Notes from the Help Desk…

After 27 years in the business, you end up with a few observations. Ron Miller, an old friend of mine, interviewed me about Vista, Office 2007, and my observations on technical writing. All opinions expressed are my own, but I did get a chance to say some things. Take a look at the interview: http://www.daniweb.com

Track Changes is an indispensable tool in Word that lets a group of people edit a document, while Word keeps track of what changes were made to the document and who made them. However, a persistent problem in earlier versions of Word has been the difficulty in removing all tracked changes and comments from the final version of a document.

When you accept or reject changes in a final document, Word is supposed to remove all traces of tracked changes and comments. However, many users have discovered that this information is difficult to remove permanently without using a third-party program.

This task is much easier and more effective in Word 2007. To remove tracked changes and comments from a Word 2007 document:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Click Prepare and select Inspect Document.
3. The Document Inspector dialog box will appear.
4. Check the Comments, Revisions, Versions and Annotations checkbox.
5. View the inspection results.
6. Click the Remove All button next to Comments, Revisions, Versions, and Annotations.
7. Click the Close button.
8. Save your document.

Your document is now free of all of the comments and tracked changes info.

Microsoft Word 2007 lets you create blog postings and publish them directly from Word. (Actually, I’m doing it right now!) Using Word is generally easier than most blogging software, which requires users to edit HTML code.

To create a blog posting from Word:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Select New, select New blog post, and then click the Create button (lower right corner).
3. Click the Register Now button in the dialog, and then select your Blog provider from the drop-down list.
4. Enter the appropriate information into the New Blogger Account dialog box.
5. Click the Picture Options button if you want to select a picture provider from the drop-down list.
   (If you don’t use a picture provider, select None-Don’t Upload Pictures.)
6. Type your blog posting, and click the Publish button on the Ribbon to publish it to the blog. (When you publish, Word will prompt you for your Username and Password.)

By default, Office 2007 saves files in new XML-based formats. Word uses the .docx and .docm extensions. Docx files do not support macros, while docm files are macro-enabled. Presumably, this is to cut down on the number of viruses aimed at Word documents.

Similarly, Excel uses the .xlsx and .xlsm extensions, and PowerPoint uses the .pptx and .pptm extensions. Access has also changed its file format to an XML-based format, using the .accdb extension.

However, the new formats are not backward-compatible. Therefore, people using any older versions of Office will not be able to open files saved in the new formats. Since it will be some time before a majority of users have Office 2007, we recommend saving files in the old formats if you intend to distribute them to other users.
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To save an Office 2007 file in an older format:

1. Click the Office button.
2. Select Save As.
3. At the bottom of the dialog box, under Save as type:, select Word 97-2003 Document (*.doc).

Office 2007 now lets you save any document, presentation or spreadsheet as a PDF (without having to purchase Adobe Acrobat). However, you have to download a plug-in to add this functionality.

You can download the free plugin from Microsoft at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4D951911-3E7E-4AE6-B059-A2E79ED87041&displaylang=en

After you have downloaded the plug-in, to save a file as a PDF, click the Office button and select Save As | PDF or XPS.