Office XP Frequently Asked Questions
Are you the victim of a software upgrade? Had you finally learned the ins and outs of Office 2000 only to have Office XP installed on your computer? Does something about Office XP have you stumped? The answer may be in our FAQ!
No time to browse for your subject? Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and press the F key. Type a word that would appear in your question in the Find dialog box and press Enter. Your browser will scroll through the table of contents, stopping and highlighting when it gets to your word.
Special feature: Do you collaborate with others in the creation of Word documents? Learn how to use the track changes feature.
Will a file, created in a previous version of an Office program, work in XP?
Why do I see a Paste button in the middle of my document or spreadsheet?
Why is some of my text underlined in thin purple dotted lines?
How do you select text that continues onto the next page in Word?
How easy is it to create a pyramid diagram or a Venn diagram in Word?
Was the Reviewing Toolbar available in Word 2000 or is it new in Word XP? And what is it for?
Can you still apply animation schemes and custom animation in PowerPoint?
Why do my virtual notes in Outlook disappear when I close Outlook?
What happened to the Publisher Catalog and the Start Wizard button in Publisher?
Office XP is a suite of programs. You could have Office XP Professional, which includes Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and Access. Or, you might have Office XP Standard, which includes only Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint. (There is also an Office XP suite for Teachers and another for Developers.) Publisher, you might note, is not part of Office XP, but it is found on many YCLS computers, so I am including it in this FAQ.
The programs included in Office XP are the 2002 version. (I have simplified matters in this FAQ by referring to them as XP, which is not technically correct.) How can you tell what version you are using? Open Publisher or one of the programs included in the Office suite. Click on Help. Choose About [name of program] from the menu. A copyright dialog box will appear. The program version will be given at the very top of the dialog box.
Many files created in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2000 translate seamlessly into Word, Excel, and PowerPoint XP files. And, once opened in XP, you can go back and open them on a computer that is still running 2000.
Access is a little different. You can open an Access 2000 file in Access XP. What is different is that it remains in the Access 2000 file format. In fact, it looks identical in every way to Access 2000. "Access 2000 file format" is even appended to the file name. And so, of course, you can still open the file on a computer that is still running Office 2000.
Publisher is also different--in a different way. When you open a file created in Publisher 2000 in Publisher XP, the file is upgraded to an XP file. This is not a problem. However, when you try to open the file on a computer that is still running 2000, it will not open. If you find it necessary to open an XP file in 2000, you must open the file in XP and save it as a Publisher 2000 file.
Every time you open Word or Excel or PowerPoint, a task pane opens on the side of your screen, taking up over a quarter of your screen and squeezing your work space. You rarely use it. Usually you click on the X at the top of this pane and close it as soon as you see it. But wouldn't it be nice if it didn't open up at all--except when you wanted it? Is this possible?
Yes, it is. And it's very simple. Go to the program's Menu Bar and click on Tools. From the drop-down menu, choose Options.... In the Options dialog box, be sure you are looking at the View tab. Remove the checkmark from Startup Task Pane by clicking in the checkbox. Click on the OK button. The task pane will no longer appear when you open the program.
But suppose you need it? (For a template, for example.) That's easy too. Just click on File and choose New....
The Office Clipboard has a way of appearing when you don't want it and stubbornly staying hidden when you do. Using Office 2000, you have learned that, if it doesn't appear on its own when you need it, you can click on View > Toolbars > Clipboard and turn it on. It then appears, as a floating toolbar. You try the same thing in XP and - no Clipboard. Has it moved? Changed shape? Or is it gone from this version?
The Office Clipboard is still available in Office XP. However, it has moved. And it looks different.
To turn it on manually, you must click on Edit > Office Clipboard.... When you do, however, don't look for a floating toolbar. The XP Clipboard opens as a window pane on the side of your screen.
Unlike the 2000 version, it does not have its own Copy button. (Just use the one on the Formatting Toolbar.) As you cut or copy items, they are added to the top of the window pane.
