Office 2016 For Seniors For Dummies (2016)

Part II

Word

For a guide on creating your own greeting cards in Word, visit www.dummies.com/extras/office2016forseniors.

Chapter 6

Taking Word to the Next Level

Get ready to . . .

Number the Pages

Use Headers and Footers

Insert Cover Pages and Other Building Blocks

Print an Envelope

Perform a Mail Merge

Insert the Date and Time

Word has so many features and capabilities that most people don’t even scratch the surface of what it can do. And that’s okay! Word is a good tool partly because it’s accessible at a variety of levels. I won’t try to transform you into a Word guru, but I do want to show you some fairly simple features that you can use to make a big difference in your documents.

I start this chapter by showing you how to number the pages of a document, and also how to create headers and footers that repeat the same text at the top or bottom of each page. Then I show you how to insert cover pages and other special-purpose elements — building blocks — that can add style and beauty to your documents with a minimum of effort.

And when you print a letter, you also often need an envelope, so I show you how to generate envelopes in Word (and how to feed them into your printer).

Finally, I tackle mail merge: merging a form letter with a list of addresses. This helpful Word tool really isn’t as hard as some people make it out to be.

Number the Pages

Have you ever dropped a stack of papers that needed to stay in a certain order? If the pages were numbered, putting them back together was fairly simple. If not, ugh: what a frustrating, time-consuming task.

Fortunately, Word makes it very easy to number your document pages. And you can choose from a variety of numbering styles and formats.

When you number pages in Word, you don’t have to manually type the numbers onto each page. Instead, you place a code in the document that does the numbering for you automatically. Sweet!

Here’s how it works. Each document has a header and footer area where you can place information you want repeated on every page. I explain more about headers and footers later in this chapter, but the important thing to know here is that when you use the Page Numbering feature in Word, it automatically inserts the proper code in either the header or the footer so that each page is numbered consecutively. These page numbers are visible only in Print Layout view, Read Mode, Print Preview, and on the printouts themselves. You won’t see the page numbers if you are working in Draft view, even though they are there.

For simple page numbering at the bottom of each page (the footer), follow these steps:

1. Choose Insert ⇒ Header & Footer ⇒ Page Number.

2. In the menu that appears, point to Bottom of Page. A submenu appears showing various samples of bottom-of-page numbering. See Figure 6-1. There are many samples; use the scroll bar on the list to see them.

3. Click a sample to select it. The code for the page numbering is placed in the document footer, in the format you choose.

For a plain page number, select one of the first three samples: Plain Number 1, Plain Number 2, or Plain Number 3. They are all identical except for the positioning of the number (at the left, center, or right, respectively).

4. To return to editing the main document (leaving the footer), double-click anywhere within the body of your document.

Figure 6-1

Notice in Figure 6-1 the other page number position options besides Bottom of Page:

· Top of Page: Places the page number code in the header (top of the page). The page numbers appear on every page.

· Page Margins: Places the page number code on the side of the page. The page numbers appear on every page.

· Current Position: Places the page number code at the insertion point in the document (as a one-time thing). Because the code is not in the header or footer, it doesn’t repeat on each page. It’s a one-time thing. You might use this to create a cross-reference to content that’s on another page, for example.

· Format Page Numbers: Opens a dialog box where you can fine-tune the formatting of the page numbering code, such as using Roman numerals or letters instead of digits.

· Remove Page Numbers: Removes existing page numbering code(s).

Use Headers and Footers

In addition to a page number, you can put other content in the header and footer areas of your document. For example, if you’re typing the minutes of a club meeting, you might want to put the club’s name in the header so that it appears across the top of each page.

Every document has a header and footer area, which are both empty by default. The header and footer appear in Print Layout view, Full Page Reading view, and Web Layout view, and also on the printed page. (If you are in Draft view, you might want to switch to Print Layout view to follow along in this section more easily.)

Here are two ways of putting content into them:

· Manually: In Print Layout view, double-click in the header or footer of the page. (Choose View ⇒ Views ⇒ Print Layout to enter Print Layout view if needed; see Chapter 1.) This puts you in the Header and Footer editing mode, where you can type text directly into those areas. SeeFigure 6-2.

The body of the document cannot be edited while you are in this mode. To resume working within the main part of the document, double-click the main document (anywhere below the header or above the footer).

· Let Word help: Choose Insert ⇒ Header & Footer ⇒ Header or Insert ⇒ Header & Footer ⇒ Footer and then select a preformatted header or footer placeholder. This also places you in Header and Footer editing mode automatically, and you can edit the text in the placeholders that were inserted. Depending on the sample you pick, there might be not only a text placeholder but also a page-numbering code. This saves you the step of inserting the page-numbering code separately. Figure 6-3 shows the Footer menu and an inserted footer.

Figure 6-2

Figure 6-3

You can manually insert a page-numbering code into a header or footer as well as codes for the current date, time, and other information. When the insertion point is in the header or footer area, the Header & Footer Tools Design tab appears on the Ribbon. On that tab are buttons for inserting various types of codes like that. See Figure 6-4.

Figure 6-4

Also in Figure 6-4, notice the check boxes in the Options group. Here, you can specify that you want a different header and footer for the first page (for example, so you can have a cover page without header and footer text), or that you want separate headers and footers for odd and even pages (for example, for a double-sided booklet where the page numbers should always be on the outside edge).

Finally, notice in Figure 6-4 that in the Position group, you can control the amount of space allotted to the header and footer. By default, each is one-half inch tall. You can change these values in the Header from Top and Footer from Bottom list boxes.

When you’re done working with the header and footer, double-click the main body of the document, or click the Close Header and Footer button on the Design tab.

Insert Cover Pages and Other Building Blocks

Many different document types can benefit from a good-looking cover page: a committee report, a proposal for a home business, or a family album. Word 2016 offers a large gallery of sample cover pages that you can insert in your document and then customize.

Cover pages are automatically placed at the beginning of the document, before the current first page. You don’t have to position the insertion point at the beginning of the document before you insert them.

To insert a cover page, follow these steps:

1. Choose Insert ⇒ Pages ⇒ Cover Page. A palette of cover page samples appears. See Figure 6-5.

2. Click the cover page you want to insert. It is placed at the beginning of the document.

3. Fill in the placeholders on the cover page as desired.

Figure 6-5

To delete a cover page, choose Insert ⇒ Pages ⇒ Cover Page ⇒ Remove Current Cover Page.

Cover pages are just one of several types of preformatted sample content that Word collectively calls building blocks. The page numbering samples I show you earlier in this chapter are building blocks, as are preformatted headers and footers.

To see all the building blocks that Word offers in one convenient place, choose Insert ⇒ Text ⇒ Explore Quick Parts ⇒ Building Blocks Organizer. This opens the Building Blocks Organizer dialog box, shown in Figure 6-6. From here, you can browse the various types of content and insert anything you find that looks interesting. Some of the content types include equations, tables, text boxes, and watermarks.

Figure 6-6

Print an Envelope

Envelopes are the natural companions of business and personal letters. Most of the time, when you print a letter, you also want an envelope for it. You can address the envelope by hand, of course, but printing an envelope is quick and easy in Word.

One nice thing about the Envelopes feature in Word is that it can automatically extract the mailing address from the letter, so you don’t have to retype it. It also stores your return address and recalls it for you each time you print an envelope.

If your letter contains the recipient’s name and mailing address, follow these steps to create an envelope for it:

1. Open the letter in Word.

2. Choose Mailings ⇒ Create ⇒ Envelopes. The Envelopes and Labels dialog box opens. If the letter contains a valid address, that address is automatically filled into the Delivery Address field, as shown in Figure 6-7.

3. (Optional) Type your return address in the Return Address field if it doesn’t already appear there.

If the return address appears but you don’t want to use it (this time only), select the Omit check box. (This keeps the return address on file for later use.) You wouldn’t want to use a return address if you’re using envelopes with the return address preprinted, or if you’re going to use stick-on return address labels.

4. Feed an envelope into your printer.

5. Click Print. The envelope prints.

Figure 6-7

If the envelope printing doesn’t go as you expected — say, it prints on the wrong side, or it’s not lined up correctly — you might need to try again and change the orientation at which you feed it into the printer. For example, you might need to feed it in sideways, rotated 180 degrees, or upside-down.

To avoid wasting an envelope, do a test print using plain paper. Draw an arrow on a piece of paper, and put it into your printer’s paper tray, face up, arrow facing in. Then print an envelope on that paper. The relationship between the printout and the arrow can tell you how to orient the envelopes you feed in. For example, if the arrow is on the reverse side from the printing, you know that envelopes need to be fed into the printer flap-up.

Perform a Mail Merge

A mail merge combines a list of names and addresses (that is, mailing information) with a form letter, a label, or an envelope template to produce customized copies of the letter for each person. Big companies use mail merge to mail customized advertisements, but it’s not just for businesses. Home users can take advantage of mail merge for Christmas card mailing labels, party invitations, club newsletters, and more.

The three steps to a mail merge are

1. Create (or identify) the data source.

2. Create the main document and then insert the merge codes in it.

3. Perform the merge operation between the data source and the main document.

Start with the options for data sources. The data source must be a delimited file. In other words, there has to be some consistent way that it distinguishes between one column or row of data and the next.

· Excel, Word table: If the data source is an Excel spreadsheet, as in Figure 6-8, each type of information is in a separate column. The same goes if the data source is a Word table.

· Plain text: If the data source is a plain text file, each column is delimited by a specific character, such as tab or a comma. In Figure 6-9, I used a comma. (When a delimited text file uses commas, it’s called a Comma Separated Values, or CSV, file.)

· Outlook: If the data source is an Outlook Contacts list, each type of information is in a separate field. Outlook Contacts are covered in Chapter 16.

· Word list: If you don’t have a data source already, you can use the Type a New List feature in Word to create one. Choose Mailings ⇒ Start Mail Merge ⇒ Select Recipients ⇒ Type a New List. See the upcoming Figure 6-10.

