There are millions of Microsoft Word users in the world, and I expect that, like me, many of you find yourselves wishing there was an easy way to carry out any number of common Word tasks – and the chances are there is! In this post I will be sharing a few of the most popular how-to tips and shortcuts for tasks (in Word 2010) used by some of my colleagues here at Leicestershire Health Informatics Service, in the hope that one or two of them may be of use to you too…

Make the most of keyboard shortcuts

Word has dozens of keyboard shortcuts for performing tasks, many of which you probably know. But, just in case you don’t, check out our top twenty faves:

‘Find and replace’ is without a doubt one of the handiest word processing features ever. (I love ‘find and replace’ so much, I find myself longing for it in other areas of life besides computing, but that's another matter entirely!) Not only can you quickly and easily change every instance of a word or phrase to something else, you can even use it to replace the extra blank spaces made by writers who haven't trained themselves away from the old typewriter custom of pressing the spacebar twice after each full stop. To quickly change all instances of double spaces to single spaces, just enter two spaces (press the space bar twice) in the 'Find what' field and enter one space in the 'Replace with' field, and click ‘Replace all’.

Undo or disable automatic changes

Word imposes lots of changes on the text you enter in a document by default. For example, it might convert a Web address to a hyperlink, replace straight apostrophes and quotation marks with their curly counterparts, or turn a pair of hyphens into an em dash. If you want to prevent those changes from time to time, reach for the Undo command. Undo isn’t just for reversing something you’ve done; it also undoes some of the actions Word takes. Don’t want that em dash? When Word inserts it, hit Ctrl + Z and change it back to the hyphens you intended to enter.

Occasionally, automatic corrections can get so annoying that you want to stop them happening permanently. For instance, if you want to manually number a list or begin a new line with the - character (without indenting the line) then you can by disabling specific AutoFormat and AutoCorrect options. To do that:

Select Options from the File tab.

Click Proofing, and then click AutoCorrect Options.

On the AutoFormat as you Type tab, click to select or to clear the check boxes for the options that you want to enable or disable.

Hide the page number on the cover sheet of your document

When you add page numbers to Word, it automatically adds these to the footer. But maybe you don’t want the number 1 to appear on the front page of your report, so how do you turn it off? Try this:

Click in the document.

On the Page Layout tab, click the Page Setup dialog box launcher.

Click the Layout tab.

Under Headers and Footers, select the ‘Different first page’ check box.

Click OK.

Numbering should now start on page 2!

Jazz up your bullet points

Word makes it easy to change or customize bullet points if we don’t like the default ones. Click the little drop down arrow next to the bullet point icon on the menu bar (the ribbon) at the top of the page to open the bullet menu and then click Define New Bullet. Next, click on Symbol and select any character you like as your new bullet. You can select from Wingdings and Webdings from the Fonts dropdown list to access a rich variety of symbols to use as bullets. You can see a small preview too. Click on OK to set your new choice of bullet. All of the bullets you create will be saved in the Bullet Point Library for future access.

Make vertical text selections

Usually, we select text horizontally — a word, a series of words, a paragraph — from left to right or vice versa. But sometimes the selection has to be vertical, for instance if we need to delete an unwanted character at the start of each line. To make a vertical selection, hold down Alt as you drag down through the text you want to select. Hit Delete and bam, it’s gone.

Compare and combine two versions of a document

It used to be, when you wanted to compare two documents, you had to open them both and switch back and forth between them. With the Compare feature those days are behind you: on the Review tab, in the Compare group, click Compare, and then click Compare again. Enter the documents in the dialog box, and click OK. To merge comments and changes from two documents into one document: on the Review tab, in the Compare group, click Compare, and then click Combine. Enter the documents as for comparing.

Zoom in and out

If you often change the view of your documents and find yourself zooming in and out quite a bit, you may get tired of using the pull-down zoom control on the toolbar. If you have a mouse that has the wheel between the two buttons, you can do a neat trick. All you need to do is hold down the Ctrl key as you turn the small wheel. Each click of the wheel, up or down, increases or decreases the zoom factor by 10%.

Print only sections of a page

Save on your printer ink by selectively printing sections of text in your document. To do this, highlight the portions of text you wish to print and click Ctrl + P to open the print dialog box. In the printer dialog under ‘Page Range’ choose the option Selection and then click OK.

Visit the Microsoft website to find more keyboard shortcuts for all Microsoft products.

Each year we try to raise the bar on the training we offer. I’m sure that flicking through this year’s prospectus will encourage you to pick up the phone and call our Training, Advice and Guidance (TAG) Team to book yourself or your team on to one of our courses.

Our courses will inspire you to use your PC, to help you make those day-to-day tasks easier and more exciting to do. Whether it is simply using Word to write a letter, or turning your hand to producing eye catching presentations and posters with PowerPoint and Publisher, we can help.

This year we have training in both Microsoft Office 2003 and 2010. From September we will be running Office 2010 conversion courses, to assist anyone who has existing skills in Office 2003 and now needs to familiarise themselves with Office 2010.

We are also offering more e-learning courses than ever before; we have courses in Visio, Project, SharePoint as well as Learning to Type. Microsoft Office Specialist (MOS) qualifications can also be studied through e-learning. MOS has proved extremely popular and we continue to offer MOS in Office 2003 and 2010; pass a 45-minute test in any or all of the modules and you will receive an industry recognised IT qualification for FREE!

We have courses that inform you about the dangers of the internet and how to keep your children safe. Our E-Safety - Safeguarding Children half-day session is aimed at raising awareness of the dangers of the internet for children and vulnerable adults. Our course will enable you to understand the risks to you and your children while online and will provide you with practical advice on how to protect yourself and others when on the web.

Another new course that has proved very popular is an Introduction to Personal Growth using Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). Below are just some of the comments we have received about this life-changing course:
• “I came to one of your NLP courses which was brilliant and I just wanted to thank you and let you know that a couple of weeks ago I took my first step towards positive change, especially the quest to lose weight and become fitter”.
• “Just wanted to say thank you for a very enjoyable two days training – the experience allowed me to look at my attributes as a person and as a project manager and will help me make the right choices and decisions in my home and work life”.

In addition to the above we offer clinical systems training on SystmOne, TIARA, Choose and Book, Maracis, HISS and EMIS as well as many others.

How our are we doing?
For the eigth year running we have achieved accreditation with the Institute of IT Training (IITT) and we continue to be committed to providing the best possible service to you, our customers, while achieving the highest standard of conduct. This is only possible with your help, we value your feedback and welcome any comments.

Please feel free to contact us in person on (0116 295) 3500 option 3 or email ITTraining@leics-his.nhs.uk We look forward to seeing you on one of our courses soon.

Find more training info and our 2011/12 PROSPECTUS on the LHIS website

*If you work for the NHS in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland you qualify for free training for most of our courses, unless you are employed by University Hospitals of Leicester, who have their own training provision. Contact us to find out more

Our Training Team has been hard at work finalising our 2011/12 prospectus of courses which is now with the printers and will be available very soon. In the meanwhile they have published a list of the courses offered this month at our training venues across the city and county.

If you work for the NHS in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland you qualify for free training for most of or courses (unless you are employed by University Hospitals of Leicester, who have heir own training provision). Our July courses cover a wide range of Microsoft applications as well as the always useful training in presentation skills.

Not listed, but also on offer, is our clinical training covering SystmOne, EMIS, Vision, TIARA, HISS and more. Training in clinical systems can be set up as and when needed, just give out Training Team a call and they'll be happy to help.

You can find contact details for the Training Team and course details on our website