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Help me with MS Word styles
kfitting:
Glad the link helped. I found it recently because I'm trying to build my knowledge of word. I already know Excel (not 100% obviously, but fairly good) and have begun using Word more and more. One of the things I find interesting is that the more I learn about Microsoft Office the more impressed I am... in two ways:
1. Wow! They thought of that? That is awesome and amazingly helpful!
2. ... it is helpful, until you want to do X, which you'd think is a natural extension... Wow! They didnt think of that?
That holds true in Excel and Word. I assume that if I spent enough time with other Office products I would feel the same way. VBA is amazingly powerful and then you find some little quirk that renders it useless in a given situation (like certain properties or objects not being exposed). Word styles fit both of my amazements above!
Here are two other links I have been impressed with... they are not a direct, nor even an indirect answer to SuperBoyAC's initial question. But, along with the Shauna Kelly site mentioned above and the link I posted previously are my goto sites right now for Word questions.
Word MVP Site:
http://word.mvps.org/index.html
Word VBA Tips:
http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/word_tips.htm
cranioscopical:
Thanks for the links kfitting!
One of the enjoyable aspects of DonationCoder is the discovery of material, as in this topic, in which one is not particularly interested at first, that develops into worthwhile areas to explore. I don't use Word (except to view material sent to me by others) but it never hurts to learn a bit more about it, since it's so prevalent.
kfitting:
Sorry, have to add one more to the list (as I think back to when I was researching this I'm remembering more...). This site attempts to explain how Word looks at a document... it revolutionized my view of Word. Excellent read... cant recommend it enough.
http://daiya.mvps.org/wordpages.htm
It is just one of many EXCELLENT links from this page:
http://daiya.mvps.org/bookwordframes.htm
superboyac:
Sorry, have to add one more to the list (as I think back to when I was researching this I'm remembering more...). This site attempts to explain how Word looks at a document... it revolutionized my view of Word. Excellent read... cant recommend it enough.
http://daiya.mvps.org/wordpages.htm
It is just one of many EXCELLENT links from this page:
http://daiya.mvps.org/bookwordframes.htm
-kfitting (May 12, 2010, 10:02 AM)
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That is an awesome article. Man, kfitting, thanks so much.
40hz:
I don't mean to be rude, but...
Instead of telling me HOW to do this stuff or where to find information about it, could someone please instead just give me some templates that already have a bunch of styles for headings, numbering, bullets, etc. already customized nicely?
With the millions of Word users, there have to be some good templates out there. But I can't find any on Google. People have written long instructions and articles about how to do it, and how to understand it correctly. But can you just provide the end result please?? I really don't care if I understand it or not, I just want something that works and that someone has already put in the time to create.
I can't tell if the templates aren't available because people don't want to share their work, or if nobody has actually done it, yet they just like to explain how it can be done. The latter is a common thing i run into in work situations where you are trying to get something done. People talk and talk, yap yap yap, forever like they know everything about everything. But when it comes to actually DOING something, they seem to have a hard time with it.
-superboyac (May 11, 2010, 10:56 AM)
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No offense to anyone here, I love all the advice and help I receive here at DC, so this doesn't really apply here:
I've recently felt compelled to rant against certain forum habits. There are a lot of forums out there, lots of questions being asked, lots of answers being given. But occasionally, we're not necessarily looking for an explanation or an answer, we just want someone to give us the shortcut or the link to the place where the work is already done by someone else and we can just copy it or use it. I know it sounds lazy, but it's really not. It IS the answer.
I absolutely hate when the advice given is..."Just google it". Or even more snarky is when people actually post the google link (with the search words already entered). To me, that's being an a-hole. Fortunately, this doesn't happen here, but everyone knows what I'm talking about!
-superboyac (May 11, 2010, 06:06 PM)
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Actually, this topic came up in a different thread where some people were complaining about the level of chattiness up on the forum.
Although most were careful to qualify their complaints in various ways, what it all came down to was this:
When they asked about something, they didn't want to get into a discussion - they just wanted an answer.
Countering this desire was another group of people that somebody characterized as having a more "academic" approach. For these people, the process and insights gained by mutually arriving at an answer were, in many cases, more valuable than the answer itself.
It was a classic example of goal oriented thinking locking horns with process oriented thinking.
There was some back and forth on the subject, but no easy resolution seemed to be forthcoming. Here's the link if anybody's interested: https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=22523.0
It's an important topic. So if anybody has any insights about this that they'd care to share, please bop on over and add your comments to the mix.
I think I may actually have a idea that could work for both the process and goal oriented constituencies. But I'm still in the process of figuring out how to best present it. (Anybody care to guess which group I'm usually in? :mrgreen:)
Anyway, I apologize for going semi-off topic. But now that Aram has a ton of template info and examples to chew on, I figured he wouldn't mind.
Or at least not too much. ;)
:)
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P.S. @kfitting - The Creating a Template article by John McGhie was absolutely superb. He's following the same design approach a savvy Quark or InDesign user would use. I was amazed. I had no idea how extensively Word's formatting capabilities had evolved and improved over the years. One of the best articles I ever read about Word.
Great find!!! :Thmbsup:
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