Category Archives: Troubleshooting

The Right Way to Count Words in MS Word (using Shortcuts)

If you want to know how many words there are in a paragraph, or block of copy, select the text and click on Word Count. To create a keyboard shortcut to Word Count: From the Tools menu, click Customize. Select the Command tab and highlight Tools in the list of Categories. Scroll down the list […]

‘Find and Replace’ power searches in MS Word

What’s the quickest way to delete text?  Forget the backspace or delete keys. Instead, try this: Select the block of text you want to delete and CONTINUE TYPING. Word automatically deletes the text when you start to type. 

Why does text disappear when I type?

Have you ever started to type and then see your words starting to delete the sentence in front of them? Usually when you type in the middle of a sentence, Word inserts the new letters between the existing words – it pushes them to the right of the page as you type. However… sometimes Word […]

How to Write a Report?

To succeed as a report writer, you need to appreciate the mindset of your readers. Report writing is very specific. It’s there to help people make decisions. When you understand this, your approach to writing repots becomes much simpler. Instead of writing reams and reams of pages, you focus on the reader’s needs. Report writing […]

Evaluating Proposals

I was asked recently how to evaluate a proposal that had been sent to over 200 bidders. The Proposal Writer was thinking of developing a checklist and using this to score the bids. While this does make some sense, in reality such as checklist should have been prepared long before the RFP was published. Writing proposals […]

How to Scope Project Size

One of the classic mistakes novice writers make is to start writing without looking at the overall picture. Planning the scope of your project is key to its overall successful.  So, before you start writing, identify everything involved in the development of the project. By the way, this applies to any type of project, whether […]

Creating a New Style

To create a new style, follow these steps:  From the Format menu, choose Style and Formatting, and then click New Style.  In the Name box, enter a name for the style, for example, Paragraph Text.  In the Style type box, choose Paragraph. In the Style Based on box, select No Style. If you base it […]