Formatting is a fight, but it's worth it
Microsoft Word is a powerful ally, but it can also be a wicked enemy. Getting your document formatting sorted out isn't always easy if you're not familiar with the ins and outs of your software.
Word is so complex in terms of what it can do for its users that, at times, apparently invisible (embedded) issues of formatting can seem to "attack and multiply"—most often when you're trying to get a draft out to a supervisor or colleague on a short deadline. A decent part of my work product is controlling, cajoling, and (frankly) castigating Word's serial nuisance-behaviours so that documents present with clarity and consistency. (I won't style myself as an expert in case someone trips me up over it, but I can tell you I know more about Word formatting than the average bear.)
Did you know, for instance, that you can "remove all formatting" on selected text (and get rid of the "attack and multiply" problem instantly!) using a little box-command on the "Home" ribbon menu? Or that you can turn the invisible characters in the text on and off using another of these little command boxes in that same ribbon menu, and so find out what many of these little menaces are made of? (To find these on your screen, check out the red circles in Figure 1, below.)
Did you know that when your table text won't sit straight in the grid box allocated to it, this could be because you have the wrong style applied to it? If "Normal" style has an automatic first-line indent applied to it, and your table text is in "Normal" style, the text will sit away from the grid border while you whack at this and fiddle with that and generally grind your teeth to no avail. (If you are you wondering, "What on earth is a style?", have a look at the pink and green circles in Figure 1, below, or read on...)
Did you know that there are two whole ribbon menus for formatting tables that only pop up when your cursor rests inside a table? The really useful one is called "Layout"; it sits to the right of the "Table Design" ribbon that allows you to choose an existing table style. Click your cursor outside the table, however, and these two ribbons vanish entirely. (Again, these are circled in Figure 1, below—in aqua this time.)
Word can be confounding, to say the least.
I feel that there's a decent chance some of you won't know what "styles" are (even if you've scrolled down to look at Figure 1). I don't blame you for not knowing. The Styles Pane or Gallery is just a part of the peripheral frame of your Word document, really, and it may never have been of interest to you if all you need Word for is typing.
Styles work best when applied as a consistent set: this is called a template.
I've mentioned elsewhere the importance of using MSWord document templates. These little cookie cutters allow you to style both text and headings consistently, so that you don't, for example, have to keep fighting the formatting menus to get the space between a heading and a paragraph of text exactly the same. Incidentally, this space is called "leading", because "long ago" printers would run lines of real lead between their rows of hand-assembled sentences to space the rows apart from one another before the text was put in the press and printed.
I think it's useful to consider styles and templates as the base unit of MSWord currency when it comes to creating clear and consistent formatting.
You will be familiar with the idea of "double spacing", which is a mode of line spacing, but the space that Word automatically applies between rows of text in a paragraph is not the same as the space that is needed between paragraphs, where you need a little more "leading", so you can see the paragraph separations clearly at a glance. Some of you will be spacing your paragraphs apart with an extra "enter", or "carriage return" as it is also called. This term refers to the typist's need for a new line on a manual typewriter, and their subsequent necessary thumping of the paper drum or "carriage" to the left, thus simultaneously rolling the paper up slightly, and bringing the drum (and the paper) back to the left margin so the typist can begin a new line of text.
I've seen a lot of very long documents spaced out using an extra "enter" line between the paragraphs.
This is for the birds, ok? You really can be more sophisticated than this. Just consider that spacing affects whether your text and its structure (and substructure) is visible to the reader at a glance. Your supervisors, wonderful as they are, may suggest that you "fix the formatting later", but you can actually do it while you're drafting if you just use a template. The draft document will be so much easier for both you and them to read that I think they will thank you.
All you need to do to make this improvement happen is get hold of a basic understanding of formatting, and a decent template. In pursuit of this, and also of my hope of assisting you to increase your document power generally—
At the end of this blog, you'll find a template for a standard thesis document.
In subsequent blogs, I'll provide information on how you can modify styles, improve the appearance of your tables, and create auto-generating figure and table lists using captions. In the meantime, go ahead and download the template (ALERT: It's a template, so when you open the file in Word, it won't have a filename—Remember to "save as"). If you're halfway through your thesis, I encourage you to paste the chapters/sections you're working on into the template and apply the template styles. (ALERT: Don't turn on Track Changes until you've finished pasting your work into the new template, or you'll end up with a lot of modifications to accept.)
You may be surprised how great you feel looking at a document that looks less like a rats' nest and more like a real, finished thesis (even if it isn't finished yet). It might feel like progress.
Believe me, it will be progress. Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today.
And so saying (and doing), have a beautiful one!
Key to the (sorry, rather blurry) Figure 1
Red arrows: The one on the left is the "remove all formatting" command. The one on the right is the "hide/reveal all hidden marks" command.
Aqua arrow: These are the Table Design and Layout menus that pop up when your cursor is inside a table. (More about Tables another day.)
Pink arrow: This is the visible part of the Styles Pane or Gallery (aka the Quick-Style list). The whole Styles Pane will appear if you click on the command circled and pointed out with the green arrow.
On the far left (not marked) you will see a menu (it looks like a miniature table) that provides a heading outline for the entire document. You can get this menu to appear if you use the top "View" ribbon (which is just visible in Figure 1 at the tip of the aqua arrow) and select "Navigation Pane". This Nav Pane has its own menu (which is situated on the top of it); these menus allow you to see your document as thumbnails, to view its outline by heading, to view a complete list of the comments and changes in Track Changes, and to search for an item (as you can also do in the "Search" box at the top right). When you use this menu to search for a term, a list of cases/instances of that search term will appear in the Nav Pane. This feature of the Nav is a big help if you want to be sure you've changed every instance of a particular word. You can see them (and click from one to the next) using this menu.
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