your default driver selected is a generic/text only driver. This printer driver is helpful as a testing tool, but only provides you a couple of raster fonts - certainly nothing that you want to use for production.

The fix is easy - just change your default driver to your real printer driver. If you don't have one installed, you just install the drivers for you printer. If you don't have a printer, then just install any printer driver (an HP laser jet works nicely) and set it as the default printer.

Word relies heavily on printer drivers for layouts, (obviously) available fonts, etc. This is also why some documents look different on differe computers. Not all printers support the same margins, fonts, etc. If you want real consistency between all computers, go pdf (there are lots of good free pdf "printers" out there too, if you don't have Adobe: try Bullzip, Cute PDF, or Primo PDF).

Change Word's Default Template Location

Sometimes we wish that we could just make changes in the registry to make feature changes in applications. For Word, sometimes we want to be able to change things such as the Normal.dot default location, or our workgroup templates location without having to do it manually on every computer we're responsible for. Well, help has arrived!

You can change the default normal.dot location by doing the following:

1. Go to Start > Run > type regedit and hit enter.
2. In the left side browser/folder tree, expand to following the path:
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\\Common\General
3. Once you click on General, you'll see stuff on the right side.
4. Right-click on the right side of the window and choose New > String value
5. Give it the name UserTemplates and hit enter
6. Now, doubleclick the new UserTemplates entry you just made
7. For the value, enter the path you want to use for your user templates (and Normal.dot) location
8. Click OK and close the registry editor
9. Restart Word and the setting should have take place

Note for , substitute the version that corresponds with your install: 9.0 for Office 2000, 10.0 for Office 2002/XP, 11.0 for Office 2003, and 12.0 for Office 2007.

Now, if you want to change the workgroup templates location, you can do the same process, except add a string in the same place called SharedTemplates, and give it the value of the path you want to use.

Voila! Who knows what other hidden gems lie in the registry, just waiting to be exposed...

Of Styles, Documents and Stability

I see a lot of documents. Some good, most pretty bad. But, they all look pretty good. So, why do I call them "bad"? What's so "bad" about them? You just have to look at the finer details - how was the document put together? And what does this have to do with creating styles in Word? Well, let me give you my 2c about creating styles and making sure documents have a good, simple foundation. Warning: rambling ahead!

Use Styles appropriately

My personal (and M$-educated opinion) is that you should never use the normal style for anything if you're using any styles other than the built-in styles AND if you're not modifying them in any way. It's supposed to be the "shining style on the side of the hill."

In a purist sense, direct formatting (e.g., applying bold and 14 pt. font size to a paragraph formatted with the Normal style) is just pure evil. Styles are for overall formatting of paragraphs and like objects (like table headings, etc.). Direct formatting should only be used for subsets, or pieces of paragraphs that need an exception to the style rule.

In a pragmatic sense, when people don't like a built-in paragraph style, they select the paragraph and layer on some direct formatting to get it to "look right". This introduces unnecessary complexity into the document and requires a higher of level of trust that Word won't hiccup and corrupt the document.

A best practice in document creation is this: if you don't like/aren't going to use the built-in styles only in your document, then you should create new styles for use in your document. But, the one thing you always want to be careful of when creating new styles is to _not_ base those styles on Normal. You want a blank slate (e.g. "no style") to start your custom styles on so that no matter where these styles are used, no matter what system they're on, they look the same. There is a potential for styles based on Normal to look different across computers.

Don't Use Content for Layout

One of the things I hate to see is the use of carriage returns/enters/new lines for document layout. I remember the old typewriter days when creating a cover page: "hit enter 13 times, then type your name, then twice, then...".

Well, Word actually approaches things differently (and has for the last 15 years). When you want to start the next section of content on the top of the next page, use a page break (Insert > Break > Page break).

Another neat alternative (if you're using your newly found skills with styles for headings) is to tell Word to put a page break in when applying a specific style. You can do this with individual paragraph formatting too on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. But, I can't think of any situation where you'd want to split each page manually. Word does the dirty work for you, so you don't have to.

Breaking Lines Appropriately

You have three options when breaking lines and choosing the right one in the right situation is important. Here are your options:

• Wrapping Line Breaks
  
  This is when you type type type type type type and type some more, and when you get to the end of a line, Word wraps the line around. We all take this one for granted. These are shown in Word's non-printing characters (Ctrl-Shift-8) as a pilcrow (little backwards paragraph marker).
  
  
• Manual Line Breaks
  
  This one is obscure. If you hit Shift-Enter, you'll get a newline without breaking your paragraph. For example, say you have a bulleted list and you want to have a title with the bullet, but the text starting on the next line (like what you see in this bullet list). Well, a Shift-Enter will break the line without breaking the formatting/style for the paragraph. When you're "done", give it a normal Enter and you'll end your paragraph and start your next bullet. Very handy!
  
  These are shown in Word's non-printing characters as a little line with an arrow pointing back to the left.
  
  
• Non-breaking spaces and non-breaking hyphens
  
  This is probably a feature that not many people use, or understand. But, their names describe exactly what's going on. For example, if you have a hyphenated word that's going to word wrap, but doesn't make sense to break (you know, the hyphen usually implies that you're continuing the same word but on a new line and Word will allow line wraps on hyphens), then use a non-breaking hyphen (Ctrl-Shift -). This will tell Word not to allow a word wrap with that hyphen. Same thing with a non-breaking space (Ctrl-Shift-).
  
  You can see non-breaking spaces in Word's non-printing characters as an open circle between characters. non-breaking hyphens appear as a thicker longer hyphen.
  
  
• Use Pictures Wisely
  
  We love to copy and paste junk into our documents from the web, PowerPoint, other documents, etc. Well, along with pasting comes a lot of junk. What's that got to do with using pictures wisely? Well, let me start here: we also love to insert pictures and bmp's are totally awesome and are used all the time. EXCEPT - bitmaps are often much much much much much much bigger than their more efficient neighbors like gif, jpg and my new favorites: png.
  
  These two topics are actually related. Two points:
  
  1. First, use paste special and paste pictures in as pngs or jpgs or gifs. Please, don't just do a regular paste on a graphic in your document (I see this a lot in screen captures <>). This just causes bloat. Instead, be specific and particular about what you're doing.
     
