Our favorite Word Tips

At Inera, we’re all veteran users of Microsoft Word, and we’ve been sharing tips for getting the most out of Word for almost as long as we’ve been making eXtyles—both in our Word Tips for Editors training and in our monthly newsletter.

When we write up a Word Tip for the newsletter, our goal is to make your editing life easier, less frustrating, and more efficient. You can browse past newsletters to find tips that speak to you; here are some favorites selected by members of the Inera staff!

Tip #1: Extract embedded graphics from a .docx file

Published in the March 2018 newsletter, this tip is useful when you

  • Want to check whether the images in the .docx file you’re editing are as bad as they look (in which case, time to request higher-quality versions) or whether they were fine before Word auto-compressed them
  • Need to delete the images from the .docx file you’re editing but also save them separately, in their original format/s

This tip was championed by Robin Dunford, Senior Solution Architect; Jo Ripoll, Marketing Associate; and Bruce Rosenblum, VP of Content and Workflow Solutions.

Tip #2: Use the Clear Formatting shortcut

Published in the June 2017 newsletter, this is the shortest Word Tip we’ve ever written, but also one of the most useful!

This tip was championed by Joni Dames, Senior Solution Architect.

Tip #3: Make the most of the Navigation Pane

Published in the January 2019 newsletter, this tip is actually a whole cornucopia of tips on how to use the Navigation Pane to review and organize document content, including

  • Getting a bird’s-eye overview of your document
  • Moving sections or subsections within the document structure
  • Promoting and demoting headings (and the content that goes with them)
  • Adding or deleting headings or subheadings

This tip was championed by Jenny Seifert, Manager, Client Services.

Tip #4: Combine files using Insert Text from File

July/August 2020 newsletter, this tip is useful when you need to

  • assemble many document sub-components (e.g., separate front-matter elements; separate article text and tables) into a single Word file
  • collate contributions from many sources into a single Word file, in the correct order

This tip was championed by Liz Blake, Director of Business Development.

Tip #5: Explore the Restrict Editing tools

Published in the July 2018 newsletter, this tip is useful when you are sending an edited MS Word file to an author (or other collaborator) and

  • Need to make absolutely sure that their changes will be tracked
  • Want to prevent them from using or creating styles outside your template
  • Want comments on the document, but not edits to the text

This tip was championed by Sylvia Hunter, Marketing Manager.

Bonus Tip: Excel tips for Word users

For a double handful of ways that Excel can help Word users in general (and editors in particular), check out our blog posts Excel Tips for Editors, Part 1: Working with Numbers and Excel Tips for Editors, Part 2: Working with Text!

This tip was championed by Bill Fox, Director of Engineering.

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Want more Word Tips? Find them here!