Best, Judi

Dear Judi,

The only thing I can think of is perhaps the footer is outside of the printable area for your printer.

You can try an experiment to see if this is the case. Just move the footer up about an inch and try to print the page. If the footer prints, that was your problem.

I do have some lessons for Windows 7. Just go to this website:

http://www.stretcher.com/subscribe/subscribeTCL.cfm

and sign up for Computer Lady Lessons

Elizabeth

It’s Your Turn: What do you think?
…. Share your experience in the comments box below.

Donna in Michigan

Dear Donna,

It is a bit harder to figure things like this out in the newer versions of Word. Here are the directions:

1. Open the Word document that you want to create the circular text in.

2. CLick on the “Insert” tab, then click on “Word Art”, and click on the style of text you are interested in.

3. A “Drawing Tools” tab will appear above the “Format” tab. Below the format tab, click on “Text Effects”. (The button for this is the letter, A with a blue glow around the edges).

4. CLick on “Transform” in the drop down menu, then click on the shape you want your text to follow. If you are not sure what shape you want, just point to each one, and your text will change to reflect that choice.

Hope this helps, Elizabeth

PS: I find it easier to make creative documents like this in PagePlus at http://tinyurl.com/PagePlus2012

It’s Your Turn: What do you think?
…. Share your experience in the comments box below.

Thanks for your help, Faye

Dear Faye,

There are two things on your label package that can help you figure out what product code to use.

First is the Avery product code that your labels are compatible with. Most label packages (I’m looking at a package of Staples brand labels right now) include not only their product code, but one or two of the more common Avery codes that the labels will work with. Most of the time, I can match that code with the available options in Word.

If that doesn’t work, you have one other option. Match the label dimensions.

On my package of labels, it tells me that the labels are 2 X 4 inches and there are 10 labels per sheet. When you are looking in Word, click on a label number and you will see the information listed for that label. Just find the information that matches your labels, and you should be able to find a code that works for your labels.

I hope this helps.

Elizabeth

It’s Your Turn: What do you think?
…. Share your experience in the comments box below.

Thank You,  Alvin

Dear Alvin,

I’m guessing that your new computer has Windows 7 for the operating system. It probably also came with a free trial of Microsoft Word 2010. Unfortunately, Microsoft Office programs are expensive and not always affordable to the average home user.

Fortunately, there is a solution that will allow you to read and even create Word documents, and it is free, OpenOffice. You might need a little bit of technical knowledge to get it installed on your computer, but once that is done, it works great.

You can find OpenOffice online at www.openoffice.org

When you go to the website, just click on the link that says, “I want to download OpenOffice.org”, then click on the words, “Download Now”.

Your computer will start downloading the file, and when it has finished, you will be able to run the file to install OpenOffice.

If you are not comfortable downloading and installing the file, your local computer shop would be able to do this for you. This is something that I do in my computer shop, and it still costs a lot less than purchasing Microsoft Office.

Elizabeth

Thank you in advance, Vicky

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Dear Vicky,

Word does have some good search tools. Since you didn’t specify what version of Word you are using, I will give you directions that will work in Word 2007 and Word 2010.

1. Open your document in Word.
2. Make sure you have the “Home” tab selected in the ribbon area at the top of your window.
3. On the right edge of the window, there is a “Find” tool. Click on the word, “Find” and a small bar will appear on the left edge of your window.
4. Type the first name that you want to search for in the box at the top of the bar.
5. The number of matches will be displayed, and each instance of that name will be displayed.
6. Click on each small box to go directly to that location in your document.

This is a quick and easy way to locate information in a large document.

Elizabeth

Thank you,    John in California

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Dear John,

I guess my first question would be, “Do you have Word installed on your computer?”

If you do have Word installed on your computer, what version of Word do you have?

If you don’t have Word installed on your computer, you need to either have Word, or another program that can open and read Word (.doc) files installed. You can either head over to your local computer and/or office store (Staples is a great place to start) and purchase Word, or you can download and install Open Office which is a free office program that has the ability to open Word files.

If all you want to do is read the files, you can download the free Word Viewer from the Microsoft Website at:
www.microsoft.com

If you do have Word installed on your computer, we would need to figure out why it is not opening other Word files correctly. Since you have said that the attachments are in Word form, I am assuming that they end with the .doc file ending.