You can still paste the items in the Clipboard one at a time, by clicking on them. And the Paste All button is still there, along with the Clear All button. (The latter is labeled in this version.) In addition, you can now delete a single item from the Clipboard, by clicking on the arrow to the right of the item and choosing Delete.
And finally, the XP Clipboard can hold 24 items, double that of the Office 2000 Clipboard.
In Word or Excel 2000, your own templates were always easy to find. All you
had to do was click on File in the Menu Bar and then click on New...,
a dialog box would open, and you would see them.
In Office XP, when you click on File and then New..., instead of
getting a dialog box, a window opens on the right side of the screen with a long
list of choices. Which one will take you to your templates?
If you store your templates in the default Templates folder, you will choose
General Templates... in the New from template section. When you
do, a dialog box like the one in Office 2000 will open and you will see your
templates.
In previous versions of Office, we were used to seeing the Paste button (the one that looks like a little clipboard) on the Standard Toolbar. Now, with Office XP, it keeps appearing in the middle of our document every time we paste something. Why is this happening? And how can we make it go away?
When the Paste button appears in your document, it is actually a Paste Options button. It appears so that you can make formatting changes without using the toolbar or dialog boxes.
It will appear whenever you paste text in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or Publisher. If you do nothing, the text will keep its original formatting. However, if you do not want to keep the original formatting, this tool can be quite helpful.
For example, suppose that you want to copy a block of text from a document done in Times New Roman 10 point and paste it into a document done in Arial 12 point. Click on the Paste Options button. A menu will drop down. Choose Match Destination Formatting. The pasted text will appear in Arial 12 point.
Or, suppose that you have copied some text from a Web page. When you paste it in Word, you get tables, colored text, and a variety of fonts and point sizes. What you want is just plain text. Look for the Paste Options button. Click on it and choose Keep Text Only. The tables will be gone and the text will appear in Word’s default format.
How do you make the button disappear once you are done with it? As soon as you press a key (type a character, press Enter, tap the space bar, etc.) the button will vanish.
You can also choose not to have the button appear. To turn it off completely, choose Tools from the Menu. Click on Options and then on the Edit tab of the dialog box. Below Cut and Paste Options, remove the check from Show Paste Options buttons and then click on OK. But think twice before you turn off this useful tool!
Sometimes, when using Word, words or phrases are underlined with a thin purple dotted line. (It is not the same squiggly red line that appears when something is not in the dictionary.) Why is this happening and what does it mean?
This type of line indicates a smart tag. In Word, smart tags are on by default. They can be used to perform actions in Word that you'd normally open other programs to do.
Smart tags appear when you type something that Word recognizes as an address (such as 159 E. Market St.) or a date (September 29, 2003). They can also appear when you type a time, a place name, or the name of a person you sent email to recently. (There are other options too, that are not on by default. Click on Tools > AutoCorrect Options… and then click on the Smart Tags tab for a list.)
How do smart tags work? When you see one, move your I-bar over the underlined text. A Smart Tag Actions button will appear. (It looks like a lower case i inside a circle.) Click on the button to see the actions you can perform, and then select an action. For example, if you have typed an address, you can choose Display Map. Word will open your browser and take you to the MSN Maps and Directions page where the address will be filled in for you. If you type a date, you can choose to Show My Calendar. Word will open Outlook, go to your calendar, and display that date.
There is a new tool on Office XP’s Standard Toolbar. It is fifth from the left, looks like a magnifying glass, and is named Search. When you click on it, it opens a task pane. At the top of the pane, it says Search text. Is this the same as Find in Office 2000?
It is not. Find is still there, under Edit. It is still the command you use to find a word or phrase in the text of your current document.
The Search text command is the same as the Search command on the Start Menu--when that is set it to look in all files and folders for a word or phrase in the content of the file.
Notice that you can specify which drive(s) and/or folders you would like to search. You can also specify exactly what types of files (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.) it should search.
Notice, too, that if you mistake this for the Find command, Find in this document appears under See also at the bottom of the pane. If you click on it, it will open the Find dialog box.
