Now most people know that you can use Find and Replace in Word to find a word and replace it with something else. Particularly useful if you have misspelled a word throughout your document and need to correct it everywhere. Did you know however that you can also find and replace formatting or special characters?
Today I am going to show you how to find and replace formatting – you can try out the other things yourself.
Find and replace formatting
Here’s how:
First of all click on the Replace icon(1) under Find on the Home Ribbon – you will then be offered the Replace Dialogue box (2) where you can choose what kind of things to look for and to replace. At the bottom click the Format button and then Chose the Format to look for (3) in my case Heading 1. Next you are offered the box asking for the style to replace it with (4) in my case Heading 2. Then you will see the Replace dialogue with Style Heading 1 and Style Heading 2 (5). Now decide if you want to Find Next or Replace or Replace All. I chose Replace All and Word goes off and does its thing and tells me that it made 48 replacements (6).
Have you used this?
Is this tip useful?
Leave a comment below and let me know ! I love to hear from my readers.
p.s Remember to use the coupon code – WORD15 at the checkout on any of my Word courses. You may like the How to Create and eBook and Lead Magnet course as it covers a whole host of things in Word, from creating and applying Styles, to adding a Table of Contents, Adding pictures and captioning them – working with Tables and a whole host more. Use WORD15 at the checkout. Go to Courses to see the full list of what is available.
Templates help speed up work. A template will hold formatting such as Styles and Margins plus any standard text that is needed. Templates can be created for many purposes, a standard letter, a letter of engagement, anything that will save you time if you have it as a starting point. As a busy VA you likely work with several clients.
When you start a new blank document, you are using the Normal Template. Note that the font, alignment, margins and styles are all set.
If you need headed paper to include your logo, house styles and some standard text then a template is what you need.
Start a new document based on a template
Note that you are looking at Featured templates. Here Microsoft offers you a selection of templates to choose from
Click Personal and you will see any templates that you have created and saved yourself.
Choose the document template you want to use, and the document will open.
Create a template from scratch
Set up the document, adjust the margins add any standard text, add Headers and Footers etc.
Click File and then Save As
Click Browse
Name the template and change the document type to Word Template
The save location will change to Custom Office Templates – a folder that Word created in your Documents Folder
Click Save
Modify a template
You saved the template and then realise that you need to change something. You must open the actual template from the folder you saved it to and make changes and then save. If you just start a new document based on the template, you will not be changing the template, just the copy.
Navigate to the Custom Office Templates folder
Right Click on the template you wish to amend
Choose Open
The Template will open – you will see its name at the top of the document not just Doc 3
Make the changes and then click Save
Once you have saved the changed, close the template to avoid making any further changes to it.
Now that you can see how easy it is to create a template and how much time it will save you when creating your standard documents, you can learn how to make it even more time saving by changing the Styles.
Create templates for each client you have with their own branded style gallery! Huge Time Saver- Huge!
To learn how to apply, modify and create styles take my Work Smarter with Style Course – there is a Windows Version and a Mac Version. As a reader of my blog, you can get 15% off by using the coupon code WORD15 at the checkout!
You know the drill. You are working on a document or rather there are two. You need to copy some things from one to the other maybe its text or a picture. Normally you would have the two documents open and use the task bar to switch between them. Did you know you can view the two documents side by side? Thought not. It is something that is not widely used and is very useful.
How to view two documents Side by Side in Word (on Windows)
Start off by opening the first document to work on. Then open the second document to work on.
Click on the View Ribbon and then the icon View Side by Side (it may be really tiny)
Word will ask you which documents to show side by side –
In this example I have open – this document (Document3) the document on screen is 10 Tips for Faster Working in Excel 2016 and the document open in the dialogue box is 10 Tips for Faster Working in Excel for Mac. I want to display the two tip documents side by side to compare them, so I will choose the 10 Excel Tips for Faster Working for Mac from the list.
Nest Word will open both documents side by side
When you open them, Word will also switch on Synchronous Scrolling so that as you scroll through one document you stay in the same place on the other. You can turn this off if you want by clicking on the icon.
So, what do you think of this week’s tip? Useful? How will you use it? Leave a comment below!
P.S – Online Courses for Microsoft Word : Work Smarter with Style ( for Windows or Mac) Learn all about using Styles in Word. Create eBooks and Lead Magnets with Ease – all the things you need to create an eBook or Lead Magnet in Word. Go to Courses to pick the one you want. You can get 15% off any of the Word courses by using this coupon code at the checkout WORD15.
What do you do that others think is like Smoke and Mirrors?
Today March 29th is Smoke and Mirrors day. I know an odd kind of day to mark but it got me thinking. How much of what each of us does appears to be like Smoke and Mirrors or Magic to others?
I was reminded of this recently when helping a client. She had written a huge dissertation, something like 70,000 words! Amazing work. Now all she needed to do was to format it.
The problem was, that she first came to see me when she was half way through and she had not thought through how the document should look.