     
  2. Second, if you're bringing in data from the web or another app like PowerPoint, paste it in as a picture. Sure, Word has that neato feature to keep an OLE (or whatever they call it now... OLEDB?) link between documents so that the data can automagically stay in sync. Well, chances are you don't care if the data is in sync and you don't mind just pasting in a new copy to update it. So, if you copy a PowerPoint chart or drawing, or parts of a website, or something with complex information, paste it in as a picture - as a jpg, gif, or png. This will save you lots of headaches.
     

Again, Word is just not trustworthy with lots of stuff. The simpler you can make your documents (in terms of elements), the better Word can manage it. The smaller you can make your document, the better Word can manage it. If you think I'm crazy like Washington DC, then just have a look at the complexity of the Word document format; all 210 pages of it - you'll wonder how Word works at all.

Following these simple practices, you'll find that your documents are more stable and less prone to how-the-heck-did-that-happen-ness. If you find that your document is having problems, read over this other post on troubleshooting damaged documents. Step 5 will likely solve 70% of any damaged document problems that you have (in documents you can open).

In another article, I'll show you how to take the junk out of an old document and revitalize it.

Word's Temp Files

I see a lot of comments asking, "why does Word create temp files?" or, "what are those hidden files with the little ~$ in front of them?" I'll answer both of those questions with a quick and dirty explanation of how Word works and why those temp file are important.

Document Files

First of all, we all know what document files are. Those are the "finished products" that we work on - .doc files. We pass these around, print them out, change them, etc. Well, from Word's point of view (as it is with many applications), these are only the finished products, not what you actively work on.

Owner Files

Owner files are those little files that start with ~$ and have the name of the document. They are hidden files (for Word's eyes only). They are not copies of the document and you don't lose anything if you delete them. In fact, with Word closed, you should not ever find any. If you do, that means that Word didn't shut down properly. You're okay to close all instances of Word, and search your hard drive (including hidden files) and delete any ~$ files you find.

If you'd like to know what they contain, you can try opening one. It's just binary code (as is the Word document format). But, you'll likely see a little bit of text like your name, and the company name listed in Word's properties dialog (File > Properties). There's other data too that includes a date and time, etc.

The big purpose for these files is for Word to know who owns a file ("owner" file... get it?). If Word finds one of these (always in the same place as the document file), then Word reads it to find out who's got it open and can then give you that handy dandy read only dialog that we all love.

Working Files

Working files is a bit more complicated. But then again, not. Working files are copies of you document files. They are the files that you're currently making changes to. When you "save" a document in Word, it commits these changes to these ~wrl...tmp files and your document file. Just watching Word do this in the background can be mind numbing and confusing. My advice: don't try: just ignore it and trust that Word will do the right thing.

The good thing about these files is that they can be used to recover lost documents. Say you're working, you just hit save and your power goes out. Power comes back on and you can't find your original document file - it's not where you left it! No problem! In the folder where you saved your document and you should find some ~wrl...tmp files (these are hidden). Just change the extensions from .tmp to .doc and try to open them in Word. You should at least get some of your work back. Save it as a new .doc file and keep on working!

Other Files

Now, there are other files like .asd files. They're autorecover files and we've covered them elsewhere. The big thing here is to understand that Word must use these files to work properly (for example, on a network) and the .doc is not the most important file to Word. Clearly, we care about .doc's, but Word needs more than that to do it's thing for you.

Clean up!

So, here's what you can do if you're really interested in cleaning out these files (a good practice).

1. Close Word and Outlook (if you use Word as your email editor)
2. Search your computer (including hidden files and folders) for files with the following name:
   ~*.tmp
3. Delete all files found (with confidence!)
   

For more "official" information see a great article written by a friend of mine on how Word creates and uses temp files.

Word Documents on a Network

So, have you ever noticed how weird Word behaves on a network? You open a document on your server/network, and Word creates a temp file. That's okay, Word does that. You close the document, but you see owner (~$...) files and working (~...wrl, ~...tmp, etc.) files scattered and left behind. Now, when you open documents, Word tells you that they're open by someone else - sometimes you! And even yet, sometimes, you save a document but the changes don't appear in the new .doc when you copy them off the server! No problem, you'll just delete them - except, I don't have permission to delete these files? What's going on?!

Take a deep breath (not too deep, because you'll pass out). It's a simple permissions issue. If you have permission to change the permissions on a folder on your network then you can solve this problem. If not, then you just need to talk to someone who does.

Word doesn't need Full Control to work properly on a network, although most users think that's the optimal solution. The only permissions Word needs to make these temp files go away and work right are:

• Read
• Write
• List Folder Contents (not required, but obviously handy)
  
• Modify!

It's that last one (Modify) that some admins don't get. If you can read and write, why do you need to modify? Well, Word apparently does. So, here's how you make this very simple (and safe) change:

1. Right-click the folder in question
2. Click Properties
3. Click the Security tab
4. Click on Users
5. Puts checks under Allow for
   Modify
   Read
   Write
   List Folder Contents
6. If you trust everyone on your network, enable
   Read & Execute
   

I'd recommend against granting Full Control unless you really trust people with the folder. The reason being is that they would then have access to grant and deny permissions on your folder. Better safe than sorry.

Now, you can safely delete Word's temp file in your network share, and you can open and use Word documents normally. Ahhhh.

Double-Clicked Documents Slow to Open In Word

I've seen a mysterious problem crop up to many Microsoft Word users: you double-click a Document (or even Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint presentation, etc.), and the computer hangs for a a little bit, and then the document opens. Equally irritating is that opening the document from File > Open inside of Word is usually nice and snappy. Fingers have been pointed at (insert name of Office application here), Windows, networks, printers, and antivirus software.

Well, the short answer is this: they're all suspect. Here's how to try to track down this problem:

Antivirus
This is the most common scapegoat. People think, "that dumb antivirus is stealing my precious time while trying to scan my document." Well, that may or may not be true. Norton has a historically problematic Office antivirus addin (officeav.dll), but that has improved over the last couple of years. Still, you might try disabling your antivirus and then try opening another document. If the problem goes away, then you know who's to blame. Try a reinstall of your AV, or look for a better solution.

