Saving Time and a Cry
How to Avoid a Terrible MS Word Mistake While Getting to Know MS Word Feature
Saving Your Works
I was once writing a three thousand word work for one of my English classes back in college. I had close to two hundred words left in order to reach my goal. Everything was going smoothly. I was typing ferociously on my MS Word document when all of a sudden my software crashed. I stopped typing and stared at my screen with bug eyes for what seemed like an eternity. Panic quickly set in as I pressed the MS Word icon on my desktop. It popped up a blank page. I went to my finder and pulled up the latest version of the document and scrolled as quick as possible to the bottom in hopes of my recently written words popping up only to realize that the last saved version of the document was when I had only written a thousand three hundred and eighty words.
Poof. Just like that, almost my entire document was gone. Sounds familiar? Or are you one of the few smart beings who constantly remember to press ‘Save’? Don’t be like me and always — and I mean ALWAYS — consistently save your work. I would suggest pressing that cute little ‘Save’ icon every hundred words or so. You really don’t want to end up like me staring at the screen dumbfounded at how a small glitch cost me so much.
In editing, it is very wise to save a copy of the original, untouched document before you start editing. It is easy to just start the process, but a much harder process to go back and undo some mistaken corrections when the original document is already saved with the corrections. You can do so by selecting the ‘Save As’ option under File or, again, by clicking the little ‘Save’ icon. Don’t forget to modify the existing name as well. Sue Gilad in her Paid to Proofread book suggests having the name of the work first, then inserting an underscore, to then be followed by your name shows as follows: AWorldToCome_SueGilad.doc
MS Word in the Works
The reason why Microsoft Word is the dominant leader, and most preferred by professionals, in the industry is because of its vast and easy-to-use toolkit.
The most notable feature for proofreaders is the “Track Changes” feature that can be customized perfectly to your liking. The first thing to do when you have the manuscript in front of you on MS Word is to turn the Track Changes feature on in order to start keeping tabs. The feature can be found under the ‘Tools’ drop-down menu. Hover your mouse of the ‘Track Changes’ option and select ‘Highlight Change’. You’ll see TRK written on the bottom of your Word window in order to indicate that it is on.
Another feature that makes your life way easier when proofreading is the Reviewing toolbar. This prevents you from having to retrace the above steps with each document you are editing. To plug in the feature, open the drop-down under ‘View’ and hover your mouse over ‘Toolbars’ then click ‘Reviewing’. A set of shortcut buttons will open up near your everyday tools at the top of your screen which includes the ‘Track Changes’ Button and the ‘New Comment’ feature.
By Karla M. Cortes
www.karlamarianacortes.com
