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Words That Work
Use these simple tips to streamline your writing

By Theo Gantos

The foremost piece of software on the majority of office computers is the word processor. It also happens to be the most MIS-used piece of software. This can add up to a lot of wasted time struggling with documents. Here are a few tips to use word processing more effectively and make life on your computer much easier. Many people learned on typewriters and as a result use word processing programs as though it were a typewriter. This is contrary to the way word processing is designed and actually makes more work.

Forget the "Old rules"

Single space only after punctuation. Computers use proportional type, typewriters are monospaced. With monospaced type, you needed extra space to set off characters after punctuation. With proportional spacing, this just looks strange. It also makes editing more of a hassle.

Throw out the double dashes. Use an em-dash instead. Here is a regular dash - . Here is an em dash – . An em dash is usually made by typing alt or option and dash, see your manual to be sure. This is another feature of proportional type.

Never use spaces or tabs at the start of paragraphs. A paragraph should be a continuous string of text ended by a single return. Use the ruler instead to format indents. More on this later.

Never use returns to separate paragraphs or to create space to put items on a new page. Return was the only way to move the paper upwards in a typewriter. Use the paragraph format commands to add as many lines as you wish before or after each paragraph automatically. Then you can control your spacing in the entire document with one minor setting change. Extra returns will result in extra lines at the tops of pages and makes it necessary to edit the entire document manually to reflow text from page to page. Use a page break to skip to a new page instead. You may also select single-, double- or any line spacing as well in this way.

Avoid using underlining. Underlining was the only way for typewriters to emphasize text. You may use a larger point size, boldface, or even italics. Underlining makes text harder to read

Using the Ruler - the key to productivity

The ruler can control left and right margins, tabs stops, first line indent, and left margin wrap. For normal text set the first line indent by dragging the top left triangle on the ruler to the right. Subsequent lines will wrap to the location set by the bottom triangle. You can highlight sections of text and apply different ruler settings, or even save them as styles which can even include typefaces and pointsizes. If you happen to use styles throughout your document for things like indented quotes, body text, headings and sub headings, you can change these elements in the entire document at once! Imagine what a pain it would be to change every heading or subheading. Some of you may already struggle with this on a daily basis.

The ruler also has tab stop settings of various types. These are most often shown as little upright triangles. You set or remove tab stops by dragging the appropriate symbol onto the ruler where you want it. Forget the default tab stop settings (usually every half-inch). This results in having to add extra tab characters between items in order to get them to line up. This also makes changing the layout of a table virtually impossible without a ton of effort. Take a few seconds to set the appropriate tabs stops before typing your items, then apply these settings to the entire table. You can highlight all the lines and adjust the tab stops, watching columns move as you get them to line up exactly where you want them. There are tab stops for left justified (text lines up from the left right at the tab stop), right justified (text lines up from the right at the tab stop-useful for page numbers), centering tabs (text is centered around the tab stop), and decimal tabs. The decimal tabs allow you to line up columns of numbers so the decimal points are all in line with the tab stop.

Spend a few minutes getting acquainted with the ruler and the paragraph formatting commands in your word processor and save yourself a lot of grief. You'll get your work done faster, too. For more great reading on this I recommend the following short (70 odd pages) books: The PC is not a Typewriter and/or The Mac is not a Typewriter by Robin Williams.

Theo Gantos is president of TEKA, a technology consulting firm. Contact him: