Open Word or Excel document read-only - add context menu item

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If you'd like to right-click on a Word or Excel document in Windows Explorer to open it as read-only, supposedly you should be able to hold down the Shift key, rightclick on the filename, and there should be an option to "Open as Read-Only".

However, choosing this Shift-rightclick option doesn't actually open the document as read-only. This seems to be a known bug in Office 2003 and Office 2007, and also in Office 2010 and Excel 2010.

There's one workaround and one fix.

Open in protected view

The workaround is that, if you Shift-rightclick on a Word or Excel .xls file in Windows Explorer, there's also an option to "Open in Protected View".

Choose that, and it works pretty much as read-only: you can't change anything, you can't save, but you can copy/paste from that document. This works for Excel as well as Word.

Rightclick context menu item

What solves the problem completely in Word, which I used myself, is to edit things to add a new rightclick Open Read-only context menu option that actually works to open Word documents as read-only. I based this solution on a combo of this post (which wasn't actually on opening read only) and this page (about opening read-only, but for XP only, not later versions of Windows).

Here's how to add a right-click context menu item to open Word files as read only, properly - works for me using Windows 7 and Word 2010:

First, download FileTypesMan (free, but donate if you can, the man certainly deserves it!) - you have to scroll quite a way down for the "Download FileTypesMan" link (I used "Download FileTypesMan for x64" as my computer is Windows 7 Pro 64-bit).

Next, unzip/extract the files (rightclick on the zip fiule downloaded and Extract all to create a new unzipped folder) and open the new folder, then run FileTypesMan.exe.

On the left, scroll down till you find and highlight .docx (or use menu Edit > Find and and type docx to find it, make sure you then highlight that line):

Now in the menu choose Actions > New Action (or press Ctrl-n).

In the box that pops up, fill it in like this (and see diagram just above the list):

• Action name - I used  "Open read-only" without the quotes, you could just use "Read only" etc as you prefer
• Menu Caption - I used "Open read-only" again
• Command-Line - you can click Browse to find your Winword.exe under Program Files or Program Files (x86) (you will have to drill down to find Microsoft Office, Office14 or Office11 etc depending on your version), or Select from Running Programs if Word is already running, which is the easiest. You could alternatively enter the full path to Winword.exe, with quotes around it, as shown below, but it's easiest to Select from Running Programs (you can launch Word just before you click Select and it should work, just scroll down to find it in the "Select Process" list, possibly to the end):

After you've used Browse or Select, it will fill in the Command-Line box for you with something like this:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE" "%1"

Now, you have to edit what's in the Command-Line box, by inserting after the "%1" the following (which you can copy/paste from the next line) - just after the 1 but before the close double quotes, and make sure there's a space between the 1 and the first /:
/h /n /dde

In my case, the Command-Line box ended up reading like this:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE" "%1 /h /n /dde"

Next, in the DDE section in the Message box, you should enter  the following, which again you can copy/paste:
[AppShow][REM _DDE_ReadWriteOnSave][FileOpen .Name="%1",.Revert=0,.ReadOnly=1]

(In the Application box you can enter Word if you like, but it will still work even if you don't.)

Finally, click OK. This adds a new Action to the bottom half of the FileTypesMan window, which you can doubleclick to edit in future.

Now, when you rightclick (no need to hold down the Shift key) a docx document in Windows Explorer, you will have a working "Open read-only" menu option (or whatever title you gave it in the "Menu caption" box above).

Furthermore, in FileTypesMan you can select (in the lefthand column) the type .doc for old-style Word documents, and rinse and repeat the steps above, if you wish.

Excel protected view - rightclick only

For Excel spreadsheets, unfortunately the above fix doesn't work, so you have to open them in protected view.

But to make life easier for yourself, you can use FileTypesMan to change things so that you don't have to Shift-rightclick to get the "Open in Protected View" menu option. Here's how to get that option to display just on a simple rightclick:

In FileTypesMan, find and highlight.xls on the left (scroll or search, as with docx above).

Now in the bottom half of the window, find and doubleclick "ViewProtected" (outlined in red above).

In the box that pops up, UNtick "Extended", and OK:

Now a simple rightclick, as opposed to Shift-rightclick, will call up the "Open in Protected View" option.

Stop Word from reducing all windows!

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Too many times, when I want to close the current window in Word, I accidentally hit Alt-F5 (instead of Alt-F4) which means it then 'restores', ie reduces the size of all my open Word documents. Every single one of them. I then have to maximise them one by one, individually going to each window first. This is a big annoyance as there is no single command to 'Maximize all windows' in Word, as far as I can find. What a pain.

My solution or workaround, short of finding a way to maximise all Word document windows together at once in one go, is this fix: simply disable the Alt F5 hotkey! Then it does nothing if you hit that combo inadvertently, instead of reducing all your Word windows to tiny unusable ones.

Here's how to disable that hotkey.

1. In Word, rightclick an empty spot in the toolbar and choose "Customize the Ribbon".
2. Towards the bottom against "Keyboard shortcuts", click the "Customize" button (outlined in red below):
3. Now on the left under Categories, scroll down to highlight "All commands":
4. Then click in "Commands" at the top right, and scroll down to find and highlight "App Restore".
5. Under "Current keys" (outlined in red above) it should now show "Alt+F5".
6. Click on the line that says "Alt+F5", then click the button (also outlined in red, above) saying "Remove".
7. Then click the "Close" button.
8. Then "OK".
9. That should be it, you should be rid of this nuisance!

Get rid of Word pop up on selecting text

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After you select text in Word 2007 or Word 2010, a rectangle pops up with options for font type, font size, bold etc etc:

This is meant to provide helpful "quick access to formatting tools". In reality, it's always getting in the way of editing, for me and many others.This annoyance that pops up on selecting text drove a friend crazy for years, as she didn't realise that you can turn it off! But if you don't know what that box of formatting menu options is called, you can hardly search for help on the internet to figure out how to disable it…

Well, it's called the 'mini toolbar'. And you can stop it from popping up all the time like a maddening 'son of Clippy'. Here's how.

Word 2010

Go to menu File > Options.

In the General section, under "User Interface Options", UNtick "Show Mini Toolbar on selection".

Then click OK, and that's it!

Word 2007

Go to Word Options (which you get to via the Office symbol top left).

In the Popular section, under "Top options for working with Word", UNtick "Show Mini Toolbar on selection" and click OK. And that's it!

How to convert Word documents to clean HTML

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 While you can "Save as" a DOC or DOCX document in Microsoft Word as "Web Page, Filtered", the resulting HTML includes all the MsoNormal etc classes. Which is bit messy for my taste - I often want clean HTML.

To convert the Word document to pure, simple HTML, rather than trying to email the document to yourself in Gmail (which no longer works the same way anymore, anyway) I've discovered a quicker, cleaner way.

1. Download and install Windows Live Writer (which I use anyway for blogging - it's the best free blog writing software there is).
2. Launch Live Writer.
3. Then simply switch to your Word document, and copy all (in the Word document press ctrl-a to select all, then press ctrl-c to copy all)
4. Switch back to Live Writer, click in its document window if necessary, then press ctrl-v to paste the Word document's text into Live Writer.
5. In Live Writer, now go to the Source view (bottom left) and then you can copy and paste the nice clean pure HTML from that view, into Notepad or other text editor to "Save as" an .html file.
   
   
   

That's it. Clean, simple HTML. And no MSo classes either!

Word footnotes - how to update cross-references to footnotes

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In Microsoft Word, if you insert cross-references to footnote numbers and later add or delete any footnotes, the footnote numbering as shown in the cross-references can be wrong.

You can click the cross-reference and be taken to the right footnote, but the footnote numbers that display and print will be the 'old' ones.

Here's a tip on how to fix that problem - it took me ages to find the solution.

You need to:

1. click inside the footnotes area first
2. press Ctrl a (hold down the Ctrl key then tap the "a" key then release both)
3. tap the F9 key, and
4. OK it all.

This was in Word 2010, but I believe it's the same for Word 2007 etc too.

Can't find Microsoft Office programs inside Program Files?

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If you've installed Microsoft Office in Windows 7 Professional 64 bit, and you can't find Office's Winword.exe for Microsoft Word, or other EXE files in the Program Files folder for Excel etc, here's how to find them. They're not actually missing, so you can stop tearing your hair out.

The solution to the problem is this: you may have installed 32-bit Microsoft Office, but the 64 bit Windows system creates two Program Files folders in your C drive - "Program Files", and "Program Files (x86)".

The weird thing is that the "Program Files" folder still contains a "Microsoft Office" folder with "Office14" subfolder (if you have Office 2010, or "Office11" if you're on Office 2007). Which is what threw me at first.

However, those folders will be rather empty - you won't find many Office files within them!

If you want to find the real Office 2010 programs and other Microsoft office files, you will have to look in "Program Files (x86)". It's the "Microsoft Office" subfolder there that you want, probably Office14 (or Office11 for Office 2007).

Some may think this is obvious, but, being new to 64-bit Windows, I missed it at first, and it seems and others have too, so I hope this saves someone else from going mad trying to find the Microsoft Office Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc applications inside "Program Files"!

Word 2010, Word 2007 – how to paste plain text without formatting

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This blog post shows how to change the default settings in Word 2010 or Word 2007 so that whenever you use Ctrl v to paste text into Word from a Webpage, PDF file or other source, it automatically pastes it without the original formatting as unformatted text, getting rid of all the font styles, bold etc formatting from the original source.

Paste Special is what I've always used when pasting text into a Word document. But in Word 2003, it took too many steps to go to menu, Edit, Paste Special, which has always been an annoyance for me.

In Word 2010 and Word 2007, there are two ways to paste text in unformatted form much more easily.

I'll cover both, but I'd recommend the quick way, which I cover first.

The quicker way

Here's how to get to the best way to paste unformatted text in Word 2010 and Word 2007. This way sets your defaults, so that whenever you use the Ctrl v keyboard shortcut to paste text into Word, it automatically pastes it as plain unformatted text.

Apart from the "Set Default Paste" button mentioned above, you can get to the correct settings window by going to the menu File, Options in Word 2010 (in Word 2010, it's the Word graphic at the top left, then Word Options button at the bottom). Now click "Advanced" in the list on the left.

Now go to the "Cut, copy and paste" section, and use the down arrows against the various itmes to set "Keep Text Only". I retain "Keep Source Formatting" when it's pasting within the same document (though I may change that to Keep Text Only as it can be a pain when moving text to footnotes from the main body).

Then OK, and that's it.

In future, Ctrl v will automatically paste without the original font style, size etc. You may still have to edit the spacing etc, but it's a lot less annoying, for me.

How to get rid of paste options popup too

While you're at the Advanced options, if like me you hate with a vengeance the "Paste Options" popup that appears as default in Word whenever you paste anything, and gets in the way by blocking what you're viewing.

You can also get rid of that and stop it popping up all the time.

The slower way

In Word, once you've copied text to clipboard, you can press Ctrl Alt V – then arrow up or down (or keep pressing u) to choose "Unformatted text" or "Unformatted unicode text".

Or in Word 2010, for mouse users, in the Home menu, click the down arrow under the Paste icon on the left of the ribbon.

This gets you to the same box as Ctrl Alt v above. However, there's a better solution here. Once you click the down arrow under Paste, you can click the "A" button show outlined in red below, to paste just the text.

Or, if you rightclick in the body of the document, you get the same Paste Options where you can click the A button.

But better still, click "Set Default Paste". This gets to a window that lets you set options permanently. I'll cover below another way to get to that window, and what to set in it.

For Word 2007, it's similar, but you only get a Paste Special option (which brings up the box where you choose Unformatted text), there's no A button.

How to do this - in the "Show Paste Options button when context is pasted" line also outlined in red above, just UNtick the box and OK.