A data file shouldn’t contain anything except the data (and perhaps a single row of field labels, as in Figure 6-9 with Name, Address1, and Address2). There shouldn’t be any blank rows or titles at the top of the page because that confuses the Mail Merge utility. Check your data file to remove extraneous rows before using the file as your mail merge source.

Figure 6-8

Figure 6-9

Figure 6-10

After preparing the data file, you set up the main document. You can either create the main document from scratch, or you can start with an existing document and convert it to be a mail merge main document.

Of the different kinds of main documents you can have, letters, envelopes, and labels are the most common. In this chapter, I show you how to do a letter.

Follow these steps to set up your main document:

1. Start a new document, or open an existing one that you want to use.

2. Choose Mailings ⇒ Start Mail Merge ⇒ Start Mail Merge ⇒ Letters.

Next, attach the data source file to the main document.

1. Choose Mailings ⇒ Start Mail Merge ⇒ Select Recipients.

2. Choose the type of data source:

· Type New List: This command opens the New Address List dialog box. Use this dialog box (see Figure 6-10) to create new address book entries. (Click the New Entry button after each one.) When you’re finished, click OK. Then in the Save Address List dialog box that opens, assign a name to the new address list. You can reuse it for other mail merges.

· Use Existing List: This command opens the Select Data Source dialog box. Use this dialog box to select the Excel, Word, Notepad, or other file where you saved your data source. Then click Open to confirm your selection. If you choose a data source file that has multiple sheets or tables, a dialog box might prompt you to pick which one you want.

· Select from Outlook Contacts: This command opens the Select Contacts dialog box. (The first time you do this, you may be prompted to choose a profile. Go with the default one, Outlook.) Click the contact folder you want to use (there might be only one listed) and then click OK. Then in the Mail Merge Recipients dialog box that opens (see Figure 6-11), clear the check box for each record that you do not want to include in the merge, and then click OK.

Figure 6-11

Next, insert the field codes into the main document where you want the text to be pulled in from the data source. There are several ways to do this, depending on what you want. Place the insertion point where the field should appear, and then:

· If you want the recipient’s name and address to appear

1. Choose Mailings ⇒ Write & Insert Fields ⇒ Address Block.

2. In the Insert Address Block dialog box that appears, check the preview in the Preview area and then click OK.

· If you want to insert a greeting line (such as Dear Mr. Jones)

1. Choose Mailings ⇒ Write & Insert Fields ⇒ Greeting Line.

2. Check the preview in the Preview area and then click OK.

· To insert individual fields from the data source

1. Choose Mailings ⇒ Write & Insert Fields ⇒ Insert Merge Field.

2. Select the field to insert.

After all the codes are inserted where you want them, check your work.

1. Choose Mailings ⇒ Preview Results ⇒ Preview Results. The first record from the data source appears filled into the main document.

2. In the Preview Results group on the Mailings tab, click the right arrow button to move to the next record. Repeat that until you have checked all the records (or at least enough to be confident that you did things right).

When you preview the results, if you have used the Address Block option, you may find that there is more vertical space between the lines of the address than you might like. To fix this, preview the results, and then select all the lines in the address block for the first preview. On the Home tab, click the Line and Paragraph Spacing button in the Paragraph group and choose Remove Space After Paragraph. All the results are corrected.

Finally, time to print the letters.

1. Make sure you have the right kind of paper and enough paper in your printer, and that the printer is powered on and ready.

2. Choose Mailings ⇒ Finish ⇒ Finish & Merge ⇒ Print Documents.

3. In the Merge to Printer dialog box, click OK.

4. In the Print dialog box that opens, check the print settings (such as printer name), and change any if needed. See Figure 6-12.

5. Click OK.

Figure 6-12

Insert the Date and Time

Because you can just type the current date and time into a document, such as when you are writing a letter, you don’t need a special feature for that. However, Word offers a feature that inserts the current date and/or time in your choice of many standard formats so that you don’t have to worry about whether you’ve got the punctuation in the right place.

The best part, though, is that you have the option of making the date/time a field code, which is a fancy way of saying that the document knows to update the date/time information. So, for example, say you start a letter one day and don’t finish it until a week later. If you make the date/time into a field code, the date on the letter will reflect the date when you save or print it, without you having to manually change it. This is a handy feature when you always want the document to display today’s date, no matter what day you open it.

To insert a static (doesn’t change) date or time, follow these steps:

1. Choose Insert ⇒ Text ⇒ Insert Date & Time.

2. In the Date and Time dialog box that opens, (see Figure 6-13), choose the format you want. The actual date or time will come from the system clock (the date/time clock in Windows).

3. Clear the Update automatically check box if it is not already cleared.

4. Click OK.

Figure 6-13

To insert a date or time that updates automatically, follow these steps:

1. Choose Insert ⇒ Text ⇒ Insert Date & Time.

2. In the Date and Time dialog box that opens (see Figure 6-13), choose the format you want.

3. Mark the Update Automatically check box if it is not already marked.

4. Click OK to complete the insertion.

If you choose to insert the date/time as a code, it updates automatically whenever you open, save, or print the file. If you want to update it any time other than that, click the date/time so that a pop-up appears with an Update button in it. Click the Update button to update the code. You can also press F9, which updates all field codes in the document.