If the attachments you are trying to open end with the newer .docx file ending, it was created in Word 2007 or Word 2010. If your version of Word is older than 2007, you would not be able to open the newer file type. You can either ask the person sending you the attachments to save them in the original .doc format, or download the Word Viewer to be able to view those files.

Elizabeth

Tom

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Dear Tom,

When you have a database of names and addresses in Excel, you can do a mail merge in Word using the spreadsheet as the source of your data.

First, I am assuming that your spreadsheet is set up with a column for each of these fields: Last Name, First Name, Address, City, State and Zip Code.

1. To get started, make sure your spreadsheet is CLOSED. This will not work if the spreadsheet is open. You will also need to know where the spreadsheet is located, and the name of the tab on the bottom of the worksheet you are using.

2. Open Microsoft Word.

3. In the Menu bar click on “Tools”, point to “Letters & Mailings” and then click on “Mail Merge”. This will open up a toolbar on the right hand side of your Word window.

4. In this Mail Merge bar, under “Select document type” click on “Labels” to select, and then at the very bottom of the bar, click on “Next: Starting document”

5. Now, select your label type by clicking on “Label options…” select your label and then click “OK”. Click “Next: Select recipients” to continue.

6. Under “Select recipients” click on “Use an existing list” and then in the next section, click on “Browse…”.

7. A “Select Data Source” window will open. Browse to the folder containing your file, click on your file, then click “Open”.

8. A “Select Table” window will appear. Click on the name of the worksheet in your file that you are using. The name is the name of the tab on your worksheet. Click “OK”.

9. A window will open named “Mail Merge Recipients” Here you can select to include only selected records by checking or unchecking each row. When you are finished, click “OK” Then click on “Next: Arrange your labels” at the bottom of the Mail Merge Bar.

10: Here is where you set up the format for the labels. Click on “Address Block” and set it up the way you want it to look There is a sample box for you to look at as you make changes. When you are done, click “OK”

11: Now click on the button that says “Update all labels”. Click “Next: Preview your labels”

12: If the basic setup of the labels looks good, click on “Next: Complete the merge” and then click on “Edit individual labels…” so that you can fix any minor problems that you see.

13: When your labels are ready, go ahead and print them.

Elizabeth

Thank you, Mary

__–__

Dear Mary,

From your description, I am pretty sure you are looking for the formatting symbols. These are non-printing characters that show a symbol for the enter key, for tab, spacebar, and other formatting characters that don’t actually show when you print your document.

In Word 2007, you can view those non-printing symbols by clicking on the, “Show/Hide” button. It can be located by clicking on the “Home” tab and looking about halfway across the top of the screen. The “Show/Hide” button has the paragraph symbol on it.

Click once on that button to show the non-printing characters, click on it again to hide them.

Elizabeth

Thanks so much, Alison in York, ME

__–__

Dear Alison,

First, you want to be sure you are using the correct view in Word. In this case, it is my favorite view. It sounds like you are already using this view, but just to make sure…

Just open Microsoft Word, click on “View” in the menu bar, then click on “Print Layout” in the drop down menu.

In most cases, Word will display what looks like a sheet of paper with the insertion point inside the margins.

If the margins are not showing, click on “Tools” in the menu bar, then on “Options”. Click on the “View” tab in the options window, and look for the section that says “Print and Web Layout Options”. In this section, there is a setting that says “White space between pages”. Make sure there is a check mark in that box, and then click “OK”.

Your view will now show the margins on the page.

Elizabeth

This is a very small toolbar located at the top of your Word Window. When Word is first installed, the Quick Access Toolbar contains only three commands, Save, Undo, and Redo.

One of the first things that I added was the commands for “Quick Print” and “Print Preview”.

You might have different commands that you use more often, but for me, these are the two big ones.

Here is how you can add your own commands to the Quick Access Toolbar in Word 2007.

1. Open Word 2007, and click on the small arrow to the right of the Quick Access Toolbar.

2. If the command you are looking for is in the drop down list, just click on it, and you will be finished.

3. If the command you are looking for is not in the list, click on “More Commands” near the bottom of the list.

4. In the “Word Options” dialog box, click on the command in the box on the left, then click the “Add>>” button.

5. Repeat step 4 until you have all the commands you want.

6. Click the “OK” button at the bottom of the dialog box to save your changes and close the window.

Elizabeth