The slower way

In Word, once you've copied text to clipboard, you can press Ctrl Alt V – then arrow up or down (or keep pressing u) to choose "Unformatted text" or "Unformatted unicode text".

Or in Word 2010, for mouse users, in the Home menu, click the down arrow under the Paste icon on the left of the ribbon.

This gets you to the same box as Ctrl Alt v above. However, there's a better solution here. Once you click the down arrow under Paste, you can click the "A" button show outlined in red below, to paste just the text.

Or, if you rightclick in the body of the document, you get the same Paste Options where you can click the A button.

But better still, click "Set Default Paste". This gets to a window that lets you set options permanently. I'll cover below another way to get to that window, and what to set in it.

For Word 2007, it's similar, but you only get a Paste Special option (which brings up the box where you choose Unformatted text), there's no A button.

Convert files free, online - PDF to Word DOC, etc - review of tool

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ConvertFiles.com, which I've just discovered, is a very useful online tool, especially to convert Adobe Acrobat PDFs to editable word processing documents eg Microsoft Word DOC format.

You just give the website the URL of a file (starting with http, https, ftp), or you can upload a local file, and it will automatically recognise the file type and offer you a choice of suitable formats into which it can be converted.

Tip: sometimes it won't recognise PDF files where the URL doesn't end in .pdf - so in that situation just download the file and upload it from your computer.

There's a decent range of formats available (see lists below).

Speed - you can download the converted file quite quickly, even for big files.

Maximum file size limits - it will accept files of up to a very generous 200 MB.

OCR - it will even do OCR (optical character recognition) of image files, ie convert scans of images etc to editable text - and, though they don't mention this (they should!), that includes PDF scans, I tried some.

It converted a massive PDF scan beautifully into an editable Word document, with very few errors.

What's more, it's all free, although in gratitude I've checked out some of their advertisers!

Supported formats and conversions

From their FAQs, here's their full list of supported conversions:

ARCHIVE

7Z to RAR, TAR, ZIP, TGZ, TAR.GZ
RAR to TAR, ZIP, TGZ, TAR.GZ
TAR to RAR, ZIP, TGZ, TAR.GZ
TGZ to TAR, RAR, ZIP
TAR.GZ to TAR, RAR, ZIP
ZIP to TAR, RAR, TGZ, TAR.GZ

DOCUMENT

DOCX to DOC, ODT, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
DOC to ODT, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
ODT to DOC, RTF, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
RTF to ODT, DOC, SWX, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
SXW to ODT, RTF, DOC, TXT, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
TXT to ODT, RTF, SWX, DOC, HTML, XHTML, PDF, PDB, ZIP
ODS to XLS, CSV, RTF, PDF, HTML, ZIP
XLS to ODS, CSV, PDF, HTML, ZIP
XLSX to XLS, ODS, CSV, PDF, HTML, ZIP
PDF to DOC, PNG, JPG
XPS to PDF
CHM to PDF, EPUB, FB2, MOBI, LIT, TXT
PAGES to PDF

PRESENTATION

ODP to PPT, PDF, SWF
PPT to ODP, PDF, SWF
PPTX to PPT, ODP, SWF, PDF

E-BOOK

EPUB to FB2, MOBI, LIT, PDF, TXT
FB2 to MOBI, LIT, EPUB, PDF, TXT
MOBI to EPUB, FB2, LIT, PDF, TXT
LIT to EPUB, FB2, MOBI, PDF, TXT
PRC to EPUB, FB2, MOBI, PDF, TXT, LIT

DRAWING

ODG to PDF, JPG, PNG, SWF
DXF to PDF, JPG, PNG, SWF
DWG to PDF, JPG, PNG

IMAGES, PICS, PHOTOS

BMP to GIF, JPG, PNG, TIF, ZIP, PDF
GIF to BMP, JPG, PNG, TIF, PDF
JPG to GIF, BMP, PNG, TIF, PDF
PNG to GIF, JPG, BMP, TIF, PDF
TIF to GIF, JPG, PNG, BMP, ZIP, PDF