You are working on a long, multi-page document (in Word), which includes a variety of styles, including headings and a style or two that you created yourself. You remember that in Word 2000, when you clicked on the arrow beside the current style, a fairly short list appeared. It included, perhaps, the normal style, heading styles, table of contents styles, and the styles that you created. However, in XP you see a huge list, full of things like Normal + Justified and Heading 1 + 12 pt and Left 1". What is all this junk? And is there anything you can do about it?
In Word XP, the Styles list contains not only the built-in styles provided by Word but also any direct formatting that you apply. What this means is that every time you format something in the document, that variation is added to the Styles list. Make a word bold and Normal + Bold is added to the list. Change an indent and Left 0.25" suddenly appears. However, if, like me, you find this cluttered and confusing, you can simplify it:
Click on the AA icon to the left of the Style box. The Styles and Formatting pane will open on the right side of your screen. At the bottom you will see a drop arrow next to Show: Available formatting. Click on the down arrow and choose Available styles from the menu. You will now have a list containing only built-in styles and styles that you have created. (Note: This must be done for each individual file.)
You need to select a large block of text (in Word) that extends from one page to the next. You know that, in Word 2000, if you try to click and drag over it you will experience the "runaway scroll", with text flashing by at the speed of light--and you will end up with far too much selected. So, in Word 2000, you click at the beginning of the text, use your scroll bar to scroll down until you can see the end, hold down your Shift key, and click at the end. That selects everything between the clicks.
How do you do it in Word XP? You click and drag. Have you tried it? The runaway scroll has been eliminated. You can easily click and drag from one page to the next and maintain control the entire time.
In Word 2000, you can select only one block of text at a time. However, in Word XP, you can select multiple blocks of text. Simply select the first block of text, hold down the Ctrl key, and then select additional blocks.
Many of the standard selection techniques will work when multi-selecting, including: dragging over the text, double-clicking to select a word, triple-clicking to select a paragraph, clicking in the left margin to select a line, and double-clicking in the left margin to select a paragraph.
You are working in Word. You click on View > Header and Footer and type a header in the header space that opens at the top of the page. You think it would look nice with a line under it, so you click on View > Toolbars > Drawing to turn on the Drawing Toolbar. Then you click on the line tool and --good heavens, what is this? A HUGE box opens with Create Your Drawing Here printed inside it. What just happened?
In Word XP, when you click on a drawing tool (the line, arrow, oval, or rectangle, or an autoshape), what XP calls a drawing canvas opens. This might be fine if you wanted to create something elaborate, but it's a bit of overkill for a simple line or arrow. Want to turn it off?
Click on Tools in the menu bar. From the drop-down menu, choose Options. Click on the General tab. Remove the check mark from the Automatically create drawing canvas when inserting AutoShapes box.
When you needed a diagram in Word 2000, your options were limited. You could create an organizational chart by clicking on Insert > Object... and selecting MS Organization Chart. However, to create a pyramid diagram or a Venn diagram (remember those overlapping Boolean circles?), you had to use AutoShapes--so it wasn't quick and easy.
In Word XP, however, it is much easier. Click on the Insert menu and choose Diagram.... A nice, simple dialog box will open. From it, you can choose an organizational chart, a pyramid diagram, a Venn diagram, a target diagram, a cycle diagram, and a radial diagram. Each opens with a little toolbar that lets you modify the diagram.
In Word 2000, the Envelopes and Labels command appeared in the Tools menu. In XP, the Envelopes and Labels command is one step further into the menu. Notice the Letters and Mailings > command in the Tools menu. Point to it and another menu will pop out. In it you will find Envelopes and Labels -- along with the Mail Merge commands and the Letter Wizard.
In Word 2000, you clicked on the Insert menu and then chose Index and Tables... to add a table of contents or an index. In Word XP, you still click on the Insert menu, but then you must point to Reference > . A second menu will pop out in which you will find Index and Tables....