Printers
I guess this one makes sense. Word uses the printer to gather information about layout, etc. Some people have noticed this because they say that they document looks different on different computers. This is (usually) because the printer driver is different. So, here's how to fix this problem:

1. Open Control Panel (Start > Control Panel on XP)
2. Open Folder Options
3. Click the View tab
4. In the Advanced Settings list, uncheck "Automatically search for network folders and printers"
5. Click OK
6. Double-click a document

If the problem is gone, then you don't have to go any further. Even if it's not gone, you'll likely see an overall performance increase in Windows with this disabled.

Networks
Well, I'm not a network admin. But, here's some interesting information that I gathered from a help forum the other day.

1. During the long hanging period, the user did this at the command line (Start > run > type cmd and hit enter):

• exec netstat -a
• look for a line with "SYN_SENT"

1. the user found an IP address to an old network share
2. the user did a find in the registry (Start > Run > type regedit and hit enter > Edit > Find) for the IP address. After finding and deleting several keys with that obsolete network share address (and closing the Registry Editor), the problem was gone.

Windows
This was a more obscure problem that I hadn't considered. I read on a support forum that DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) could become corrupted, like most things in Windows. DDE has never been reliable, but has always been relied on in Office. This is a big part of Office's instability. It's used to facilitate interoperability between Office components/applications, and Windows. For example, in Office 97, it was the primary mechanism for connecting mail merge data sources and main documents. Anyway, here's how to disable it for opening Word documents:

1. Go to Control Panel > Folder Options > File Types
2. Find and select Word Documents (DOC)
3. Click the Advanced button
4. Select Open in the Actions section
5. Click the Edit button
6. Uncheck "Use DDE"
7. Put your cursor on the "Application used to perform action:" box
   
   
8. Arrow all the way to the right and put in "%1" (include the quote marks)
9. If there is a /dde remove it
10. Click OK, then OK, then OK
11. Try to open another document

If that works, then you may want to repeat the steps for other Office document types (xls, ppt, docm (if using Office 2007), etc.).



[UPDATE! 08/15/2008]
There have been great comments with little tweaks about how people got this working for them. Thank you all so much for your comments! I'd like to highlight one in particular as it presents a whole new level of troubleshooting. I won't go into detail about the steps, but I think advanced users will want to experiment with this a little bit (I've added a few URLs to help):

It works but with side effect. Doubleclick opens new instance of excel, word ... Better solution is to find out what application causes this delay. I use ddespy.exe that shows all dde messages sent. If there is a problem, the list stops after certain message sent and waits. You can see HWND handle of the window that causes the delay (in dde message). After that you need to find process or application that this window belongs to. I use "Windows Modifier". Then uninstall this application and that's all.
In my case it was Toshiba Bluetooth driver that caused the delay in starting office documents.

If any of these steps fixed the problem, consider yourself lucky and happy. If not, then at least you know what didn't work. If these these steps don't solve the problem, but you do figure out another solution, then post it in the comments!

The Unthinkable

Okay, so I gave in. I violated my #1 rule about software: don't buy it if you don't have to (especially if it's from Microsoft). I've had the luxury of not buying Office, Windows, Visual Studio, etc., because they were either free through an educational agreement, or something that I received from work. I was happy as a clam, until I decided that I "needed" Office 2007. What changed my mind? Why did I put out money for software that I didn't really need (I already had Office 2003 - for that matter, I could use OpenOffice for free!). In short: it cost me $20.00 through an agreement with my employer.

So here's a quick review from a reluctant die-hard user with a lot of experience using the (now) "older" Office products. Hopefully, I don't just rehash what's been said already.

The Ribbon

Now, I love user interfaces, and enjoy making them. Something satisfying about seeing your work come to life. Anyway, the ribbon took a little while to get used to. I didn't hunt and pick every feature down to find out where it had moved, like most people who have decided to hate the ribbon. Instead, I went through each tab (basically, that's all they are) and looked at each of the feature sets. Most made sense, some didn't. But I didn't have any heartburn over anything specific.

Overall, I give the ribbon a thumbs up - but maybe not for the reasons it was intended. First off, I don't miss seeing all of the available features like I thought I would. Really, we had that already: toolbar icons were made available/unavailable based on where your insertion point was in the document. I still had to hunt-and-pick through menus for what I needed, so the ribbon really isn't all that different in that regard.

But, I give it a thumbs down only because I feel like I'm missing something. That's an intangible that you just don't get over with a UI. In the classic interface, you could get to where you wanted to go by a standard 3 ways: 1) Keyboard; 2) Menu; 3) Short-cut ('right-click') menu or seemingly misplaced button on a dialog. Now, it seems like there is one preferred way to get to options and features, and that's through the menus. Many of the dialogs no longer exist or have been simplified (which I think is a good thing), and ribbon items have replaced obscure nested menus.

I'm also glad to see the task pane on its way out. Although, there was a lot I liked about it (such as the quick-change feature for switching which task pane you were looking at), which no longer exists in the UI (although there are a couple of task panes still).

So, for the UI, I give it a thumbs up. I really don't see any changes to the UI that keep me up at night. Although, it is hard to switch between the ribbon and classic menus in other programs. I suppose Microsoft is trying to set a(nother) new standard.

The File Format

Simply put, I'm avoiding the new file format. Why? Because not everyone is using 2007! Those using Office 2003 and previous find a nice large patch to download so they can open the files. Even on broadband (like me), it's a pain. I can't imagine what it's like for users on dialup. So, I'm sticking with the 2003 file format as my default until further notice.

Performance vs. Reliability vs. Features

Performance is a big deal for me. I like my applications snappy, but I also like them full-featured. Office 2007 has some lag. But, clearly Windows is keeping some of the .dll's resident in memory because on second launch, it's pretty zippy. But, Office 2003 and previous did that too. I'd imagine that the new UI and detailed program analysis features are a big part of the slowdown. Like the UI changes, it's nothing I can't live without.

As far as reliability, Office 2007 hasn't crashed on my yet. Of course, that doesn't really mean anything. Office 2003 very rarely crashed on me and I used it for years. So time will tell. One of the biggest reasons for document instability is the pile-on of styles and formatting in a document. I'd really really really prefer to work application errors than formatting issues <> Paragraph styles on top of direct character formatting on top of direct paragraph formatting on top of a linked style, all mixed in with a pinch of the "automatically update styles" feature and you've got: GAAAHHH! Honestly, I haven't delved too deeply into this arena at home, because most of my documents at home are simple.

