Word uTIlities
Last revision: 05 December 2017
Current version: 2.4
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Overview 2
1.1 The book 2
1.2 The ribbon 2
1.3 Selections 2
1.4 Reports 3
Chapter 2 Hidden tools 4
2.1 Register keyboard shortcuts 4
2.2 Reformat tables 6
Chapter 3 Document Management 7
3.1 Backup 7
3.2 Copy to new 8
3.3 Combine documents 8
3.4 Document statistics 9
Chapter 4 Styles and Templates 10
4.1 Style Summary 10
4.2 Share template 11
Chapter 5 Bookmarks 12
5.1 Bookmark manager 12
5.1.1 Opening the Bookmark Manager 13
5.1.2 The bookmarks list 14
5.1.3 Bookmark actions 17
5.1.4 Working with bookmark names 17
5.2 List Bookmarks 18
5.2.1 Shrink Bookmark 19
Chapter 6 Captioning 20
6.1 Captioned figure 20
6.2 Numbered equation 20
Chapter 7 Reviewing 22
7.1 Change Comment authors 22
7.2 Change Revision authors 23
Chapter 8 Fields 28
8.1 Update all fields 28
Chapter 9 Index entries 29
9.1 Count Index entry fields 29
9.2 List Index entry fields 29
9.3 Clean Index entry fields 30
Chapter 10 Text editing 31
10.1 Fit Hyperlink 31
Chapter 11 Version history 33
Chapter 12 Cost 36
Chapter 13 The book 37
Chapter 14 Acknowledgements 38
List of Figures
Figure 1 uTIlities ribbon 2
Figure 2 Macros dialog showing “hidden” uTIlities 4
Figure 3 Adding additional keyboard shortcuts 5
Figure 4 Clear Table Style tool on Table Styles gallery (Table Tools: Design ribbon) 6
Figure 5 Document Management: Backup 7
Figure 6 Choosing between an alphabetic or time-stamp suffix 7
Figure 7 Document Management: Copy to new 8
Figure 8 Document Management: Combine documents 8
Figure 9 Document Management: Combine documents 9
Figure 10 Document Statistics dialog 9
Figure 11 Styles and Templates: Style Summary 10
Figure 12 Count style instances 10
Figure 13 Styles and Templates: Share template 11
Figure 14 Templates and Add-ins dialog: Automatically update document styles 11
Figure 15 Bookmarks: Bookmark Manager 12
Figure 16 Word Bookmark dialog 12
Figure 17 Bookmark Manager 13
Figure 18 Bookmark Manager display 14
Figure 19 Word Options: Advanced: Show document content: Show bookmarks 14
Figure 20 Bookmarks sorted according to start 16
Figure 21 Filtering bookmark list by location 17
Figure 22 Bookmark listed filtered by Empty, Hidden, Location 17
Figure 23 Examples of warnings related to bookmark names 18
Figure 24 Bookmarks: List bookmarks 18
Figure 25 Bookmarks: Shrink bookmark 19
Figure 26 Captioning: Captioned figure 20
Figure 27 Captioning: Numbered equation 20
Figure 28 Numbered equation compared between Word 2007/2010 and Word 2013/2016 21
Figure 29 Reviewing: Change comment authors 22
Figure 30 Providing a new comment author name 22
Figure 31 Providing comment author initials 23
Figure 32 Confirmation of comment authors changed 23
Figure 33 Deleting comment author names 23
Figure 34 Reviewing: Change revision authors 23
Figure 35 How to handle the changing of the revision authors 24
Figure 36 Reauthored file already exists 25
Figure 37 Scanning revisions for author names 25
Figure 38 Choose Author Name dialog 26
Figure 40 Fields: Update all Fields 28
Figure 41 Index entries: Count XE 29
Figure 42 Index entries: List XE 29
Figure 43 Index entries: Clean XE 30
Figure 44 Text editing: Fit Hyperlink 31
Figure 45 Symbol dialog: Special characters: No-Width Optional Break 31
List of Tables
Table 1 Operation types 2
Table 2 How the uTIlities operate 3
Table 3 Keyboard Shortcuts Registered with the RegisterThesisKeyboardShortcuts Macro 5
Table 4 Bookmark Characteristics 15
Table 5 Word Story Types 16
Table 6 Index Entry field characteristics 30
Table 7 Change history for Word uTIlities 33
iv
Chapter 1 Overview
The Word uTIlities grew out of a set of tools I created to perform certain tasks commonly encountered by post-graduate students writing a thesis or dissertation, that were either repetitive or were impossible to do in Word (e.g., changing comment or revision authors).
