Help Screen

Issue: March 1996
Section: Word processing
Pages: 209-211


Contents

Add page borders in Word 6.0
Slowing down highlighting in WinWord
Print Odd Or Even Pages In WordPerfect 6.1
Page number problem in WordPerfect 6.1
Editing Ami Pro 3.1 SmartIcons
WinWord Keystrokes Highlight


Add page borders in Word 6.0

Q I need to create borders around pages in Microsoft Word 6.0 for Windows. I've been using the drawing tools and even text boxes to manually frame each page, but that quickly gets tedious. Is there an easier way?

- Emilia Threlkeld

A Yes, there is, but it's not as easy as adding page borders in WordPerfect and Ami Pro. In Word, you create the border as a watermark and put it in a header so it appears on every page. It's a six-step process, outlined as follows:

1. Open a new, blank document, select View-Page Layout, select View-Zoom, click the Whole Page radio button, and click OK.

2. To make the margins visible on the page so you can see where you want to place the page border, select Tools-Options-View and check the Text Boundaries option.

3. Display the Header and Footer toolbar to open the frame you'll draw the border in: Select View-Header and Footer, then drag the toolbar out of the way of your document.

4. Display the Drawing toolbar: Select View-Toolbars, click the Drawing check box, then click OK. Click the Rectangle button, then click and drag your border directly onto the visible page in your document.

Adjust the size as necessary, and be careful to keep the border outside of the visible margins on the page to avoid conflicts with your text.

5. At this point, you can use several drawing tools to alter your border. To change the line size and type, click the Line Style button. To change the colour of the line, click the Line Color button. To change the background fill, click the Fill Color button. If you want more options for style, colour, and fill, click the word More in the Line Style pop-up box to access the Drawing Object dialogue box.

6. Click the Send Behind Text button on the Drawing toolbar to put the border in the background of your document. Then click the Close button on the Header and Footer toolbar and select Normal from the View menu to return to editing mode.

If you plan to use this border format in other WinWord documents, select File-Save As, choose Document Template from the Save File as Type list, name the template file borders.dot, then click OK. From then on, you'll be able to load your new template with the File-New command.

Slowing down highlighting in WinWord

Q Whenever I use the mouse to highlight large amounts of text in Word 6.0 for Windows on my 90MHz Pentium, an alarming thing happens. As soon as my highlighting extends beyond the current screen, the program shifts into overdrive and begins highlighting at supersonic speeds. When I try to back up, it shifts into high speed in reverse and is impossible to control.

Is there anything I can do to slow this highlighting down to more manageable speeds?

- Ben Dingel

A You've accidentally discovered one of WinWord's great features. When you're highlighting text with the mouse and drag below the edge of the document screen, highlighting continues while the document scrolls. The farther below the document window you hold the mouse pointer, the faster the selection and highlighting proceeds.

One way to slow down is to move the mouse to a position just below the actual document window as you select text. To stop selecting, simply move the mouse pointer back inside the document window.

Another approach is to select View-Page Layout. Text scrolls more slowly in that mode than in Normal mode.

For even slower highlighting and scrolling, try using the above keyboard combinations instead of the mouse (see separate panel).

Print Odd Or Even Pages In WordPerfect 6.1

Q I just switched from WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS to version 6.1 for Windows. I like the new program, but I can't figure out how to print just the odd or even pages of a document as I did in DOS. What's the trick?

- Alice Brown

A Well, it's easy, but the commands aren't located in the same place in the Windows version. To print just the odd or even pages, select File-Print-Options, then click and hold the Print Odd/Even Pages button and drag to select the option you want, as pictured below. Click OK, then click Print.

Page number problem in WordPerfect 6.1

Q In long WordPerfect 6.1 documents, I've noticed that clicking on the next page or previous page buttons at the bottom of the scroll bar changes the page displayed on the screen, but not the page number in the status bar. The same thing happens if I use the scroll bar itself. If I click anywhere on the new page, though, the number is updated.

This is confusing when I'm trying to scroll to a new page in the document, since I can't tell which page is displayed. Is there a way to move from page to page and have the status line show the correct page number?

- Karen Albertson

A I had never noticed that behaviour, but when I looked at Word and Ami Pro, I found that they didn't behave that way.

As you recognised, the status line indicates the page where the cursor is, not the page on the screen, and scrolling a document with the scroll bars or page buttons doesn't move the cursor to the new page.

The fix is easy, though. Instead of using the scroll bar or buttons to scroll page by page, press <Alt>+<Page Up> or <Alt>+<Page Down>. The keystrokes move the cursor to the top of the previous page or to the top of the next page, respectively. Because the cursor moves, WordPerfect updates the status line.

Editing Ami Pro 3.1 SmartIcons

Q I'd like to edit the actual images on some of the SmartIcons in Ami Pro 3.1 to suit my taste. How can I do this?

- Brian White

A You can't edit every icon on the SmartIcon bar. Some are hard-coded in the application, but many of the icons are custom icons, stored as .bmp files in the amipro\icons directory. Here are the steps to edit the custom Ami Pro 3.1 SmartIcons:

1. Select Tools-SmartIcons, and click the Edit Icon button in the SmartIcons dialog box.

2. In the Available icons list of the Edit SmartIcon dialog box, click the icon you wish to edit to load it into the editing window.

If you try to edit a hard-coded icon, you'll get a message warning you that you can't edit a standard Ami Pro icon. You can, however, create a new icon based on a standard icon. Just save the standard icon under a new name, then edit as described in the next step.

3. In the editing window you can edit the icon pixel-by-pixel. First click on one of the colours in the colour bar under the window, then draw directly on the icon. You can add more colours by clicking the drop-down arrow on the colour bar.

4. When you're satisfied with your artwork, click OK to save your changes. Or click Cancel to return to the original.

George Campbell

WinWord Keystrokes

Highlight

<Shift>+<Right>One character at a time
<Ctrl>+<Shift>+<Right> One word at a time
<Shift>+<Down>One line at a time
<Ctrl>+<Shift>+<Down> One paragraph at a time
<Ctrl>+<Shift>+<End> The entire document





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