Once we make the transition at work, I'm sure I'll dig down more and find some problems and solutions to post (if you have any in particular, email me and we'll work them out). Reliability analysis: undetermined.

But there a couple of things that worried me about Office 2007 in terms of features. I was afraid to lose my smart tags (I live and breath by those little guys - one of the things that kept me from an OpenOffice switchover, just in case any of those guys are reading). But, they're there and then some. The formating smart tags are annoying, no doubt about it. But, I can see how that'd be helpful. Most everything else (like the shortcut keys, right-click menus, etc.) are the same or pretty similar. I can live with that. So, features: thumbs up.

Final Word

So, what say me? Well, I'd say if you can get Office 2007 for $20.00, go for it. I don't know that there's anything there to write home about that would justify dropping a bunch of money for it. If it comes bundled at no extra cost, huzzah! If you have a bunch of money lying around that you don't want to send to me, huzzah! If you think you're missing out, but would have to sell a month of plasma just to get the Student and Teacher upgrade, save your plasma and keep using what you have, or get OpenOffice.

Using Tracked Changes in Word

Tracked changes is IMO an underused, over abused feature in Microsoft Word. Essentially unchanged since Word 6.0, it has traditionally been clunky and hard to use. I have also talked with people who have serious I'll-sue-you concerns over privacy with regards to the Tracked Changes feature. However, in Word 2002 and Word 2003, the feature has been enhanced, though still not perfect. Some documents will even become corrupt and unusable if you use tracked changes for too long, without accepting some of the changes (especially if you updated TOCs a lot with tracked changes turned on!).

So, I've included in this article basic and practical information about Tracked Changes, a.k.a. Word's Markup feature.

1. What Does It Do?

Tracked Changes provides the ability for multiple users to review and make in-line changes to a document. The author/owner can then chose to accept or reject the suggested changes. It's as "simple" as that; and that's all it should be used for. I've seen attempts to make this a feature for collaborative creation (as opposed to revision) on a document. While you can do that, there are better ways to create a collaborative document.

2. How Do You Use It?

Tracked Changes can be turned on and off using the Reviewing toolbar:

1. Click View > Toolbars > Reviewing
   Alternatively, you can right-click your menu bars and choose Reviewing
   

To better understand how to use Tracked Changes, you have to understand what each button is for and how to use the Reviewing toolbar to get around.

1. Used to select the level of detail:
   
   
   • Final Showing Markup (default)
     This shows you the end result of the reviewing changes if you accepted all of the changes, along with the in-line changes themselves.
   • Final
     This shows you just the end result of what you'd see if you accepted all of the changes.
   • Original Showing Markup
     This shows you the original text, with the changes in-line.
   • Original
     This shows you just the original text.
     
     
2. Provides you with more control over what you see:
   
   Think of this as the options menu. The most important thing to remember here is that you can see who the reviewers are (Show > Reviewers) and select which Reviewers comments you want to see.
   
   
3. Change navigation buttons:
   
   These allow you you jump from change to change, without having to hunt them down by scrolling through the document.
   
   
4. Accept and reject change buttons:
   
   These are important because they give you the ability to accept the "active" change (where you cursor is), or to do so for all changes in the document. Use the little down-arrow menu for more options.
   
   
5. Comment and highlight buttons:
   
   These give you quick access to the Insert > Comment menu entry and highlighting button on the formatting toolbar.
   
   
6. Tracked Changes button:
   
   This is a toggle button that turns tracked changes on and off for the entire document.
   
   
7. Reviewing Pane button:
   
   This opens the reviewing pane, which is a small scrollable window at the bottom of the document. It's an easy way to see what changes have been made in the document.
   

3. What Can I Do With It?

Tracked changes does a couple of things for you. When you delete text, Word turns it red and strikes it out. This is the market for a deletion. When you insert text, Word turns the inserted text red, but does not strike it out. Word also creates a balloon comment about the change in the margin of the document (if you have that feature enabled in Reviewing Toolbar > Show > Balloons).


4. Accepting and Rejecting Comments

So, when you're reviewing a document for someone, you can make in-line changes like spelling, word insertion/deletion, and sentence rephrasing. You can do whatever you want to the document, and Word will track every change that you make. No special action is required on your part, unless you want to make a comment about a section without making a change. if that's the case, all you have to do is select some text, click the Comment button on the toolbar (), and make your comment in the balloon in the margin.

As an author of a document, when you review the document that includes changes, you have the ability to accept or reject any or all of the changes made by other reviewers. You can accept or reject changes in a variety of ways. I find the easiest is to right-click the change and select 'Accept Change' or 'Reject Change'. That makes the balloon disappear and removes any markup on the text.

5. Problems and Consequences

As mentioned earlier, these markup features can present problems. For example, if you turn on Tracked Changes and update a Table of Contents field, you'll wind up with a ginormous comment containing your new Table of Contents, and your new TOC will show up red-lined as a new addition, and your old TOC will show struck out in the document. I've seen large TOCs and Tracked Changes bring Word to its knees. So, document bloat is a real possibility.

Another increased danger is that of the document becoming damaged. It makes sense: the more you add to something, the more things that can break.

So, the moral of the story, as with most features in Microsoft Word, is that you can't just turn them on and create the document indefinitely, expecting no problems. You must, at some point in the processing of your document, stop and reassess where you are. If you're using tracked changes, occasionally get to the point that you accept (or reject) all changes in the document. A new baseline will save you a lot of headaches.

With those caveats said, Word's reviewing feature can be and is a benefit to many users. There are millions of documents floating around who have benefited from this feature, and the users have probably only lived with minor annoyances as payment. Just be sure that if your meta data is sensitive, take appropriate privacy precautions for your Word documents.

Unprotect Protected Word Docs

Document protection on Word documents is like the little locks you put on your luggage: it's only good for honest thieves. As with anything software, you can break into it. But, keeping this realistic, let's say you have a document that you created and you forgot the password (otherwise, you'd just use the password, right?). Here's what you can try:

1. Insert the document

This works well if you don't have Open protection on the document:

1. Open Word
2. Insert > File

2. Save as HTML, RTF or TXT

Suppose you can open the document, but you need to be able to edit it, or at least get to the text. This works well if you can get it open:

1. Open the document
2. File > Save As
3. Save it as an HTML, RTF or TXT document
4. Open the newly saved document and get what you need

3. You can hack it out (for lack of a better phrase)

I read this on Expert's Exchange; it's so not original. So, don't come blaming me for showing you this.