OCR

BMP to DOC, TXT, RTF
GIF to DOC, TXT, RTF
JPG to DOC, TXT, RTF
PNG to DOC, TXT, RTF
TIF to DOC, TXT, RTF

AUDIO

AAC to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
AMR to WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, FLAC, AU, M4A
AU to WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, FLAC, AMR, M4A
FLAC to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, AU, WMA, AMR
M4A to WAV, MP3, OGG, WMA, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR
MP3 to WAV, OGG, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
OGG to WAV, MP3, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
WAV to MP3, OGG, AAC, M4A, FLAC, AU, WMA, AMR
WMA to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR
MKA to WAV, MP3, OGG, M4A, AAC, FLAC, AU, AMR, WMA

VIDEO

3GP to AVI, MOV, WMV, M4V, MP3, JPG
AMV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, WMV, MP3, JPG
ASF to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, WMV, MOV, AVI, M4V, MP3, JPG
AVI to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
FLV to 3GP, AVI, MP4, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MKV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, WMV, MOV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MOV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, WMV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
M4V to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, WMV, MP3, JPG
MP4 to FLV, 3GP, AVI, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MPEG to AVI, 3GP, MP4, FLV, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MPG to AVI, 3GP, MP4, FLV, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
RM to AVI, 3GP, MP4, FLV, MPEG, VOB, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
VOB to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, WMV, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
WMV to 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
M2T to WMV, 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
M2TS to WMV, 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG
MTS to WMV, 3GP, FLV, MP4, MPEG, AVI, VOB, MOV, MKV, ASF, M4V, MP3, JPG

OTHER

EPS to GIF, JPG, PNG
PSD to GIF, JPG, PNG

The downside?

Don't expect any support (I emailed them with a query which they never responded to). But hey, it's free.

Word overwrites tho Insert key is pressed?: fix

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A troubleshooting tip: sometimes Microsoft Word (I use 2003) goes haywire and starts overtyping everything instead of inserting new text without overwriting existing text, no matter how many times you keep pressing the Insert key.

How to stop it typing over your text: try doubleclicking the OVR in the grey bar at the bottom of the Word window, so that it becomes greyed out.

A combo of that and the Insert key should work to stop it from over-typing or over-writing when the Insert key alone doesn't.

I guess occasionally it just happens, or maybe you've accidentally done something to grey out the OVR. It's happened to me quite a few times and I spent ages trying to solve the problem. Hope this helps others.

Tags: tip, troubleshooting, problem-solving, overwrite, overtype, insert, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience

Convert MS Word .DOC to PDF, free

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How to convert a Microsoft Word DOC document to an Adobe Acrobat pdf file: use the free, open source OpenOffice software suite, which is available in many languages on popular computing platforms i.e. Windows (95 upwards e.g. Vista and Windows XP), Mac OS X and Linux (and even some obscurer operating systems).

You can download OpenOffice for:

• Windows
• Mac, Linux and other platforms, and other languages besides English.

Once you've downloaded and installed OpenOffice (in version 3 as I write), if you want to "print to" a PDF file (i.e. save your Word document in PDF format), then the conversion method is very straightforward:

1. Launch OpenOffice and choose Open Document or Open Text Document; or just launch OpenOffice Writer.
2. Open the Word document you want to change to PDF (menu File, Open).
   
   
3. In the File menu, choose Export as PDF.
4. That's it, it's that easy! Choose a filename and location for the PDF, and you can then open, email or upload the converted PDF (Portable Document Format) file as you wish.

Another good thing about OpenOffice is that it does the conversion pretty well. Some other free "conversion" tools can mess up the formatting a little. But obviously, it's still a good idea to open your PDF and check it before you send it out etc.

Note that the PDF export in OpenOffice only works for Microsoft Office XP or Office 2003 .DOC documents (or earlier versions of Word / Office), not the latest Microsoft Office 2007 .DOCX format.

