Microsoft on J. David Stark

The Right Way to Change Word Styles to Direct Formatting

Mon, 21 Apr 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Using styles is a great way to ensure consistent formatting in a Word document. But, here’s a way to turn these styles into “direct” formatting.

Prefix keys for Microsoft Word

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 13:00:10 +0000

In Dan Gookin’s Word 2016 for Dummies ( affiliate disclosure; Wiley, 2016), he provides a good deal of helpful guidance for beginning Word users. One particularly helpful resource that may be of interest more broadly is his nicely condensed presentation of prefix keys for producing diacritical marks (pg. 256, reproduced below).

Word 2016 introduction for Mac users?

Mon, 17 Jul 2017 13:00:08 +0000

The “for dummies” series has a couple good introductions to Microsoft Word ( for all and specifically “for professionals”). But, these texts seem to concentrate on Word as it appears in Windows, which is sometimes surprisingly inconsistent with how ostensibly the same version of Word appears in Mac OS.

Better attention than a goldfish

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 13:00:07 +0000

A recent study commissioned by Microsoft Canada found, disturbingly, that the human participants’ average attention spans had fallen to 8 seconds, a shorter time frame than measured for goldfish ( Evernote, New York Times). One of the major suspected drivers of these results is the propensity of the participants to use a mobile device while “paying attention” to something else.

Overlining text in Microsoft Word

Tue, 21 Feb 2017 14:00:36 +0000

Overlining is comparatively straightforward in Apache OpenOffice and LibreOffice. But, for Microsoft Word users, overlining still isn’t a default formatting feature, as is its companion underlining.

Sometimes inserting a symbol or special character will work if you can find one that matches the overlined character you need. In other cases, Word’s cache of symbols and special characters simply isn’t large enough to cover everything (e.g., when discussing nomina sacra). Sometimes, creating a character image might work, but inserting an image can create issues with text flow and line spacing.

Google Drive and Office 97–2003

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 14:33:14 +0000

Google Drive’s Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps are scheduled to cease supporting exports to Microsoft’s older Office 97–2003 formats at the end of the month. According to the Google Apps blog,

In September, we added the ability to export Google documents to the newer Microsoft Office formats that rely on open standards (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx). . . . As we announced in October, after January 31, 2013, users will not be able to export files to the older Office 97-2003 formats [e.g., .doc, .xls, .ppt]. For users who still use Office 97-2003, we recommend installing the free compatibility plugin from Microsoft, which will allow them to open the modern Office file types.