They can be downloaded from: http://insight.trueinsight.za.com/word/word-utilities.
This short document explains the use of each tool, sorted by their ribbon groups.
1.1 The book
In a number of places in this document, you will see me refer to my book. See p.33 for more details on that.
1.2 The ribbon
Most of the tools reside on a Ribbon of their own, the uTIlities ribbon (some are hidden since they are seldom used, but 0 explains how to access them).
Figure 1 uTIlities ribbon
1.3 Selections
It should be noted that the functioning of some of the tools is dependent on what is selected when the tool is run. Table 2 shows all the tools, by their groups, and how they should be launched. Table 1 explains what the various positioning possibilities do.
Table 1 Operation types
Positioning / Operation /Whole document / These tools only work on the document as a whole. As such, this means that all you need to do, is have the document open and active, and then run the macro. You do not need to be at any particular place in the document, nor do you have had to select any part of the document. Any additional concerns (e.g., sometimes, the document must be saved) are mentioned under each tool.
Selection / These tools only work when a part of the document is selected. It could, of course, be the case that the whole document is selected, but some selection must be made. If not, the tool won’t run. It stands to reason, of course, that the tool only does its work on the portion of the document that is selected.
Selection/Whole document / These tools distinguish on the basis of whether you have a selection or not. If you have a selection, they will only work on that selection. If you have not made a selection, they will work on the whole document.
Current position / These tools generally add content to the document, and require that no selection be made. If a selection is made, it will typically be overwritten by whatever the tool adds (Fit hyperlink is a bit of an exception in this regard). Of course, you must position the I-beam at the exact spot where you want the content to be added.
You have been warned.
Table 2 How the uTIlities operate
Group / Tool / Positioning /Document Management / Backup / Whole document
Copy to new / Selection/Whole document
Combine documents / n/a
Document Statistics / n/a
Styles and Templates / Style Summary / Whole document
Share template / n/a
Bookmarks / Bookmark Manager / Selection/Whole document
List bookmarks / Whole document
Shrink bookmark / Selection
Captioning / Captioned figure / Current position
Numbered equation / Current position
Reviewing / Change comment authors / Selection/Whole document
Change revision authors / Whole document
Fields / Update all fields / Whole document
Index entries / Count XE / Selection/Whole document
List XE / Whole document
Clean XE / Selection/Whole document
Text editing / Fit hyperlink / Current position/Selection
1.4 Reports
The Style Summary (p.10), List Bookmarks (p.18) and List XE (p.29) tools all generate reports. When the report is run, the programs checks to see whether you have Microsoft excel installed. If you do, you will be asked whether you want the report to be output to a Microsoft Word document or a Microsoft Excel workbook. If the report generates multiple tables (e.g., Style Summary) then these tables are all output to only one Word document, all following each other in the document, or to one Excel workbook, but with each table on a new worksheet. The reports make use of the resident styles found on your computer, so the report may look slightly different (but will have the same content) when run on different computers.
Chapter 2 Hidden tools
First, though, there are two “hidden” tools that are not on the ribbon. These are typically tools that you would only use once. To get them, press Ctrl+F8 and then select them from the macros dialog (Figure 2)[1].
Figure 2 Macros dialog showing “hidden” uTIlities
2.1 Register keyboard shortcuts
Select the RegisterThesisKeyboardShortcuts macro and click on Run. You need to use this macro only once–it attempts to register the keyboard shortcuts suggested in my book Doing Your Dissertation with Microsoft Word (p. 31). It registers them in the Normal template, meaning that, if all goes according to plan, they should be available to you in all the documents you work in henceforth.