1. Open the document
2. Hit Alt-Shift-F11 (opens the document in the script editor)
3. Search of 'password'
   You'll actually find something like this:
   
   1AE1D34Bct Password>
4. Replace the password string (in this case 1AE1D34B) with 00000000
5. Save the document in the Script Editor close the document
6. Open the document up again

4. Do OCR on it

All you have to do is take a screenshot, run it through Microsoft Office Document Imaging and perform Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on it. You'll only get the text, but at least you won't have to retype (much of) it.

Alternatively, you can go the .pdf route as well. Save/print as .pdf, open in a PDF reader and edit away.

5. Get a program/service to do it for you

This almost always works. Assuming the document isn't damaged beyond repair (that's another article), then try one of the following (comment if you know of more):

1. OzGrid Software Word Password Recovery
2. Rixler.com
   
3. Lostpassword.com
4. Lastbit.com

That about covers it. With great power comes great responsibility - so if you need to do any of these steps, then know that you are 100% liable for anything you do. Don't send any lawyer hounds my way because you did something you shouldn't have!

Keyboard Shortcuts in Word

So, wouldn't it be cool if you could see all of Word's keyboard shortcuts? Well, you can! You can print a list of all assigned keyboard shortcuts, or all commands that could have a keyboard shortcut assigned.

Here's how:

1. Go to Tools > Macro > Macros...
2. Change the Macros In: dropdown to Word Commands
   
   As an interesting side note, these are all macros that Word uses to do those fancy features that we see in the menus and toolbars. Yet another way to make things more convenient for those who know where to look!
   
   
3. Scroll down to (or type) List Commands
4. Click the Run button
5. In the List Commands dialog box presented, chose either:
   
   • Current menus and keyboard shortcuts
     or
   • All Word commands

The resulting documents created are either several (9 or more) pages for current shortcuts, or 27 pages for all commands. Each document is a big long table consisting of command names, modifiers (alt, shift, or ctrl), the key, and the menu where you'd find the entry.

Clearly the current shortcuts document is more useful, but the 27 page document does have a whiz-bang feel to it. This is a great way to make a shortcut reference document if you're really into using the keyboard.

So there ya have it!

How to Clean Word

Word is a pack rat. If it doesn't close properly, or if you forget to do the voodoo dance of existential symmetric closure while creating your styles, or just use it how the average normal person would use it, Word will eventually have a problem due to its attic full of treasures. Here's how you clean Word out and reset it back to defaults!

There are several things to do to clean out Word. It involves removing the standard setting entries and temp files. In order for these things to work completely, you should complete all of the steps before opening Word. Also make sure that Word is closed at the time, too.

Step 1: Clean out the temp files:

Word makes a lot of temp files for itself. Temp files can cause ownership problems ('This document is already opened by' Do you want to open a read-only copy'?) and can cause the truly paranoid perceived security leaks. It's a good idea to whack them all if Word is closed and if you're not trying to recover a lost document. Here are the steps to get rid of them:

1. Click Start > Search (or Find > Files and Folders for 9x)
2. Search for files named ~*
3. NOTE: Make sure you're looking in all files and folders and in hidden and system folders!
4. Once the search is complete, select them all and delete them
5. Close the search search window
   

If you see any ~$ files (called "owner files") are actually okay when Word is open, but you should never see them when it's closed. So if you find any when Word is closed, feel free to delete away! You won't lose one scrap of data from your document, I promise.

Step 2: Clean out the registry settings:

Word stores its settings in the registry as many Windows applications do. However, it's possible for these entries to get whacked somehow. Since the registry itself doesn't magically go bad, it's the application's fault (or that of a virus) ' it probably wrote incorrect/wrong data to a registry key. Possible symptoms of this include missing toolbars, or other UI problems.

1. Click Start > Run
2. Type 'regedit' (without the ') and hit Enter or Click OK
3. Browsing the list of folders on the left, go to the following location:
   HKey_Current_User > Software > Microsoft > Office > <9,10,11,12> > Word
   
   This key stores your basic settings UI and feature settings.
   
   
4. Rename the Data and Options keys on the left to something like oldData and oldOptions; the name is unimportant, as long as it's not Data and Options
   
5. Close the Registry Editor
   

NOTE: Renaming/deleting any key from the Office key or below will be recreated once you start an Office application (like Word). This is a resiliency feature built into Office to help keep things stable. But, alas, don't try this on other applications as they probably won't do the same!

Step 3: Clean out the startup folders:

Word uses two startup folders. One is specific to Word (and the user profile on 2000/XP) and the other general to Office. Here's where to find them:

1. Go to
   C:Documents and Settings > profile > Application Data > Microsoft > Word > STARTUP
   
   NOTE: Application Data is a hidden folder. Turn these on in Tools > Folder Options > View tab > Advanced settings if you need to. Also, this folder is specific to Word and the user Profile.
   
   
2. Remove everything from this folder
   
3. Now, browse to
   C:Program Files > Microsoft Office > OFFICE<9,10,11,12> > STARTUP
   
   NOTE: This folder is general to Office, so removing things from here may impact 3rd party functionality in other Office applications. But, remove this stuff if you're troubleshooting.
   

If you just can't find the startup folders for one reason or another, then do a search for any file or folder named 'startup' and check them all. You don't have to delete the files there, you could just move them to your desktop for testing. If you're convinced you don't need them, then you get throw them away. Do what you gotta do!

Step 4: Clean out the addins:

There are several places from which addins can sink their teeth into Word. You've got startup folders (most common), COM addins and template addins (which can be located just about anywhere) and actual Windows applications (such as Norton AV's officeav.dll, or other 3rd party .wll libraries).

NOTE: if you're troubleshooting a problem in Word, it's a good idea to open Word with the /a option. That way, you can check 'Templates and Addins' and 'COM Addins' without having Word undo anything that you've done this far. To use /a, go to Start > Run > type 'winword /a' (without the quotes) > click OK or hit Enter.

Template addins:

1. Open Word and go to Tools > Templates and Addins
   
   This will display a list of template addins. Most will not be present as they are usually loaded from the startup folders. Uncheck any files listed here. You can always go back and enable them if you discover that you need them.

