Expanding Your Toolbox to Make You a
More Productive Editor
Kelly Schrank
Expanding Your Toolbox
@headbookworm #stc19

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
• Disclaimers
• Word Add-ins
• Keyboard Shortcuts
• Quick Access Toolbar
• Editing Tools Tab
• Auto Correct List
• Spell Check Dictionaries
• Navigation Pane
• Find and Replace (wild cards and simple macros)
• Editing Checklists
Agenda
2

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Disclaimers
3
This presentation is not comprehensive
I am showing tips, tools, methods that I find easy to use; there are other
ways to accomplish what I am showing
I do not represent Microsoft or any company mentioned
I am not running a workshop
I am an editor who uses the software, add-ons, and tools mentioned in this
session
I am not a Word expert; I work in O365 Word on a PC

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
• Associate Fellow of STC
• Member of American Medical Writers Association
(AMWA), Board of Editors in the Life Sciences (BELS).
• Technical writer and editor for over 20 years in variety of
industries
• Medical editor for 9 years in pharmaceutical industry
• Currently Head Bookworm at Bookworm Editing Services
• Niche: Editing formulary dossiers
• Consistency, Structure, and Clarity
• Microsoft Word
Kelly Schrank
4

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Word Add-ins
5
https://intelligentediting.com/
https://www.grammarly.com/

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Keyboard Shortcuts
6
Operation Shortcut
Open Word Count Dialog box Ctrl + Shift + G
Left align text Ctrl + L
Format a letter to subscript Ctrl + +
Format a letter to superscript Ctrl + Shift + +
Insert an endnote Ctrl + Alt + D
Open navigation pane Ctrl + F

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Keyboard Shortcuts
7

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) – Default
vs Mine
8

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
QAT – Text Styles
9

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
QAT – Paragraph Indent & Spacing
10

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
QAT – Para Keep with Next
11

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Editing Tools tab
12
• Word’s default
for Choose
Commands
from is
Popular
Commands
• I use All
Commands

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Editing Tools tab
13
• Bullets
• Define New Number Format
• Find
• Format Painter
• Styles
• Save
• Smart Lookup

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Auto Correct List – Misspelled Words
14

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Auto Correct List – Symbols
15
Create your own shortcuts for common symbols:
1. Insert a symbol you use often that’s hard to access
(and a couple of spaces after)
2. Select the symbol
3. Go to File > Options > Proofing > Autocorrect
Options
4. In AutoCorrect tab, under Replace Text as You Type,
your symbol should be under the With column
5. Type something you will remember to type under
the Replace column

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Auto Correct List – Symbols
16
Symbols Shortcut
≥ _>
≤ _<
± _+
 (check)
Symbols Shortcut
© ( c )
™ ( tm )
® ( r )

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Custom Dictionary
17

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Exclusion Dictionary
18

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Navigation Pane
19
• Searches for words and phrases are SO much easier
with Results tab

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Navigation Pane
20
• Rearrange sections from
Headings tab
• Word will move everything
within that heading
• Word will renumber
headings

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Navigation Pane
21
• Additional options to
add headings before
and after allow you to
plan for the future of
the doc

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Find and Replace - Advanced
22
• Favorite
oMatch case

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Find and Replace - Advanced
23
• Format
o Highlight
• Special
o En dash

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Find and Replace - Wildcards
24
Wildcard What it Finds / What it Does
? Any single character
[-] Any single character in the specified range
< The beginning of a word
> The end of a word
( ) Groups wildcards together
[!] Any single character except those specified (ie, not)
{ , } Occurrences of the previous character
@ One or more of the previous character or expression before something else
* Any string of characters

25
Find and Replace - Wildcards

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Find and Replace - Wildcards
26

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Find and Replace – Wildcard Ranges
27
• [0–9] represents any digit.
• [a-z] represents any occurrence of a lowercase
letter.
• [A-Z] represents any occurrence of an uppercase
letter.
• [A-z] represents any occurrence of any letter.

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Find and Replace – Wildcard Ranges
28

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Find and Replace - Macros
29

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Find and Replace - Macros
30

31Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Old Way Steps
• Pull up Find and Replace
• Type in “ one ” in Find
box
• Type in “ 1 ” in Replace
box
• Click Find Next and go
through each one
• When done…start again
with “ two”
• Do this 8 more times
New Way Steps
• Turn on track changes
• Press macro key
• In Changes section of
Review tab, change Show
Markup to Specific Person
> You
• Click Next and Previous to
accept and reject all of the
number changes at once
Find and Replace - Macros

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Editing Checklists
32

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
• Delwood, Robert. The Secret Life of Word (Laguna Hills, CA: XML Press), 2011.
• Lyon, Jack. Wildcard Cookbook for Microsoft Word (West Valley City, UT: The Editorium), 2012.
• Lyon, Jack. Macro Cookbook for Microsoft Word (West Jordan, UT: The Editorium), 2015.
• Marchese, Lauren. “How Checklists Train Your Brain To Be More Productive And Goal-Oriented.” Trello
website. https://blog.trello.com/the-psychology-of-checklists-why-setting-small-goals-motivates-us-to-
accomplish-bigger-things
• “Microsoft Word Masterclass Guides.” Ideagen website. https://www.ideagen.com/word-masterclass
• Pinola, Melanie. “How to See All of Microsoft Word's Keyboard Shortcuts.” January 29, 2016. Laptop
website. https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/see-all-word-keyboard-shortcuts
• Saller, Carol. “Let’s Make a Macro!“ Subversive Copy Editor website.
https://www.subversivecopyeditor.com/blog/2012/08/lets-make-a-macro.html
• Schrank, Kelly. “How to Create an Editing Checklist.” SlideShare website.
https://www.slideshare.net/kellyschrank/how-to-create-an-editing-checklist
• Wyatt, Allen. “Editing_Custom_Dictionaries.” Tips.net website. November 24, 2018.
https://word.tips.net/T001038_Editing_Custom_Dictionaries.html
References
33

34Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
What will you be
adding to your toolbox?
• Buy Word Add-ins
• Implement an Editing
Tools Tab
• Implement Editing
Checklists
Takeaways
34
How can you be more
productive?
• Use Keyboard Shortcuts
• Quick Access Toolbar
• Customize Auto Correct List
• Customize Custom and
Exclusion Dictionaries
• Take Find and Replace to a
New Level

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
• Your opinion is important to both the speaker and
the Summit!
• Please post your feedback about this session using
the AttendeeHub app.
Thank you for coming!
35

Expanding Your Toolbox @headbookworm #stc19
Kelly Schrank
Technical Writer / Medical Editor / Checklist Specialist
kelly@headbookworm.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellyschrank/
https://headbookworm.com/
Contact Information
36