Word to the wise

Posted on 27 Jan 2003 at 16:49

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

 1 of 12

Gallery

Word processing is not just about getting words on a page. With a little help from Janet Swift, you'll be producing professional-quality letters and documents in no time

The word processor is key to our use of computers and is the first application most users learn. Many of us think of it simply as an easy way to put words on a page, but you can produce highly professional-looking documents using nothing but your word processor. Programs such as Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect and the word processors in Microsoft Works and StarOffice contain numerous clever tricks which you can use to improve your output. Here we look at how to add those finishing touches.

Page Numbers
One of Microsoft Word's most irritating faults is that it allows you to create a multi-page document without page numbers. If you accidentally shuffle them as they come out of the printer, you can spend a lot of precious time trying to put them back in order. The Page Numbers command on the Insert menu appears to be a simple solution. However, there is little simple about it. There is so much scope within this single command that you can spend hours agonising about the possibilities - and you begin to realise why Microsoft ducked the issue and left us shuffling unnumbered pages.

Accepting the default options in the Page Numbers dialog gives you an ordinary numeral printed at the bottom right of each sheet of your document. While functional, this may not be quite what you want. The Page Numbers dialog gives you an easy way to choose the position and alignment of the number as well as its format, with choices including Roman numerals and alphabetic ordering. It also allows you to disable the number on the first page, as is appropriate for a letter. The Format section also gives you the opportunity to choose the starting number for your document, a feature that comes into play when you are contributing to a longer document. It also refers to chapter numbers and sections; we'll look at how to use these options later.

The choices for the location of page numbers are in the header or the footer of a document. As you don't have access to these by default when you are editing a document, they are often overlooked. However, if you have information you want repeated on every page, this is where it should go. A well-thought out header or footer is one hallmark of a professional-quality document.

Headers and footers
If you're working on a new document based on Word's Blank Document template, there is no visible clue as to the potential for headers and footers. To insert text in these areas, use the Header and Footer command on the View menu. (Corel WordPerfect is more logical and places its equivalent command on the Insert menu.) This switches into Print Layout view with the text in the body of your document dimmed and the header and footer zones indicated with dotted lines. It opens a toolbar that provides several useful automatic options, including a centred page number. Alternatively you can type directly into the two zones using the tab key to move between three regions: left-aligned, centred and right-aligned. If you want header or footer text to extend into the right and left margin, you can drag on the indent.

There are further options on the 'book' icon on the toolbar. This opens the Layout section of the Page Setup dialog box and allows you to set up different headers and footers for odd and even pages. This may not seem useful, but think of a book, where even pages have left-aligned numbers while on odd pages they are right-aligned. You can also make the first page different by, for example, inserting a header that acts as a reminder of the document's title, starting on the second page.