When working on a very long document, you need to think through a few things and set them up before you start!
Styles
I know I have written about Styles before, but you can’t say enough about them. Styles control the way your document looks and behaves and are essential for generating a Table of Contents.
Now my client, sat with me for a few hours whilst we went through the whole document. Deciding what the Heading levels were and how they should look and how many levels of heading styles there would be too.
We set them all up along with a couple of other styles needed for making things stand out in a particular way.
So far so good. Off my client went to write some more and finish a couple of sections.
A couple of weeks later she was back. She had added several chapters and a lot more words and was very conscious that she would need to cull or rewrite. So we set about fixing the rest up.
Oh No
When left to her own devices, my client had forgotten some of what we had done. As a result, she had forgotten to apply the Styles we had so lovingly created and had simply applied direct formatting.
So what is direct formatting?
Glad you asked. Direct Formatting is when you apply bold or italic or change the font or size or colour to a selected piece of text. When you do this, the text is not in a Style and the Table of Contents will not find it. Apart from that, she had applied styles to images in the document or tables and they were now showing up in the Table of Contents.
Here is where Smoke and Mirrors come in
Together we were able to go through the document on her last visit (her third) and apply the correct Styles to the headings. When things appeared in the Table of Contents that shouldn’t have, I was able to work out why and correct it. My client really thought it was magic.
It was not Smoke and Mirrors or Magic, just that I have invested a lot of time and effort in learning how Microsoft Office works! I know the ins and outs and I also have the ability to transfer that knowledge so that my clients and students can go on to create amazing work in each of the Microsoft Office packages, be that Word, Excel, PowerPoint or Outlook.
Courses for all
Of course, I can’t write all this without reminding you that I have a whole school of courses including one called Work Smarter with Style! ( available for both Windows or Mac) this course will teach you everything you need to know about using modifying and creating Styles in Microsoft Word.
How to Use Mail Merge in Word 2016 - Free User Guide
Do you feel like the image above when you need to mail merge a whole bunch of people? Makes your head ache right? Where do you start and what kind of merge do you do and what is this Mail Merge thing anyway?
Well I was asked in a Facebook Group I belong to, if I have a blog post on How to Perform a Mail Merge and I had to admit that I have not yet written one. I have however written a book about Microsoft Word 2016 which I use with my classroom based students and there is an extensive section on Mail Merge included.
What Makes Up a Mail Merge?
A mail merge is made up of three elements.
The source document
Word Document – create a document that can be sent to many different people
Email message – when you need to create a standard email that goes to many recipients and each one needs to be personalised or addressed to each individual, then a mail merge is the way to go.
The list
You can have the list of the data in:
A Word Table
An Excel Spreadsheet
Outlook Contacts
The Merge
Once you have the list and the document you can go ahead and create the Merged Document.
Mail Merge from an Excel List
The first step is to set up your data list in Excel. Perhaps you have inherited one, or it may have been exported from a database. You may also need to do some cleaning up of the structure of the data.
In your Excel list, you need Headings at the top of each column. Each column represents a field. A field in the merge document is a placeholder for text that changes with each record. A record is all the information held about each individual person in the list.
Here is a snapshot of my data
Now that I have a list, I can get on with creating the document and the merge process.
DOWNLOAD: Using Mail Merge in Word 2016 to Personalise Your Mailings
The Mailings Ribbon
The starting point for your mailing is the Mailings Ribbon.
The first two icons are for creating Envelopes and Labels – will discuss those separately they are for individual envelopes or a sheet of just one label. The mail merge process moves from left to right through the ribbon depending on where you are up to in the process.
Start Mail Merge – this button is where you set what type of document you are creating for this merge. Your choices are:
Create a letter
Start the Mail Merge and select Letters from the drop-down list.
Nothing much appears to happen. Next step is to Select the Recipients so that Word knows where to go and fetch the data from. There is a choice of three options for the data.
Type a new List – this will pop up a form for you to fill in and create a list on the fly – it’s ok for small lists, however in most cases you will already have a large list stored elsewhere.
Use an Existing List – this is what we are doing here as the list already exists in Excel.
Choose from Outlook Contacts – this is where we can pull our data in from information held in Outlook People.
In this example click Chose Existing List.
Navigate to where the list is stored and select it. Word may direct you to a folder where it stores Data Connections, however you can store your list where ever you wish.
As this list is in an Excel Workbook, Word will prompt you to select the correct worksheet or range.
Note the check box that says First row of data contains column headers – this is very important You should have a row of column headers in the spreadsheet that are formatted differently to the rest of the data.
Edit Recipients
The list that you have may be very large and it is possible that you do not need to write to everyone on the list. Word allows for this and there is an option to exclude recipients.
Untick anyone you wish to exclude from this mailing.
Use the tools provided to filter and sort the data and to validate the addresses or find duplicates.