COM addins:

1. Open Word and go to Tools > Customize > Commands tab
2. In the Categories section on the left, choose Tools
3. In the Commands column on the right, you'll see 'COM Addins''
4. Grab this COM Addins' button and drag it up and drop it off on your toolbar somewhere. It doesn't matter where ' you'll delete it in a minute anyway
   
   NOTE: The quick way to delete this button (or to customize the toolbar) is to hold down Alt and click and drag the button into the document. When you let go, it'll disappear!
   
   
5. Close the Customize dialog
6. Now, click the new COM Addins' button on your toolbar
   
   Like the Templates and Addins dialog, you can enable or disable whatever you see here. Remove the button if you like, or keep it there for nostalgic purposes.
   

The Registry:

1. Click Start > Run
2. Type 'regedit' (without the ') and hit Enter or Click OK
3. Browsing the list of folders on the left, go to the following location:
   HKey_Current_User > Software > Microsoft > Office > Word > Addins
   
   This key has addins listed in it ' sort of. Usually they are the COM addins listed, but it may contain other references, hooks, claws and leftover teeth from a hungry addin.
   
   
4. Rename the Addin key and close the Registry Editor.
   

Now, other addins' Well, it's hard to know if you have another program interfacing with Word. The most common ways to enhance Word are listed above. The only other addin that I've had experience with is Norton's officeav.dll. Microsoft recommends that you use Norton's interface to disable it. However, if you're smart enough to know how to use regsrv, you can always disable it by unregistering the .dll.

Step 5: Clean out the normal.dot template:

The mysterious Normal.dot. I've seen this thing cause problems like crashing Word, slow printing, propagating corrupt documents and a whole slew of other things. This is the epitome of pack rat-ness in Word. The Normal.dot is what Word uses to create a new blank document. So, you can see that if your Normal.dot is bad, so is every document that you create from the time that it goes bad.

If you like to harbor custom toolbars, styles, autocorrect entries or macros in your Normal.dot, then it's a good idea to keep a backup or two. However, IMHO, you should always dump these kind of things into an addin template and keep normal.dot clean. You can always use the organizer to move your old macros into your new Normal.dot.

1. Go to
   C:Documents and Settings > profile > Application Data > Microsoft > Templates
   
   NOTE: This folder is profile specific. If multiple people use your computer, you could have one work and the other not.
   
   
2. Rename this file or move it to another directory
3. Delete any ~$ files that you might see (should have been removed in Step 1)
   

So, how do you know if it's bad? You usually don't - until it's too late. One key indicator is size. The default size of normal.dot is about 27 KB. I've seen them as big as 20 MB ' and that's a big problem!

Step 6: Open up Word

Now, fire up Word any way you like it. If you've done everything listed here, you'll probably be prompted for your user name initials and organization, just like when you first opened it after your first install. You should notice that everything is quite clean and back to defaults.

Step 7: Repair Word (optional)

This step is optional because it may or may not require your disk. It also does NOT fix problems caused by items fixed in this article. However, it does (read: should) fix application errors. Here's what to do:

1. Click on Help > Detect and Repair
2. Select 'Repair My Shortcuts While Repairing' and (if available) 'Discard my customized settings and restore default settings'
3. Click OK
   
   

Additional reading and references:

A description of what winword /a does:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;826857

A description of Word's startup switches:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;210565

How to troubleshoot Word startup problems:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;820919

Backward Compatibility for Open XML

So you're not sold on buying Office 2007; that's fine. But you're friends and/or coworkers are. Perhaps a business partner uses it. And now you're getting Office 2007 documents, but you can't open them because they're in Office 2007's new Open XML format. What to do?!

Lucky for you (and me), Microsoft has provided a compatibility pack to make Office XP and Office 2003 compatible with Open XML.

Here's what you do:

1. Make sure Office is up-to-date
   
   The Office compatibility pack requirements are the following:
   
   • Office 2000: Service Pack 3 or better
     
   • Office 2002/XP: Service Pack 3 or better
   • Office 2003: Service Pack 1 or better
   
   To get these packs, you can download them manually (links above, respectively), or you can go to Office Update.
   
   
2. Download and Install the Microsoft Compatibility Pack
   
   You can download it from here. Then, just run the installer.
   
   
3. You're Good to Go
   
   Now you'll find an option to save your documents in the Open XML format in the Save dialog box, along with all of your other options. You can also open Open XML documents the same way you do other documents.

So, now you can "benefit" from using Microsoft's new document format. Wasn't that easy?

Customizing Your Shortuct Menu

When you're in Word and you right-click on something, you get a snazzy shortcut menu with items specifically tailored to the thing upon which you right-clicked. Right? I remember in my Word support training, our motto was: "right click is your friend."

Well, I have some good news: you can make it your best friend! You can actually customize the shortcut menu that pops up when you right-click. I've added shortcuts for inserting pictures (which I used to replace picture placeholders in a large document I was working on), inserting captions, etc. You can add whatever Word feature you want to the shortcut menu, including macros; you can even nest them!

Here's how:

1. Click Tools > Customize
2. Go to the Toolbars tab
3. Enable the Shortcut Menus toolbar
4. Go to the Commands tab
5. Find the feature/command/action/macro you want to assign, and drag it through the menus until you find the appropriate shortcut menu and drop it off, just like when you customize the menu/toolbars normally
   

Now, the Shortcut Menus toolbar is broken up into three categories, related to the kind of object they are associated with (e.g. "what did you just right-click on?"). You may want to explore the menus first, because there are variations of context menus, depending on the object and state of the object. The categories are:

• Text: for when you right-click on text-related stuff like lists, fields, tracked changes, etc.
• Table: for when you right-click on tables (duh)
• Draw: for when you right-click on graphics and objects

For example, let's say that I want to add symbol inserting functionality (Insert > Symbol through the Insert menu) to the normal text context menu. Here's what I do:

1. Do steps 1-4 above
2. Find the InsertSymbol entry (alternatively found in the Insert category)
3. I grab that entry in the Customize box and:
1. Drag it on the Text menu of the Shortcut toolbar
2. Wait for the Text menu to open
3. Drag it over to the Text submenu
4. Wait for the Text submenu to open (it'll look like the normal menu I get when I right-click on text)
5. Drag it over onto the menu and drop it off just above the Font entry
4. Click Close on the customize box
5. Right-click some text, and click on my brand new Symbol... context menu entry

Hopefully, you can see how this can make quick work of common tasks that slow you down because you have to navigate menus.

