12 Tips for Creating Better Documents
Published: November 10, 2004
You want great documents that make an impact—and you've got less time than ever to get them done. If that sounds familiar, you've come to the right place. Microsoft Office offers many features for creating impressive documents. But, with so many choices, it can be hard to know where to begin.
This article will help you make the best choices for your documents. We'll look at three components of creating effective documents and give you timesaving tips to help you get your document done.
Webcast: Listen to Stephanie Krieger, the author of this article, give additional tips for creating documents in her Tips and Tricks for Better Word Documents in Less Time webcast.
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Clearly Communicate Your Information
Want compelling documents that get your point across? Let Microsoft Office Word do the job you hired it to do. Word can help you organize and present your information in clear and effective ways. And getting it done doesn't have to be complicated.
Take a look, for example, at the basic text page in the graphic below. The same content appears in both documents. Which would you prefer to present?
The version on the right uses a simple table to organize most of the content on the page. Just one table style and a handful of paragraph styles accomplish the rest of the formatting.
Here are 4 ways to let Word help you better communicate your information.
1. | Use tables for page layouts. Tables are organizers. They look great and they're simple to manage. You can use them to hold text, graphics, or other tables. They can simplify even the most complex layouts. In fact, tables are one of the most powerful and flexible features available for your Word documents. Visit my blog for some key essentials of working with tables. |
2. | Use footnotes for supporting details. When you need to reference a source or provide detail for an important point, a footnote or endnote is an easy solution. They take almost no time to insert and keep supporting information out of the way but easily accessible. |
3. | Add an appendix. Use an appendix if you have supporting information that's too lengthy for footnotes. An appendix is a separate section at the back of your document—usually identified by a header and a different page number format in the footer. To create a unique header or footer for your appendix, just insert a section break. A section break enables you to change page formatting (such as headers and footers) for just a part of your document. | • | Insert a section break. Click in the document where you want the new section to begin. In this case, that will most likely be at the end of your document. On the Insert menu, click Break. In the Break dialog box, select Next Page. The section break automatically starts your new section on a new page of the document. You can now change the header and footer just for the new section. Learn how to create headers and footers. | | • | Add a page number in the footer. Place your cursor in the footer where you want the number to appear. Click the Insert Page Number icon ( ) on the Header and Footer toolbar. To change the page number format for just the new section, click the Format Page Number icon ( ). | | • | Add cross-references. Use cross-references anywhere in your document where you need to reference the appendix content. Cross-references are easy to use and they update automatically whenever referenced content moves. Learn how to create cross-references. |
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4. | Use heading styles and a table of contents. You can easily organize documents into an outline format using the Heading 1 through Heading 9 paragraph styles in Word. To see the heading styles, on the Format menu, click Styles and Formatting. Heading styles also provide other benefits: Insert cross-references to heading-styled text, easily add outline numbering, and—perhaps most useful—create a table of contents in no time at all. |
Grab the Reader's Attention
Adding pizzazz to your documents is great, but no one will give you their business or publish your paper because of the color of your font or the fact that your pie charts are three dimensional (3-D). The idea behind creating effective documents is to get your document's content noticed. Take a look at two versions of a business letter to see how basic design elements can make documents more effective.
A simple Microsoft Office PowerPoint flowchart and a few well-placed borders are all it takes for the page on the right to provide substantially more information than the page on the left.
Putting a border around a table or paragraph, or changing a font color, might be all you need to highlight vital information. The important thing is that you do it right, use design elements consistently, and—more often than not—sparingly. Design elements should provide emphasis without overwhelming the content.
Here are some tips to help grab and focus your reader's attention.
