Hidden Word Codes

When you add text to a Word document, the program adds codes behind the scenes. Most of the time, you don’t need to see codes. However, as you are able to do more in Word, being able to see coding becomes a necessity.

You can show and hide the codes by clicking the Show/Hide button on the Home ribbon. You can also use the keyboard short cut: Hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys, and type *. Repeat the keyboard short cut several times to toggle codes on and off. The button is also a toggle.

How can you use these codes? Mostly, you use these codes when something is not behaving and you want to see if a hidden code is responsible for the misbehavior.

What kinds of codes do you see?

A dot appears between words to mark spaces…one dot per space.

A paragraph mark appears at the end of each paragraph. Each time you press Enter, Word inserts this mark. If you know how to use Styles to format paragraphs, the formatting for the paragraph resides in the paragraph mark at the end of each paragraph. In addition, the final paragraph mark at the end of the document contains the page layout information; for example, margins, page orientation, and so forth. A hard page break (Ctrl + Enter) with a paragraph mark appears as follows:




An index entry looks like this:


When adding an index entry, codes appear automatically, which usually startles first-time indexers. Worse, they don't know how to hide the codes. When you want to review index entries, you can Show/Hide codes and make corrections or additions. In addition, when index entries are visible and you spell check, you can make corrections on the fly.

Many other codes are possible. Again, the more you learn to use Word, the more you’ll want to know about these hidden codes. If you’re a casual user, the big item that you should get from this post is that Styles-related information resides in the paragraph marks at the end of each paragraph.

I’ll talk about using Styles later on this blog. Or, you can get adventuresome and do a Google search on Word Styles and Formatting. You’ll find a host of articles that explain what a Style is and how to apply Styles to text. Gaining an understanding of Styles changes how you use a word processor. In my opinion, it's well worth a bit a reading to learn how to use them.

Highlighting Areas of Text in a Word Document

When you are editing several pages of text, you can think of any number of things along the way. You can jot down what you want to do on a list. You can add an electronic comment (sticky note). However, I like to highlight text on which I need to do more work. I've been known to color code my highlights. For example, yellow means add the source citation. Blue means call the person who provided the info and confirm that it's correct. Green means check the spelling to confirm that it is correct; for example, a place name that isn't in the Word dictionary.

Highlighting text is easy.
1. Select the text with your cursor.
2. Click the Home tab.
3. Click the arrow beside the highlight button. A color palette appears.
4. Select a color from the palette and a highlight appears on the text.


Removing the highlight is basically the same process.
1. Select the text with your cursor.
2. Click the Home tab.
3. Click the arrow beside the highlight button, and select No Color at the bottom of the color palette.

You can change your cursor to a highlighter. Click the highlight button to engage the highlighter; that is, change your cursor to look like the highlighter and select text to highlight. The highlight appears in the last color you selected. To stop highlighting, click the Esc key and your regular cursor appears again.

Changing Case in Word--Smith to SMITH

When I write about my family history, I like to capitalize surnames; for example, Smith becomes SMITH. Cap'ing names makes them easier for readers to find in running text. I usually forget to capitalize some names and I have to go back to fix them. To make the task easy, I learned the keyboard shortcut to change case. Here's what you do:

1. Double click the name to select it. Word adds a highlight.
2. Hold down the Shift key, and press the F3 key.

Each time you press the F3 key (with Shift), Word changes the case to one of three settings: ALL CAPS (uppercase), Initial cap (sentence case), or no caps (lowercase).

Knowing this shortcut has save me lots of extra typing. In addition, while you have the name highlighted, you can also apply bold or italic attributes. To apply, hold down the Crtl key, and type the letter B or I or both.

Pronunciation Marks in Word

Do you ever have to add accents or umlauts over letters? My last name is Tremé. In old document, the name is written Trêmé; however, I use only the accent on the last e because the circumflex over the first e just makes people crazy. Actually, the accent makes them nuts too but I use it anyway.

