This tip applies to MS Word 97 and above, it is possible it works in earlier editions but, I have no experience with them. This should also work in just about any word processor, but you will have to check for yourself.

When you get to the end of a line of text, you can start a new paragraph by pressing the Shift and Enter keys simultaneously. This will insert a manual line break.

The use of a manual line break comes in very handy when dealing with numbered lists. When you want to start a new paragraph in a numbered list without getting a new line number, use the manual break.

Another place to use the manual break, rather than start a new paragraph, is in any place set up as a “hanging” paragraph, such as cc: lines and references.

Try using the manual line break. Once you get used to it, you will find yourself using it frequently.

Let me know if there are any more applications of the manual break that help you in your word processing.

While fooling around in Microsoft Word 2003 to work up something for the Broward Personal Computer Association, Inc. (BPCA) Word Processing Special Interest Group (SIG), I ran across how to display paragraph styles and how to print a listing of paragraph styles with their formatting.

Displaying

First lets deal with displaying the paragraph styles. Displaying the paragraph styles is only available in Normal view, as far as I can tell. I did try the other layouts. If anyone knows of a way to do the same in the other layouts, please let me know.

• Open the Word Document you are interested in.

• Select Normal, from the View menu.

• Choose Options, from the Tools menu and select the View tab.

• Locate the Style area width box (it should be near the bottom of the tab).

• Set the width to 1.0″. (either click on the box arrow until you get to 1.0″, or type 1.0″ in the box directly).

• If the width set, by following the above, is too large or too small when you are viewing the paragraph styles, it can be adjusted by clicking and dragging the line that separates the style name from the text of the document.

Printing

Sometimes it is useful to print out the paragraph styles and their formatting. I frequently do this when I am trying to set up a template for a project, so that I can consistently apply paragraph formatting throughout the document.

Typically, I use very few styles but, the styles I do use are used consistently.

You can print out a list of the styles used in a doument by selecting Styles in the Print What section of the Print Dialog Box:

In my opinion, the use of styles is very important. Styles promote consistency and make documents much easier to edit.

More on using Styles to follow in future postings.