1. | Carefully choose your content. When you try to say everything, nothing will get noticed. Make choices and give your important content room to breathe. When a page or graphic is overcrowded, it's hard to make anything stand out. Being selective about what content to include is one of the best things you can do for your document. |
2. | Create your own set of styles. Styles provide consistency in your document. They also save time by letting you create design elements just once and reuse them every day. |
3. | Use PowerPoint and Excel for graphics and charts. Word is the ideal application for creating documents, no matter how simple or complex. However, you get more formatting tools for creating drawing objects in PowerPoint, and far more power and flexibility for creating charts in Excel. Once you create charts and graphics it's a snap to get them into your Word document. See the tips about using Paste Special and placing graphics that stay put in the Stay in Control of Your Documents section of this article. |
4. | Create your own color scheme. A handful of well-chosen colors, used consistently (and in moderation) throughout your text, tables, and graphics can make a very professional statement. When you're formatting font, border, line, shading, or fill color options in Word (and PowerPoint)—you can access a standard 40-color palette, and much more. Wherever you see the color palette click More Colors to open the Colors dialog box. There, you can pick from a wider palette. Or, click the Custom tab of that dialog box to specify any color by its RGB value. Then, take note of those RGB settings so you can easily apply them throughout all your documents and graphics. Note Excel uses the standard color palatte for Office, but using custom colors works a bit differently there. Learn how to change the color palette in an Excel workbook. |
Stay in Control of Your Documents
Graphics, tables, and formatting can add a lot to your document—but how you approach these features can make a significant difference in how easy they are to manage. If a graphic jumps around when you click on it, or if tables fall off the page and have columns that don't line up, the impression your document makes is unlikely to be the one you intended.
It's important to keep your documents well-built and easy-to-manage. With Word, that means keeping it simple—the less work you do, the better your document will be. This doesn't mean that you should avoid complex documents. It means that complex documents don't have to be complicated. When it comes to Word, if a task feels like a lot of work—chances are there's a better way.
The example below shows how the approach you choose can really make a difference.
Overcomplicated workarounds in the document on the left make it difficult to control. It also took more than three hours to complete. The page on the right uses tables and paragraph formatting to accomplish the same document. It's cleaner and it took just 30 minutes to create. Visit my blog to learn more about finding simple solutions in Office.
Check out 4 ways to help you stay in control of your documents.
1. | Know what your document is doing. Use formatting marks and the Reveal Formatting task pane to keep track of and change the formatting in your document. Viewing formatting marks helps you quickly see what's going on in your document. Formatting marks are important—adding or deleting them can significantly change how your document looks. Learn more about formatting marks. The Reveal Formatting task pane shows you the text and document formatting for any selection. To open the task pane, on the Format menu click Reveal Formatting. The task pane also makes it easy to change formatting. Just click on the blue underlined text to change settings. Learn more about the Reveal Formatting task pane.  The Reveal Formatting task pane |
2. | Save editing time by using different views. The document views available from the View menu (as well as Print Preview, which is accessible from the File menu) can help you accomplish different things. For example: | • | Print Preview: In addition to seeing what your final document will look like, you can edit text, tables, and even pictures in Print Preview. To make edits, click the magnifier icon,  , on the Print Preview toolbar. Then click anywhere in the body of the document to make your changes. | | • | Normal: Section and page breaks are easy to find in Normal View because they always appear fully across the page. | | • | Print Layout: You can see exactly what your final document will look like in Print Layout view. Unlike Print Preview you can still view formatting marks and edit headers, footers, and footnotes. |
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3. | Place graphics that stay put and look great. Have you ever had a graphic that moves or changes when you edit the text around it? Avoid that by using the In Line With Text layout. To apply this layout select the graphic. Then, on the Format menu click Picture (or Object). In the Format Picture dialog box, click the Layout tab and select In line with text. This enables you to position and format pictures and objects as easily, and stably, as you do text. Visit my blog for more details on using In Line With Text. |
4. | Use Paste Special to paste text, tables, and graphics. Instead of using Paste to add or move content in your documents, try Paste Special. This feature can help you get exactly the result you want. To use it, on the Edit menu, click Paste Special. For example, to make sure that copied text doesn't bring its old formatting along—select Unformatted Text in the Paste Special dialog box. Paste Special can also be helpful when pasting graphics because it will offer a variety of picture and object types.  The options in the Paste Special dialog box change based on what you're pasting. |
 | Stephanie Krieger
Stephanie Krieger is a Microsoft Office System MVP as well as author of the books Advanced Microsoft Office Documents 2007 Edition Inside Out (February 2007) and Microsoft Office Document Designer. As a professional document consultant, she has helped many global companies develop enterprise solutions for Microsoft Office and taught numerous professionals to build great documents by understanding how the Office programs “think.” Stephanie writes regularly for several Microsoft Web pages and frequently delivers Microsoft webcasts. Visit her blog, arouet.net, for Microsoft Office tips as well as information about new and upcoming publications and webcasts.
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