Microsoft Office 2007 and Microsoft Windows Vista Blog

If you want to create Forms in Microsoft’s Word 2007 then you have to bring up a hidden tab that isn’t currently displaying on the ”Ribbon.” Remember that the “Ribbon” in Word 2007 is the replacement of “toolbars” in previous versions of Word.

The hidden tab is called the “Developer.” If you’re very careful you can coax this shy little leprechaun to come out and reveal all it’s hidden treasures :)  Or you can simply click on the Office Logo button in the upper-right hand corner of Word 2007>Word Options and click on the Popular category and then over to the right under “Top options for working Word” you’ll check “Show Developer tab in the Ribbon,” and click OK!

Now look up on the Ribbon to find the Developer tab, click on it, and in the “Controls” group you’ll look to find the “Legacy Tools” and that’s a button that looks like a little folder with a wrench and a hammer.  Hover over it and it’ll display “Legacy Tools.”  Click it to find all those happy little ones waiting for you to choose from.

While you can’t convert any faxes or image files into text directly from Word 2007, you can from the installation of Microsoft’s Office 2007 Tools.  You could say it’s the misplaced tool of Microsoft’s Word 2007.

Oh, where do I go to find this magical place of conversion from image to Word 2007 you ask?  Okay, I’m babbling as I’m trying to fill up some text here so it appears more complicated than the steps below…

In Windows Vista for XP click on your Start button>All Programs>Microsoft Office>Microsoft Office Tools>Microsoft Office Doc Imaging.  Once the Microsoft Office Doc Imaging program is opened then File>Open and find your image file some where on your massive 1 TB hard disk drive (or computer) and double-click it.  With your image now loaded up into the Microsoft Office Doc Imaging program you’ll then Tools>Send Text to Word, click Browse button>your Desktop and click OK until you get tired or until Word finishes the conversion process.

But it converted it to a Web Page!  Aghrrrr!  That’s because Microsoft Word is trying to be helpful and anticipate you’ll be sending this to somebody who doesn’t have Word installed on their computer; however, with this Web Page before you there’s a quick button to click on to convert the web page to editable Word. So up on top of this web page click Edit with Microsoft Office Word button and it will copy the text directly into Word.

Don’t expect perfection on the conversion of your image to text, as it depends upon how messy the image is i.e. can’t tell the i from an l.  But hey! All my best!

So you want to Mark Entries in Word 2007 with using the Concordance table, but can’t find the Auto Mark button?

Be careful, because where I’m about to take you takes more than one click… Aghrrr!  But in Word 2007 you can find the AutoMark button with a: click References tab>Index group & click Insert Index button and there he is tucked between the Mark Entry and Modify buttons.  And you didn’t believe I could take you there in under 10 clicks.  No!  Don’t re-read this blog to find out if that’s what I said as you and I will both be disappointed.

Where can I find Microsoft’s Word 2007 File Search where I can search for all files associated to a program like Word? 

May I be brief?  Ahem!  According to Microsoft it has been removed due to redundancy with other search features now available i.e. Window’s Vista “automatic” search feature.  So sad to say is if you don’t have Windows Vista with your Word 2007 then you may want to scream!  That is if you’re really attached to it, but hopefully not

Yes, it’s true that in previous versions of Microsoft’s Word 2000, XP and 2003 you could pull up the Forms toolbar and /Lock (b) to lock the form and test your Form fields out.  In Word 2007 this is no longer available and there’s only one way to lock the form and protect in order to activate the Form fields, even for testing them.

Steps:
On Ribbon bar /Review tab>Protect group and /Protect Document (b)>Restrict Formatting and Editing, in Task Pane check “Allow only this type of editing in the document” box & /its arrow>Filling in forms & /Yes, Start Enforcing Protection (b), type in a password or leave blank (meaning anyone can unprotect it, or for testing purposes) & /ok. 

If this blog has helped you in anyway please sign in (to avoid spammers) and let me know.  Or send $1 to Happy Dude… Happiness is just a dollar away.

Emailing a Word 2007 document to another user for review, meaning any changes they make it will track those changes in Word 2007, is a snap!

Getting it setup takes a few more steps than previous version of Word 2000, Word XP (2002) and Word 2003. Because in those versions it was a simple: File>Send To>Mail Recipient (For Review), and then click the Send (b) to email it off.

“Stop bloviating and tell me where to do the same with Word 2007″ you opine! Fine. But let me warn you that writing more than steps is not only therapeutic for me, but downright fun!

Email Word 2007 Document For Review and Tracking Changes Steps: First you have to add the Send For Review (b) to you QAT (Quick Access Toolbar). Yeah! I know there’s not another easier way I know of. So Right /QAT toolbar>Customize, /Choose commands arrow>All, scroll to & //Send for Review, /ok. Now on your QAT toolbar /Send for Review (b) and it will do two things: first attach your Word 2007 document into an email, and also it turns on the Track Changes (b) on the Review tab. Now just type in an email address and /Send (b) to email your document off to one of your Super Friends!

Once Wonder Woman (one of your Super Friends) opens the attachment and makes any changes to the document, it will track it i.e. if she deletes a word it will put a red line through it, and if she adds text it will color it in green. So when she’s done all she has to do email those changes back to you where you can, with the help of Reviewing tab, accept or reject her changes i.e. removing the red lines for deletions, or removing her added text.

