Add a custom tab to your Word ribbon

I gave an informal talk today to science editors about using macros, but it was my very first tip that generated the most excitement. You can add a your own customised tab to the Word ribbon! For example, I have added a tab called MB Macros to my Word ribbon as a way of easily … Continue reading Add a custom tab to your Word ribbon

Create a table of contents using Word Styles

Creating a table of contents (TOC) is super easy if you have applied styles to your headings. If you are new to styles, start at my introductory post What are Word Styles and how do you use them? Contents How to insert an automatic table of contents Points to note How to update the table … Continue reading Create a table of contents using Word Styles

Use Word Styles for navigating around and restructuring your document

Word Styles offer more than simply and consistently formatting text; they give you lots of power in organising your whole document. For those new to using Styles, you might want to check out the introduction in my previous post: What are Word Styles and how do you use them? In the next few posts I'll … Continue reading Use Word Styles for navigating around and restructuring your document

What are Word Styles and how do you use them?

You can easily format text in Microsoft Word with the options you can see in your Home ribbon. You can choose your font, font size, colour, bold and italics (character options) and also paragraph options like bullet points, alignment, indenting, spacing between lines and paragraphs, and lots more. With this manual formatting, you can create … Continue reading What are Word Styles and how do you use them?

What Word style is your text is formatted in?

Here are six ways to check what Word style your text is in (the last two are my favourites): Six ways to see your Word style Quick Styles gallery Styles pane Style Inspector pop-up Apply Styles pop-up (PC) Draft view Quick Access Toolbar (PC) Summary What next? Six ways to see your Word style Quick … Continue reading What Word style is your text is formatted in?

Microsoft Word skills for editors: basic to advanced

Many editors prefer the features and power of Microsoft Word – especially when copyediting – over Google Docs and other online and collaborative programs. So, even though the latter are increasingly being used for writing and producing documents, Word remains the standard program for editing documents. Nowadays it’s pretty much assumed that writers and editors have … Continue reading Microsoft Word skills for editors: basic to advanced

Tips and tricks: Using your screen’s hot spots

There are a couple of neat tricks you can use, but (naturally) they vary somewhat between PCs (I'm using Windows 10) and Macs (I'm still on OS X El Capitan – delaying my upgrade to Mojave because it will render my Word 2011 inoperable). Snap your windows in Windows To open your document or window … Continue reading Tips and tricks: Using your screen’s hot spots

Tips and tricks: Opening your Word document in multiple windows

It can be really useful to look at your Word document in two separate, independent windows. And it's very simple, but unless you've played around with the menu options you may not be aware of it. To see how it works, first open up a Word document. On my PC, I then go to the … Continue reading Tips and tricks: Opening your Word document in multiple windows

Tips and tricks: Transcribing interviews

The time-consuming task of transcribing can be speeded up with technology or by outsourcing – as long as, in both cases, the quality is good. Rachel Smith (of jobs list service Rachel's List), shared her interviewing and transcribing process in a blog post in 2017. She explains the services she uses for recording interviews and … Continue reading Tips and tricks: Transcribing interviews

Tips and tricks: Making a PDF more readable with bookmarks

Let's say you've created or edited a report – it's all nicely laid out and you will be saving it as a PDF file. Before you do, take some time to think about PDF bookmarks. With a bit of forethought, you can make the document much more user-friendly than a long, unstructured PDF. For one … Continue reading Tips and tricks: Making a PDF more readable with bookmarks

Book review: Make grammar great again

What do you do when Donald Trump becomes president of the United States? Stop watching the news? Book a flight into space? Hope the next four years will pass really quickly? Melbourne copyeditor Meredith Forrester took a more proactive approach. Irritated by the President’s language-mangling tweets, she took it upon herself to respond with corrections. … Continue reading Book review: Make grammar great again

Tips and tricks: Showing off your mark-up in PDFs

This is my latest tips and tricks, written for the Editors Victoria newsletter. One of the funny things about working as a freelance editor is that often you are not sure how familiar your author or client is with some of the software and techniques we tend to take for granted. Even editors vary in … Continue reading Tips and tricks: Showing off your mark-up in PDFs

Editing Indigenous content and other tips

I include a regular 'Tips and tricks' column in the Editors Victoria newsletter, linking to many online resources and tools. This month I wrote about editing Indigenous content – highlighting a discussion and resources presented at the national editors' conference in Brisbane last year. Other recent tips and tricks I've shared include: setting up Google … Continue reading Editing Indigenous content and other tips

Event: Finding work

The 22 February Finding work panel discussion (see previous post) was written up by Danielle Vecchio for the Editors Victoria March newsletter. You can read the summary of tips and ideas here.