As you can tell I think Open Office is good stuff - it's worth trying it out generally as a full free replacement for Microsoft Office; it can save documents to .DOC format as well as its native .ODT format, handle spreadsheets, presentations, etc, and I know a lot of people who use it as their main word processor or indeed full Office replacement suite. Of course you can export .ODT wordprocessing documents to PDF easily from Open Office too.

I was surprised to find out recently that quite a few people - even some very IT-literate ones - don't know about this free conversion method. So I hope this tip helps. (I've also previously blogged a suggestion on how to convert Word DOC, Excel .XLS or PDF files to HTML for free.)

Tags: OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, DOC, Acrobat, Adobe Acrobat, Microsoft Office, converter, convert, Word to PDF converter, file conversion, document conversion, documents, files, free, tricks, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience

Make links in Word, Excel etc open in Firefox (Windows XP)

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Links which appear in Office documents, like http://www.consumingexperience.com/ in the screenshot of Word above, normally open in Internet Explorer when you click them - even after you've set Outlook email links to open in Firefox. But you can force links in Microsoft Office (i.e. Word, Excel and Powerpoint) documents to open in the fab free browser Firefox instead when you click (or Ctrl-click) on a hyperlink that's shown in a Word document or Excel spreadsheet etc.

Here's a tip for how you can make links in a Word etc document open in Firefox when you click the link - in Windows XP at least:

1. Change your file associations so that hyperlinks generally open in Firefox.
   
   
2. (Non-geeks, skip to item 3 for the easy way!) Make this registry edit having closed all Office apps first (NB, usual warnings: backup your registry first, and you edit or change your registry at your own risk! also don't know if it'll work in Vista):
   
   
1. in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\9.0\Common\ create a subkey called Internet if it's not already there
   
   
2. in that subkey create a new DWORD value named ForceShellExecute with a value of 1 (or change its value from 0 to 1 if that value already exists)
   
   
   
3. If step 2 was gobbledygook to you, not to worry. You can instead - after you backup your registry first, and this is definitely at your own risk! - close all Office programs, then try this .reg file I uploaded earlier (how to use online .reg files - just click the link and run it or save then run it, saying Yes to let to change your registry).
   
   
4. If links still don't open in Firefox after you've re-opened Word etc, try rebooting. And of course you'll need to allow Word, Excel etc to access the internet through your firewall if you haven't already.
   

It seems that what registry change does is to force hyperlinks in various Office documents to open according to what's been set for their file associations (in Windows Explorer, Tools, Folder Options, File Types). So now you can click links embedded in Word, Excel etc files and they'll in Firefox instead of IE. Good trick, eh?

I've tested it in XP Service Pack 2 and Word, Excel and Powerpoint 2003, but it also seems to work in Word, Excel and Powerpoint 2000 and 2002 versions too.

Warning: note that this doing tweak may muck up any links in Office document to a bookmark location in another locally-saved (i.e. on your computer) document - see this article.

Tags: links, link, hyperlink, hyperlinks, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Powerpoint, help, tricks, tweaks, Improbulus, A Consuming Experience

Microsoft Word keyboard shortcuts: generate list automatically

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If like me you're a keyboard shortcut fan, did you know that you can automatically generate a document listing all your keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft Word, which you can then print or save etc?

Microsoft has provided a howto, but it's slightly different in Word 2003 which I have, so here's a step by step on how to automatically produce a comprehensive list of keyboard shortcuts for that version (for other versions it will be similar).

1. Go to menu Tools, Macro, Macros:


2. For the "Macros in" dropdown, choose Word commands (you can ignore the Macro name bit):

3. In Macro name, choose ListCommands (quicker if you just type or copy/paste that in rather than scrolling through the long list in the box):


4. Then choose Run and you'll get this List Commands box. I'd pick All Word commands as it's a bit more comprehensive:




5. Then hit OK, and the document listing the Word keyboard shortcuts is generated, which you can save or print etc as you wish:



I've updated my original keyboard shortcuts paean to link to this post.

Tags: keyboard shortcuts, Microsoft, Microsoft Word, howto, Improbulus, Consuming Experience, A Consuming Experience