How To: Word Processing Tips

Important warning

Never use multiple spaces, tabs or new lines to force a particular appearance of the text on screen. This almost always leads to eventual disaster on paper. You will save a great deal of time if you use the word-processor's purpose-designed formatting features.

White space

• Use the File|Page Setup... menu to set suitable margin widths (letters: 1.25" left and right, 1" top and bottom; reports: 1" all round with at least 0.25" for a gutter margin if the report is to be bound).

• Use single line spacing unless you are asked to use double spacing (and ask about 1.5 line spacing).

• Type one space between words and sentances. The use of two spaces between sentences is now depracated and forbidden by some Journals. (A large number of beginners neglect to insert any spaces after the full stop at the end of a sentence!) Do not insert any space before a comma, full-stop or similar punctuation mark. Do not insert any space after an opening bracket or before a closing bracket (it should be like this) or "quotation mark".

• Use non-breaking spaces (Ctrl+Shift+Space) to ensure that parts of a name (e.g. Dr C.E.Ford) do not split at the end of a line.

• Do not type spaces to mark the beginning of a paragraph. Indent the first line one tab stop or use a style with a first-line indent. Better still, set the Normal paragraph style to 6 or 12 pt space before. Use paragraph indents or paragraph spaces but not both.

• Do not type two lines to separate paragraphs - you cannot easily vary the paragraph space. Use Heading styles to prevent isolated sub-headings appearing at the bottom of a page. It is better for a new section to be emphasised by the Heading font or a numbering system than by excessive white space.

• Try to arrange for a document not to end with just a few lines on the last page. Edit out or add in some text, try adjusting the page length by plus or minus 0.2" at the bottom, or try reducing font sizes. This is vital for a CV!

• One-sentence paragraphs are misplaced!

Fonts

• Unless you have good reason to do otherwise you should use a sans-serif font for Headings (typically Arial) and a serif font for body text (typically Times New Roman).

• Do not use underlining for emphasis. Use italic or bold instead. Only one thing looks worse than DOUBLE UNDERLINED CAPITALS and that is double underlined lower case words with descenders, such as apple! (Double underlining is not available on the web.)

• Do not use an italic style or a sans-serif font for paragraphs of normal text (Times Roman is a serif font, Arial is a sans-serif font) and do not mix different serif fonts or different sans-serif fonts within a document.

• Strictly limit the number of fonts you use in a document (two is normally sufficient). Choose a hierarchy of headings and stick with it.

Typing

• Place your hands on the keyboard with the index finger of your left hand on the F key and the index finger of your right hand on the J key. Use 2-4 fingers on each hand on the character keys and either thumb on the space bar (the long key at the bottom of the keyboard).

• When you intend to use bold or italic for emphasis get into the habit of pressing Ctrl+B or Ctrl+I as you type to turn bold or italic on and off. This is a lot quicker than typing the text first and then selecting it with the mouse.

Photographs

• If you wish to include photographs or photocopied diagrams: measure them and format an empty paragraph with the line spacing set to the required height, and the left and right margins adjusted to provide the required width; then add a paragraph border. Use a Pritt Stick to hold diagrams down. Line-art composites can be improved by photocopying the printed page with its glued diagrams.

• If you scan photographs you need be careful with disk space. A few photographs (even just one) can use up your quota and prevent you from saving any other work of any kind. Save photographs as JPEG files and diagrams as GIF files.