These are the keyboard shortcuts that are registered:
Table 3 Keyboard Shortcuts Registered with the RegisterThesisKeyboardShortcuts Macro
Function / Keyboard shortcut /Body Text style / Ctrl+Alt+B
Heading 4 style / Ctrl+Alt+4
Heading 5 style / Ctrl+Alt+5
Heading 6 style / Ctrl+Alt+6
Section break / Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Enter
Optional
old Print Preview / Ctrl+Shift+F2
Navigation pane search / Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F
Find dialog / Ctrl+F
Print dialog / Ctrl+P
Old Spelling & Grammar dialog / F7
Take note, though, that the macro will attempt to register two sets of keyboard shortcuts. The first five shown in Table 3 are registered (if possible) automatically. Then the program will ask you whether you want to register some additional keyboard shortcuts. These are discussed in my book. But take note that these take three keyboard shortcuts (F7, Ctrl+F and Ctrl+P) that were changed in Word2010/Word2013 and revert them back to what they did in Word2007 and earlier—other keyboard shortcuts are created, or already exist, for these functions: Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F to replace Ctrl+F and Ctrl+F2 to replace Ctrl+P.
Figure 3 Adding additional keyboard shortcuts
2.2 Reformat tables
The BasicTableReformatting macro strips away all extraneous formatting from a table. I no longer have this on the ribbon, because it is probably better to do this using the Clear tool from the Table Styles gallery.
Figure 4 Clear Table Style tool on Table Styles gallery (Table Tools: Design ribbon)
Chapter 3 Document Management
This group contains four tools.
3.1 Backup
Figure 5 Document Management: Backup
This tool creates a one-click backup of the current document. Generally, you don’t have to worry too much about this tool, as I have tried my best to make it as rock solid as possible. Click on it, and it will do its backup magic.
However, some detail about is operation is useful. First, if the document you want to back up has not been saved for the first time yet (i.e., it hasn’t been named yet), then it will first ask you to save it with a name before making the backup.
Secondly, it saves the backup in the same directory as the original if at all possible, although if there is not enough disk space, it will ask for a new location to make the backup.
Thirdly, it uses this naming convention for the backup: The original file name is appended with the date, in the format yyyy-mm-dd. For example, if this file were backed up on the 2nd of January, 2016, it would be backed up as Word uTIlities help file 2016-01-02.docx. The main motivation behind this is that firstly, the main file is easily distinguished from the backups (the main file has no date suffix, and the backups do), and secondly, even if you sort your files alphabetically, you will still have a chronological list of backups.
If you want to make multiple backups on a single day, the program will handle that too—it will never overwrite an existing backup it has already made. If it sees that there is already a backup, it will prompt you to determine how to distinguish subsequent backups—either with an alphabetical suffix, or with a time stamp added on top of the date suffix (see Figure 6). The time stamp is added in the format hhhmm (so this file backed up at twenty two minutes past one on the 2nd of January, 2016, would be backed up as Word uTIlities help file 2016-01-02 13h22.docx).
Figure 6 Choosing between an alphabetic or time-stamp suffix
If your backup finger is really itching, relax. It will cycle through all 26 letters of the alphabet, giving you 27 backups (one without the suffix) on any given day. If you are using the time suffix, and you are making a second backup within the same minute as the first, the program will automatically add an alphabetic suffix (so, to use the example from above, the second backup would be named Word uTIlities help file 2016-01-02 13h22a.docx)—this means that you can essentially make 27 backups per minute using the time suffix (for a grand total of a possible 38880 distinct backups per day!). Note that once you have chosen a suffix type (alphabetic or time) for the day, it will find those existing backups, and will then automatically continue the sequence without asking you again. So your choice for the second backup will determine the pattern for all further backups made on the same day (but the next day, you will have to make that choice again).
Finally, the program also tries to check for things like disks that are full, protected files and folders, etc., and if it encounters such a problem, will prompt you for a new location for the backup. In rare occurrences (e.g., when you’re making that 703rd backup for the day!) it might not successfully be able to create the backup, but it should tell you this, so then you know that you are faced with an emergency, and that you should consider an alternative immediately.