No More Clunky Documents

Whether you are working on a thesis or a project report, any lengthy document can be cumbersome to work with.  Two new enhancements to Word 2013 that I really find useful are the ability to expand and collapse headings and to set collapse by default.

New Features in Word 2013When you hover over a heading within your document you’ll see the triangular Expand/Collapse button. You can open or close that heading just by clicking on the button.

Expand_Collapse W2013

To expand or collapse all the headings in your document, right click a heading and choose an option from the Expand/Collapse menu.

 

If you want, you also have the ability to set the default to open in a collapsed mode. Once you have your cursor placed in a heading, navigate to the Home tab. In the Paragraph section select the Paragraph Settings button (#1).  Then, select the Collapsed by default option (#2) and click OKparagraph dialog boxViola! You should now have a document that is much easier to work with and looks something like the example below.

CollapsedIf you would like a tour of Office 2013 and learn a few shortcuts like these, come join my webinar on Sept 26 or Oct 30.

 

 

Simple Markup: Easy on the Eyes

Recently I’ve been exploring some of the new features in Office 2013. While there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of major upgrades to the Office Suite, there are a few changes that I really do like. One thing in particular is the Simple Markup enhancement to the Track Changes feature in Word.

If you’ve previously used Track Changes, you know that just opening your document can cause stress, let alone try to collaborate easily in it.

Here’s a snapshot of a document I recently worked on in Word 2010.  And, boy is that red text seriously making my blood pressure rise!Markup Capture

Take a look at the same document in 2013. I can actually read it easily when I first open it. If I want to dig in deeper and look at what was changed, I can. The document still opens with Track Changes on but by default will display in the Simple Markup view. Changes that were previously made are indicated by the red bars on the left. If you click on a bar, you’ll still see the markup. This new format definitely makes it much easier on the eye.2013 track changes

This is just one of a variety of new features I’ve been toying with.  If you’d be interested in taking a tour of what’s new in Office 2013, consider joining me in one of my upcoming webinars, and I’ll show you a whole lot more!