DOWNLOAD: Using Mail Merge in Word 2016 to Personalise Your Mailings
Build up the Letter
Now we need to build the structure of the letter and let Word know where to put the fields that will be different for each recipient.
Insert Merge Fields
Merge Fields are the placeholders or codes that tell Word which information to pull in from your list.
There are several options for adding them.
Address Block
This inserts a whole block in a specified format which you can choose. Click on Address Block and you will see the following dialogue box enabling you to test out how you want things to look.
Greeting Line
The greeting line is a pre-set line of introductory text to your letter. You set how you want this to start by picking the relevant options
You can choose whether it says Dear or To and then choose the greeting line for recipients where you don’t have enough information.
Insert Merge Fields
My personal favourite is to insert the individual Merge Fields in the location that I want them in the document. This gives me complete control over how things look.
Place the cursor where the Merge Field should go and then choose it from the list.
What do the fields look like?
The fields will look a bit odd when you first see them. To see the information they relate to you will need to preview the results.
Address block and Greeting Line
Merge Fields
Preview Results
Click on Preview Results in the Mailings Ribbon and Word will show you how the finished Merge will look.
DOWNLOAD: Using Mail Merge in Word 2016 to Personalise Your Mailings
Finish and Merge
This is it! You have created your merge document have previewed it and now are ready to finish it off.
Letters1
When the document has been merged, a new document is created. This is called Letters1 (each time you do this the number may change). The merged result can be printed. However, it should not be saved. It is a larger document than the original merge document and if you intend to send this out later, the names to whom you send it may have changed or been added to.
Each time you perform the merge, the most up to date list is used so if you keep on adding or taking people out of the data list, the result will be different.
What should I save?
Save the data list – you can continue to update it.
Save the document with the merge fields in – this is then ready for you to perform the merge at any time. The merge fields keep the document connected to the data source and so the end result will always be up to date.
Discard the Letters1 document – it only takes a moment to recreate.
Wait there is more!
In this post I have shown you how to use Mail Merge to create a letter when the data source is in Excel. There are other types of merge. You can merge to email, to a directory - where each line has the same structure - great for a catalogue for example. Your data list can be a Table in Word, an Excel List or Outlook Contacts.
To see how to do all of those download my free User Guide which includes everything here, plus loads more.
Once you have seen how to perform a Mail Merge you will be up and running.
Do you work with a VA?
When you have so many tasks to do to run your business, working with a VA makes a lot of sense. Sending out a mailing is one of those tasks than can easily be outsourced to a Virtual Assistant.
Download the Free User Guide and save it on your system or print it off so that you can refer to it next time you need to perform a Mail Merge - or get one for your VA!
DOWNLOAD: Using Mail Merge in Word 2016 to Personalise Your Mailings
A Lead Magnet is something that helps you to grow your email list. If you are selling a product or a service, then you will be growing your list of people to sell to. Subscribers to your list are already interested in what you have to say so that makes offering them other information and products much easier.
Types of Lead Magnet you will find:
Checklist
Free PDF
Report
eBook
Video
Tutorial
In fact, anything that your readers and ideal client will find of use. The more useful the better!
Why do I need one?
If you want to generate leads online, then your business needs a lead magnet. People just won’t give you their email address and let you into their Inbox unless they feel that what you are offering is of value to them. To promote your business, it’s your job to offer a fantastic Lead Magnet.
What does my Lead Magnet Need to Do?
Solve a problem – give your idea reader the solution to a problem they are struggling with.
Promises a Quick Win – It should help them easily achieve something
It should be super specific – the more specific the Lead Magnet the better it will work
Instantly Accessible – your reader should gain access to the Lead Magnet just as soon as they have given you their details.
Demonstrate your expertise – A great Lead Magnet will demonstrate that you are the expert and the right person for the job.
Can I use Microsoft Word to Create One?
Well as a Lead Magnet is usually a checklist, whitepaper, report or eBook, you can use Microsoft Word to create it and then save it as a PDF so that people can download it easily.
Microsoft Word has all the tools you need to enable you to create an awesome Lead Magnet or eBook.
You can set up your template to include your brand elements, colours, logos, fonts etc. Then use all the different tools available to you such as adding Tables, Pictures, Icons, Smart Art. Then you have automatic features like AutoCorrect and AutoText which will help you speed up when you have standard paragraphs or blocks to add.
If you are offering an eBook as a Lead Magnet, then you may want to include a Table of Contents and/ or and Index.
But Shelley – that sounds like an awful lot of tools that I have never used!
If you are not sure what some of those things are and would like to learn more, I have you covered – well you would expect that wouldn’t you?
Create eBooks and Lead Magnets with Ease is my latest course. It includes all the tools mentioned above and you will walk away being able to create any kind of eBook or Lead Magnet.
In just two and a half hours you will learn how to:
Change the Paper Size and what it means for your margins
Adjust the page margins
Add Headers and Footers
Add Section Breaks and have different headers and footers for different sections of your document