You know you can just as easily open Word 2007, /Review tab & /the Track Changes (b) and turn on the changes yourself and the /Word’s Office Logo (b)>Send and email without having to add the Send For Review (b) to your QAT toolbar.

Having said that I bet you’re thinking: I wouldn’t choose Wonder Woman as a Super Friend with only a magic lasso to protect me, and second anybody can turn off the “Track Changes” feature and then I couldn’t protect my document from unwanted, trackable changes!

Yes, you’re right and so the only way to “protect” someone from messing with your document without being trackable, or seeing their changes is to follow these steps: /Developer tab>Protect group & /Protect Document (b)>Restrict Formatting and Editing, in Task Pane’s Editing restrictions section check “Allow only this…” box and /its arrow>Tracked changes & /Yes, Start Enforcing Protection (b) and type in your password.

Now that’s protection! Okay, having password protection on a document is like having a Super Friend like Superman protecting you. Invincible he is until some krptonite is found - computer geek breaks the password, but better than nothing eh?

In previous versions of Word 2000, XP and 2003 there was the plain old “Reviewing toolbar” that had the a “Show” button. And from that Show (b) a user would click it: /Show (b)>Reviewers>a list of reviewers who had inserted comments into your document. You could then uncheck a user and their comments would hide while you read other user(s) comments.

So where can you find the show or hide user comment in Word 2007? Microsoft didn’t let the apple fall far from the tree on this one. The steps are: Reviewing tab>Tracking group & /Show Markup (b)>Reviews>a list of reviewers.

Now be a good neighbor and please leave a comment. I have no shame to ask for others to blog, and help me make this the most popular Microsoft Office blog on the web! I wasn’t able to make it as a radio talk show host.

In previous version of Microsoft’s Word you could set your default font on each new document you create to any font, like Times New Roman, and still be able to use Word’s Themes to change it to a different font. No longer with Word 2007, sniff!

So I can pander to those who don’t know what a Word Theme is or does, let me explain it before I reveal the sad truth further below…

Okay, so what’s a Word Document Theme? It’s maintaining a set of formatting options like: color, including page color, fonts and graphic or fill theme effects, throughout a Word document. So for example in Word 2007 I’ve typed in some text, coloring it with the default colors, adding some pictures or graphs and finally page background color (in Word 2007 /Page Layout tab>Page Background group & /Page Color (b)>any color).

Now let’s say I’m moody that day and I don’t like the “theme,” meaning all the formatting I just applied to my Word 2007 document as I mentioned above. So wouldn’t it be great if we had a magic button (you know where I’m going with this), that you could click and Glenda the good fairy would change it all for you. In fact, our good fairy has many themes to choose from :) 

Word 2007 Theme Steps: /Page Layout tab>Themes group & /Themes (b)>view and hover of an array of themes… when you hover over one it will give you a preview in your document of the new pretty fonts, the fabulous colors and more!

“But mine doesn’t work!” You shout out, as it did in previous versions of Word. Word 2007 does not tolerate anyone applying a font directly, or uses one of the “Standard colors,” i.e. the primary colors at the bottom of the color picker. But then you laugh and promise yourself never to return to my blog because your thinking, what if I save this information as part of the style definition? I did this before in previous versions of Word and I could still use the Themes.

Didn’t you just read what I said? I didn’t understand it myself either so… Long blog short. I didn’t like Microsoft’s Word 2007 default font “Calibri.” I changed it so all my New Word Documents would have the default font of Times New Roman. That did it! My Themes lost all its functionality. 

In all the previous Outlook versions of 2000, XP and 2003 there was at the bottom of each new contact a Contacts button and field that allowed you to link that contact to other contacts. Well, like playing ”Where’s Waldo” you’ll have to find and activate if you want this feature also available in Outlook 2007.

Don’t ask me why Microsoft didn’t have this readily available in Outlook 2007, though yes I would be curious.  So if you know please tell me, but in the meantime here’s the steps to flame it on!

Open Outlook 2007 (don’t laugh, but I need to clarify that you’re in Oultook 2007), and Tools>Options, /Preferences tab, /Contact Options (b) and check “Show Contact Linking on all Forms” box, /ok, /ok.  Now open a contact and viola!  You’re happy and I’d feel happy if you’d blog how happy you are!

I’m being dangerous and blogging by myself without asking others to come in and make me look popular by posting comments here.

I’m using Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7, but why the fudge can’t I delete Objects in the Objects folder that I downloaded? Funny, because if you use Windows XP and Internet Explorer 7 you’ll have no problem deleting them following these steps:

Tools>Internet Options, /General tab, in “Browsing history” section /Settings (b), /View objects (b) and there are all the happy objects you’ve downloaded. Next Right /an object>Delete and it deletes, or select and object & File>Delete and it deletes. 

Try that on ANY Windows Vista Operating System with Internet Explorer 7 and for a Right /on any Object you get only “Properties.” That’s right folks you don’t get a delete in that. Oh, wait there’s more! Selecting the object and File>Delete doesn’t delete it either!

What did the Microsoft Technician say? He said he got the same thing as I did and will submit that to the developers and upper management to get it fixed. Now if you all call and email Microsoft Support then that fix will hopefully become a higher priority.

In the meantime, does anybody have a fix like delete the Objects folderand replacing with an empty folder that has the same name? I asked the technician to do that, but like me he wasn’t cool with that idea. So sure your downloading objects you don’t mind keep until there’s a fix with Windows Vista and ie7.

What do you think? Has anybody heard of an update or any success?