When typing in Word, I’ve learned the keyboard shortcut to create the accented e on the fly. If I hold down the Ctrl key and type the single quote, and then type the letter e, Word substitutes the symbol; that is, é appears rather than e.

Symbols are available for all letters that require pronunciation marks, and most have a shortcut key combination that you can use to add the symbol on the fly. If you find yourself often typing names and words that require these marks, it’s worth the time to learn the keyboard shortcuts.

So, where can you find this information? It’s in the Symbol dialog box. In newer versions of Word, the Symbol button is on the Insert ribbon. Click the down arrow (lower part of button), and then click More Symbols… The Symbol dialog box displays. Click the Symbols tab. Click a symbol; for example, click ũ. If you look at the bottom of the dialog box, you’ll find the keyboard short cut: 0169, Alt+X. To get the symbol ũ, you would type 0169, and then hold down the Alt key and type the letter X. The ũ appears.













In older versions of Word (I'm doing this from memory), click Insert, Symbols, and the same Symbol dialog box displays. Comment on this blog if I'm not remembering well and I'll go find an old version of Word to get the correct menu selections.

Lost My Cursor in a Word Document

It's easy to lose your cursor while editing a Word document. I routinely am looking for my cursor after adding index entries for my 200+ page family tree book (just names, dates, and places as a reference).

In older versions of Word, if you scroll off the page where your cursor is located, all you have to do is press an arrow key and Word returned you to the location of your cursor.

In newer versions of Word, arrow key pressing doesn't work. However, if you press a key combination, you can return to the location of your cursor: Shift + F5.

Learning keyboard combinations adds to your ability to control Word and is a first step in becoming a power user of the software.

Grabbing Text from the Net

Of late, I have had occasion to explain to several people how to grab text from the Internet and copy it to a document. The problem is that if you just paste the text you get lots of hidden html formatting, which can make cleaning up the text difficult. Here's how you eliminate the hidden html formatting.

1. Copy the text you want from an Internet page. The text you copy will include hidden html formatting.
2. Open a document (Word or WordPad).
3. Locate the Paste tool. In Word and WordPad (2007 or 2010), the Paste tool is the first button on the Home tab.
4. Click the Paste tool; that is, the bottom part of the button with the word Paste. A small drop-down menu appears.
5. Select Paste special. The Paste Special dialog box appears.
6. Select Unformatted Text, and then click OK. The text appears without any html formatting. You can then clean up the unformatted text, which is remarkably easier than cleaning up text that is littered with html formatting.

Upcoming Presentation

Pattie and I are gearing up for a late January presentation in South Florida. We are going to be presenting two sessions: Taming Templates; Next Generation. Taming Templates is going to get a face lift. A few things have changed. We'll need to look at the Next Generation too because Pattie and I have both made discoveries since the last time this one was presented. Then we have to rehearse...get the timing down pat. Pattie and I could each go on for hours. We never suffered from not enough to say. It's always not enough time to say it. Tis' a good problem.

Pattie in Sharon Tate Moody's Column Today

The amusing tale of the birth of Pattie's calendar--Everyday Genealogy--is in Sharon Tate Moody's column today in the Tampa Tribune. Congrats to Pattie. I hope this makes her sell out of calendars.

Click here to see article.

Editor's Position Update

I didn't get it, but it's OK. Getting it would have meant that a fun hobby would have had to become a business. I'm not all that interested in turning my hobby into a business at the moment. When I retire, I'll perhaps pursue this type of thing then. In the meantime, I get to learn more and have fun.

Editor's Position

Hmmm...so far no word on whom they picked. I did get an email for one of the people on the interview committee. He said that the interview with me gave the group "lots of food for thought." I'm sure my opinionated stance didn't go unnoticed. Sometimes it's a plus, sometimes a minus. It's situational. So I'm waiting to hear. I was happy to simply be able to give them an opinion and be included in the interview process. I'll post to the blog as soon as I get any news...