The aim of this tutorial is to speed up some of the tasks connected with formatting assignments such as essays and dissertations. In it, you'll learn how to:

1. Quickly double space or single space whole sections at the click of a button
2. Easily and rapidly format block indented quotations
3. Easily and quickly put the author & date to the right under an indented block of text
4. Easily and quickly indent the second line of bibliographic entries
5. Automatically sort your bibliography alphabetically
6. Solve page-break problems
7. Use invisible tables to organise tabulated data
8. Remove unwanted formatting

There are two prerequisites for this tutorial. One is that you are familiar with using keyboard commands (shortcuts) to perform tasks like making things bold, for example. The second is that you:

• Don't use tabs to create tabulated data
• Don't try to put bibliographies in alphabetical order
• Don't use menus to single/double space
• Don't use the ruler bar for anything AT ALL
• Don't EVER use the spacebar to move text. If you've done this, you'll have to go through your entire document taking them all out before you begin. The only spaces should be those after a comma and after a full-stop. Anything else is illegal.

Ideally, you should have simply typed in all your text with no formatting, special line spacing or indents. If you haven't, do it this way next time.(back to top)

1. Quickly double space or single-space whole sections at the click of a button

1. Select the text that you want to double or single space

2. Press the CTRL button

3. With the CTRL button still depressed, press "2" on the keyboard for double spacing, or "1" for single spacing.

4. The selected text will now be double spaced/single spaced.

You'll see from this that if you're formatting a long document like a dissertation, where the majority of your spacing will be double, with some instances of single, it makes sense to select the whole document, double space it, and then go through selecting passages to be single spaced and pressing CTRL+1. You'll also see that formatting paragraph by paragraph as you go is a waste of time. (back to top)

2. Easily and rapidly format block indented quotations

1. Select the quotation to be indented

2. Single space it as in (1) above

2. Press CTRL + M

3. That's it

4. To reverse the process, press SHIFT CTRL + M (back to top)

3. Easily and quickly put the author and date to the right under a block indented quotation

1. Make sure that the author and date is on a new line after the quotation

2. Place the cursor anywhere in the line containing the author and date

3. Press CTRL+R. This will align the author and date to the right margin

4. To return to normal (left aligned typing), press CTRL+L (back to top)

4. Easily and quickly indent the second line of bibliographic entries

1. Select the whole bibliography

2. Press CTRL+T

3. To undo any text that doesn't need a second line indent, press SHIFT CTRL + T

5. Automatically sort your bibliography alphabetically

1. Select the whole bibliography

2. Go to the "Table menu" (it's not a table, I know, but just believe me, it works)

3. Select "Sort Table"

4. By default, you should be offered the option to "sort by paragraphs" - Click "OK"

5. Sit back and enjoy the show as your bibliography is automatically put into alphabetical order.

6. Work out how long you have spent doing this by hand, and kick yourself for not reading this page earlier

How does it work? Well, Word treats your bibliography as if it were a table with only one column. It treats paragraphs as the equivalent of rows. When you select the bibliography, it looks for the first letters of each paragraph, and ignores everything else, and then sorts it alphabetically. If you have typed like a rational human being, and not entered any carriage returns in the middle of your bibliography, it should work like a dream. The one thing you have to watch out for, though, is multiple entries by the same author. These should be sorted in reverse date order, but Word can't do this for you - if you've got multiple entries like this, you'll have to put them in the right date order yourself. (back to top)

6. Solve page break problems

1. To force a page break at a particular place, press CTRL + Enter

2. To remove a page break, go into "Normal" view, by pressing ALT + V + N

3. Click on the dotted line with "page break" on it

4. Press delete

5. To return to "Page Preview" mode, press ALT + V + P (back to top)

7. Use invisible tables to organise tabulated data

1. Go to the "Insert Table" icon
2. Select the number of columns you want
3. When the table appears, select it all (ALT + A + A)
4. Select 'no borders' with the 'borders and grids' tool
5. Use the table as a grid for entering information

You'll still see grey gridlines on the page, but these won't appear when you print it - they're just gridlines, not borders. If you want to see what the text will look like when it's printed, select the 'no gridlines' option -

a) Select the table (ALT + A + A)

b) Press ALT + A + G to take out the gridlines

c) To see them again (it's pretty hard see what you're doing unless you have them enabled!) press ALT + A + G again

This is very useful for entering information where you have only one line in one column, but more lines in the second one. For example, in a CV, where you have titles like 'name, address, telephone number" etc. You can use tabs to enter your name and telephone number, but as soon as you have more lines with the address, for example, it becomes a problem.

RAD syllabus books are written in this format - there are three columns of information across the page, with varying amounts of information in each. It's done by using an invisible table like the one you've learned to create in (7) above. (back to top)

8. Remove unwanted formatting

1. Select the text which is not behaving as you would like it to

2. Press SHIFT + CTRL + N

3. All formatting (bold, italics, margins, indents, etc) will disapppear, and you can start afresh. (back to top)

 

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