MS Word Formatting Tips

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MS Word Formatting Tips

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	MS Word Formatting Tips
Tip 1: Put one space after commas, colons and semicolons, periods in a reference, citation, or name.	Per the 6th edition APA Manual (pages 87-88), only put ONE SPACE after commas, colons, semicolons, and periods (and NO SPACE in abbreviations such as e.g., U.S.). While the APA Manual (6th Edition) rule is 2 spaces after the period at the end of a sentence (page 88), check with your school or publication, as many still require only 1 space.
Tip 2: Fixing page numbering	Does your Chapter 1 start on page 11 rather than page 1? Put your cursor on page one of Chapter 1. Go up to INSERT, PAGE NUMBER, and select FORMATTING. Put "1" in the START AT window. Click ok twice. NOTE: you MUST have a "next page" page break at the bottom of the previous page or Word will use the formatting from the front matter.
Tip 3: Formatting text	If you're having problems with the formatting of text (it's single rather than double spaced, has the wrong font style, etc.), use the STYLES settings in Word to fix them. If you are using BOLD PaperMaker, just put your cursor on the errant text (no need to highlight in most instances), go up to the BOLD Formatting toolbar, select BOLD Formatting and click the appropriate style (e.g., NORMAL for indented .5, double spaced)
Tip 4: Formatting headings	If you have a document with a Table of Contents, you must have headings formatted as headings or they will not show up in the TOC when you update it. To format a heading, put your just put your cursor on the heading, go to the Word style window in versions below Word 2007, to the HOME tab in Word 2007 or later, and select the appropriate heading level. If you are using BOLD PaperMaker, go up to the BOLD Formatting toolbar, select BOLD Headings and click the appropriate heading level.
Tip 5: Text is showing up in the Table of Contents	If text is in the TOC, then it is formatted as a heading. You can use the text in the TOC to hyperlink to its place in the body of the document (click or control+click on the text). Use the STYLES settings in Word to change them to NORMAL. If you are using BOLD PaperMaker, just put your cursor on the errant text (no need to highlight in most instances), go up to the BOLD Formatting toolbar, select BOLD Formatting and click NORMAL.
Tip 6: Remove hyperlinks from URLs in your reference section	Put your cursor over the URL, right-click, select Hyperlink, then Remove Hyperlink.
Tip 7: Remove those black lines along the left margin	These lines indicate changes when in TRACK CHANGES MODE. Go to TOOLS, TRACK CHANGES in Word 2003 or the REVIEW tab in the Word 2007 ribbon, and accept all changes in the document.
Tip 8: Indenting without the text having lots of extra spaces between words	If you hit ENTER after every line and then TAB or SPACE over when trying to indent an entire paragraph, you'll create problems when trying to add or delete words to this paragraph later. Instead, before (or after) typing the paragraph, go up to FORMATin Word 2003 or the HOME tab in the Word 2007 ribbon and click on PARAGRAPH. Indent the paragraph .5 and it will wrap around nicely without you having to hit ENTER or TAB or SPACE.
Tip 9: Creating gray-scale pictures	APA graphs and pictures should be grayscale. Click once on the figure and in the Word 2007 ribbon click on PICTURE TOOLS at the top right of your screen. In Word 2003, select the picture toolbar. Select RECOLOR on the left side of your screen (2007) and select grayscale.
See the BOLD PaperMaker USER MANUAL for more useful tips	PaperMaker© User Manual (NOTE: this is a LARGE FILE and will take some time to download) or view the BOLD PaperMaker tutorials at http://bold-ed.com/tutorials.htm
Let BOLD Educational Software formatters do the work for you.	BOLD PaperMaker software provides many features that automate Word formatting for your dissertation. BOLD Educational Software provides professional formatters to make your document print-ready for submission to your dissertation committee or a publisher.