Of course, this is all temporary. If you rename the Data key in the registry (like when you're doing my How to Clean Word article), all of these changes are gone. But, if you're doing that, then you're probably not too interested in customizing your menus anyway. Also, most of these changes are probably short-term solutions anyway. I used my InsertPicture example customization for about two months, and then I didn't need it anymore. No big loss, but a big gain on time.

You can make it permanent, though less elegant solution by making a new toolbar, saving it in your Normal.dot, and just customizing your toolbar. Then, you're only in danger of losing your customizations if you delete your normal.dot. But that's another article.

Finally, if you'd like a quick way to remove stuff from your toolbars or menus, hold down the Alt key, and drag any menu/toolbar item from the menu onto the document. When you let it go, it'll be gone until you reset the menu/toolbar, or put it back. You can also use this trick to move menu/toolbar items around.

Now, get a customizin'!

The Old Mail Merge Helper

Think back now... back to a time before the task pane... Back... back... Word 2003... back.... Word 2002.... back... Word 2000. Okay, we're there. Remember the old mail merge helper? That cool dialog box that came up and walked you through a seemingly easier mail merge process. Miss it? Want it back?

Here's what you do in Word 2002/2003:

1. Open Word
2. Click Tools > Customize > Commands tab
3. Under Categories, click All Commands
4. In the right side (Commands), scroll down and find MailMergeHelper
5. Drag it out of the Customize box onto one of your toolbars
6. Close the Customize dialog box

Now, if you click this new Mail Merge Helper button on your toolbar, you'll see an old friend.

I don't have any information on Office 2007 yet, sorry.

Enjoy!

Making Word Work For You

While Word has many time-saving features, wouldn't it just be better if you had control of Word instead of Word having control of you? I'll present here my preferred setup for Word that helps me get the most out of it.

1. General Word Options

First off, the Drawing Canvas is designed to make your life simpler by grouping drawing objects into one great whole. Well, IMHO, it's just a great big pain. Another important option to turn off on the General tab is the option which allows Word to start in Reading Layout. Reading Layout is great, but I rarely open a Word document just to read it - I more often actually want to work on a Word document. Another note: there's a bug in Word where if you open a document with Tracked Changes on with a table of contents in it in Reading Layout, all of your TOC page numbers will be the same number (just update the TOC field to fix them again). So, best to turn these off:

1. Tools > Options > General tab
2. Uncheck "Automatically create drawing canvas when inserting autoshapes"
3. Uncheck "Allow starting in Reading Layout"

2. Editing Options

Let's talk about formatting. Word 2002/2003 has an awesome new feature that will keep track of your formatting and make suggestions (ever seen those blue wavy lines?) on how to make your document less like how you create them, and more like how Word wishes you'd create them. Here's (a simplified version) of what I mean: when you apply formatting to words, you're actually applying layers of formatting. That's why it sometimes looks funny and inconsistent (fixing this will be the topic of another post). However, Word might really appreciate you more if you'd tell it to ignore those differences. Here's how:

1. Tools > Options > Edit tab
2. Uncheck Keep track of formatting (this will make "Mark formatting inconsistencies" unavailable also)

3. Saving Options

Unless you're working with foreign languages a lot, especially those that require funky additional fonts (e.g. bidrectional languages like Hebrew), then you'll want to tell Word exclude saving linguistic data with your documents. The Less Word puts in the document, the fewer reasons a document could break:

1. Tools > Options > Save tab
2. Uncheck "Embed TrueType fonts"
3. Uncheck "Embed linguistic data"
4. Uncheck "Embed smart tags" (this doesn't have to do with foreign languages, but while you're here, remove this bloating burden)

There are a few automatic features that I think are useful. For example, the AutoRecover feature is quite useful (not 100% reliable, but useful). I decrease the time between AutoRecover saves so I lessen the chance of losing work:

1. Tools > Options > Save tab
2. Change "Save AutoRecover info every:" time to 1 minute

Keep in mind though, this does not SAVE your documents, it allows you to RECOVER work lost BETWEEN saves AFTER the time SINCE your LAST SAVE and AFTER the AutoRecover time threshold has PASSED (so, if you save your document and start working in it with this setting set at 1 minute, then after 1 minute a ###.asd file will be created - if you don't save and Word CRASHES (not just closes), then you can recover your work. Whew!

Another useful feature (while we're in that dialog box) is "Make Local Copy of files stored on network or removable drives." Checking this will help prevent losing data due to network/device failures. But, keep in mind that you'll have to move/copy/save your document back out to the network location when you're done. BTW, if you're having read-only issues or lots of left-over temp files on your network drives, you just need to give everyone ("Users") the Modify permission for those folders. Then Word can clean up after itself appropriately.

While this section is about useful features, while we're here (in the Options dialog, Save tab), make sure that "Allow fast saves" is unchecked. This just isn't a good idea. I won't provide any real technical detail here, but just know that it will help with file bloating.

The "Always create backup copy" feature is also useful if you're paranoid about losing your work (which you should be). This feature will save a copy of your document as ".bak" in the same working directory as the original document. Might save your bacon one day. It's in the same tab as the other save-related features mentioned here.

4. Automagic Formatting

In the entirely non-fictional experience in the introduction ;), there was a magic line that you can't get rid of. This is a border line (incidentally, you have to put your cursor by it, and go to Format > Borders and Shading to remove it). Now, there are actually many things can trigger the automatic border feature (3 of the following characters for example: ~, -, _, =). Here's how to turn them off:

1. Tools > Autocorrect Options... > AutoFormat As You Type tab
2. Uncheck Border Lines

Word also has the (very irritating) ability to try to guess what you're trying to do and do it for you. An example is automatic bulleted and numbered lists. Sometimes, they work just fine. But other times, they're just a pain. Here's how you turn them off:

1. Tools > Autocorrect Options... > AutoFormat As You Type tab
2. Uncheck Automatic bulleted lists
3. Uncheck Automatic numbered lists

Another automatic formatting feature that often goes unloved is the "Capitalize first letter of table cells" feature. Here's how to turn that off too:

1. Tools > Autocorrect Options... > AutoCorrect tab
2. Uncheck "Capitalize first letter of table cells"

For the average user (non-collaborative business types), Smart Tags are also neato, but worthless. I usually turn them off as well (no figure here, sorry):

1. Tools > Autocorrect Options... > Smart Tags tab
2. Uncheck "Label text with smart tags"

4. User Interface Enhancements

I think that 8 out of ten people dislike personalized menus (and I'm not sure you can trust the other two). I also like to see all of my toolbars (on two rows, like the good ol' days). Here's where you find those settings:

1. Tools > Customize > Options tab
2. Check "Always show full menus"
3. Check "Show Standard and Formatting toolbars on two rows"

If you really want to be considered a power user (and who doesn't), then you might consider tweaking the UI even more. You can make a toolbar that has your often-used but not-so-accessible features on them.

