Are you using the right program?

I was chatting with my friend, Greg, who started out as a student in a class.  He reminded me of a thing that I used to do.  Some things seem harder than they actually are.  So when I was about to teach them one of those items, I'd put the back of my hand to my forehead, and sigh, "so much work, so much work, it's going to take hours to do this".  I would then do it in about 30 seconds and have time to do what I wanted to get done.

Looking at my last post, I talked about the table column format and changing it to regular columns. As you can see from this picture that the table has multiple columns.

You could spend hours separating this into one long column, or you could do it in a few minutes.  How??

Copy the entire table to Excel.  The table format in word will copy directly over to Excel.  Each cell of the table will go into a separate cell in Excel.

I then moved the 2nd column's data to the bottom of column 1st.  Repeat as necessary.

Once you have the data all in one column and sorted the way you want, copy and paste it back into Word....but there's a trick there too.  If you just paste, you'll have it in a grid.  The secret is to paste it into Word as text only. 

Next step is to treat it like any other text you want in columns.  Select the text and choose columns and how many you want.  Voila!  You're done, and it was almost as fast as putting your hand to your head.

Columns, Columns Columns -- Which way do I go?

I'm working on a project, and I've inherited the file.  It's been used by many different people with different skill levels.

I have three tables that contain columns of data.

One is done "correctly" and two aren't.  See my next entry on the tricks to get this fixed easily. 

There are multiple ways of creating columnar tables: 

Typewriter style.  In this method, a tab stop is set at each point where you want a column to start and type "Communications <tab>Horticulture<tab>Records Management <return>
Community Affairs <tab>Human Resources<tab>recruiting<return>" and so forth.

The problem with this if someone wants to insert or delete an entry, getting everything back in alpha order in each column is nearly impossible.  Many man hours would be used to get it correct if it's a lengthy list.

Table Style.  In this method, you'd use the Word Table option.  You would insert as many columns as you would need to show your data.  If I decided to change the number of columns or changed the entries, I would have the same problems as you would with typewriter version.

I like this method instead of doing a tabbed table, but I don't like it for columns of data

You can turn off the grid, so no one seeing a printed copy knows that you used a table, but you have the same problem with column data as you do with the tabbed table.  Moving entries from column to column would be very tough.   If you've inherited a table like this, see the next entry on how to quickly fix this to a column table

Column tables.  Column tables are perfect for this application.   When you delete or add entries, Word automatically moves the entries from one column to the next as needed.  Editing is very quick and easy. 

To do a column table, you will need to use section breaks.  Section breaks can be your friend or your enemy.  Section breaks can be used to do page breaks, make sure that the next page of a chapter starts on the odd page.   Section breaks are also used when you need to make sure that Word will follow your command.   If our document was all multiple columns, then you wouldn't need section breaks.  But most of us go back and forth between one and multiple columns. 

A basic tenent in Word's philosophy (and explains a lot of why things are setup as they are) is they expect you to just type in all your text, no formatting.   When you've finished typing all your text in, then Word expects you to go back through and format it.  Select then do is the one thing to remember with Word.  Those of you who are old enough to remember Word Star and Word Perfect, it is a mind shift to understand Word.

Since Word's philosophy is get the text in, and then select and do, type all your data one after another, such as

Calculate

Catalogue

Chaired

Clarify

Classify

Coach

Collect

Once you've gotten your list in, then select the entire list, and then choose columns.  The basic column choices are 3 even columns.  If you need to change them, then choose more columns. 

By doing the select and do, Word will automatically insert the continuous section breaks before and after.  Now you can delete words, and Word will move the data up.  If you add, it with push the entries below down.



Give it a try.  Remember, playing when it's not crunch time, will help when you do have to do it in a crunch.

Next entry:   How to get the data from a table format into a columnar one. 

Lexi

If you're struggling, you're doing it wrong

One thing that I have found in my years of teaching MS Office is, if you are struggling to get it to do what you want, you're doing it wrong. 

Nothing I have ever had to do, was I the first person to do it, or that it hadn't been thought about. 

The purpose of this blog is to help with the thought and concepts behind why you do the tasks, makes it easier to understand how to do the task.

Please let me know if there things you don't understand or suggestions!

Lexi