This month, I thought I'd share some useful tips for using Microsoft Word. These are some quick tips and tricks that may help you use Microsoft Office better:
Note that this article applies to MS Word version 2000 & 2003 not version 2007 and above.
1. Say you wrote a grant proposal to fund your latest project. Throughout the document you referred to your organization as WAU, the accronym for Workforce Agencies United (a fictional name). Later, you decide you want to change all the places where it says WAU and replace it with your actual name. Ok, hold down Control and hit the letter "H" to open up the find and replace dialogue box. Enter WAU in the first empty space, and type Workforce Agencies United in the second space. Then click "Replace All." If you followed directions, all of those places were instantly changed. For more on Word's advanced find and replace tricks go to and article on the web called, "Using MS Word’s Advanced Find and Replace Function" by Tibor Környei.
2. Now you're working on a document and you want to insert a form from another document into this one. You have options; 1) you could open up the form separately, select everything, then cut and paste it into your current document, or 2) you insert your cursor where you want the new text, click on the menu bar on "Insert" then click "File," then choose the form and double click the form in the list. You may need to understand how Word uses cut and paste to preserve the formatting by reading this article.
3. Has anyone sent you a microsoft password protected file that you couldn't work on? First, make sure this is a password protected file not just a form. 
If it's password protected so that you can only read the document, but you can't type, then click "Tools" in the menu bar, and look about halfway down the list of options and you will see "Unprotect Document." When you click that, it will ask you to enter a password. If you have reached this far, click this article from Dave Taylor to see how to crack open that Word doc.
If, you clicked "Tools" and you saw the word "Protect Document," then you are actually just working on a form that is locked. This is easy to solve. Click "View" in the menu bar, then click "Toolbars" then click the "Forms" toolbar. On that toolbar, you will see a little padlock icon 
. When you click on that it will unlock the form (BINGO!). To learn more about forms click this microsoft article.
Other useful keyboard shortcuts using the Control (Ctrl) key:
Ctrl+M = indent the paragraphCtrl+Shift+ > or < = increase or decrease font of selected word
Ctrl+S = Save
Ctrol+C = Copy
Ctrl+X = Cut
Ctrl+V = Insert (Paste)
Ctrl+L = Left justify paragraph
Ctrl+R = Right justify paragraph
Ctrl+E = Center text
Ctrl+Shift+N = change selected text to Normal text
Ctrl+Alt+1 = change selected text to Heading 1
Ctrl+Alt+2 = change selected text to Heading 2
Ctrl+Alt+3 = change selected text to Heading 3
For more keyboard shortcuts visit this Microsoft KB article.
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