When you're in the customize box, you can drag new buttons on, old buttons off and rearrange buttons on any of the toolbars that are up - including new ones. You can also edit the options in the menus in the same way - grab a command from the Commands tab in the Customize dialog box (such as "New...") and drag it over a menu on the main menu bar at the top of the screen (such as "File"). After a brief pause, you'll see the menu open and you can place this new item anywhere in the menu.

One step further, you can even customize your best friend in Microsoft Word: the context menu (or "Right-click" menu) There's a more detailed article on how to customize this toolbar here. Here's how:

1. Go to Tools > Customize > Toolbars tab
2. Check Shortcut Menus to activate the Shortcut Menu toolbar. This holds every context menu item available in Word.
3. Switch to the Commands Tab and find the command you want to add to the shortcut menu.
4. Drag this command on the appropriate menu.
5. Close the Shortcut Menu toolbar and close the Customize box and try out your new spiffy context menu!

For example, if you want Paste Special... as a context menu item, find it in the command list (under Edit or All Commands), drag it over the Text menu in the Shortcut Menu toolbar (but don't let go of the button) . Once the menu appears, keep dragging the new item down to the Text shortcut in that big list that appears. A familiar context menu should then appear where you can drag and (finally) drop the menu item into the menu. When you close out the toolbar and dialogs, you can right-click in your document and have Paste Special as an option. I bet you didn't see that one coming, did you?

Conclusion

Word has some powerful features and can make the most novice user look like a document creation expert. It can also frustrate the most experienced user (including myself). If I have to give the Microsoft Word designers the most credit for any one thing, it would be the customizeability of Word the application. But, Word's features still need some help :)

Basic Word Troubleshooting

While I couldn't list all of the ways in which Word can fail to work, I can give you the basic thought process when troubleshooting Word.

Step 1. Word Vs. The document

The first thing you have to do if you're having a problem with a particular document is point a finger. How often do you get to do that first? This can be simply done by trying to reproduce the problem in a new document. If you can, Word's to blame. If you can't, see my other post about troubleshooting damaged documents.

Step 2. Try Word safe mode

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type Winword /a
4. Hit Enter

Can you reproduce the problem? If not see my other post on How to Clean Word.

I have seen instances where following all of these steps (and a few more that I haven't listed) doesn't fix the problem, but it still works in Word safe mode. Well, try bypassing your shortcuts

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type Winword
4. Hit Enter

One time I spent over an hour doing basic troubleshooting when it just turned out that the guy's shortcut was bad. We created a new one and we were done.

Step 3. Try Windows safe mode

Windows safe mode can do a couple of things for you. First, it bypasses the video and second, it bypasses most Windows startup processes. So, if it works in Windows safe mode, first try updating your video driver. If it still doesn't work, move on to Step 3.

Step 4: A clean boot

msconfig is probably one of the best inventions in the world - when it comes to integrated troubleshooting utilities :) Too bad Windows 2000 didn't get it. But, there's hope.

Here's the boring Microsoft version of how to use the System Configuration Utility.

Of course, you could always look at my snazzy article.

And, if msconfig isn't big and bad enough, you can also try Mark Russinovish's Autoruns.

Step 5: A new printer

Don't scoff. Word uses the printer for a lot of things. What good would a pretty document do if your printer couldn't handle it. Now, we're not playing the Document Survival Game here, so we won't philosophically answer all of the "what-if"s.

1. Try installing a generic/text only printer. In your Add Printer Wizard,
2. add a local printer (even if you're on a network)
3. Under manufacturers, select Generic
4. Keep the default printer selected when you choose the Generic manufacturer
5. Keep all of the rest of the defaults (no test page needed, though)
6. Make sure it's your default printer

Does Word work now? If so, you've got a printer issue. A simple delete and reinstall of your printer should take care of the problem.

Step 6: A different profile

The next step is to see if the problem is specific to just one user on the computer. If multiple users across a network are having a problem and you know it's not the document (keep in mind, multiple documents can go bad), then the problem is somewhere in your interface with the network. That's beyond this article, sorry. ("Trouble? Shoot your computer", not "Trouble? Shoot your network").

If it works okay in a different profile, then you can cut your losses and get back to work or spend up to several more hours trying to figure out why it's broken.

Step 7: Detect and Repair

Detect and repair is like a "lite" reinstall. It examines versions, etc. and fixes what the installer sees as a problem. Hey, it works sometimes and it's faster than Step 8.

1. Open Word
2. Click Help > Detect and Repair
3. Check all the boxes in the dialog
4. Click OK

Step 8: Really Reinstall

See my super-duper "Really-install" article for details.

NOTE: these next few steps are XP specific. I'll assume that you can Google the right words to find the equivalents if you have another version of Windows.

Step 9: Repair XP

Rather than repeat what's been said, have a look at this:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Step 10: In-place upgrade of XP

Kinda like a repair, but better:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315341

Step 11: Clean Windows Install

The Elder Geek to the rescue:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/clean_installation_of_windows_xp.htm

Of course, if a clean install of Windows doesn't fix the problem, then you're likely looking at a hardware issue (either with the computer, or the network).

Step 12: Get Open Office

Hey, this fixes almost every problem you'll ever have with Microsoft Office :)

Step 13: A Virus

Lastly, don't ever rule out a virus causing you problems. Not all antivirus programs will find Word macros (Norton and McAfee do). Update your antivirus and give the computer a thorough scan. You might also consider running something like Spybot Search and Destroy.